Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:01]
| Hello, Bob. Are you, are you in your car? Okay.
|
Ivan:
[0:09]
| It's the only location that really could afford me a decent, amount of quiet and peace and comfort. Yes.
I will say that my back has been killing me because I no longer have an office And I've been working at all sorts of, cause you haven't had a proper chair, a proper everything.
And my back is killing me.
And, um, sitting in my car with a heated seat on is, oh yeah, there you go.
|
Sam:
[0:47]
| Beautiful.
|
Ivan:
[0:47]
| That that's, that's actually good. That this is, this is actually good.
And since of course, thank God they have a pretty good load of electric.
I'm not, you know, not, not, not, I'm not, I'm not burning gas to do this either.
|
Sam:
[1:00]
| You're, you're not burning gas, you're not worried about your phone battery running out, none of that stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:07]
| Nope. No, none of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:10]
| And let me test talking one, two, three. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Hello. Hello. Hello. One, two, three. I'm fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:16]
| Okay. All right. So let's go. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:18]
| Because yeah, with all those preliminaries out of the way, shall we start?
|
Ivan:
[1:23]
| Go. Yeah. Let's go and just normal alternate.
|
Sam:
[1:27]
| Blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28]
| Yeah. Yeah. Go. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:30]
| Okay. Okay. Let's see if the, the media stuff works today or whether I just forget about that. Here we go.
Welcome to curmudgeon's corner for Saturday, December 16th, 2023.
It is 3 2 1 UTC, which is like so special 3 2 1 3 21 Wow Yes, 3 2 1 contact.
Yes, I'm Sam Andrew, Yvonne Bow is here.
Yvonne Bow may sound a little bit different because his office is still a disaster and he is in his car. Hello Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[3:09]
| Yvonne Bowman. Sam Injury. Hello. Hello. It's not a disaster now.
Now the, what right now, the main thing that's going on right now is that they They applied a coat of, Well, they Applied a wood stain and then on top of that you got a ceiling and so that that was you know They had done it They had done it earlier.
It didn't come out right? Okay And so they had to do it again.
So that meant they had to sand the floor again and redo it And so they, they, they redid it, it came out fine.
And so it's a, let it dry.
Now, one thing that also happened is that, well, what we had, we had discussed this and we had planned to stay there and sleep, but no, by the way, we're alternating topics, apparently Yvonne's first topic is just his office.
|
Sam:
[4:13]
| So go keep, keep going. Sorry.
|
Ivan:
[4:15]
| Yeah. Well, well, well, well, the thing is. situation. This is the situation.
I'm at the parking lot of a hotel. I'm not even at home. Okay.
|
Sam:
[4:23]
| Oh, okay. Because with all the smells and stuff from what you were talking about.
|
Ivan:
[4:28]
| Yes. Because there was sanding and drilling and doing and painting and all of this shit.
Manu woke up the other day with a sore throat and I was like, well, we can't do this.
And so now, you know, so so yeah, I'm I'm in the parking lot of a hotel I I mean I couldn't really find a good spot in the hotel that was quiet, And so I decided to to go out to my car plenty of electric charge on the car, I was like, you know I'm like I at least my back is appreciating this because You know, multiple people have remarked for decades, okay, that I have a Volvo and that Volvo has a reputation for making the most comfortable seats for cars, okay?
|
Sam:
[5:22]
| And you have spoken many times before about being really picky about this.
And like, you have like an extra little thing to support your legs and, you know, all kinds Yes.
|
Ivan:
[5:34]
| It's very important, okay? And so my back because I have not been at my ergonomic Regular working position has gotten to the point that it was killing me.
Okay, and so yeah Me sitting here now with my heated seat turned on, Adjusted into a comfortable position is actually pretty heavenly right now Now the one thing that is a debt that is a little bit off-putting right now is that there is some kind of windstorm outside with winds gusting north of 40 miles an hour okay yeah I heard something about a near a near tropical storm heading your direction I don't know that this is a tropical storm there isn't no it's not it's not an actual tropical storm they they said the description I heard and I did not click into any of the headlines was simply that a storm with a strength similar to a tropical storm may be threatening Florida.
|
Sam:
[6:40]
| That's all I heard.
|
Ivan:
[6:41]
| Okay, so it's been ungodly windy, okay?
You know, I mean, it's been crazy windy, okay, outside.
I mean, the car is actually being moved a little bit by the wind, okay? That's how strong the winds are right now.
So, yeah, so I'm out here, you know, in this parking lot, not too far from my house, actually, the hotel.
Hotel the other thing by the way i wound up the how the place was almost well i couldn't use the office which that was a problem i would have to figure out something right anyway i had some options so you go you go to use our conference room that we have right i could have it could have done that you know last resort right now at this point it's a pain in my ass but i was like you know but but but you know but manu was wanting to stay at the hotel for another night i like Like, for the love of God, we're going to stay in a fucking hotel for another night.
We're only like four miles away from my house. We're going to stay in a hotel for another five.
Stay in a fucking hotel for another night. But the thing is, I should be there back in tomorrow.
Okay? So, yeah. So, a lot of complications.
|
Sam:
[7:59]
| And is it looking good? Is it looking good?
|
Ivan:
[8:02]
| It is looking quite good right now. I must say that at some point I was like quite nervous but it is looking quite quite good right now what was that, it is you know I mean it's the office is ready to receive the furniture when it gets here, it's supposed to be it's not actually complete complete you don't have the furniture and stuff yet you've just it's just like the painting and the finishing and all that kind of crap is done now and now it's ready correct yes right right now it's ready yeah because the thing is remember yeah i had the first problem which is getting the furniture out and as i had originally predicted, there was no way to to get that furniture out they literally had to hack it apart, there was no other way of getting it out how'd they get it in without hacking it apart.
|
Sam:
[8:57]
| Because you'd think if they can get it in, they can get it out, right?
|
Ivan:
[9:00]
| I believe there was a couple of things about that.
One thing was it was professional movers, okay, which we didn't hire for this, okay?
And those guys had some extra equipment that allowed them to do that in that moment.
The second thing is that the place was completely empty, okay?
Which that also allowed to be able to maneuver to in and out a lot easier, okay? That was the other thing, okay? OK.
And the third is that I remember that they also had to remove the doors off the hinges.
|
Sam:
[9:31]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[9:32]
| Right. And so those guys, as the movers, knew how to easily do that.
And so without the special equipment, without being able to remove the hinges, without a completely clear pathway with none of the other stuff that was in the middle to do so, it was just it was impossible.
Possible gotcha and so they topped it up into pieces and it's all scrap wood now yeah basically yeah okay i said yeah yeah i mean it's well 25 plus years with it yeah pretty sure but, but you know that's a decent long time i mean you know hey yeah i mean it definitely look it It was good stuff.
I mean, you know, last, you know, I mean, there is this thing about society and stuff about the talk about fast fashion and some other stuff or whatever, like stuff that you go through so quickly that really you're increasing environmental footprint because you're just, you know, oh, yeah, they may have been like.
Quick and cheap but you know you're going through so many of these that you have to replace it every two years or something right and it's just you know that's that's not good so yeah i did you know i did use some trees back then but you know it was 25 years i mean we could have i'm sure that whatever we chopped regenerated we regenerated many times in that time frame that that's sustainable, okay, you know, when that's, you know, in that time frame.
By the way, I just realized that this year, it's the first year, my entire family went artificial trees.
|
Sam:
[11:12]
| Ah, okay.
|
Ivan:
[11:14]
| They all just decided, you know, too much waste, better for the environment.
They all went artificial trees.
|
Sam:
[11:20]
| As you know, we have an upside down artificial tree that's now been there for like four years straight.
|
Ivan:
[11:26]
| Well, you have a permanent tree.
|
Sam:
[11:29]
| Yes, we have a permanent, artificial, upside-down tree.
|
Ivan:
[11:32]
| We have people complaining about decorating too early for Christmas, and you got people to show up for Easter, and you got a Christmas tree up.
|
Sam:
[11:39]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[11:40]
| Basically, yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[11:42]
| That tree has not come down in several years now, and I have no intention of it ever coming down again.
|
Ivan:
[11:48]
| Okay. So at home, basically, right now, tomorrow, God, I'm having somebody come in at 7 in the morning.
Oh yep yeah to to to scrub the place and and the reason for this is it's not just it's it's not just for my anal cleanliness part it's really more for manu's allergies okay there was a lot i mean i keep going through corner and corner there's dust and dust and dust and i'm just like look i i have I don't want him to get sick.
If it was just for me, I would not be doing this level.
I can do what I'm doing, but because of his allergies and because he was already showing that he wasn't handling well, I'm having that extra scrub done just to make sure that he's okay.
|
Sam:
[12:48]
| Gotcha. That makes sense. So next week we will have to get the report of how the new office actually is to be in.
|
Ivan:
[12:56]
| So the new office I will have, well, next week, what I will have is a folding.
