Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:24]
| Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, December 2nd, 2023.
It's 3 46 UTC as we're starting. I'm Sam Mintry. Yvonne Bowe is here.
Yvonne, we have made it to December.
|
Ivan:
[0:39]
| I well, look, thinking about the fact that I think I've said this on the show before.
|
Sam:
[0:49]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:50]
| I think we were worried about making it.
|
Sam:
[0:51]
| We're our, our agenda, by the way, we're just going to go back and forth.
I like, we always do the first couple of ones will be less news related.
And then after that, we'll do more newsy stuff. So go ahead, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:03]
| You know, listen, during the 1980s, when we were growing up, yes, there was, for example, we had a movie called the day after I remember this.
Do you remember that that movie, the day after I mean, I remember its existence.
|
Sam:
[1:18]
| I remember the Fuhrer when it happened. I think I watched it at the time or there.
Yeah, but I don't actually like remember the details of the freaking movie.
|
Ivan:
[1:29]
| Well, I mean, I didn't say that you needed to remember the details, but you know what the hell the movie was about, right?
|
Sam:
[1:36]
| Yeah, of course. Of course.
|
Ivan:
[1:37]
| Of course. OK, well, I don't know for the audience that doesn't know what the hell the movie the day after was.
OK, it was basically about our nuclear Armageddon. Okay, you know, we were all just going around living our daily lives and then people are watching a baseball game and working and then they live somewhere in the Midwest.
I think it was Kansas if I remember correctly.
And all of a sudden, nuclear missiles are seen being launched in the air.
|
Sam:
[2:12]
| You are you are close and the city, Missouri.
|
Ivan:
[2:15]
| Oh, fuck that. You always get me fucked up, you know, I, you know.
|
Sam:
[2:21]
| Although some of the characters were in Kansas as well.
|
Ivan:
[2:24]
| Kansas. Should annex back somehow.
Take Kansas City. It is so fucking annoying. Kansas City should not be in Missouri.
You know, can I put my pet peeve about this? And that is one of the most, and now I understand that there is a Kansas City, Kansas as well, which is actually pretty close.
But the main Kansas City that we all talk about is in fucking Missouri, and that is really irritating.
I've always find that very irritating. It makes no sense whatsoever, but anyway, I digress.
|
Sam:
[3:03]
| Now it does say that one of the characters is a student at the University of Kansas that's actually in Kansas.
|
Ivan:
[3:10]
| Right. Okay. So, so I'm close location wise.
And so people are just standing around and all of a sudden, you know, you know, nuclear ballistic missiles are launched. Okay.
And people are staring at them in the sky and that people are freaking out.
And then, you know, we get hit by nukes.
|
Sam:
[3:34]
| So now are you doing a movie review of the day after is that's what's happening here?
|
Ivan:
[3:37]
| Oh, I haven't even watched it in a long time. I can't remember, but my point is that back then, yes, we're worried about making it to now.
We thought we'd be, you know, we may have, you know, just nuclear, nuclearly and not nuclearly, nuclearly by, by doing that.
|
Sam:
[3:57]
| Yeah. That's how you say it. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[3:59]
| Sure. nuclearly annihilated ourselves by now. And yet we still are here.
|
Sam:
[4:05]
| This is one of the things like I, I definitely remember lots of people having that fear in that era, but I don't remember ever having that fear myself.
Like I always was thinking about the future and like the optimistic, like, you know, star Trek and all that kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[4:22]
| And I was optimistic. I got to say, I also was an optimist and I'm still, I am, I'm still an optimist.
I still am. But what I'm saying is that, you know, there are, listen, I ha I have mentioned on this program before how one time due to some program that I know did scare people when it was first broadcast that was put on HBO.
And I thought I had a news channel on in which depicted a conflict in the Middle East that All of a sudden, you know, descended into some kind of nuclear exchange with the Russians.
OK, break me the fuck out, because I thought I was watching the news.
And for a few minutes I was like, holy fuck, this is happening.
|
Sam:
[5:08]
| And you're sure that that wasn't the day after, because the day after also controversially started out like the fake.
|
Ivan:
[5:14]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This was something else. I believe this one was. And no, it was.
|
Sam:
[5:20]
| Didn't it start out as a news?
|
Ivan:
[5:21]
| But I think it was countdown. I think it was countdown to looking glass. I think it was called.
|
Sam:
[5:28]
| OK, OK.
|
Ivan:
[5:29]
| It may have been. Yeah. And so and then all of a sudden, at some point, they broke into the backstage showing like it was a movie.
And then, well, I also know before that happened because they were still doing the fake newscast thing, whatever.
I ran down because back then we had a satellite. We had we had satellite dishes at home, but you could only watch like about four channels at once on any TV at a given time.
|
Sam:
[5:58]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[5:59]
| And so the receivers were downstairs. So you have to tune them to a channel down there.
And even though we did have something to remotely change the channels, you didn't have something that indicated to you what channel you were on.
You have to know by looking at what the channel, what the channel was showing. Okay.
So I ran downstairs and saw that it was on HBO and I was like, ah.
|
Sam:
[6:24]
| So your point, though, is not about any of these specific movies, although I'm adding them all to my list.
|
Ivan:
[6:30]
| My point is that, you know, you're talking about we're being in December 1st, 2023, which actually, yeah, you should add to the list.
And, you know, we're still here. We are amazingly enough.
|
Sam:
[6:41]
| At least we think we're here. Maybe it's an illusion.
|
Ivan:
[6:44]
| True. Yeah, totally. And we can't discount that. You know, we're still here and, you know, I I was reading a little bit about, you know, I don't know, this is one of the subjects, you know, Kissinger dying.
|
Sam:
[7:00]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[7:01]
| And I was, you know, Al Franken reminded me about Operation Linebacker 2 or the Christmas, you know, carpet bombing that ensued right after Nixon got reelected.
|
Sam:
[7:16]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[7:17]
| And he decided, hey, my negotiated tactic is to be just a carpet bomb these people and I'm realizing the type of military operation that was launched with the amount of, I mean, millions and millions of pounds of, of, of bombs that were dropped a hundred and twenty B-52 bombers, okay, dropping bombs at the same fucking time.
I mean, I mean, shit. Yeah.
I'm like, you know, and they were talking about Kissinger getting a peace price and I'm like, yo, how the hell was he not fucking put up on charges?
These guys is war criminal. I mean, it was now talk about this, right. And the Russians also did something similar when they invaded Afghanistan.
You know, back then, this level of obliterating warfare was simply just tolerated by a lot of people.
|
Sam:
[8:20]
| Well, and OK, as we're starting out with a light non-newsy topic here, you know, I think we've talked about this before, too.
Like, I mean, yes, the Vietnam era was very violent like that.
But, but nothing compared to World War II?
|
Ivan:
[8:38]
| Oh yeah, so that, exactly, because that was even, you know, a downscale from like, what the fuck, World War II?
I mean, World War II, we had literally, I mean, Americans lost, I mean, the U.S.
Lost millions of people in World War II, and we weren't even there!
|
Sam:
[8:53]
| Well, and the key being all of these things that we're talking about, like when we talk about Israel and Hamas and all of this kind of stuff, a lot of the norms around protecting civilians developed as a response to what happened in World War II.
|
Ivan:
[9:09]
| Correct. Yes. And with good fucking reason.
|
Sam:
[9:12]
| And then with Vietnam and some of these others reinforcing that further, but because, I mean, we carpet bombed cities.
|
Ivan:
[9:21]
| Carpet bombed cities.
|
Sam:
[9:22]
| We, we nuked cities, you know, and, and this was in all directions.
It was like, you know, it wasn't like, oh, the Germans did bad things, but the U S was very careful. No, no, not at all.
|
Ivan:
[9:35]
| Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, neither side back then. I mean, Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[9:40]
| Yeah. And it wasn't, it wasn't even thought of in that way.
|
Ivan:
[9:43]
| It was just annihilation of, it was just annihilation and obliteration, bottom line.
|
Sam:
[9:48]
| And this was considered absolutely, of course you would fight the war that way.
What other way would you do you? You want to win, right?
|
Ivan:
[9:57]
| What other way would you do it? That this was five. Yes. Right.
You want to win? You're going to blow up, fucking blow up the enemy.
That's what you're fucking doing.
|
Sam:
[10:05]
| And, you know, civilians just as much as military.
I mean, civilians, civilians, whatever, you know, there, there, there, there, maybe there was some distinction, but there was still the like, Oh!
|
Ivan:
[10:18]
| And we firebomb Dresden for God's sakes!
|
Sam:
[10:22]
| Yeah, I was gonna mention Dresden, but all of the other- it's just like, the city's in the way, get rid of it.
|
Ivan:
[10:28]
| I mean, the Germans daily, daily bombed London!
I mean, every fucking day! You know, civilians be damned! They didn't give a shit!
|
Sam:
[10:38]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[10:38]
| I mean, so, I mean, so anyway, we're, you know, 2023, we're still here.
Um, yeah, I, I, I, that was, you know, the, what, what, what my main point about this is we got, we got a few, we got a few weeks to go. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[10:56]
| You know? So yeah.
|
Ivan:
[10:58]
| Yup. Yup. And, and, and so, you know, we're, we're still here.
|
Sam:
[11:02]
| I mean, my, my, you know, so my, my light and frothy thing is, is all of the civilian annihilation in the first half of the 20th century.
|
Ivan:
[11:15]
| No, and I, you know, I'm like, look, look, I was just, you know, look at it.
Look, I was reading about some of this and my stomach was charging about this whole.
|
Sam:
[11:24]
| And this is in the second half of the 20th century, of course, all the Kissinger stuff.
|
Ivan:
[11:29]
| Right. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[11:31]
| And it's not like that's what the second half of the 20th century may have been better than the first half, but it wasn't good.
|
Ivan:
[11:37]
| It wasn't good. OK. It wasn't good. OK. Not to minimize anything about what's going on in the Middle East. It's actually to the contrary, it's it's got me like, you know, going, geez, right. But but but.
We're still my whole point is that we what we're still here is we're still here so this is the optimistic side.
Right we're still here okay and i am optimistic okay i really you know even with all the challenges and all the doomsday or whatever i think that you know what we're gonna figure all of this shit out yes is there is there pain is there gonna be pain listen there's always been pain Yeah.
Folks always a lot of it, a lot of it. Okay.
So, you know, I'm just like, you know, and look, we here doing a podcast with electricity, air conditioning, doing this, using modern technology, doing this are blessed and fortunate.
And, and, you know, to be in this environment, yes, I get that.
But, but, you know, I know that there are others that are that as fortunate. it.
I get that very, you know, very well.
But I'm an optimist because I know that if you look at history hundreds of years ago, just, you know, you don't have to go like that far back.
A lot more people were in poverty in the world and starvation and sickness and a whole bunch of shit.
And as a percentage of the population, not, you know, like everything, not linear, we're better.
But speaking of first world, go back to my first world.
Problem, which is the stupid decision that I've done to remodel my own now.
|
Sam:
[13:22]
| Now, after all of that prelude, you're going to talk about correct.
|
Ivan:
[13:28]
| Yes, absolutely. So talk about the total 100% first world problem, which is, you know, this is what I will say about home remodel. Okay.
|
Sam:
[13:38]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[13:39]
| I know one thing is that all of us around the world.