A couple of folding tables.
|
Sam:
[13:05]
| Oh, you won't have the real furniture installed yet next week either. When's that?
|
Ivan:
[13:09]
| Oh God. No, no, no. Look here is at, at, at this, at the current plan that will go in January 4th. Okay.
And and and we decided also to replace the couches, okay All right, the couches as well, you know, don't be I I've had them for 18 years I have been wanting to replace them for a while, I mean, we've we've redone the cushions or whatever, but honestly the couch has gotten to the point that it's uncomfortable Okay, it really but my wife the other day remarked it before I had been thinking it for a while I hadn't said anything to her but she came to me and said oh god This couch is so uncomfortable to sit on I'm like, okay. All right, so it's not just me.
Okay So it's gotten to that point where it's just it's it's like you want to lie down to watch TV and you wind up It's you wind up in some sort of discomfort at some point.
Okay, and so yeah the couch, you know So I'm like right now I'm like that but here's a problem After going through the couches and what the hell couch we want The expected delivery date for the couch is April.
April okay yep april april see that would that would probably that would probably be enough for me to just say fuck it get a different couch i i try is furniture is furniture just all still backed up because there was a point where it was all backed up well i i believe that it's still a lot of it backed up because i saw a lot of delays now the one thing is that i i did because look And look, because I probably will, again, will keep this for like 15 to 20 years for sure, is that I, look, I actually, I wanted something that measured a certain specific length and width. Okay?
|
Sam:
[14:57]
| Okay. So which limits your selection or you have to do custom.
|
Ivan:
[15:01]
| Right. Which, and it was just, you know, I live in a condo. I don't want to live in a bigger place.
And I want it, want to turn into a bed. And I wanted to fit specifically certain dimensions.
And in order to get that, so we continued to save space, it was like the options, it wound up, man, I will say that over 90% of the ones I kept looking at, I had to discard. garden.
And I'm like, damn, too big. Damn, too big.
No, no, no, no, no. And I'm talking by like about 10 inches because a few extra inches made it that another piece of furniture wouldn't fit.
And I'm like, because what happened is that you would open the bed.
We wanted a sofa bed. Okay?
And all of those made it that if you opened the sofa bed, you couldn't open it with the two pieces there. And I'm like, fuck, well, that doesn't work.
And literally, I measured how the tolerance that I got right now with this one.
And it's basically two more inches on this one, and I couldn't open it.
Two more inches. So it was...
|
Sam:
[16:09]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[16:09]
| Well, look, like I said to my wife, look, we had not done anything even remotely like this in 10 years.
Okay? Last time we did something 10 years ago, we did the bathrooms, we did the kitchen, we did that stuff.
So now it's a decade. I guarantee you that nothing like this will happen for at least another decade.
|
Sam:
[16:31]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[16:32]
| That's our goal, like right now.
|
Sam:
[16:34]
| On our side we desperately need to replace our couches as well but our take is entirely different because we still have like between alex and the dog they destroy furniture quickly so my take on it is get something cheap that you don't expect to last a couple more than a year or two because Because the expectation is...
|
Ivan:
[17:00]
| Well, they're destroying it, yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:02]
| Yeah, so the expectation is whatever we get will be destroyed in maximum of two years.
So get something that you don't mind.
Like, okay, this is going to get destroyed and we're going to replace it in another two years. Oh, man.
|
Ivan:
[17:18]
| Listen, my current couches, okay, the couch and the chair have 18 years on right now.
|
Sam:
[17:24]
| Yeah, I can't even imagine. 18 years.
|
Ivan:
[17:28]
| I mean, yeah, it turned 18 years this October.
As a matter of fact, I was looking through and I found the American Express receipt through going through all the stuff. I found it. It was October of 2005 that I bought the car.
So, yeah, that's the one thing I'm like, you know, I'm taking the time to to go through this specifically because this thing will be here for at least at least a decade, at least a decade, probably 15 years.
|
Sam:
[17:53]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[17:54]
| OK, so I don't you know, I don't want to.
|
Sam:
[17:57]
| Want to repeat this again anytime soon okay yeah yep yep i i i understand yes it's an extremely first world problem i look forward to a time where i can get a couch that lasts longer than two years that are we've been we've been replacing couches every two to three years for for a while now and uh i would rather keep one longer and and so and like we've been alternating like this time it's my turn to pick the couch.
Last time it was Brandy's. The time before was mine.
So it's my turn to pick a couch when we do it. Now, of course...
|
Ivan:
[18:35]
| You know, I've seen some, you know...
|
Sam:
[18:37]
| I was just going to say, of course, Alex does not want to get rid of the old couch, but, you know, it's getting really bad. So it's time.
Sometime this year, or sometime in 2024, we will replace it.
|
Ivan:
[18:54]
| I will say that I've seen all these different things with like couches that they do right now. I did not pick any of these. Okay. Right.
|
Sam:
[19:00]
| You don't have USB ports in your couch and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[19:04]
| Oh, no, no. Like USB ports and speakers and things.
|
Sam:
[19:10]
| And like several couches ago, we got one with USB USB ports.
They broke within the first three weeks. We had it.
We got the, we said, okay, there was a warranty, right?
So we called him like, Like they sent us new USB ports for the thing, but like you had to install them yourself.
You had to take apart the couch, take out the old ones, put the new ones in. So we never did.
But I mean, and, and what I mean by like, they, they stopped working is like they, you know, if you have something plugged in and like a phone or something, and you pull on the phone, it just immediately right away, like yank the ports out of the side of the thing.
And it's just, or even if they were in it they were loose and they were bad you they were just shitty it was shitty ports it was shitty ports i mean and like look the couch was slightly yeah look the the usb ports were probably like 10 bucks out of the however many hundreds of dollars the couch was i remember but like yeah and the rest of the couch lasted a while it was fine i mean like we We have our issues that I described, but like the USB ports were just utter total crap.
They were like cheap, disposable, bad and broke immediately.
So like, and yeah, they sent us new ones, but I'm like, you're not even going to fix it for us.
You're just, here's a bunch of electronics, rip apart your couch and put in the new ones. I'm like, fuck you.
|
Ivan:
[20:38]
| Yeah.
So oh god, that's ridiculous. I remember I don't know why they'll couch warranties are so terrible I remember combine couch once that had some kind of like warranty that I bought or whatever and then what I asked for them to honor It it was something like that.
Oh, oh, I remember I think I moved and they said oh you moved out of our area So we don't we only cover it within X number of miles from our location and I was like, are you shitting me?
Nice So I guess you expect nobody to move, but anyway, so sorry, that drag this.
Okay. We need to move on. Some sitting in a car.
|
Sam:
[21:17]
| Are we done with furniture or we're done with furniture? Okay. I will do media for me.
There were a number of other like, but firstie things, but I'm, I want to get through the media backlog.
Anyway, this time around is a movie that we watched in May.
May, May 9th, this is the 2010 live action, Alice in wonderland with directed by Tim Burton and with Johnny Depp.
|
Ivan:
[21:50]
| Oh yeah. I think I remember, I think I, I mistakenly watched a few minutes of this thing.
|
Sam:
[21:57]
| Now there was a, there's a 2016 sequel as well, which is the Alice through the looking glass or whatever, but I'm talking the 2010 Alice in wonderland.
And I will get right to the point, thumbs down, this thing was utter crap.
It was horrible. It was horrible.
|
Ivan:
[22:17]
| I, I, well, that's what I remember. I watched a little bit of this and I was just like, I was like, this is just crap.
|
Sam:
[22:26]
| Like for one thing, it's, it's not a retelling of the original Alice story.
It's like sort of a, a grownup Alice goes back to wonderland or something like that. Or, or there's a series of Alice's.
I don't know, like the myth mythos around it was, but it's just, I did not like Alec.
I did not like Johnny Depp. I did not like, you know, his mad hatter or whatever just annoyed me.
It wasn't like, Oh, this is an entertaining man. Had her blah, blah, blah. I just found it annoying.
|
Ivan:
[22:57]
| Now, I, I really struggled to understand how this guy made a career, made hundreds of millions with the movie roles that he played. Yeah.
Because I mean, I, I didn't like any of them.
|
Sam:
[23:13]
| I was about to say, I was about to say generalizing it a little bit more.
I don't think I generally like the things that Johnny Depp plays, but specifically I did not like.
|
Ivan:
[23:25]
| It's not for you and me. It's it's not for you would be I mean, it's like my wife for example all these pirates of the caribbean movies and i've watched a few minutes of it and i'm just like, I don't want this. Can I, I don't, I'll read a book.
I don't know. Whatever. Just you watch them. Fine. I'm good.
|
Sam:
[23:46]
| Yeah. I mean, pretty much the whole time I was watching this, I was like, can I watch the old animated version instead?
|
Ivan:
[23:55]
| Like, you know, this is, and I'm looking at, and it's like, did this movie do where did this movie do very well in the box office, the film generated over 1.0.
|
Sam:
[24:07]
| Two 5 billion in ticket sales. It was the fifth highest gross.
It was the fifth highest grossing film during its run and the second highest film of 2010.
Also it was, it got three nominations at the golden globes, including best motion picture at the 83rd Academy awards.
It won best art direction, best costume design, best visual effects and other things as well. And I'm like, no, it was crap.
I'm sorry. You know, you know, okay.
Maybe some of the visual effects were okay. I don't know, but it's like, I couldn't get into the visual effects cause I was just distracted by the fact that I didn't like it.
It was just, you know, it, it tries.
And I think this is common through some of these other Johnny Depp films that you're talking about.
I mean, I don't know that it's, I certainly haven't watched everything he's made, but like, and, and Tim Burton for that matter, director Tim Burton, it's just, It tries to be intentionally edgy in a way that instead of entertaining me, just annoys me constantly.
|
Ivan:
[25:22]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. I'm with you.
|
Sam:
[25:25]
| And I know he's trying to like, be like funky and edgy and different and blah, blah, blah, but it's just annoying.
|
Ivan:
[25:33]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like annoying. Yeah. I'm with you a hundred percent. Okay.
|
Sam:
[25:38]
| And I know it's intentional. I know it's intentional. That's what they're trying to do. It's you know, but I, you know, like you said, not for me, obviously a lot of people liked it, but not me.
|
Ivan:
[25:50]
| Yeah, that's for sure.
|
Sam:
[25:51]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[25:53]
| Well, look, what the hell do we know? What's popular anyway?
Look at our podcast ratings anyway.
|
Sam:
[25:59]
| Oh yes. Our ratings. Yes. We're doing great.
Okay. I won't drag that out any longer. That's enough about Alice in Wonderland.
Um, eventually I'll probably watch the sequel anyway, but you know, that's enough for now.
Okay. Let's take a break and then when we come back, we'll, we'll keep doing the alternating topics for two more segments.
But as usual, we get sort of more newsy as the show progresses, excuse me, any costs.
Okay. We will be back.
|
Ivan:
[26:35]
| We've got a healthy show going on.
|
Sam:
[26:37]
| Yes, yes. We will be back after this.
And here we are here.
Okay, Yvonne, your turn. Something serious this time.
|
Ivan:
[27:42]
| Very serious. It very, very serious. Very, very, very, very serious.
|
Sam:
[27:50]
| Of course. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[27:51]
| Bridget Ziegler.
|
Sam:
[27:53]
| Who?
|
Ivan:
[27:54]
| You know? Okay. So Bridget Ziegler, she is, this is at our topic list.
It's called the hypocritical Florida threesome people.
|
Sam:
[28:05]
| Oh those people. Okay, right. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[28:07]
| Okay Yeah, those guys so it's yeah, so so so, We've got So, let's see, This is from Mother Jones This is pretty accurate as far as I think you know, Information that I know and it's called in the wake of a sex scandal a moms for Liberty co-founder career is crumbling Bridget Seigler stepped down from her job and the Sarasota school board chair called for her resignation, Okay, so this is one of these people that the Santas has been, supporting a lot across state boards in the state of Florida as Ron DeSantis basically has made a, incursion an attack on local governance across state universities and school boards.
He has picked, you know, for example, here right near our house is Florida Atlantic University, which is a university a lot of Florida state universities have in the last 20 years improved their educational programs, prestige, resources, where they are now.
Now, they used to be considered like just, you know, universities for people to go out on a beach.
And now they're nationally recognized in a lot of different areas and fields and nationally ranked, whereas most of them were not.
You know, but these are that means that they're elites now, Sam.
And so these elites are bad. OK, did you hear about this? That the elites are bad?
|
Sam:
[29:41]
| I've heard that elites are bad. I have heard this.
|
Ivan:
[29:44]
| Smart aliki elites. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So so so Ron DeSantis, who, of course, is not one of those elites.
I mean, he only went to Harvard.
Anyway, he you know, he despises these elites and therefore is out there trying to, you know, push him out everywhere.
So over here, for example, we've had a selection process for a university president that because the board decided that the guy that Ron wanted, which was completely incompetent for it, was not on the short list.
They have basically paralyzed the process for selecting a university president because nobody that was of any level of responsibility could have picked that incompetent fool for the job.
OK, and so also the university has been without a president, which is probably better than having stuck that moron as a president on.
And the board, you know, the board of trustees and the state have been in an impasse about it.
OK, so this is one of these people that is part of this entire effort.
And it all started first. Her husband first got accused of rape. OK, it came out.
And so there was this right accusation about this guy, and the guy was saying, well, no, the sex was consensual.
And then this woman saying, no, it wasn't. And then apparently, I don't know why this comes out, OK, that, well, they knew her and his wife knew her because they had a threesome.
Now, don't get me wrong. I've done it, and so I don't I don't have an issue with them. OK, but I am not one of these right wing people saying that all of this shit is bad.
OK, but but these guys with the purity and you can't have the sex and the whatever, whatnot, you know.
So so let me. But but these are the people that's the setup of the situation.
You've got a governor who is, you know, battling against against education.
Communication christian siegler and and his wife they both bridget siegler have been at the forefront of this because she is at the moms for she is a leader of this group called moms for liberty and christian just to make sure we just just to make sure we got this clear just to make sure we got this clear the wife is the head of the moms for liberty or the person they were having the affair with? Yes.
|
Sam:
[32:17]
| Okay. So it's the wife? The mom. And the person they were having the affair with, is she also involved in all these right-wing causes, or is she just some random?
|
Ivan:
[32:26]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no. She's some random person as far as I can tell.
I don't know what she's involved in. Okay.
But this is how this developed.
Last week, first, we had the rape allegations. So the story starts there.
It's been just a week since Christian Siegler, chair of the Florida GOP, was accused of raping a woman who was involved in a sexual encounter with him and his wife, Monster Liberty co-founder and Sarasota School Board member Bridget Segal.
Prominent florida republicans wasted no time They called from christian siegler to resign which he has so far refused to do which of course is a standard gop Procedure now.
It's like hey, we we have no shame. Okay. All right, you know that that should be like a banner for the gop Gop, we have no shame.
That should be on their on their t-shirts Now his wife is suffering from the consequences as well On Wednesday, the Daily Beast reported that the Leadership Institute, the conservative political training group where Bridget Seigler works as a vice president, had removed her profile from its website.
The group later confirmed that she had stepped out.
Lettered that day Sarasota School Board Chair Karen Rose, Sarasota is somewhere outside of, is a medium-sized town right outside of Tampa, okay.
Said in a statement that she planned to ask Bridget to resign from the board.
I am shocked and deeply saddened by the conduct and deplore the salacious news coverage.
I personally care about Bridget and her family and deeply regret the necessity of this course of action, but given the intense media scrutiny locally and nationally, her continued presence on the board would cause irreparably harmful distractions to our critical mission.", So, you know, I guess, You know, don't say gay don't say whatever blah blah blah I'm mom for Liberty, you know We are for all of these things where you can't talk about sex and whatever But of course we are forced to discuss in public that you know what you're having lesbian sex.
Okay, and With your husband at the same time and your husband apparently tried to rape the girl you had the lesbian sex with Uh-huh.
|
Sam:
[34:33]
| Yes.
And, look, again, the key here, again, is not that they were doing any of this.
Consensual adults doing whatever they want.
|
Ivan:
[34:48]
| Well, the rape. No, no, no. The rape is a problem.
|
Sam:
[34:51]
| Well, you're right. You're right. The rape was potentially nonconsensual, although I also saw a report that apparently there is video of that incident that, when reviewed, may look more like it's consensual.
But I don't know. That has yet to be litigated. And I think I saw that in one place only, so maybe it was bullshit.
So but in any case, the issue here, aside from the potential rape, because that's whole other ball of wax is that the absolute total hypocrisy of these folks, and specifically, let's make it more specific. It's like, It's this sort of, I don't know, is it self-loathing? Is it like, oh, well, we hate gay people, but, you know, yes, I had sex with a woman, but I'm not gay.
It's a completely different thing here. I'm, you know, because I'm talking.
|
Ivan:
[35:56]
| Look, it goes back. I remember, for whatever reason, it always goes back to this whole stories about J. Edgar Hoover and his persecution of gays.
And the fact that, you know, he's reputed to be gay himself.
And how it just turned into, it's a self-loathing. I think you hit the nail on the head, Sam, about the self-loathing. Absolutely.
|
Sam:
[36:19]
| You know, I think there's part of that, but I also think there's probably a denial aspect of it too, which what they're against is, well, they say all kinds of things, right? Right.