Around the world do this kind of shit, different levels, different things.
It's really weird. For example, it's talking to people in some different places like, you know, like in Asia, Europe and whatever.
And we all get into these stupid projects, OK?
It's one of these things that it's your home. And like I was discussing with my wife today, look, I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to move from this place.
We've been here 17 years. My wife is saying we do live on a second floor flight of steps.
I basically said that, you know, what if we get old? I said, I have a solution for that.
You know, they have these, you know, you saw the movie up. Do you remember?
|
Sam:
[14:28]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[14:29]
| Do you know that the old man had this little thing with the, you know, the escalator to go up and down it, that you sit down and do that?
They have outdoor versions.
I'm like, look, if it comes to that.
There's going to be one of those things out there, but I'm not fucking moving. Not happening. Okay.
|
Sam:
[14:48]
| I thought given, given the conversation we just finished, I thought you were going to recommend that I, that I installed one.
|
Ivan:
[14:55]
| No, I have no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[14:56]
| I was going to recommend destroying the unit below you so that you can lower your unit one level.
|
Ivan:
[15:02]
| Well, that would be quite an aggressive thing. I did discuss with my wife purchasing a downstairs unit, but not not exactly demolishing it.
But but no, I don't want to buy. I don't want to anything.
But the one thing is that we all get into these anybody that gets into a remodeling, remodeling is hell.
OK, I you know, every time I'm optimistic about the cost, whatever the hell it is, I wind up.
I'm not even remotely close, I don't know how, I don't know why, I mean, I'm very good.
For example, I'm doing a big remodeling project for the condominium itself for the whole association and I've gone through a very detailed bidding process and specifications and all of these things and whatever.
And you know, we've kept the costs in check, like within 10% of the original budget and which was, by the way, I had built a budget that contemplated a 10%, around their cost overrun.
Okay. So we are within the contingency because I expect that, you know, they'll say we need to do this and that and whatever.
So we're pretty much within the contingency and you know, about 10 years ago, me and my wife got the idea of remodeling our bathroom. Okay.
|
Sam:
[16:28]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:29]
| And I remember that the guy quoted us, this'll take a week.
And this will cost twenty five hundred dollars. OK, you buy the materials. OK.
And he told, you know, we went to a floor and decor center where this big place where they sell, tell you, but you order the materials and I will, you know, do the work. It'll take a week.
And do you need any money in advance? And he said, No, no, no.
Well, look, I mean.
Then, oh, I need money. And then every day he needed, of course, and then every day he needed money.
Oh, I need, I need another 300. I need another 500.
I need another. And every day a money request would come in for more money.
And then one week turned into two weeks, turned into three weeks, turned into, you know, a month.
And in the end, it cost more than three times the original fucking amount.
That I took a lot longer as well. and took way longer and cost so much more.
And I am right now at the point where I have already what I had in my head as the budget to remodel this office.
|
Sam:
[17:50]
| So yeah, I was going to say, the specific thing you're looking at right now is your office, your home office.
|
Ivan:
[17:58]
| I started this thing that I decided, well, I'm going to remodel the office.
I've got this furniture, it's 20 years old, I need to do it, I don't travel as much, I basically sit here all fucking day, uh-huh, you know, I want to just improve the place, okay?
You know, and I expect to be here a lot longer than this, okay?
So therefore, you know, look, let's just do it, okay?
And right now I'm already that we haven't laid down anything.
OK, we haven't screwed anything to the wall. We haven't done jack shit.
|
Sam:
[18:37]
| Now, just just to just to make sure in terms of what you're thinking, remodeling your office, like when you remodel like a bathroom or a kitchen, you're talking like the stuff that's like attached and all this kind of stuff for remodeling your office.
You're talking about that kind of stuff Are you just taking out all the furniture, putting in new furniture, new monitors?
|
Ivan:
[18:56]
| Furniture is custom built for, for the off.
Okay. So I'm not just putting in furniture, but it's hard to go with a complete custom set of furniture that is built specifically that is built to buy specifications for the off. Okay.
And, and then this requires that relocating some equipment in the office, like we're at a television that's on the wall and that kind of stuff.
And so I want to do it right. So that requires some rewiring.
And then the thing is that the floor is a wood floor. It's an original wood floor.
And I was like, well, we need to refinish the floor because it's I had a chair here before that damaged the floor.
And I was like, well, we need to.
OK, I need to fix that. OK, before, you know, probably a good idea to take the opportunity right now. We're lifting all the furniture to fix that.
And there are outlets that need to be relocated. There's just stuff like that, new ceiling fan, you know.
And then the thing is that my cleaning lady said, hey.
Your model, one of the rooms he didn't paint before. Why don't you paint?
|
Sam:
[20:07]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[20:08]
| Before you get everything done. And I'm like, okay, that's a good idea.
Well, then painting this one room turned into painting the whole place.
And then painting the whole place turned into, well, why don't we do these other things that need to be done to the house?
And that it's just I am like right now I haven't done anything yet.
And my budget is already three times the original amount that I forecast.
I am so fucking over budget at this point.
|
Sam:
[20:42]
| Very nice, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[20:43]
| And then the other thing that's happening is I forecast to try to do some of this over the holiday.
But then the worker said, well, we don't work over the holiday.
|
Sam:
[20:56]
| Makes sense.
|
Ivan:
[20:57]
| So we have to start like next Friday.
|
Sam:
[21:00]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[21:01]
| So to start next Friday, it means that I have to take everything apart in this off during this week.
That means put all the books and boxes and dick backs and computer everything.
And so all of a sudden, my time, my leisurely time frame that I thought It's now been compressed into, by next Friday, this office needs to be empty.
And I am like, just...
I'm like, what the fuck did I just do to myself? I'm like, what am I doing?
And so I, man, I guess my thing is, if you're planning on remodeling, don't, try to avoid it. It's just I mean, it's just it's such a fucking nightmare.
|
Sam:
[22:04]
| It's so, um, meanwhile, I'm in an office chair that's been missing its right arm for at least four years and the back of it is all like straggly.
And I, yeah, I have put on my like Christmas wishlist, like a new office, a new office chair would be cool amongst other things, but it's like, as long as it work and isn't like poking me in the ass in a way that's painful, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to just do it myself. I'm like, it's fine.
|
Ivan:
[22:35]
| You know, here's the thing. Here's the thing.
I just thought I was, this is going to be what I thought about in my head, whatever the fuck reason you thought custom bespoke furniture would be I didn't start there.
I didn't start there. This is the problem.
|
Sam:
[22:54]
| The problem is, I mean, just pick up a new goddamn shelf from Ikea and be done with it.
|
Ivan:
[22:59]
| Well, I was starting, well, I was starting first with something like that.
And then it just, I don't know.
It just mushroomed. And I'm like, how the fuck did I get myself here?
Look, I did it to myself because the one thing is that the problem is that I will say is about these kinds of things.
When I normally do something, I am a perfectionist about it, which is the problem, which is why I had avoided doing this for such a long time.
And so this time I said, fuck it, I'm going to do it. And I'm like, oh no, I'm going to do it simple.
|
Sam:
[23:41]
| Uh huh. Now I do, I do want to move on to meet my stuff, but I do have one question because You've mentioned on the show before that part of your existing data is this really huge, old, super heavy desk.
A number of people are going to come in to remove this, that is part of the operation because you, cause you've talked, you, you have said before, like you could never get rid of this desk because it would be impossible to get out of the house.
|
Ivan:
[24:14]
| Okay. I basically have what that's one of the things that I was contracting with is to secure a group of people to remove this from here.
It's really the most painful part of this.
I mean, and my computer and what we're doing this podcast and right now where I work at is at this desk right now.
|
Sam:
[24:35]
| Yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[24:36]
| So I'm not sure what the hell I. Well, I have my my my plan short term.
I do have a folding table downstairs that I will put here temporarily.
|
Sam:
[24:50]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[24:51]
| You know, until the furniture comes in. But you see, but the thing is that I have to take everything out of this.
|
Sam:
[24:58]
| Yeah yeah it's like a lot yeah yeah and then you know not like cable back back to the desk just a real question like is it going to a dump somewhere or someone taking it off your hands is going to use it.
|
Ivan:
[25:12]
| I don't think it's going to adopt the the the people said that probably so i'm going to give it to place that will.
Either one of two things, either the workers that are coming, I offered, said, Hey, take whatever you want. Just, you know, look, just get it off my hands.
Just take whatever you want and what you don't want, then we'll take to this furniture donation.
|
Sam:
[25:34]
| Okay. Cool. And anything else about your painful remodel that you really want to get out there?
|
Ivan:
[25:41]
| I, I honestly, the, the, the worst thing I was close to tears this afternoon is I'm realizing what the fuck am I going to be.
So that's how bad it was on a separate note, because I don't want to forget this.
|
Sam:
[25:58]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[25:59]
| I, this is another, I I'm going to do a second mild and frothy. Okay.
Let's talk about what it is about a second light and froth mild.
|
Sam:
[26:08]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[26:09]
| Which is, which is okay. So, so WRC T needs an antenna.
|
Sam:
[26:13]
| Oh, and I, our old college radio station. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[26:16]
| Yeah, which is this a mutual subject.
|
Sam:
[26:18]
| It's a and and and for where this, you know, podcast started not as a podcast for this, but as an actual radio radio program, did one radio show.
|
Ivan:
[26:27]
| Yes. And so they posted something about a fundraiser on online, which, you know, I will say this is the one thing that I was sorely disappointed.
I went to check the radio schedule. They basically just play music and rebroadcast, and programming by other people don't have any original fucking programming. As far as I can tell.
|
Sam:
[26:53]
| Well, in terms of public affairs. Yeah, because the music is original stuff.
They have DJs. They're doing that.
|
Ivan:
[27:00]
| Well, they have DJs. But well, but I mean, they don't they're not they're not making the composers. Right.
|
Sam:
[27:06]
| Although they probably have like an occasional live music thing.
But here's the thing, though. Like when talking ancient history here.
|
Ivan:
[27:15]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[27:15]
| When we came in. There also wasn't a public affairs program.
I mean, they also had like a little thing here and there.
And one of the things that I did there was say, I want to develop a full public affairs schedule. Like, let's do a show once every day.
|
Ivan:
[27:35]
| One thing is that at least I've read the news, we even read the news.
|
Sam:
[27:39]
| Well, yeah, the news thing preexisted me.
I started out doing news. Then I became the news director. then they needed a public affairs thing. I'm like, let's do a real public affairs program.
I recruited people to have ... We had the five o'clock hour every day of the week. We made sure to fill that.
|
Ivan:
[27:57]
| We had programs every day of the damn week.
|
Sam:
[28:01]
| That lasted for a few years after you and I were gone.
Then it sort of faded out. Then, from my understanding, both before and after the existence of spoken word programs, programming as opposed to DJs on that radio station has ebbed and flowed.
And I guess it's in an AB right now, you know, where it is not that much, you know, and they, they have canned network stuff that they put on early in the morning to meet their public affairs requirement or whatever.
And, and aren't having people do it. And I presume it has a lot to do with, are there people volunteering at the station who are into it and want to do it?
|
Ivan:
[28:42]
| Well, I'm just surprised, you know, given now this whole era of webcasting, podcasting and all this other stuff, I was just sort of as a buddy, because I thought it's the perfect opportunity to do some original content that they could turn into a pods and people learn how to fucking produce and make fucking shows.