But it's like it's OK to do it in private, but they're against like showing people and, you know, and saying it's OK.
You know, you do lots of things in private that aren't OK. Right.
But that's it gets to the it's the whole puritanical nonsense anyway. It's not.
Yes, it's it's what they condemn these groups.
|
Ivan:
[36:56]
| They marginalize these groups. they make these people's lives miserable and repeatedly in ways and you know what in the you know in hiding they are hiding they're doing the exact same they are that and it has to yeah and it is a lot i mean it's hypocrisy it's a self-loathing it's also grifting as well yes i mean i i do think that a lot of these fucker fuckers are just massive grifters they have no scruples they don't care hey you know i'm on the board of this thing and the monster liberty and whatever.
How many of those do you think she's collecting a fucking paycheck and making a fuck out of all these speeches and shit that they're doing all over the place, man? I mean, seriously.
I mean, you know, how many of these GOP chairmen over here in the state of Florida, I don't know how many of them have been basically, you know, have been caught in scandals where they have been spending GOP money on their own shit, okay?
Using American Express card for the GOP like it's their personal amic. Right.
I mean, just like George Santos himself. I mean, all All these, you know, these guys, it's a fucking grift and it's a hypocritical grift. That's what I'm saying.
Oh, no. All this welfare or whatever.
We're giving all these people money. Why? Why are we helping them with their food and child tax credits?
Where, you know, you're over there. You're fucking like, you know, stealing the money.
So. So, yeah.
You know, it's always just, you know, I mean, same thing with Falwell, you know, and, and, and, you know, his cabana boy down here in Florida that he bought him a hotel for.
|
Sam:
[38:32]
| Yeah. I was going to say all those goddamn TV preachers going back to Jim and Tammy Faye and all those people, you know, all of like, I'm sure if you went back and did some research, search, you could find some that were not actually scandal plagued, but pretty much everyone you remember going back our entire life, 90% of them are just 90%.
First of all, every single one of them was grifting.
But beyond that, like there was also massive hypocrisy of them, them doing all the things that they were saying were evil, you know?
|
Ivan:
[39:10]
| It was a fucking grift. I mean, Pat Robertson, you know, I don't remember him being in any scandal like that, but the son of a bitch, you know, you know, made himself rich, really, really rich off this damn thing.
So, I don't know. Yeah, the hypocrisy continues. And yes, we've had a very interesting.
Scandal where we're talking about, well, you don't say gay, but, you know, unfortunately, we have to when it comes to the moms for liberty.
|
Sam:
[39:42]
| But again, you know, she, she has, look, she has no gay tendencies at all.
Yes. She had sex with another woman, but, but she was doing it for her husband with her husband.
So it doesn't count. It doesn't count.
|
Ivan:
[40:00]
| I mean, look, in the absence of this sounds like a really nice gesture, but you know, I mean, but, but, but, you know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[40:10]
| That's that's so nice of her but you know yeah yeah yes, yeah you you i you you hear these kinds of excuses every once in a while from like, from these kinds of hypocrites who are like well yeah that but that doesn't count, don't you know whatever come on oh we weren't in the same zip code you know yeah you know it was like the old excuse we weren't in the same area code the same zip code so therefore it wasn't cheating yeah what what that the whole like what what happens in vegas stays in vegas that kind of thing basically yeah yeah basically yeah yeah that's in vegas that doesn't happen i've still never been to vegas, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.
|
Ivan:
[41:03]
| Well, you know, I, I will say that the, I, I have been to Vegas several times.
I have not done anything remotely salacious, mostly just very dull.
My, my, my trips to Vegas have been for corporate conventions.
Yeah. And it's just been extremely dull. I mean, I just have not done it.
I mean, no, not nothing. No, no partying, nothing.
Usually I got there and I was like, jet lagged out of my mind, and I'm tired, and, you know, and we spend a whole day at a fucking event.
And because I'm going to be seeing customers or something like that during the day, I can't go out and party and get, get hammered and not wake up the next day.
Like I've, listen, I know some people that, I mean, look, there were the cases of these people that went there and all of a sudden, you know, The next day that where's this guy?
Where's this fucking guy and the guy, you know, apparently, you know It's staying out partying the whole time.
It just you know, you know, nobody could rise him from bed Yeah, but no if I went on one of those and I know that I gotta be on duty.
I was you know, I Basically just went the damn Hotel just I the only thing I did was maybe gamble a little bit And lose money at the casino and I'm like, usually because they're right by the elevators.
I'm like, I'll play a few hands of blackjack before I go before I go to bed.
Okay, that's it. That was the extent of my Vegas transactions.
Nothing very exciting at all. I lost money in blackjack in Vegas.
I know for sure I lost a whole bunch of money.
|
Sam:
[42:49]
| That's very exciting. You're fine.
|
Ivan:
[42:51]
| I mean, like several hundred dollars, not thousands. Yeah, yeah, nobody's excited about my me losing hundreds of dollars and blackjack tables in Vegas. No.
|
Sam:
[43:02]
| You didn't gamble your entire life savings?
|
Ivan:
[43:06]
| No, I'm not like the guy that I know that I stole, never forget this, at my cousin's wedding.
It was held at a ballroom that had a casino adjacent.
That the guy at the tables lost $40,000.
And his wife found out. And I mean, this was, oh my God.
|
Sam:
[43:30]
| God, his wife was not offering a threesome immediately after this.
|
Ivan:
[43:35]
| No, they was not being offered a threesome. I believe we were being offered a one.
|
Sam:
[43:42]
| OK, OK, shall we move on?
|
Ivan:
[43:48]
| OK. Yes.
|
Sam:
[43:51]
| OK, I'm going to start with one particular guy, but I think the topic can be more general of the various.
Ah mega real mega related legal stuff let's put it that way but i want to start so this is going to i i think we could generalize this category to count you know uh trump the hunter impeachment but i want to start with rudy where do we start rudy rudy yes go rudy buddy all right he won yeah he won he won his case right he got you know yes he's in the clear oh yes he's absolutely all good no look the the it had been determined a while ago that he was guilty the the case in question was the defamation case against the two Georgia poll workers.
I always forget their name. Ruby Moss and...
What's the other name? You know the other name?
|
Ivan:
[45:00]
| I don't know. I should, but I have no idea.
|
Sam:
[45:05]
| I will look it up because it feels like it deserves their names attached, right? Not just a generic.
|
Ivan:
[45:13]
| I agree. I feel bad that I don't know their names. I mean, yeah, sorry, ladies. They were ladies, right? I'm pretty sure I think it was, right?
|
Sam:
[45:21]
| Yes, they were. Oh, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shea Moss.
I'd combined the two to Ruby Moss, but it's Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shea Moss.
|
Ivan:
[45:33]
| Oh, you're a lot closer than I was. Okay.
|
Sam:
[45:38]
| In any case, they look, these are the ones that Rudy Giuliani was all over TV in December December 2020, talking about how they were cheating in various ways. They were hiding votes. They were adding votes.
One thing that kept driving me mad is he talked about them passing around USB ports.
|
Ivan:
[46:05]
| Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:06]
| Even if it was true, they're not passing around goddamn USB ports.
It would be like USB cards or something.
|
Ivan:
[46:13]
| Well, you got USB ports from your, well, you got USB, well, USB, no, USB, not USB cards, drives, drives, USB thumb drives.
But, you know, what are the drives, USB drives?
But, well, no, no, no, they, no, no, you don't understand. They had like your furniture.
So they went and they sent them USB ports.
Because he didn't know what to do. So they were very confused.
|
Sam:
[46:42]
| That's it.
|
Ivan:
[46:43]
| So in any case what they were actually was your damn shitty furniture company that went.
|
Sam:
[46:52]
| What they actually passed around were breath mints. Okay. And there's all kinds of other stuff.
|
Ivan:
[46:59]
| Wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes. No, no, that is some kind of James Bond type of data carrying device that you take data into your mouth.
|
Sam:
[47:11]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[47:11]
| That's how. Yes. Yes. That makes all the sense now, Rudy.
|
Sam:
[47:16]
| Anyway, Rudy talking about them led to all kinds of people threatening them, harassing them.
They were bombarded with death threats wherever they went in public.
People were going after them.
They had to go into hiding, all kinds of crap like this.
And so they sued Rudy for defamation. And then during the preliminary stages of this, Rudy absolutely refused to cooperate with discovery, giving any evidence, anything like that that is required.
So the judge basically said he did at one point, he did submit a statement basically saying for the purposes of these proceedings, he was not going to dispute that he lied about all this.
And it was false and untrue and blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[48:13]
| Right. It was some really twisted. It was some kind of really twisted statement.
|
Sam:
[48:18]
| Yeah the the actual wording of it was incredibly convoluted and right but the the basically if you read it simply it was like oh he admitted he lied but if you read it carefully he was just saying that he wasn't going to dispute that he lied for the purposes of this lawsuit and so everywhere else other than that statement he's been running around repeating the same shit and not at all admitting that it was false.
Right. But because he wasn't cooperating, and he got multiple fines and stuff for not cooperating with Discovery, but because he submitted this statement, the judge just declared, like, okay, the defamation happened.
Right. So the thing that went to the jury was not a question of fact.
It was not, did he lie? Did he defame these people?
|
Ivan:
[49:12]
| It was the damages. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[49:13]
| It was just the damages. And so they came out and the grand total was $148 million, which is way more than Giuliani is actually worth.
And Giuliani, the day before the verdict and right after the verdict, repeated all the crap against them again, said he didn't regret a thing because it was all true, et cetera, et cetera, which the judge said.
During the proceedings pointed out, you know, you're opening yourself up for more charges.
This is the same thing that Trump did with the rape allegations, which is as soon as he was found guilty and there was a verdict against him, he went right back out and repeated it.
There is another set of proceedings that he may get more money that he has to pay Yeah, because of that and Giuliani's doing the goddamn same thing and and two things here One thing that I found interesting was his lawyers closing statement basically, Sounded like from the descriptions I've heard I did not listen to it I don't know that they really I don't think they released audio, but from people who summarized it it really sounded like he was saying, Rudy's an old man He's stubborn. He doesn't know what he's saying.
Take pity on him Oh, fuck him.
|
Ivan:
[50:36]
| That would be my reaction.
|
Sam:
[50:38]
| And, and apparently that was the jury's reaction to good.
And look, honestly, Rudy, Rudy, it does seem to be deteriorating both physically and mentally.
It's like every time I see him, it's like worse, but you know, at some point you got to take responsibility for your actions anyway, and apparently the judge during this, when the defense lawyer was saying some of this stuff, basically asked, look, is he capable of understanding the proceedings and following instructions?
And it was like, it certainly appears so, yes. Okay, then forget all that, proceed.
Now the other thing is Giuliani's ability to pay and when this will happen, And they are of course going to appeal this, that will go on forever.
Even after appeals are exhausted, we've seen through the Alex Jones thing.
That's also going on that it can take years before any money changes hands.
|
Ivan:
[51:41]
| Now that's true, but, but, well, look, it really depends on the judge and also Rudy's ability to be able to defend himself against these charges because look, we know that Rudy has been running low on cash.
Okay, yes. So, so the reality is that, if if if he doesn't have He can't afford to pay the lawyers to stall.
Okay Right, um, they're gonna be able to start seizing this shit pretty quick.
Okay at some point That that's going to happen and so and, So he's exposed in that way because we know that rudy has been struggling to pay for his legal bills You know, people bring up the Alex Jones example, and it's taken several years, yes, it has.
And some people completely misinterpreted the, what was offered.
|
Sam:
[52:36]
| The settlement.
|
Ivan:
[52:36]
| I think not most, the settlement.
|
Sam:
[52:38]
| The proposed settlement, it's not, nothing's final.
|
Ivan:
[52:42]
| Right, nothing's final, because, you know, the one thing, what happens in a bankruptcy proceeding is that, you know, the trustee analyzes the assets that are available, and they propose either look do we need to is there enough income to be generated from these assets that we can have a payment plan or do we just need to liquidate okay and and you know just just liquidate everything and the thing is that the lawyers astutely went and said okay we'll do this.
You know, what we're going to do is, we can offer either to liquidate, to pay everything off, or we're going to make Alex give us a base payment of $9 million a year, and then 50% of everything over and above that.
The thing is, that according to all the financial data that was obtained, he had never even made like $9 million a year, it had been in the millions.
But but you know maybe say it was 13 or 14 so that meant that basically but in his expenditures were like 8 million or something he was been spending for his own you know personal expenses somewhere in the millions so what he would be able to earn was not enough to sustain his lifestyle and basically the first 9 9 million he made had to go to them.
If you needed 9 million to live, okay, right now, and your first 9 million don't go to them, but then you have to give them a half of everything above that.
It was basically making a calculation that he basically made like about 13 to 14 million a year.
So basically, of every dollar he made, he would have to turn over to them 80 cents on every dollar he made. it.
|
Sam:
[54:36]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[54:37]
| And so this puts him in this in this quandary of, wait a minute, I'm going to work for 10 years and basically all the money I make, I'm just giving it to them.
|
Sam:
[54:53]
| Literally close to that and I have to curtail my lifestyle like a, bite You know a ton But you think that you you think this will go more smoothly to get money out of Rudy than it has for Alex Jones because of he's He's unable to pay lawyers.
|
Ivan:
[55:11]
| I think that because Alex had more resources to be able to exactly so for For so rudy, he is going to get pretty quickly to the point where they're going to be able to enforce, You know the the the you know the judgment And he won't have the money to stop people from starting seizing shit from him, Okay, so they'll go and like, you know get his personal property his bank accounts whatever the hell that isn't protected They could start seizing pretty quick if he doesn't have the lawyers to be able to stall for solve further proceedings, They won't be able to start seizing shit based on based on the judgment now now buddy Vaughn Remember last time he was really tight for remember around last time.
|
Sam:
[55:57]
| He was really tight for money He asked Donald Trump for money.
Yes, and Donald Trump said no, but I'll hold you a fundraiser Oh, yes, and I think I heard a fundraiser race like two bits It was, I forget, but it was, it was an unimpressive number.
|
Ivan:
[56:15]
| If I remember, it was nothing you got, you get basically got him nothing.
He basically just left them twisting in the wind.
So nice of Donald always good.
|
Sam:
[56:26]
| Always good. Okay. So shall we move on from Rudy?
I know, I know I'm somewhat cheating by shoving some things together as sort of in the maggot idiots, but.
So, a couple Trump things, and then maybe we'll save Hunter and impeachment for later, I don't know.
But anyway, a couple Trump things, just to put them in here.
One, Donald Trump was going through the process of appealing his, notion to dismiss the case against him in D.C.
Because he's got immunity just because he was president, and it's absolute immunity, and, oh, also, by the way, the whole impeachment thing means this is double jeopardy.
And so the judge initially had said, yeah, no, this is bullshit, forget this.
So he's appealing that, and it's going through the appeals process, and everyone seems to think, and quote unquote everyone, like if you talk to, if you listen to and not talk to necessarily, if you listen to any of the lawyers who are talking about this online or on cable TV or anything other than MAGA lawyers, they will, they are all unanimously saying all of these arguments are complete and total bullshit.
The play here is just the delay.
He is going to lose every single one of these. He's going to lose at every level of the appeal.
And even if he takes it all to SCOTUS, he's going to lose at SCOTUS too, because even quote unquote, his judges have not been ruling in his favor when these kinds of cases have come to them.
You know, because, because the arguments he's bringing are just nonsense, you know, and don't have much legal weight behind them.
And like, one of the things about SCOTUS, he may be like, well, you owe me because I put you there, but these are lifetime appointments.
They don't need them anymore.
|
Ivan:
[58:33]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[58:33]
| They don't owe him Jack. Right.
|
Ivan:
[58:35]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[58:36]
| You know, so, and they have their own reputation.
They want to appeal. And yes, we've got a bunch of conservative judges with a really strong conservative agenda, but at the same time, They want to appear fair and legitimate and blah, blah, blah.
And so, so far, who knows? Maybe it'll change.
Maybe it'll change next time, but so far.
They very much have not gone for these kinds of things where the actual legal theory is nutso, but, and they just do it because it's Trump, right?
They have not done this so far.
|
Ivan:
[59:13]
| But one thing right now was, if I remember about this immunity case, was that Jack Smith went and decided that, I think somebody had put this in hold, and then Jack Smith went and decided, listen, let's go all the way to SCOTUS.
|
Sam:
[59:36]
| Right, right, right. Let me explain. This is the whole thing. This is a delay play.
What Donald Trump wanted was to take this to the circuit court and have them take their good old time to do this.
And then once they were done, they will undoubtedly say no to him and then take it to the Supreme Court and hope they take their good old time as well and delay, delay, delay as is as usual and push it out past the election.
That was the Trump game plan. Jack Smith called his bluff and basically petitioned directly to the Supreme Court, said, in essence, we know this is going to the Supreme Court anyway.
It will eventually get there. This is urgent. It is time sensitive.
Can you just take this case right now?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:24]
| Let's not fuck it around. And they said yes, is my understanding.
|
Sam:
[1:00:29]
| Well, not quite. They said, we want to hear the arguments.
They gave Donald Trump, Donald Trump's lawyers team, like a week, week and a half, something like that to come back with their arguments for why the Supreme Court shouldn't take this right now.
So they haven't actually said we will decide this yet. They are getting arguments from both sides.
They already have the one from the from the special counsel.
Now they want Donald Trump to present the case for why not to do this.