I mean, you've got the equipment, the budget and the stuff to do it.
I mean, you know, damn it. I figured they would leverage it.
|
Sam:
[29:06]
| Well, the thing is, though, and we sort of prove this. You don't need that.
|
Ivan:
[29:11]
| If you, if you, if you're, well, I mean, but come on. Look, here's one thing that I think.
|
Sam:
[29:17]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[29:18]
| My point is, listen, anybody can push out a podcast, you're right.
A well done a well well well and you know what that you've got like for example the kind of shit that we can't that we don't what we don't have the time you know but one that has like plays news clips and edits and other.
|
Sam:
[29:37]
| I mean there you know there are levels of there are levels it's not like you know fancy get me be fancy like the fancy, look that the high the high the high edit level podcast to the like If you are a kid at a university who wants to put one out and has the time the time is the key part You know, all you need is a laptop.
I Guess I guess I I mean like a laptop maybe a good microphone Maybe a maybe a place with a you know, that's it.
|
Ivan:
[30:10]
| That's it But what I'm saying is that it's a place that if people, you know, we're there and work together.
They could I No, you're absolutely right.
|
Sam:
[30:19]
| It would be a good feature. If you had people who are interested in doing that kind of stuff, something like a college radio station would be a great place for people to learn how to do news and talk show in general.
But the thing is, again, we got there, we were interested in doing that.
We had a critical mass of a few people who were interested in doing that kind of stuff. We got them together and we convinced the man and the asses about it.
|
Ivan:
[30:49]
| And we convinced that apparently because we're doing it 20 fucking years.
Still like 30, 30. What am I saying? 20, 30.
|
Sam:
[30:55]
| Yes. We're 30 years later. We're still sitting here doing it.
But like, you know, the, the people in charge at the time were like, Oh, okay. That sounds cool.
Let's do it. Cause like, you know, talk radio and news are always a big, we're, we're a big thing back then.
They're still kind of big and you know, it's, and it may just be at the moment.
This year, nobody's interested in doing that kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[31:16]
| So they could even move it to video podcasting. You know, you've got all these people do all these live podcasts, YouTube.
You could, I mean, I, I, I think my, my thing is that I think that you could do something a lot.
With the resources university behind you because they gave us a lot of resource.
You get a lot bigger and better thing. Now, the one thing I did do, and I guess you didn't read the signature of who I I communicated with at the university.
|
Sam:
[31:42]
| You're trying to get them money from their for their damn antenna.
|
Ivan:
[31:46]
| Right. And the thing is that I realize the same thing is back then is now is that these people are too, you know, I don't know.
It's not these people. I think in general, everybody's intimidated about going to the frickin university president and say, Hey, dude, our endowment's like two billion dollars.
Can I get like twenty five thousand dollars or a damn antenna instead of like having like 10 cup this?
Which is basically what I wound up doing. And, you know, I figured out who the hell to talk to and set up a note and said, you know, give me a break.
I mean, and the thing is that 30 years ago, that's what I, listen, the current antenna that they have, basically I went one day and I decided, Hey, oh, we got a new university president. I'm going to have them here for a damn interview.
Okay. And we had them live and students gave them questions.
And by the way, out of that, by the way, we also remember, I don't know if you remember, you also got a new shuttle.
|
Sam:
[32:48]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[32:48]
| Remember the, yeah. Because I told them about the shitty shuttle bus we had like shuttle bus. Yes, we had a shuttle bus that took us around town.
|
Sam:
[32:56]
| Not like space shuttle, not the space shuttle.
|
Ivan:
[32:59]
| Damn it. I should have asked him for that. Oh, fuck. You see, not that. Damn it. OK, now.
Damn. OK. Well, anyway, so the shuttle bus that we didn't have, the shuttle bus that we had was falling apart.
And lo and behold, I brought it up. Guess what?
Shuttle buses. New ones. OK. Out of nowhere, boom, and the same thing with the antenna.
I said, hey, you know what? We've got this permit for this directional antenna.
We have been in this fight with another station that basically, I can't remember, I think it was a religious station or something like that that had been arguing with us about the broadcasting.
|
Sam:
[33:37]
| There was a question about the level of power and the direction and blah, blah, blah, because they didn't want us interfering with their station that was on a nearby frequency, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It went on, it was a whole thing. It went on for years.
Are, you know, it eventually all got resolved and it was fine, but it, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[33:55]
| But, but it took a while and you know, we got that antenna gave it more power and the broadcast range was increased by that.
And so that was, so that was good. So I basically decided.
I'm like, okay, you know what, dammit? I mean, I realized that for whatever reason, people didn't want to do it back then.
I went, I, I went, I, I remember that I, I, back then I physically, literally marched up the president's office and asked for him to meet with me and, you know, go do that. And so he said, yes.
|
Sam:
[34:26]
| So, you know, and well, and then now, now, now that Yvonne is done tooting his own horn about his office and about WRCT and how he got a new antenna.
I figure you've, you've completely hogged the butt first and we should just move on at this point. I, I was going to talk about, do you have a movie?
I was, I will save it to next week.
|
Ivan:
[34:46]
| Well, we did, we did talk about movies already.
|
Sam:
[34:48]
| What we did kinda. So I will preview next week, absent some major breaking news.
I will talk about the 1993 film Hocus Pocus.
|
Ivan:
[34:59]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[35:01]
| Wow.
|
Ivan:
[35:01]
| Yeah, I'm tingling with excite.
|
Sam:
[35:05]
| That was not my intent. If I, please don't sue me.
|
Ivan:
[35:15]
| Please. Nobody sue us for our podcast. Thank you for, I mean, it's bad enough as it is right now.
|
Sam:
[35:21]
| Okay. We're, we're, we're going to take a break and then we'll do other subjects.
I'll do the stupid movie next week.
Cause we have been going long enough already.
Okay, here we go. Here we go. Uh, which break did I pick to be the first break? Oh, OK, here we go.
|
Ivan:
[35:35]
| But in 1993, I'm looking at what the movie is about, because I don't remember what this movie is.
|
Sam:
[35:42]
| Yeah, I watched it in April.
|
Ivan:
[35:44]
| So it's got two. It's got awards.
|
Sam:
[35:47]
| Yeah. OK, back after this.
OK, we are back. So. I guess.
Both Yvonne and I are futzing with our cameras at the moment, like mine is bugging me because it's focusing on my microphone instead of my face.
And so I'm blurry and the microphone is clear and I'm like, whatever.
Now, those of you listening don't care because you can't see anything, but Yvonne can and I can see each other. A Vaughn zooming in and out and in and out of his face.
It's very, it's very distracting anyway.
I am not going to worry about my blurry face right now.
|
Ivan:
[37:28]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[37:30]
| And somebody's setting off goddamn fireworks. What's on our house?
|
Ivan:
[37:34]
| You know, like, you know, I was going out. That's the missiles. The missile.
|
Sam:
[37:40]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[37:40]
| Um, try to do it. No, not try to, no, they weren't trying to, it's just minute man.
|
Sam:
[37:45]
| Minute man, people setting off stupid fireworks. At least I'm not a man missiles.
That's what it usually is. And it's like, it's not even like, it's not setting off fireworks.
|
Ivan:
[37:55]
| December 1st.
|
Sam:
[37:57]
| It's yeah, I was going to say it's not July 1st. It's not July 1st.
It's not July 4th. It's not New Year's. It's whatever.
I think it's not even the right time. There was like, you know, what's the name of the holiday? The Indian Festival of Lights, Diwali.
I think that ended a while ago. I should check. Maybe that's still going. Ah, dear.
Yeah. There it is.
That that that that that that date early autumn.
No, that's that's not what's happening right now. And, you know, so I know I'm sorry that people are just like, oh, I want to blow things up. OK, fine.
|
Ivan:
[38:38]
| I mean, to be fair, blowing things up when it doesn't involve hurting any people is fun.
|
Sam:
[38:46]
| And be fun. Yes, can be can be fun.
|
Ivan:
[38:48]
| OK, it's just, you know, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, and that can.
|
Sam:
[38:52]
| It is technically illegal where we are. But, you know, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[38:57]
| This is just well, I mean, I mean, Jesus, I mean, what kind of blowing things up are you talking about?
Oh, oh, you mean launching fireworks? OK, well, I mean, I was just I was talking about, you know, I don't know, like getting some explosives. Kaboom.
|
Sam:
[39:11]
| You know, that's usually illegal, too.
|
Ivan:
[39:13]
| Oh, OK. Well, that could be. Yeah, I can see how that's except under certain controlled circumstances.
|
Sam:
[39:19]
| But that's not what we're talking about here. Anyway, since you had the entire last segment, I'm going to hog the entire tea of this segment.
Entire tea. Did you like how I said that? Entire tea.
|
Ivan:
[39:30]
| Yes, it's fantastic.
|
Sam:
[39:32]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[39:33]
| We're doing great here. We're doing awesome.
|
Sam:
[39:36]
| You know, I was doing this thing with my son, and oh no, he took my phone, oh, there's my phone, it's still here.
That's his phone, so I can't quote it here, but I've been having this thing where I've going back and forth with my son.
I'm just joking around with taking the tune of don't cry for me, Argentina.
|
Ivan:
[39:58]
| Oh my God.
|
Sam:
[40:00]
| But changing the lyrics to now that sounds fun.
Don't die for me, Donald duck, except to make it fit.
It has to be don't die for me, Donald duck, like duck instead of duck to make the syllables fit. Right.
And like, you know, I was joking around with him for that for a while, making up a couple of things.
And then we just asked chap GPT to do it. And so we had a whole bunch of like different versions of the song.
Nice, but you know, but he has my phone.
So I can't even quote any of it because he's wearing blue clothes and I don't remember the tune past, like the first couple of lines.
|
Ivan:
[40:36]
| So like it's, and for, and for some reason he's wearing gloves, I, I don't want.
|
Sam:
[40:45]
| Okay. Okay. Anyway, I am quite, if we could ever actually get it started, I'm going to hog this section to be Trump stuff.
|
Ivan:
[40:55]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[40:55]
| And there are a couple of stuff, Trump stuff. There are a few different aspects of it that were on our list this time.
One was added by you, Yvonne, which is what is really the worst case scenario of Trump wins? Because there are a lot of people painting apocalyptic end of democracy scenarios.
So let's talk about that a little bit. But then I also want to talk about, is the chance of a not Trump Republican scenario growing?
And I'm not talking about the chance of Biden winning. I'm talking about the chance of- No, no.
|
Ivan:
[41:27]
| Another Republican, not Trump. Yeah. Well, is it- In one way.
|
Sam:
[41:32]
| So, which one do you want to do first? You want to do that one first?
|
Ivan:
[41:36]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[41:37]
| It's- So, here's where I think. There are a few factors at play.
First of all, the Republican field does seem to be narrow.
That seems to be like, yes, for there to be any non-Trump scenario, you have to get rid of all of these also ran correct.
And it seems like a whole bunch of already dropped out and we're really Alex found the phone so I can read the, Oh, don't, oh, don't Donald duck me. whatever.
|
Ivan:
[42:13]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[42:13]
| Okay. Let's see here. I will, I will not do all of these. Cause we went through a whole bunch of variants.
See, see, here we go. Like, you know, this is our ability to keep on topic.
|
Ivan:
[42:25]
| Oh, we're, we're doing great on topic. We're just doing incredible.
|
Sam:
[42:30]
| You, you want me to just play the thing? Okay. Let's do, is this the first one with me reading, singing it?
Cause that's just going to be bad.
Okay, here we go. Here's me putting in the prompt to chat GPT, and then we'll only do one.
And I'll insert a good quality version of this when I edit.
Well, good quality, you know.
|
SamGPT:
[43:00]
| Don't die for me, Donald Duck, the quack of destiny, you're out of luck.
In your sailor suit and feathers so grand.
I wish I knew the rest of the tune to that song. No need to fight, just stick to the sand.
Don't die for me, Donald Duck, your adventures might be a muck.
No need for feathers, no need for strife, just enjoy your animated life.
From Duckburg to the Magic Kingdom's door, you've quacked and waddled, that's for sure. But battles aren't your feathered fate, Let Mickey handle the kingdom's weight.
Don't die for me, Donald Duck, You're Sailor Cap, you're clumsy pluck.
In this animated realm you're free, No need to fight, just let it be.
So put away that sword and shield, no need to charge the battlefield.
Just dance along to your theme song in the world of tunes where you belong.
Don't die for me Donald Duck, no need for battles, no need to cluck.
In the cartoon realm so absurd just be the duck without a bird, So Donald waddle on Enjoy the show No need for wars.
Just let it go in this animated fantasy Don't die for me Donald Duck Just be free.
|
Sam:
[45:10]
| It's over you guys should all see yvonne's face the extreme pain he is in i'm going to be sick, okay that that's enough that no we're not doing any more no more no more no no more no more no no no no no no no more no i'll put one more at the very end of the show But not right now.
|
Ivan:
[45:39]
| Yeah, no, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[45:42]
| Nope. At the end of the show we'll do this. Okay, bye!
Whichever one this is. Okay, bye. Alex out!
|
Ivan:
[45:52]
| Okay, well don't give up your day job. Please.
Abby, please.
|
Sam:
[45:59]
| What? You don't think that'll become a best seller?
No.
|
Ivan:
[46:07]
| No.
|
Sam:
[46:08]
| Okay. So Republicans. Republicans. Where was I? Okay.
|
Ivan:
[46:14]
| Um, the, it really is amusing how like, I feel just a little bit sick about my apologies, folks.
A little bit, you know, like, I don't think eating any Indian food before this was probably liked about the best thing in order to, you know, just follow it up with some duck.
Oh, with some duck. Yeah. Duck all orange.
|
Sam:
[46:39]
| It went in a little blue suit.
|
Ivan:
[46:41]
| Yeah. A little blue suit. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:43]
| Okay. Anyway.
Here's the thing. So first of all, the Republicans do seem to be dropping off.
So we're really down to, aside from Trump, the only ones that are still left in any sort of serious way are DeSantis, Haley, and maybe Ramaswamy. Okay?
|
Ivan:
[47:03]
| Meh.
|
Sam:
[47:04]
| And probably not. So it's really DeSantis and Haley, and DeSantis has been imploding.
So maybe it's Haley. And so maybe you can get a one-on-one.
And then you add on top of that, okay, the legal stuff is going to be hitting over the course of the next X number of months.
And there have been polls out there that say indictments don't mean anything because it's just the Democrats going after him.
It's just a witch hunt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But a conviction maybe matters to certain Republicans.
Also, of course, you can't discount- Okay.
|
Ivan:
[47:47]
| Republicans are weird.
|
Sam:
[47:49]
| You can't discount Trump's health either. That could become an issue at any time. You never know.
So you can spin scenarios- We can all hope.
I've been thinking about this because our prediction show is coming up soon.
And do you go out like, it's always like, do you go with a really boring, normal thing, which is always the most likely thing to happen?
Or do you think up like the fun, interesting scenarios?
So the fun, interesting scenario is Trump wins primary after primary after primary at the very beginning of the process.
Then, at a certain point, the first conviction comes in, and then he starts losing.
And you end up with the whole, and then maybe he's convicted.
And then you get a convention of people who are like, wait a second.
Is this really what we want to do? Do we have any chance of winning?
Maybe the polls start lurking worse, and then you have a chaotic thing.
And like Trump does whatever.
And somehow and somehow Nikki Haley or somebody squeezes in and ends up as the nominee.
|
Ivan:
[49:02]
| Uh huh.
|
Sam:
[49:03]
| You know, I admit like right now, if you were good, if you're going to put money on this, you would be stupid not to put your money on Trump.
But I'm just saying that the the scenarios in which there is a Trump collapse and somebody else ends up picking up the pieces is possible.
|
Ivan:
[49:24]
| I mean, those are possible. Those are possible.
I mean, I, you know, I, I think we sometimes like discount them and, you know, we've had candidates implode before that have been leaders like now.
It wouldn't have been, it wouldn't be the first time something like this had happened. So no, it's not, it's not impossible.
I mean, and like you said, you know, I think it is definitely a possibility that, you know, people all of a sudden just go like, Yeah, what the fuck are we doing?
And for whatever the hell damn reason, Nikki Haley has been gaining esteem.
|
Sam:
[50:04]
| You know, I mean, I think definitely out of the candidates that we're talking about now, just just to be clear, she's still So she's still a distant, like she's actually still third, right?
|
Ivan:
[50:17]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no doubt about that.
But I think that what I'm saying is, but she has been gaining.
She has been consistently gaining.
|
Sam:
[50:26]
| Let me just pull the stats so that on a national level, which is not how we pick things, the 538 average, no, has Trump 60, it just changed.
Okay, there we go. Trump 60%, DeSantis 12.6, Haley 9.5, Ramaswamy.
5.1. Those are the ones over 5% nationally. And then they do have an Iowa averages.
And in Iowa, it's Trump 44.7, so below 50%.
DeSantis 17.5, Haley right on his heels at 15.3, Ramaswamy at 4.7, so below 5%.
And with Haley rising and DeSantis sort of flat, so like she has been rising late.
So like the scenarios where, there are two ways where Trump does not end up as a nominee.
One is something absolutely spectacular happens and he implodes outright.
You know he's like, he has a heart attack, he's out because of that, they actually put ass in jail. He's out because of that.
Not that he would want to be out, but like maybe the dynamics would change. I don't know.
Maybe he'd get stronger if he was in jail. I don't know.
But like trying to play out the scenario, something super dramatic happens to tank his support.
Or you end up in a one on one scenario with somebody and that somebody starts, actually going after Donald Trump and making a dent.
Because so far we've had the scenario that all of these other people, with the exception of Christie, whose support is like negligible.
|
Ivan:
[52:10]
| But apparently he they have said that he doesn't has no plans to drop out.
|
Sam:
[52:15]
| Yeah, like he's he's one of the ones who's like his whole thing.
He wants to be up till the very end.
He wants to be the voice saying, don't do this.
Right. Right. Like he he might have like no delegates going into the convention and he's still going to be showing up trying to convince, trying to say something at the convention.
Right. At least that's what he says today. We'll see if it actually plays out.
|
Ivan:
[52:39]
| But so far, he's been consistent about it.
|
Sam:
[52:42]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[52:43]
| I, I, you know, unless I think he doesn't drop out unless he runs out of money.
|
Sam:
[52:48]
| Right. Wow.
|
Ivan:
[52:52]
| But, but, but he keeps, they, there are, there is a group of, listen, we say that, but there is a group of super packs.
That is basically funding these not Trump candidates. OK.
|
Sam:
[53:08]
| Well, and that's one of the things that happened this week is the cot poke the Koch organization. That's what they're. That's how you.
|
Ivan:
[53:16]
| Yeah, the Koch brother Koch brothers.
|
Sam:
[53:17]
| Yeah. Except one of them is dead, but they're still called the Koch brothers.
|
Ivan:
[53:20]
| Well, they're well, there are still OK.
|
Sam:
[53:22]
| I mean, they have a bunch of packs. I is just.
|
Ivan:
[53:25]
| I don't know. But the thing is, there is the one Koch brother that isn't.
I mean, there is one Koch brother that isn't with the Koch brothers.
|
Sam:
[53:32]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[53:32]
| Whatever.
|
Sam:
[53:33]
| The point is, they have decided to throw their weight behind Haley.
They've got all kinds of dark money pack stuff that they can do.
So people are talking about, hey, maybe that'll move the needle finally.
Maybe you can consolidate the anti-Trump blah, blah, blah.
And so the question is whether any of this can move anywhere.
And what we've seen so far everywhere is that Trump still just has this commanding lead. If anything, it's grown.
The only weakness people keep pointing out is that specifically in Iowa and New Hampshire, he's under 50%, which, okay, that means there's a window maybe, but I mean, he's just barely under 50%. So come on.
So there has to be some sort of Trump collapse. Well, yeah, well, let's see, I mean, it's not just Haley does really well and takes out Trump.
|
Ivan:
[54:30]
| Trump has to fail to look it, it, it, it, it does listen.
I, in terms of being a save you, you know, because I, I kind of like think of Trump as, as an incumbent to a certain, a certain way, because effectively we have a two incumbent scenario right now.
Exactly. and you know that's pretty weak polling which obviously doesn't bode well for him in terms of what I talk about which is the fervor of his followers when they're only pulling inside the Republicans at at 50%, because this is a very different poll than any of the other polls, And so, look, it's still early, relatively.
I mean, there's still what is the first, you know, we've got what?
Forty five, 60, 60 days around there to Iowa.
|
Sam:
[55:30]
| We must. I'll give you the exact date of Iowa in a second, but it's it's it's.
Plus, we're very close now.
|
Ivan:
[55:38]
| We are close to the Iowa caucus. OK, God, you know, the the date is January 15th. So I said 45 days, OK, I was right, OK, yeah. So we're 45 days away.
Let's see what else drops out. Look, the Santas is is flailing that the Santas is flailing.
And it's just, you know, I always had been stunned.
How the hell this guy won in the first place because he has come off as he is an unlikable piece of shit. I mean, he just is.
I mean, he just has zero charisma.
None, I mean this guy cannot I don't understand what the fuck the problem is that he's got the son of a bitch cannot smile I mean every smile that he does Looks like he's constipated. Okay.
All right, and then the stupid high-heeled shoes and just the condescending prick thing and It's just he's not and he's not Trump.
Okay. Mm-hmm And for whatever the hell reason, for 30, 40 plus years, this guy has this, I don't know, air about him that a lot of fucking people like.
And Rod doesn't have that. Nikki Haley is a lot more personable.
You know, when you're evaluating the candidate, so I think they are right.
If they're going to bet on somebody that maybe has a snowball chance, as hell is the one it's definitely a daily is a one. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[57:17]
| I mean, one of the things like I, there go the damn fireworks.
|
Ivan:
[57:21]
| There goes fireworks again.
|
Sam:
[57:23]
| Anyway, like on election graphs, one of the things I said, and I finally put out that post last weekend, but.
|
Ivan:
[57:34]
| Yeah, anyway, I felt like a pirate.
You got to be kidding me. These are loud.
|
Sam:
[57:46]
| Yeah.
They're setting them all on the street right by our house.
|
Ivan:
[57:52]
| So, but you're saying this is illegal call, call the fucking cops on them.