But they gave him a very short period of time to come back with that answer.
Then the supreme court will decide are we taking this right now or are we going to wait for the appeals process to bring it to us okay the fact that they asked donald trump to respond to this motion very very quick they they responded to the special counsel's request in four hours i mean right that's what i heard right they did not have to answer in four hours they could have taken their time.
But in four hours, they immediately said, okay, Donald Trump, tell us why we shouldn't do this.
And and now they're waiting for that. And then but it certainly seems like the court is on track to go ahead and take this.
In the meantime, the proceedings with the circuit court are are continuing.
And so they're they're both have they they've got a very tight schedule for briefing things in front of that court as well.
So right now it's going on two tracks. And if the Supreme Court decides to take it, the other one will probably look up.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:03]
| But he's an absent the political parties at play. Okay. All right, say we didn't know say it was president X or whatever whatnot.
I mean, if there is a case where it makes sense, then just go straight to code it. The SCOTUS. I mean, this is this is one of those.
There is no point of going through the rest.
This is something that the only reason to go through those is to get to SCOTUS.
So why the hell right? You know, are we doing this? We need to just go straight to scotus.
There is You know this screams like it should be I you know, so let's see what they decide.
I I It seemed like like like you said that they responded so quickly That it's like I think they're like ready to say. Yeah, we need to weigh in.
There's nothing, you know This is it is what it is.
|
Sam:
[1:02:56]
| It's see it certainly seems like this at this point and and to to our lawyer listeners and such, if I've gotten any of this wrong, please let me know.
But also what people were saying prior to this Jack Smith move was that of all the delaying tactics Trump has left on the DC case, this one was the most likely to cause a significant delay to the DC case because of the fact that the ongoing procedures of the case could be suspended while this was going on.
And they have been. Both the special counsel and Donald Trump's team and the judge, they all agreed, okay, yep, this should be suspended while these appeals play out.
But the Smith thing is basically saying, OK, fine, this trial, everything needs to be suspended while the appeals play out fine.
But in that case, let's make sure this goes as quickly as humanly possible.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:00]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:04:00]
| So we can get on with it. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:01]
| Right. Right. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:04:02]
| And look, if you know, if SCOTUS does suddenly agree with Donald Trump, that potentially kills all these damn cases, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:12]
| Well, here's the one thing, but it's OK. But understand, Right.
|
Sam:
[1:04:16]
| Very few people seem to think that's a real chance.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:19]
| And the president that it says that it sets is is wow.
I mean, oh, insane, insane.
|
Sam:
[1:04:27]
| Like, if you go with the theory that the president has absolute immunity for things he does in office, and he could only be charged with them after he's impeached and removed.
So like part of Donald Trump's theory is that the only way he could be prosecuted for crimes was if while he was in office, he was impeached, and then he was convicted of the impeachment, removed from office, and then you can charge him.
But because the impeachment wasn't successful, you can't do anything.
So if that was all true, then any president on the last day of their office could just go on a killing spree and be completely immune from any of it because, you know, because he's not going to get impeached and convicted and removed before he leaves office, you know, and it's, it's just, they're ridiculous conclusions.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:20]
| You can so basically the the the president could go The president like trump could go and like sit at the oval office and you know Right after not gonna beach go pull out his gun, Bring like 10 people to his office you I hate all of you. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Okay, that's it done Oh, i'm out of office.
|
Sam:
[1:05:39]
| Bye Yes I mean, And and look even if you didn't have that scenario the the whole idea of having the president not- Accountable to the law.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:55]
| Having no way to go after- There's no accountability to the president, period.
|
Sam:
[1:05:59]
| Yeah. I mean, and there have been some cases for civil accountability that say, for certain actions you take that are actually part of the job, maybe you have some immunity, but for things that aren't directly related for the job, you aren't.
And the idea that you would have a more immunity for criminal actions than for civil is also sort of nonsensical. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:28]
| So this is why, like, but we did establish, but we did, but, but, but that was like, it's kind of, you know, that's the type of like, you know, like I'm on the board of directors and association and, you know, I, I, I can't be, you know, You know, there is certain protections built into that referring to the decisions in terms of not that the association can't be sued for the decisions, but but that if I make a decision.
|
Sam:
[1:06:59]
| But you can't be personally.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:01]
| Yeah, typically, for the most part, I cannot be personally unless it was a crime.
OK, unless I was stealing money. But per se, because of a decision that we made that somebody, hey, you know, we made this decision in a certain way, something that's civil, you know, yes, you're right.
The association it is. But if I commit a crime, you know, outside of that, I don't have immunity.
If I steal from the association, I could be prosecuted. Okay.
You know, I don't have immunity. And to me, the presidential immunity is kind of like in that in that vein in terms of, OK, you know, because the president decided that they changed immigration law.
He can't be personally sued for the negative effect that had on a person.
OK. All right. You know, that's you know, that's the kind of of of legal protection we talked about.
But I think if I remember correctly, we had this whole thing with who was who was the one that was suing Clinton back in the 90s that I understood that the Whitewater stuff. No, no.
One of the women that tried to sue him personally was a Jennifer Flowers.
I think it was, you know, one of them tried to sue him personally or Paula Jones or one of those or Paula Jones. Right.
And those proceedings were able to continue even, you know, during the presidency.
And, you know, and he couldn't avoid he couldn't avoid that.
So I think that it's it's one of those things where.
I mean, we've established some of this before where just by being president, you know, Clinton wasn't immune from those, you know, civil actions.
|
Sam:
[1:08:44]
| DNA. Well, right. There has been a one of the reasons that this is going to SCOTUS is there has been precedent on civil cases.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:54]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:08:54]
| But this is the first time it's coming up for the criminal situation.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:58]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:08:58]
| You know, because we haven't had ex presidents doing this kind of shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:03]
| But my point, but my point is an example. It's like, it's like shit.
If I, if I, if I could be held, if I can be sued, lie, I mean, the protection for criminal is always less than the one for civil, right?
So if my point is if he's not protected from a civil action, how the fuck is he, you know, except from a criminal one?
|
Sam:
[1:09:25]
| Well, this is exactly like, this is exactly why the broad consensus is that on the merits, this is bullshit.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:36]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:09:36]
| And he will lose. And the only point of this was delay.
And so this action by the special counsel potentially neuters that delay and makes it so that the delay could be weeks instead of months.
Now, that all depends, though, on what, how SCOTUS does it. If SCOTUS wants to slow roll this, they could.
If, you know, if they want to make it go through all of the appeal process, and then once it gets to them, wait for the next session and blah, blah, blah, if they want to make it go slow, they could make it go slow, but all signs so far are they're inclined to go quickly too.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:17]
| Well, you know.
It'll be something to hear this soon.
|
Sam:
[1:10:24]
| Okay. One more Trump thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:27]
| One more Trump.
|
Sam:
[1:10:28]
| Yeah. One more Trump thing. One more Trump thing. And then I'll, you know, we'll take a break and I'll turn it over for you to pick the next thing.
And so you can decide whether we're going to talk Hunter and impeachment or not.
But the other Trump thing that came out just within the last 24 hours before we're recording is that I think CNN reported it first, but then it's been all over the place.
Related to classified documents, but not the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Apparently, ever since Trump left office, there has been an investigation trying to to locate the contents of a folder full of highly classified material that was related to all the Russian election interference from 2016 and the crossfire hurricane stuff and all this kind of stuff.
Apparently, one of the things that Trump and his administration were rushing to to do before he left office was unclassify a bunch of this stuff because he feels like it would exonerate him from the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Okay. Right now.
You can interpret that as you will. I think from everything that has been released publicly, you know, no, Trump was not directly on Vladimir Putin's payroll, but there was a lot of shady stuff going on related to Russia by a whole bunch of people, and that was a lot of it was laid out in the Mueller report.
And then there was a lot of stuff that Mueller was prohibited from getting into.
So there's more stuff surrounding it too. Anyway, Trump was trying to declassify a whole bunch of this stuff.
The intelligence community was like, holy shit, this is really sensitive stuff.
The sources and methods stuff here, you cannot make this stuff public.
And Donald Trump, and Donald Trump was like, I don't give a shit, I'm going to.
And Mark Meadows was involved in helping to shepherd this through.
Apparently in last week or two of the administration, there was a big effort to redact a bunch of this stuff so that what was left could be made public, quote unquote, safely.
And they did release some of it, but not all of it.
And so the, the redacted versions of this folder that got distributed to a few different places and, and declassified, but the original folder, which apparently is a 10 inch thick binder full of highly sensitive.
Information about our intelligence collection activities related to Russia, which, according to the reports today, were so sensitive that outside of this White House effort at the end, this was the kind of stuff that was restricted to skiffs.
Nobody could carry it around with them. They had to, like, go in, look at the document, not take notes, leave, blah, blah, blah.