There you go. That that'll ingratiate you with the neighbors.
|
Sam:
[57:59]
| Oh yeah. That'll help. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[58:01]
| Yeah. That always helps to call the cops on the neighbors. Yes.
|
Sam:
[58:04]
| Yes. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, they seem to have stopped for the moment.
|
Ivan:
[58:09]
| Um, there you go.
|
Sam:
[58:10]
| Looking at state by state level, like I do an election graph, there is no good data on anything other than Biden versus Trump and Biden versus DeSantis.
So I can't get a good read on Haley, but my intuition is that Haley would do better than either Trump or DeSantis in a general.
But I know you've said before when we've talked about Haley, yeah, but she loses a lot of Republicans who don't like that she's a woman and don't like that she's Indian.
|
Ivan:
[58:37]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[58:38]
| You know, so how does that balance work out? And the answer is we just don't know yet. There hasn't been a lot of information.
There not have been a lot of people pulling that combination.
|
Ivan:
[58:49]
| So we don't know.
|
Sam:
[58:51]
| I'll start singing again.
|
Ivan:
[58:53]
| Anyway, God, Jesus.
|
Sam:
[58:54]
| No, but there's, there is, there are scenarios. you that end up with Trump not winning.
But again, like if you had to bet today, of course you're going to bet on Trump.
You know, the scenarios that have him not being the nominee require a series of events to happen just right, you know, and maybe that series of events will happen.
And like I said, my gut, my gut, and I don't know this, is that Nikki Haley would beat Joe Biden in a way that ...
Right now the polls say Trump's going to beat Biden too.
But I think Trump's got all kinds of negatives that are going to hit harder and harder and harder over the course of next year.
And so I think that's going to change.
|
Ivan:
[59:53]
| Oh, listen, I'm going to be blunt, right? I'm going to listen.
Well, I may be I'll maybe a little bit nervous.
Yeah, I'm saying that none of them beat by it's I don't care who the hell is I going to have.
I don't think it's going to. And that's my that's my that's my bet.
|
Sam:
[1:00:12]
| And yeah, and like I said, I don't know. My my gut is Haley does better than Trump.
But like Trump, Trump is doing well in the polls right now. but I think that's, I, my gut feel is that will not last.
I could be wrong. We'll see. We'll do a prediction show in a few weeks.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:28]
| Oh, we could be totally wrong. And I'm like, go.
|
Sam:
[1:00:31]
| I mean, we still have scenario. I mean, I talked about Trump could have a health issue. So, so the hell could Biden, we could have neither of these people. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:40]
| I mean, that's true.
|
Sam:
[1:00:41]
| We, we could, you know, we could end up with an entirely different race that is not, I mean, that would be, that would be insane.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:48]
| I mean, yeah, I mean, but I, you know what, I mean, look, I, I love Joe Biden. Okay.
I, I actually, you know, the one thing is about a B I get, I personally love Joe Biden.
I think that his personal story, I think that the way that he's been president, I think that it's great. I really like him very much.
And I think he's done a great job as president. I think he's done as good a job as anybody could have done given the hand that he got dealt.
I do think, though, let's say if both Biden and Trump died, in terms of an election, in terms of what it'd mean for America, it'd probably be a healthier thing in terms of the democracy, okay, if both of them passed away.
And I don't want Joe Biden to pass, okay, all right?
Now Trump, eh.
Oh, he I mean, I'm advocating his assassination. Let me be clear about this again.
|
Sam:
[1:02:01]
| Oh, thank you. Thank you. Like we do not want the Secret Service showing up. You know, you're not.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:05]
| No. But but but, you know, Trump were to have a heart attack. I'm like.
Well, and, you know, I frankly, you know, by the way, look, all his brothers and sisters, he is he is the sole survivor right now. Even his ex wife died.
|
Sam:
[1:02:20]
| And look, we said this in both 2016 and 2020, it's, it's time to pass the damn torch to a new generation, you know, um, it would be so nice to have like, yeah, you know, somewhat what let Gen X let our generation have a turn, you know, I think, uh, I don't know, Nikki Haley versus Kamala Harris.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:45]
| I mean, shit, I'm putting my money on Harris.
|
Sam:
[1:02:47]
| It would be so interesting to like suddenly have a Harris versus Haley race instead of Biden versus Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:58]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:02:59]
| You know, it'd be like, Whoa, that completely changes every single, everything, everything, everything would be entirely different.
The debate would be different. The issues would be different.
The, the dynamics of how it plays out would be different. Like having two women running would make it so like the whole, like, Hey, you're going to have a woman president done.
You you're just picking which one.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:25]
| None.
|
Sam:
[1:03:26]
| Yeah. Yeah. And either one is going to be representative of minorities and one in one or more ways, you know, as well.
And so that would be, that would be very, very interesting to watch and and would have unpredictable dynamics because it's just so different from what we're talking about today.
But it's probably going to be Biden versus Trump. That's the boring.
Like this is what we all expect but again there are paths to other things but it's probably going to be Biden versus Trump.
Now having said that moving on to your topic Yvonne you had put on our list to talk about like what's what is really what do we really expect and what's the worst case scenario if Trump does win and like where I come at that is like I have been hearing so much lately, about, this is a vote about democracy.
This is a vote against fascism.
If Donald, I've heard people say, if Donald Trump wins, we're not gonna have another election in our lifetimes.
It's just over. He's gonna get rid of the Constitution.
We're not doing this. And I'm like, I think it'll be, just to be clear, I think it would be really, really, really, really bad.
I'm not sure it would be that.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:46]
| Uh, here's the one thing I, what I, uh, I, and I agree with you.
I, um, look, I, I know so many people that live both in Brazil and Argentina. Okay.
Both countries that are, are democracies, both countries that succumb to military dictatorship, okay.
For a period of years and then reverted back to democracy.
And obviously there was a lot of negative effects from, from those things.
|
Sam:
[1:05:16]
| But in the, in the end, I'll also throw out there, there's the whole model of the illiberal democracy where you have places like Orban and Hungary and, and, and what's going on in Turkey and all the, where they still go through all of the motions of democracy happen.
They just make sure it's really, really heavily rigged.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:35]
| Well, but, but I don't, I'm not even like concerned about that scenario.
In large part because of how elections are run in the, in the United States, in a way that they are so localized.
Exactly. Which makes those models really, really heavily depend on federal elections being run.
And so it's that, that's really the main thing about that.
National elections is what I mean, what a national election bought.
And so, but I, I do think that it, it would be a very painful period. Okay.
And I do think that Trump would try almost every insane thing on the book, but on the, on the flip side, a couple of things that we did learn about Trump in his first term, number one, he doesn't like war.
|
Sam:
[1:06:25]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:26]
| And so the probability that it would get us into a foreign war is low.
Okay. Number two is that even when he tried to do very evil things.
He wasn't very good at. OK.
|
Sam:
[1:06:41]
| Now, a lot of people are arguing, though, that part of the reason for that was his first time around, he brought on board a lot of establishment Republican types who were willing to say no.
And now he's learned, and he's not going to do that again. And he's going to fire a bunch of them.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:57]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing is that the federal government has millions of employees.
But beyond that, look, Trump is not very competent in general, OK?
All right. And the one thing that happens with these things, especially when you try to do these kinds of like, oh, let me bring all the evil people over here.
You know what? The big problem with evil people are as you know, like I think you shared an article about what was going on in Michigan, related to the Republican Party over there where it's gone all full on MAGA, And how, because basically they spend all their time looking for conspiracies theories and backstabbing or whatever, because nobody trusts anybody. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:07:43]
| They all fight amongst themselves and they can't get anything done and they're running out of money because they can't get anybody to give them money either.
And because they can't get their act together to actually do it.
And hell, you don't even have to talk about Michigan.
Let's look at the house of representatives. Right. You're right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:03]
| And that's the problem. I mean, they have the house and, and, you know, they, they can't coordinate them amongst themselves, anything.
And I, and I think that, you know, because one of their big plans, how are we going to take control of the federal government is that we're going to expand the schedule F, right.
Which is the political appointees at the federal agencies. We're going to expand that form 4,000 to 50,000 people that we are going to go and replace with all these people that we supposedly have vetted.
That, you know, using AI and shit or whatever, in order to bring all the assholes that we really want.
Okay, man, look, he tell you something.
Firing and onboarding 50,000.
People. Okay. Is it, you know, so basically we're talking about a total of 100,000, people moves is an incomprehensibly insane endeavor.
I mean, they would basically just be fucking doing staffing for the first four years of this administration.
And what it would do is, I mean, there were so many posts in the smaller amount of posts that they had to fill before that went unfilled for so long how the hell are they gonna do this I mean it's it's one of those things that is so preposterous in terms of the complexity that yeah what it will would do is quite a lot of chaos that's for sure because what what may happen, It's a lot of places are completely runnerless.
|
Sam:
[1:09:56]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:56]
| Because there just isn't a head. Now, I have been in situations where that that happens.
And what happens a lot is that the lower level managers and employees are like, well, business as usual.
Well, until they decide who the fuck they're presenting, it works is doing everything the way they were doing it, because, hey, there's nobody to tell you what the fuck to do.
OK, so what the hell are you going to do? You just go all by the book.
I mean, the federal government has millions of fucking employees.
I mean, combined between the military and the civilian employees, it's five million employees, right?
This is not, you know, these guys think that they're coming in to change like the Trump organization.
OK, and I'm like, look, I still remember what I lived through at HP.
OK, probably if you arena came in, HP had one hundred and twenty thousand And her thought was similar to this, not getting through, I need to make all these changes.
And she started firing people and firing people and hiring people and doing this and basically, and then purchasing another company, because what she thought, okay, it's the culture over here.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to bring people from this other company that has a culture that is more than what I want, they're more aggressive.
And what it wound up was like three to four years of paralysis, okay.
In a lot of things, because you would go and think about an organization, any agency that has 200,000 employees, you try to make a change.
Do you think that you snap your fingers and that change happens in an organization with myriads of documents, processes, books, things of whatever it does, does any change happen? Like by, by, by snapping your fingers.
|
Sam:
[1:11:45]
| Well, let's be clear. It's hard to make change happen on a dime like that.
If you've got a team of five or 10 people.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:52]
| Exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:11:53]
| Like, I mean, you can do it. There are ways to do it. But it is difficult even with a really small team.
Like when you're talking about big, huge, massive organizations, it's an entirely different story.
It's it's it takes a long time to change patterns of behavior, no matter how like harsh you are.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:15]
| And exactly. And, and so, and that's my thing that I just think that all these people are so naive and so dumb, okay.
About how shit works that, you know, think about, for example, the affordable care act, right?
How long did those changes really take to permeate down all the way through since the act passed?
|
Sam:
[1:12:40]
| Well, the act itself, but in a timetable that was over the course of quite a few years.
And then even past that, didn't I just see this week, didn't North Carolina expand Medicare or something finally?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:54]
| There was a state that recently finally expanded.
|
Sam:
[1:12:56]
| It might or may not have been North Carolina. But another state just did Medicare expansion.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:01]
| 12 years later.
|
Sam:
[1:13:02]
| 12 years later. And there are more that are in the process of considering it right now.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:07]
| Right. So that's what I'm saying. I mean, think about a change like that.
It's over a decade later. And it's still not permeated all the way through.