Super highly sensitive materials.
The unredacted version of this was last seen in the White House a few hours before Biden took the oath of office, and it has disappeared.
And they have not been able to find it in the three subsequent years.
Hutchinson, the one who Cassidy Hutchinson, her book says that she thought that Mark Meadows took it home with him, but he denies that, of course, but they have not been able to find it.
There has literally been a team looking for this damn thing ever since January 2021, and it is still missing, and it is some of the most highly sensitive Russia-related intelligence that the intelligence community has.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:24]
| And, of course, the problem isn't that we don't have that information.
We have that information.
The problem is that there is a copy of that information circulating.
|
Sam:
[1:14:33]
| We don't know who else has it.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:35]
| Exactly. That's the issue. Yeah.
So, you know, I mean, I don't know. Have they looked at all the toilets in Mar-a-Lago?
|
Sam:
[1:14:46]
| Well, they did search Mar-a-Lago, if you remember.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:49]
| Yeah, they did. Did they search Bedminster?
|
Sam:
[1:14:51]
| Or they never searched bedminster because they couldn't get a warrant because the warrant requires current knowledge that they feel fairly certain they will find something specific they can't just say oh i want to i want to search bedminster oh you know and of course it's been years now so i presume if if it was in some trump property i presume it's been moved around Now, Cassidy Hutchinson says Meadows took it home. Have they searched his house? I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:22]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:15:23]
| But apparently, you know, this thing is missing. It's who knows.
But, you know, it's just yet another thing where.
Now, now, here's the thing. There is an argument like that Donald Clump and Donald Clump.
Yeah, Donald Clump. Yeah, I got that right. Clump.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:45]
| I wish that was his name.
|
Sam:
[1:15:50]
| Anyway, there is an argument that he declassified this.
No matter how sensitive it is, he declassified it. Now, it's possible that they reclassified it as soon as he was out of office, right? They can do that. Right.
But, yeah, like, I don't know. It's pure speculation, right? Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:11]
| But it's just it's quite interesting that it's missing, of course.
I mean, of course, it could be. Look, yes, it could just be misplaced.
I mean, that is also possible.
I mean, you know, I mean, you know, that happens. I mean, it does happen.
I mean, you know, such a crazy move, especially as chaotic as his exit from the White House was.
OK, because because he really did not prepare for the exit itself.
|
Sam:
[1:16:38]
| Okay and it was all rushed no how however however this is just another thing where okay maybe it was carelessness but there are all kinds of laws about how you're supposed to treat this kind of material yes or no being careless is not part of that it isn't now again if if like if he did declassify it maybe none of those rules applied but but i i think again again even if Even if Biden's administration reclassified it 10 minutes later, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:12]
| But again, the bigger issue about it is that it's missing.
And the fact that it contained extremely sensitive information that shouldn't be out in the public domain.
That's the key problem and that nobody can find out who the hell has it. Damn it.
|
Sam:
[1:17:27]
| Right. Now, of course, Ivan, this is the information that clears Donald Trump about everything.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:35]
| Yeah. So, you know, of course it is. That's why it disappeared.
|
Sam:
[1:17:42]
| Yes. I mean, look, actually, this is perfectly makes sense, right?
Like if the whole thing of like, well, Donald Trump declassified this because it clears him.
If that was the true state of play, then on January 21st, Donald Trump could have just released the whole damn thing to the public. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:04]
| Right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:18:06]
| You know, or hell, hell right before that.
I mean, he was trying to release it and a bunch of stuff related to this was released to be clear.
And the stuff that was released did not do any of the things Donald Trump is saying it did, you know, is just sort of, he didn't release the Kraken.
It just didn't like actually prove anything.
It just, It reiterated stuff we already knew that was already in the Mueller report, was already elsewhere, had already been reported a thousand times.
It wasn't anything that like, oh my God, this means Donald Trump did nothing shady at all.
That was not the case. But if that was the case.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:49]
| Sam, Sam, Sam, I, I, wait, I am so shocked. I can't believe this.
I mean, they didn't have the smoking gun there. I'm just, I'm, I'm in disbelief. Huh?
I'm deeply shocked.
|
Sam:
[1:19:05]
| But again, the thing is like if he truly declassified everything, you know, Mark Meadows or whoever could have just walked over to like Fox News and said, here you go. And it could have been on TV that night.
You know, he could have declassified it all. Fuck the redactions, etc.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:28]
| But it wasn't. So maybe listen, listen, listen.
But But even after, you know, and all these lawsuits and everything going on, I even think that as crazy as Fox News, as I mean, maybe not crazy as brazen.
|
Sam:
[1:19:45]
| Well, remember, this was before all those lawsuits.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:48]
| Yeah, but still, I'm saying that, you know, they wouldn't be even that crazy. To do that.
|
Sam:
[1:19:56]
| Yeah, yeah. I mean, anyway, so like this thing is gone somewhere.
Who knows like if you know maybe it is sitting in a closet at bedminster who the fuck knows maybe it's in mark meadows house maybe you know the the people who were saying that, ivana was buried with stuff maybe they were right you know i i keep i keep it to having this image of mark meadows going to the toilet and having this binder right beside his toilet and him like every time he's taking a shit like looking through pages of the russia dossier well Well, who was that the Clinton administration state department guy who shoved stuff under his shirt and took it home? He got nailed for that.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:39]
| Oh, God. I remember that. Remember that guy?
|
Sam:
[1:20:43]
| You don't.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:44]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:20:46]
| Hold on.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:49]
| I realize now that they fixed the web browser of my car so I can look up stuff.
Wait, this is a Clinton guy, papers classified shirt. Here we go. Okay, let's see. It's doing Bing.
Former Clinton a pleads guilty of taking classified docs. Here it is.
Okay. Boy, I found it. Look, this web browser works in the car. Hold on. It does here.
Sandy Berger.
|
Sam:
[1:21:26]
| Oh, Sandy Berger. Of course. Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:29]
| Yes. Sandy Berger pleaded guilty of misdemeanor in federal court.
Berger served as President of the National Security Advice and knowledge that it wasn't an honor mistake that he intentionally took destroyed copies of classified documents from the National Archives and cut them up with scissors.
Guilty, Your Honor.
|
Sam:
[1:21:45]
| Yeah it was it was an honest mistake that he shoved them under his clothes and left with them it was just accident i don't know how they got there you go look at what but damn the web browser i looked at the web browser and the car works look at that wow it's some kind of web browser i never heard of what the hell is the name of this thing what's what's this is the vivaldi browser zero oh that's that's exciting it's gonna i think it's gonna sing i think it's gonna start singing to us yes rivaldi yeah i understand i got the reference i got the reference okay let's take another break double checking make sure light okay thank you we're gonna take another break And when we'll be back, it's Yvonne's turn, you know, and he can pick whatever he wants.
Not like the stuff I would have picked anything he wants back after this.
Okay, so, Yvonne, what's your choice?
|
Ivan:
[1:24:36]
| Well, before I go into the choice.
|
Sam:
[1:24:39]
| Yes, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:39]
| I did not want to forget a special honorable mention.
|
Sam:
[1:24:44]
| Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:45]
| To our longtime listener, Bob.
|
Sam:
[1:24:48]
| Oh, okay. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:49]
| Who has officially announced his retirement.
|
Sam:
[1:24:53]
| Congratulations, Bob.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:55]
| To his employer, Microsoft. And I figured, I know Sam was jealous.
|
Sam:
[1:25:00]
| Oh i am so jealous he's like oh god i i i would retire instantly if i had enough in the 401k i i'd be i'd be that no question in my mind i'd be like sign where do i sign you know but no where's the paperwork give me the fucking paper i i i cannot say i have enough that i feel like it it would last me the rest of my life.
So no, I can't do that, but Oh my God, I am so jealous. I would love to.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:34]
| Well, I feel jealous too, but, but you know, a little bit, I definitely, you know, I know I got a long slog to go still, but, but congratulations, Bob. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:25:46]
| Congratulations.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:46]
| Very happy for you. I didn't want, I didn't, I didn't want to forget that important mention for, for Bob.
Okay. No. So now, wait, wait, before you do, since you're, since you're talking, Wait, wait, wait.
|
Sam:
[1:25:56]
| Before you do, since you're talking about things that I almost forgot about, I will repeat for the third week in a row that our prediction show is coming up very soon.
And we have a Google Doc set up for people to suggest things for us to predict.
And I have talked about this on the show several weeks in a row.
And we have yet to get a single thing suggested on this doc.
So you guys better get with it.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:29]
| Well, I will admit that I have. Well, we need to share it a little bit more also.
|
Sam:
[1:26:36]
| In previous years. we've had a lot of we've had a lot of suggestions in the past yes in the last couple years a majority of our questions came from our listeners but this i got i got nothing anybody so like if somebody's having trouble getting in please let me know it's tinyurl.com slash cc pred 2024 it's a google doc it's set up so that anybody with the url can edit you know please don't vandalize it it. Come on, just, just add some questions.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:04]
| Have you shared it on the Slack?
|
Sam:
[1:27:06]
| I have not put it on the Slack. I've only mentioned it on the show.