And that this is the kind of stuff that I'm talking about where they have this pie in the sky idea that they think that because hell, we're just gonna fire all these people, you know, we're just navigating this little like, you know, little skip, you know, I compared it is like the little boat versus an aircraft carrier.
Okay, and it's like in a little boat you change up you turn the wheel to the right that turns right and they don't understand Fucking you know aircraft carrier fuck that it's like a fleet of aircraft carrier, You know you're trying to turn you know none of these turn on the fucking dime. They don't, And so I do think that definitely there's a lot of chaos.
And look, even today, we're still, this administration is trying to undo some of the chaos that the previous administration did to this day.
|
Sam:
[1:14:04]
| Well, that's exactly what I was gonna say. And we talk about courts and stuff like that too.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:09]
| But not just courts. I know I'm gonna bring, but I was gonna bring an example like of something specific related to what Trump wanted to do, which is about immigration.
Okay. Okay. Look, and how difficult is it still is for foreigners to get visas to come into the United States. Okay.
As I was talking to a series of people that I know that are professionals that normally had visas with no problem in the United States that are still waiting a long time.
The backlog that they created is so big that these people are still waiting and waiting to get visas to come into the United States.
And the one thing is that then there's fucking stupidity. What they have blocked are people that are actually coming in and fucking spending money here in the economy instead of the people that they supposedly wanted to block. It's so stupid.
They are so fucking dumb.
|
Sam:
[1:15:00]
| Well, and just to get back to the worst case Trump scenario, yes, he may not be able to replace the entire federal bureaucracy overnight.
But he will be able to replace some of it.
And he will be able to put in, and he has discovered in the last part of his administration that the whole Senate confirmation thing, he can avoid all that by putting in acting heads.
So he's pretty much flat out said explicitly that if he gets back, he's not going to nominate a damn person for a head of anything.
He's just gonna put acting people in place everywhere and and then you know he will get judges He will get more judges already What he's gotten in terms of both the Supreme Court and the lower court is having a massive Effective effect on what is happening like we talk about the thing is that you're here's a problem, But I don't listen listen listen no no no in his head man.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:59]
| You're talking like a regular Republican If Trump is coming in, he doesn't give a shit about the judges or anything else. What, what, what?
You know, he's thinking about he wants revenge. You're right. Him.
|
Sam:
[1:16:14]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:15]
| He's not getting that with appointing the judges of the Federalist Society wants or whatever the fuck it is. Whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:16:22]
| Yeah. He's not going to play by that same rule book.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:25]
| No, no, no. So I actually think I'll tell you what, I think that the Republicans are in problems with that, because what what is he found out with most of the judges that he named?
Well, they know in terms of him fealty to him, which was the important thing.
|
Sam:
[1:16:39]
| Yes, like if he, if he, if he, and if he nominates more people, it is all going to be about fealty to him. It won't be the Federalist Society.
But the other thing that he's learned, like, well, let me put it this way.
Do you believe like a lot of the talk in the last couple of weeks based on Trump's statement has been that if he comes in, he's going to be making sure all of his opponents are indicted and put in jail.
He's going to be II Here's a problem.
Yes, that goes back to what I was just telling you that all these judges aren't like his, Fealty because he may he may be able he can't maybe yeah, so like he can try He can harass them He can he can he can indict people but the court system is still the court system And you know, he's not they're just not gonna throw people in jail just to throw people in jail because he wants to you're not just gonna get Hillary Clinton in jail the next day, you know now or Obama or whatever he may be able to appoint a federal prosecutors that will go and like try to prosecute them but in the other end the other thing you said is on day one insurrection act federal troops in the streets and all the big cities you know all this kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:55]
| I'm like, you know, he's going to have, I, for what? Here's the thing for what?
|
Sam:
[1:18:02]
| This is the kind of, I just want to say this, one of the reasons people say this could be a democracy ending event is not just like, oh, Donald Trump comes into power and gets rid of elections and bypasses the constitution.
It's also if he tries to do shit like that, like if Donald Trump comes in and actually tries to order the military to take over Baltimore and arrest the mayor or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:30]
| I think that he's going to have a big problem because a lot of people in the military are going to actively resist those kinds of orders.
|
Sam:
[1:18:36]
| Yeah, they're going to say, they're going to say this isn't a legal order.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:40]
| And they're going to just say, fuck, no, this is an illegal order. We're not going to do it.
|
Sam:
[1:18:43]
| Right. And basically, then you set up, OK, now we do have a military coup, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:18:50]
| Well, you don't have a military coup unless they march up to D.C.
And just go with like fucking like arrest them.
|
Sam:
[1:18:56]
| As opposed to just not do what he says. But correct. But if you have the military actively resisting the legitimately elected civilian leader, that in and of itself is not like, that's not how democracy is supposed to work either.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:13]
| But yeah, okay. But this is the kind of dysfunction that we're talking about.
This is the kind of stuff that I'm talking about. Hey, does this make it that we'll never have another election?
Fuck, we have a civil war for God's sakes, people. I mean, literally, okay.
|
Sam:
[1:19:27]
| And Donald Trump won't last forever No, like, you know, we talk about Biden's age Donald Donald Trump's is only a few years younger and his health is not as good like no Exactly if if he if he gets elected and he becomes president He may or may not make it the four years now He he himself has said he's gonna try to figure out a way for to do that third term Even though it's constitutionally prohibited, but he's not gonna last forever regardless and but I you know I really don't want to see the U.S.
In the scenario where the way we're talking about things as well.
Eventually, the dictator will die.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:07]
| Well, I just think that my whole my whole thing that I'm saying is that it could it could be chaotic.
And and some of the chaos scenarios are bad, but I still, for whatever the hell reason, haven't seen And what's happened in so many countries during history that, I mean, it can be bad.
I will say, I mean, I'm not going to deny it, but that the saying that there will never be another election, I think it's far fetched.
I just think that, you know, I've seen so many countries survive worse.
And and the one thing that at least what I and I this is why I started off with one of things that about a Trump scenario that at least I'm comfortable with is that the guy hates war.
He I mean, he was so actively against any foreign conflict.
|
Sam:
[1:21:04]
| Well, let's be careful there. Like in the last few weeks, he did it.
He did attack an Iranian general while they were in Iraq. Yeah, there was a bunch of stuff in Syria.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:15]
| No, he but he did every other but almost every other time.
|
Sam:
[1:21:19]
| Like, remember that there were drone attacks everywhere, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:21:23]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we've had no, no, no. But I'm talking about I can't remember which one was the one that What should we call it?
Oh Bolton had oh, you know, basically tried to egg him on to a massive strike in Iran, Related to retaliating for that attack on that military base and he went and he he said no Right, he went for a much more there was a response, but it was much more measured than some people wanted him Yeah, and in a lot of the cases where he was egged on to do some kind of a large, military, you know, attack or response like that, he basically resisted it.
And so I think that, look, I said that that was one of the few things that I thought about it.
We did not wind up during his administration in any major military conflict.
I mean, I mean, that has to count for something.
|
Sam:
[1:22:17]
| OK. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:20]
| Hey, you know, try to find some light. somewhere.
|
Sam:
[1:22:26]
| Okay. On that positive note, let's take a break.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:29]
| Okay. Let's take a break.
|
Sam:
[1:22:30]
| And when we get back, when we get, when we get back, yeah, we'll get back.
When we come back, it will be Yvonne's turn.
And since we've been doing, we haven't been doing two things and alternating in a segment, Yvonne gets the whole next segment and, and then we'll probably wrap up depending on how long it takes.
So anyway, here's the break.
Yvonne's in pain again.
Okay, we are back! So, Yvonne, what do you want to talk about for our last segment?
|
Ivan:
[1:23:54]
| Yvonne. Ah. Let's see.
|
Sam:
[1:23:56]
| You can make it a- Santos! A few smaller segments.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:59]
| Santos! Santos is finally gone.
|
Sam:
[1:24:02]
| Santa Claus? Yes, Santa Claus is gone. What did you do to Santa Claus, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:24:08]
| He's gone to the North Pole. He's at the workshop.
|
Sam:
[1:24:12]
| He's at the workshop.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:12]
| No, Santos is gone.
|
Sam:
[1:24:14]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:15]
| Somehow, they got rid of Santos.
|
Sam:
[1:24:17]
| I mean, I, you know, when we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, I said I predicted, that he would manage to hold on just barely because they needed his vote, but that I would not be shocked if they actually got rid of him because it's just so egregious and they got rid of him.
Now, the one thing I'll say though, the House leadership uniformly voted to keep him, but they didn't whip the vote.
They didn't say like, if you're a loyal Republican, you'll vote to keep him.
They let people quote unquote vote their consciences and he's out.
They got the two thirds they needed.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:53]
| And now, not a one thing is.
They, they got them out. They got the two thirds. But I really think that the reason why he wound up losing all those votes, unlike because they had passed the resolutions.
This was like what which attempt number was this?
|
Sam:
[1:25:11]
| This was number three. But a lot of the people in number two basically said they wanted the process to play out.
They wanted the ethics committee to complete their report. And that happened.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:23]
| Well, but, but the one thing is also what happened after the ethics committee is that he did the same cardinal sin that the other Republican, I can't remember his damn name, the moron on the wheelchair from North Carolina that also got, uh, I don't remember who you're talking to.
You don't remember the guy, the guy that had the drunk parties, the guy that started accusing the Republicans of like, of like fucking around under wives.
|
Sam:
[1:25:48]
| I don't remember. You're going to have to look it up. Oh God.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:51]
| It's not correct. I kept trying to call him Crenshaw. Oh That guy Charisma, no, it's not Crenshaw Cough Madison Cawthorn.
|
Sam:
[1:26:04]
| Oh, okay. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:05]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:26:05]
| Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:07]
| Got it Yeah, that he was yeah that he was super.
Yeah, he's super young He's 28 years old and the one thing that got him that was the death knell of his, was is accusing his his his guys in the GOP of drugs and and you know, adultery and all this shit.
And right after he does that, then they primary the they primary the shit out of him and basically made him lose the primary.
So he couldn't get reelected. And Santos did the same thing.
Now, Santos went after the ethics report, came out, and just started accusing everybody.
Uh you know at the house of doing all this shit a bunch of a bunch of them probably do by the way just say oh no no no no doubt about it but my point is that he started like that that was his strategy to rally support was to go and like talk shit about the people who he needed the votes of And so, you know, once again, proven that strategy doesn't work right.
It's just so that just torpedoed him. I saw that, by the way, right after.
I mean, man, they took no time in, like, locking him out of his office.
|
Sam:
[1:27:38]
| Nope, nope, immediate, immediate.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:41]
| They locked him out of his office. They just whatever. He's just he's just toast. He's done.
And so, yeah, so now the Republicans have a three vote majority and a special election coming up.
|
Sam:
[1:27:55]
| And the date has not been set yet, but it'll probably be in January.
And they apparently there's not a primary process from what I've read on this.
Instead, each party, each local party organization will pick their candidate.
It sounds like the guy who was before Santos in this seat and the reason one of the reasons Santos won is this guy decided not to run again leaving an open seat and so it was some um so it was some unknown Democrat versus Santos who is also relatively unknown and apparently they're trying to get the guy who had the seat before to run for it so okay but you know we'll see Like cook political rates it as a toss up right now.
And I understand where they're coming from. My gut feeling is this has to be a Democratic advance.
That before I before Santos, it was a Democratic seat and had been for a while.
And then you have this whole Santos thing, and that can't look good for the rest of the Republicans because they know they're the ones who picked him.
I mean, yes, it was a primary. It was the Republican voters that not the Republican Party in New York But there were the Republican Party went along with everything was all Was all complicit in the whole thing.
Yeah, it can't and yes, they eventually turned on him What's all that?
|
Ivan:
[1:29:23]
| I'm like, I mean it took a long time for them.
|
Sam:
[1:29:26]
| Well, no to be fair the local Republicans in his district turned really quick Like, as soon as this stuff started coming out, they started turning on him.
And then, the local Republicans in New York took a while to convince the National Republic.
But the ones right there, the closer you were to him, the faster you turned.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:50]
| More radioactive. Yeah, you know, it was like, the Board of Stench was like, eww!
|
Sam:
[1:29:54]
| Exactly. And so I got to think this is a democratic pickup so that the, it'll probably stay at the Republicans now have a three vote margin instead of a four.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:08]
| And so wait, if, if they went pick up the seat, so does it turn it's just two?
|
Sam:
[1:30:13]
| Well, no, cause it's, it's, it's, it's if the Republican one, no, if the Republican one, it would be four back to four.
If the Democrat, it would be three. It doesn't go to two right wait, okay Math math is hard, No Right now No, it turns to two.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:37]
| Okay right now They have a three vote margin because they lost them because it just got taken out But if you add them to the other column, okay, it turns into a two vote margin.
|
Sam:
[1:30:47]
| Yeah, okay. Yep Yeah So a two vote margin.
And Johnson's having such a great time anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:57]
| Yes. Working out well.
|
Sam:
[1:30:59]
| Because this is his this is his a big success for him, right?
Oh, wait. He wanted to keep Santos.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:05]
| He wanted to keep Santos.
|
Sam:
[1:31:06]
| And his a majority of Republicans voted against it anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:12]
| Right. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:31:13]
| I think it was a majority. Just barely. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:15]
| Barely. Of the Republicans. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:31:18]
| Um, so yeah, it'll be fun in New York.
Oh, and, and of course, you know, people are like, oh, is Santos going to go home and just be all happy now?
No, he's under federal indictment. He's not going to be happy either.
Now he may try to skip the country.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:35]
| Possible. Is he a US citizen?
|
Sam:
[1:31:38]
| Well, yes, he's a US citizen, but.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:40]
| Well, no, because I mean, I thought, you know, because I mean, well, okay, let me change that Again, it is he has citizenship anywhere else. Does he have a dual? Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:31:48]
| Yeah, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:49]
| Now, OK, I'm checking.
|
Sam:
[1:31:51]
| I mean, he certainly lives other places like he was in Brazil for a long time.
Does he have Brazilian citizenship?
|
Ivan:
[1:31:58]
| Yeah, but of course, he's indicted in Brazil. So that doesn't really.
|
Sam:
[1:32:00]
| Yeah, that's right. He's indicted there, too. What a shame.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:03]
| Yeah. Oh, God, I forgot about that. Well, let's see, George, I think both of them is a.
Fatima. Both who were born in Brazil, also were born in Brazil.
Santos has claimed dual citizenship.
|
Sam:
[1:32:22]
| He does? Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:24]
| Now, yeah, but, but of course, this is Santos. In 2013, a Brazilian court described him as an American.
So I, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, who knows what citizenship?
That this guy has, I have no idea.
|
Sam:
[1:32:45]
| He's probably got like the desk drawer full of passport.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:49]
| Oh, fuck. Yeah. But the hell for all we know.
|
Sam:
[1:32:53]
| Uh, anyway, I'm sure they'll be watching it.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:56]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:32:57]
| Okay. That was short. Yvonne pick another.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:59]
| All right. Let's pick something else. Let's pick.
|
Sam:
[1:33:01]
| And then that'll be the last.
Uh, because we don't want to do another like two hour and 15 minutes show.
We've been going long lately.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:10]
| So we don't, we don't.
|
Sam:
[1:33:12]
| Oh, our official target remains between 90 and 120 minutes.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:18]
| Well, all right. Well, let's talk about the other one. So I started I'd mentioned this in the in the pre show, but now it's just your Kissinger died. Yes.
So, man, he was what? How old was he again?
|
Sam:
[1:33:35]
| One hundred.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:36]
| Geez. I think as I was mentioning before.
It's when I go back to look at his record and the things that happened during his time.
It, it, it, it, that's the reason why I was mentioning about how much bad shit used to happen and how I, I, I see so many young people being so pessimistic.
About everything because there are a lot of bad things that I understand that we've got a lot of challenges I get that but and people including you know I feel like there's people on the far left and the far right that all romanticize what life was a hundred and fifty two hundred three hundred years ago it was shit it It was shit. It was shit.
|
Sam:
[1:34:39]
| I mean, and in a lot of ways, even when we were kids in the eighties, it was pretty damn bad, especially if you weren't like a rich white male.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:48]
| Right? I mean, it was shit. I mean, the sixties were not peaceable years, man.
This was not an age of, of love.
This was an age of fucking presidential assassinations, of assassinations of all kinds, of riots and mass street violence, of violent protests and clashes, of wars, bad wars, not just the Vietnam War, there were a whole bunch of other hot wars all over the world.
|
Sam:
[1:35:25]
| And by the way, I just realized, I said it was pretty damn bad if you weren't a rich white male.
I should have said a rich white straight male.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:35]
| Right! Straight male! Fuck! Talk about gay rights! I mean, Jesus!
And so, you know, reading, you know, that's what I was, you know, went back and al franken reminded me i'm like of some of the tactics that were being used in world war two and desert shit that henry kissinger like put.
Push forward and i was like just reading about that christmas.
A fucking christmas bombing like in seventy two after you know after nixon got reelected and i was like holy fucking hell well someone put out.
|
Sam:
[1:36:06]
| Okay, a nice summary. This was from Delianne at tech.lgbt on Mastodon, but how various news organizations described Henry Kissinger in their announcements and obituaries and such.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:22]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:36:23]
| So this is good to read. BBC, sometimes controversial, Reuters, diplomat and Nobel winner, CNN, a dominating and polarizing forth.
Politico, America's...
|
Ivan:
[1:36:38]
| I think Sienna nailed it.
|
Sam:
[1:36:39]
| Politico, the one that nails it is last. Politico, America's most famous diplomat.
NBC, former US Secretary of State.
New York Times, shaped Cold War history. Wall Street Journal, helped forge US policy.
AP, ex-Secretary of State. CNBC, towering American diplomat.
ABC, former Secretary of State and presidential advisor, France 24 giant of space, space, spacecraft, France, France, 24 giant to do with this.
Oh, spacecraft, not spacecraft.
That was not like my shut. It's kind of like my shuttle, the hill, American diplomat, Washington Post shaped world affairs under two presidents, NPR, are legendary diplomat and foreign policy scholar, but then...
The one that was just out there, and Onion did pretty good too, but Rolling Stone, their headline, Henry Kissinger, war criminal beloved by America's ruling class, finally dies.
And then the actual article is by Spencer Ackerman.
And unlike a lot of these other places, they made a mention of the controversial stuff and some of the stuff you were talking about, about bombings in Cambodia, et cetera, but this, the Rolling Stone.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:08]
| Well, hell, I was just talking about the Chris. I didn't even get into the camp.
|
Sam:
[1:38:11]
| Oh, yeah, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:12]
| Bombing. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:38:13]
| So, but the Rolling Stone article just pulls no punches at all.
Talking about, you know, how by, by, yeah, how many it was millions.
Like the number of people that you could reasonably argue died because of Henry Kissinger is immense.
Like, yeah, he may not quite up. He may not quite be up there with like Stalin and Pol Pot, but he's getting damn close, you know?
So I mean, I, you know, and of course, it wasn't all him. Nixon had to say yes. Ford had to say yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:53]
| You know, of course, of course. Yeah. I mean, you know, you had I'm looking through a whole bunch of things like the Chilean coup d'etat, for example.
I mean, that was a big one. Also, you know, I talked about the Argentinean military dictatorship, how they, you know, they were also like supporting the military regime and like their dirty war were all these all the people who disappeared in Argentina as well. They supported that.
I mean, look, they they set back.
I mean, they really in terms of this whole thing where.
I think what was it wasn't the Monroe Monroe talk about about the Americas where everybody else hands off and the United States basically did quite a lot of like shitty things in a lot of these countries in terms of, you know, subverting democracy and, you know, supporting brutal dictators in in support of American foreign policy.
And I mean, you can make all the excuses that you want for it, but a lot of it was just shit.
|
Sam:
[1:40:01]
| Here's the relevant paragraph from the Rolling Stone article.
The Yale University historian Greg Grandin, author of the biography Kissinger's Shadow, estimates that Kissinger's action from 1969 through 1976, a period of eight brief years when Kissinger made Richard Nixon's and then Gerald Ford's foreign policy as national security advisor and secretary of state met the end of between three and four million people.
That includes crimes of commission, he explained, as in Cambodia and Chile, and a mission like greenlighting Indonesia's bloodshed in East Timor, Pakistan's bloodshed in Bangladesh, and the inauguration of an American tradition of using and then abandoning the cards.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:49]
| No, boy.
|
Sam:
[1:40:50]
| But to be to be fair, I mean, I'm sure you could argue the number, but it was high.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:57]
| Yeah. Well, to be fair, you would have four billion. He's still well below that compared to Stalin.
Now, come on, be a break. Stalin killed like 50 million people. OK, all right.
|
Sam:
[1:41:06]
| You know, OK, but once once you're measuring in the millions, once you are measuring in the millions, you know, Well, it's pretty bad.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:17]
| Okay. Yeah. No, I get it. But, but, but in a lot of, you know, it's just, it's, it's bad.
It's, it's bad. Okay. And it, you know, I do think that that was also a product of how, whatever the fuck reason people thought that that's the way to conduct foreign policy at the time.
|
Sam:
[1:41:38]
| Well, this is another thing where the cold war, the cold war mindset was very much, Yeah, it's an existential struggle and we have to do what we have to do, right?
You know, and there's no time for niceties and worrying about this shit and to bring it back to the modern day, too.
That's the same kind of arguments you hear from Israel right now about why they have to do what they're doing in Gaza.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:03]
| I, you know, no fan, really, of much of the shit that he did.
|
Sam:
[1:42:10]
| I had to do a paper on him in college. Did you have to do the paper on him, too? Like, I think we were in the same class.
Like, I don't think I don't think we may have had. We had different topics to pick, probably a different topic.
My my my topic was something like is Kissinger the.
The grand smart statement or whatever that he's made out to be or something because you know, his reputation was always controversial.
But I think over the last one or two decades, it's gotten progressively worse as the awareness of everything he did, the understanding of everything he did.
And frankly, also like where here or there, there's something good he did.
Those are getting washed out and saying, well, okay, maybe he did this thing, But on the balance of the scales against all this other stuff, who cares?
You know, whereas back when he was back when this was live and this was going on, lots of people would point to, oh, look how smart he is.
The about doing dealing with the balance of power between the east and the west and and managing this crisis and that crisis and blah, blah, blah.
I think that's the kind of stuff that is.
Gets forgotten just because on balance, the horrible things went out.
It's unclear whether the good things were really all him either.
Maybe you could claim the bad things aren't either, and it's not individuals.
It's the whole system and how it was acting at that time.
Like I said too, it's not like Kissinger could do something without Nixon and Ford greenlighting it too.
But, you know, and Nixon had a pretty bad reputation, but Ford, you know, people say lots of good things about Ford, but a lot of this happened during his administration too.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:08]
| Yeah.
Well, I mean, we also, one of the things that he was architect of was the China opening.
And so a lot of people talk about how that was, it probably has been a positive.
|
Sam:
[1:44:24]
| It was one of the major, like, yeah, I almost mentioned it when I was talking about the, the positive things that people say he pulled off, you know, I mean, you could argue that we screwed Taiwan at that point, but yeah, at the same time, like.
Potentially good things came out of that.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:42]
| It would stabilize, but Taiwan at that time also was a dictatorship too.
I mean, let's be clear about that. Not exactly like really.
|
Sam:
[1:44:49]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:50]
| Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, on, listen, in, as we have examined his record, you know, it with with a deeper understanding of what happened during that time.
It's become far clearer that quite a big number of things that he supported were abhorrent.
And, you know, his method of conducting policy was one that.
Caused a lot of death. It's a lot of repression and death.
|
Sam:
[1:45:24]
| Mm hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:25]
| And so he's now that.
|
Sam:
[1:45:29]
| All right, just just to flip side that Rosalyn Carter died to.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:36]
| Oh, that's right. Rosalyn died this week to forgot about it because this happened later.
|
Sam:
[1:45:42]
| And yeah, and Rosalyn from all reports was not a war criminal and monster.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:49]
| Not as far as I know. No.
|
Sam:
[1:45:51]
| And we had our funeral. We had a few pictures of Jimmy Carter, who's obviously not doing well either. I mean, he's he's been in the hospital for nine months, so it's kind of remarkable.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:01]
| He's still with us at all, but he didn't look good, but I know he's been in the hospital.
|
Sam:
[1:46:06]
| Yeah, so. But you know.
Yeah, well, I mean, he's 99 too. He is. Yeah, he's he's pushing 100 as well and.
Good long life.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:20]
| Well, this week, talk about another like, you know, almost centenarian that that died this week, you know, this a Lieutenant of Warren Buffett, uh, Charlie Munger also died this week and he was also 99 right as well.
Oh, I mean, a lot of people, you know, have a big distaste for, for, for them, but I, I, I think that they, you know, one of the few people with a lot of money, a like Warren Buffett's been one that's been trying to give away his entire fortune and Munger said, well, I didn't give away my entire fortune because my his wife that I'd already passed away said, you can't give everything away. You need to live something for the kids.
OK. And he was like, OK, fine, I'll give. Oh.
I will, I will honor her request to leave to the kids. But, but, wow.
|
Sam:
[1:47:16]
| Yeah. But even there, it's like, what exactly is something you could leave something to your kids that sets them up quite nicely without leaving them billionaires.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:24]
| Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, you know, she, you know, Hey, you get into an argument with your wife about how much to leave the kids. Okay. All right.
I'll see what that I'll see.
I'll see how you win that one. Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:47:36]
| Well, my, my, my wife is on the give everything away. side.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:39]
| So I'm saying yes, but that's my point. If she's insisting on that, that's what's, that's what's going on.
So therefore what I'm saying is that you get into an argument about that.
I'll see how that plays out. Okay.
So, you know, but, but I think the one thing is that unlike a lot of billionaires, you know, these guys have been ones that have heavily criticized us taxation policy as not being aggressive enough to people like them that earn more money.
And have advocated significantly for higher taxation of rich people, they have like flatly said it.
So unlike a lot of his brethren, I give him credit because they actually out there and did support the Democrats on that, did support Biden and basically said, fucking, you know what? Tax us more.
Take the money.
You know, make the people earning less pay less. Yes.
So that's one thing that they've been very openly advocating.
|
Sam:
[1:48:45]
| Although, although as people have pointed out, there's a place that you can just donate money straight to the federal, you know, he's not saying it about them, he's saying it about a general tax, everybody, the fuck, if you want to contribute money directly to the, the main federal budget, you can do so.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:06]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all the billionaires are going to line up and do so like right away.
|
Sam:
[1:49:12]
| Pay extra.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:13]
| Tax them.
|
Sam:
[1:49:13]
| Pay extra on your taxes and refuse the refunds.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:17]
| Yes, yes, yes. Of course. Yes. A lot of people lining up to do that right now, as we speak. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:49:22]
| I know that's what I do every year.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:24]
| Yes, of course.
|
Sam:
[1:49:25]
| Uh huh. Uh huh.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:27]
| All right, we're done.
|
Sam:
[1:49:29]
| What? We're done. OK, everybody. Oh, I will start. I mentioned this on.
I did an insert in last week's show because I forgot to mention it in person.
So I will start out our end of the show thing with reminding everybody that the last show of the year will be a prediction show.
And as we have done the last couple of years, I have set up a Google Doc for people to suggest questions or suggest things for us to predict.
It's at tinyurl.com slash ccpred2024.
And I am looking at it right now. And even though I mentioned it last week on the show, nobody has added any questions yet.
So I'm gonna be bugging you every single week until the prediction show to go to that Google Doc and add some things for us to predict.
Obviously, there are obvious questions and there are the kinds of questions we do every year.
And if nobody suggests them, I will fill in the blanks with other things.
But I wanna start with listener suggestions. What kind of things do you wanna hear us talk about?
So again, that's tinyurl.com slash ccpred2024.
And yeah, add your questions, Sign your name to them so we can credit you.
And that's coming up in just a few weeks. We always do the prediction show.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:58]
| The last one to be my first prediction, Sam pain. That's right.
|
Sam:
[1:51:03]
| Always pain. Anyway, the prediction show will be the last show of the year and absent some mega breaking news, the first show of the new year will be evaluating how we did on our 2023 predictions.
So anyway, go, go, go to the thing, tinyurl.com slash ccpred2024, and add some questions. If anybody has any trouble getting to that, do let me know. And aside from that, our usual curmudgeon-corner.com, you, can find all the ways to contact us. You can find all our archives.
You can find transcripts of recent shows, all that fun stuff.
And of course, you can find our Patreon, where you can donate cash money to us, especially if you're Warren Buffett and you're out there listening.
So at various levels, we will mention you on the show, we will ring a bell, we will send you a postcard, we will send you a mug, and very importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if...
You ask nicely, we will invite you to the curmudgeon's corner slack where Yvonne and I don't ask nicely.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:09]
| Look, I mean, it's okay.
|
Sam:
[1:52:10]
| Yvonne always wants to make it clear that you can ask meanly as well.
And we will probably still let you on.
We will invite you to the curmudgeon's core slack and you can join Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners as we share news links and chat throughout the week.
So Yvonne, how about one really compelling, fun thing that we shared on their convergence corner slack that we have not talked about on the show and we'll make people really, really want to join us on.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:39]
| Well, there was a video clip this week going around about Elon Musk at this conference where, well, he told advertisers that they were going to, they didn't want to advertise on X to go fuck themselves. Okay.
And you repeated it and left the audience stud that said, really, you don't want us to advertise with you.
But that wasn't really the clip that I shared. Now, what is that there is this clip where he's being interviewed by the New York Times and CNBC correspondent Andrew Ross Sorkin about this.
And during the interview, Elon Musk, who sounded a little bit shaky because I think he's a little bit shaken about these comments, he said, Well, why am I here?
You know, I didn't die except the speaking fee.
No, I'm here because my friend here, Andrew. And, you know, because, you know, you, you, my friend, Andrew, you invited me here and he had to.
No, it wasn't. It's Andrew. So, you know, he called him Jonathan, my friend here, Jonathan.
And he had to correct himself. Well, my name's Andrew, but and that was just.
|
Sam:
[1:53:47]
| Yeah, perfect.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:49]
| Yeah, he doesn't know that. Yeah, he didn't know who the fuck he was talking about. Friend, I was here because my friend invited.
Fucking bullshit. So, yeah, he is he senile, too, you know, because this is like the thing that they keep like ripping Biden when he gets names confused.
It's like, is that, you know, is this qualify as being senile?
So do we need to have him do that?
Was that test that Trump always keeps the man woman TV camera thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So should we have him do that test to that that Trump rags that he passed the door, you know, I mess up names all the time.
|
Sam:
[1:54:28]
| I mess up my wife's name, son's name.
I call my son by the dog's name. I call the dog by my son's name.
This stuff happens all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:38]
| Well, I'm not that bad.
|
Sam:
[1:54:39]
| I am. I definitely am that bad all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:45]
| Jesus Christ.
|
Sam:
[1:54:46]
| I'm not good. I'm not good with names.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:49]
| Let's get your cognitive. Let's get your cognitive. We need to schedule a cognitive test right away.
|
Sam:
[1:54:55]
| I would fail.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:57]
| Oh, great.
|
Sam:
[1:54:58]
| Utterly. I would fail utterly. I have no memory at all. Can't remember a damn thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:04]
| Well, that's been established.
|
Sam:
[1:55:06]
| Okay, so I'm going to close up now and say goodbye.
Remember everybody, right after the end, I'm going to play one more of those things about don't die for me, Donald Duck.
The one after the outro is going to be one where I told Jet...
I told... don't tell? Okay, well you guys will figure it out.
Okay, we'll talk to you next week. Goodbye!
Okay, now the outro is not gonna play. Oh wait, wait, you know, stupid thing worked for most of the show.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:46]
| We know we don't have video, but I mean, I'm looking at this tape delayed video of you there of you over here, so OK, well.
|
Sam:
[1:55:54]
| I will. I'll add it in post. Here's the outro.
And now, here's the song. We're going to make Yvonne cringe in pain again.
|
SamGPT:
[1:56:38]
| Don't die for me, Donald Duck. Just let it be.
In your sailor suit waddle on, be carefree.
The quacks that echo in your animated soul.
No need for battles, just let it all roll. Let it be! Let it be!
Donald Duck, be free!
In the cartoon realm where you're meant to be, Let it be!
Let it be! Your feather's in the breeze, no need for strife, Just quack with ease.
Through Duckburg and realms of imagination, Your antics and adventures a joyful sensation.
No need to fight.
Let the laughter unfurl. In the animated kingdom, be the happiest duck in the world.
Let it be! Let it be! Donald Duck, be free!
In the cartoon realm where you're meant to be. Let it be, let it be, your feathers in the breeze.
No need for strife, just quack with ease.
The waves of animation, the magic in your stride.
Don't sacrifice for battles, let joy be your guide.
In the animated symphony, be the melody. Don't die for me, Donald Duck, just let it be. Let it be!
Let it be! Donald Duck, be free!
In the cartoon realm, where you're meant to be. Let it be!
Let it be! Your feather's in the breeze.
No need for strife, just quack with ease.
So waddle on, Donald, let the adventures unfold, no need for wars, let joy be untold, in the animated fantasy just be, don't die for me, Donald Duck, let it be!
|
Sam:
[1:59:03]
| And that's it.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:05]
| Oh my god, that was so bad.
|
Sam:
[1:59:08]
| Thank you, everybody. Be safe. Have a good week. We'll talk to you next time.
Goodbye. Say goodbye, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:17]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[1:59:18]
| Okay, I'm hitting stop.
| |
|