I've only mentioned it on show.
I have not, I've not shared it on social media. I have not put it on the Slack, but like, come on people, it is time to step up the game, put in some things.
I mean, obviously Yvonne and I can come up with our own, but we would love to have the majority from listeners again.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:28]
| I mean, I already have my front, The first prediction is already made.
We already know what that is.
|
Sam:
[1:27:34]
| Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:37]
| Yes, of course. Yes. Always, always a lot of pain.
|
Sam:
[1:27:42]
| So yes, please go to our Google Doc, add suggestions, sign them with like dash your first name and initial or anything you'd like to sign them with.
But so we can give credit.
And yeah, politics, international economy, technology and hodgepodge are our usual categories. categories, fill them up with things for us to predict. Come on.
2024 is a big year. There's going to be all kinds of fun things to predict.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:05]
| The car is really shaking from the wind.
|
Sam:
[1:28:08]
| That's lovely.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:10]
| I hope it's not a lot more wind because my car is really shaking now from the wind.
Oh my god. Okay. All right Okay, so, uh, okay.
So with that out of the way your turn Let's see Oh, I know what we're going to talk about end of the year work time No, no, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:28:29]
| Oh, no Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:31]
| No, no, no, let's go to hunter, Defies subpoena and impeach. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:28:38]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:39]
| I'd say I'm So hunter defied the subpoena.
|
Sam:
[1:28:43]
| Oh, you're throwing it to me.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:46]
| Oh Well, I I said well, I mean well my I mentioned what it is I, Okay, okay, I I can I can give the intro to it I can give this is what I will this is what I will Say, okay about it.
I I mean, I guess, look, the Republicans, two things happened.
What is, they did impeach, well, they didn't impeach.
|
Sam:
[1:29:09]
| No, they have not impeached anybody. They've officially opened an investigation.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:14]
| Inquire. Yeah, the investigation, the investigation. Yeah, they didn't impeach him yet. But they decided to finally start an investigation.
Okay, so that was one thing that happened. The other thing that happened, you know, Hunter went up to Congress and basically said, I'm I'm not going to go and be deposed in private by this committee.
I heard the speech that he gave.
I felt it was quite heartfelt. It seemed genuine in quite a few things, talking about his relationship with his father, how he has struggled, how he's fucked up, and how his parents are there for him to help him.
You know, and I I think that one thing that's happened with this and this is one of these things where the Republicans keep doing certain things and not expect them to backfire.
And and this is one of the best examples the Republicans have basically made that the subpoena power of the of Congress is basically useless.
Ursula, because they have so blatantly defied them that it's like nobody takes them seriously.
I mean, so what? Nothing's going to happen. I mean, look at what happened. Look, Jim Jordan.
I mean, this is the most fucked up thing is that the guy who was most vociferously ripping it to Hunter Biden for not showing up was Jim Jordan, that motherfucker who defied the subpoena himself.
|
Sam:
[1:30:52]
| Right. There are multiple facets of hypocrisy here on both sides.
And this has actually kind of really annoyed me.
For one, yes, absolutely. What you said, Jim Jordan defied his subpoena, and now he's out here saying that Hunter's bad for defying his.
Well, fuck you. But also at the same time, with the January 6th hearings, there were witnesses for that.
That tried to do the same thing Hunter's doing and saying, look, I'll come talk to you in public, but I'm not going to do this in private stuff because you're going to distort what I said.
And these same Democrats who are defending Hunter now, back then were saying, well, that's not legitimate.
And just also in general, let me back up even from that for all of these these people, like it's, if you, if you are supposedly the ones defending the rule of law and how these things are supposed to work, then you should be saying, look, look, You may not like it, but Congress actually has this authority.
And so therefore, he should be doing what he should be following the subpoena and showing.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:10]
| But it's been shown it has no teeth.
|
Sam:
[1:32:11]
| No, I know. This is the this is the. Well, and who showed it?
Who showed that it has no teeth?
It's both the Republicans for not not coming in under subpoena during January 6 and other previous investigations.
But it's also the Democrats from that period of time for not aggressively pursuing them.
Like there is the whole thing where Congress has the theoretical authority to go out, you know, whatever, whatever is called direct contempt or whatever it was.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:44]
| Yes, yes, they should have. They should have used that.
|
Sam:
[1:32:47]
| I forget the right name. Inherent contempt, inherent contempt.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:51]
| Yeah, it's not their inherent contempt. Yeah, they should have used it.
They didn't. I agree with you.
So basically, they have completely defanged that power.
I still, and I said to Sam, one thing, I disagree with Sam on one thing about this.
Because there is a difference between subpoenaing something as a witness to somebody else's actions, okay, that they are coming in to testify, versus Hunter is one of the main targets of this investigation, and they want him to subpoena in private, and I say that's bullshit.
|
Sam:
[1:33:27]
| It may be bullshit, but they have the authority to do so. The committee has the right to subpoena him in whatever means they want.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:36]
| Well, listen, that may be the case, but I just, I'm sorry.
I don't see how you want them to be able to collect evidence to try to basically investigate him in private, you know, without it being public.
Bullshit. I mean, I go to a fucking, listen.
|
Sam:
[1:33:59]
| Here's the thing. I think it's a completely bogus way of doing it in this case.
And the January 6th committee had decent reasons to do it.
I think the committee here investigating Hunter Biden is not doing it in good faith, but they theoretically have the power.
They have the power to issue the subpoena under whatever conditions they want.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. And Hunter Biden is defying a legal, Hunter Biden is defying a legal subpoena.
And if they go after him for contempt of Congress, they are actually in the right.
Now, DOJ probably won't do anything about it. They didn't do anything about it for 80% of the cases that were brought to them when the Democrats were in charge. But, you know, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:45]
| Okay. In such a subpoena in terms of, well, it's not a criminal.
I mean, I mean, he can invoke the Fifth Amendment.
|
Sam:
[1:34:55]
| Oh, yeah, of course he can invoke the Fifth.
Like he could have. Here's the thing. He would be in his rights to show up to the hearing and invoke the fifth.
But if he does not show up, he is violating the subpoena. Period. End of story.
Whether you think the subpoena was right or not.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:14]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I agree.
|
Sam:
[1:35:19]
| The one thing is that he could have challenged the subpoena in court, but he didn't.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:25]
| Here's the one thing I think that it was bullshit that they were making them in private and what not I do agree with you in terms of look he is violating the subpoena it is what it is but the problem this is a fucking situation, that you're right both the Republicans by their defiance of the subpoenas and the Democrats by their failure to enforce them has created a situation where you know what everybody's like, yeah it doesn't matter like nobody's going to do anything thing? Yeah. Yep. Yep.
|
Sam:
[1:35:55]
| I mean, we, and like I said, there were contempt of Congress referrals to DOJ over the January 6th stuff.
I think they, I forget, it was like six or eight of them that were sent over.
Only two did the DOJ decide to do anything about them, Bannon and who's the other dude.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. There were two of them that the DOJ actually went proceedings on. And of course, those stretch out years.
So like, even when there was a conviction, the guy's not actually in jail yet, it's still going back and forth.
You know, so it's the the teeth are very small, close to non existent on this thing.
So like, and in this case, in this case, with Hunter Biden, you got to think, okay, let's say the Republicans do hold them in contempt and refer to the DOJ.
Is Biden's DOJ actually going to go after Hunter for this?
|
Ivan:
[1:36:51]
| I'm going to say probably not.
|
Sam:
[1:36:53]
| I mean, maybe it goes to the special counsel and then the special counsel. Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:58]
| They'll probably go to a special counsel.
|
Sam:
[1:37:00]
| So so maybe, maybe, maybe. But even then, like what?
They're going to slap him on the wrist for it. I mean, they're going they're going after him for the tax stuff and the gun stuff and blah, blah, blah.
They'll be like, OK, throw some contempt of Congress stuff in there, too. Why not?
You know, but it's the least serious of the things he's got on the plate anyway.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:19]
| Right. Right. And not that any of them were that serious to begin with.
I mean, one of the things is that so few of these are prosecuted.
I mean, in reality, I mean, so most of the whole thing.
|
Sam:
[1:37:32]
| He's got a serious selective prosecution defense, and I'm sure he's going to use it, and it's going to go back and forth.
So in the meantime, moving on from the direct Hunter stuff with Congress and his legal issues, they authorized this impeachment investigation into Joe, which somehow is still trying to imply some sort of malfeasance in conjunction with the Hunter stuff.
They're just not sure exactly what yet, so they want to investigate some more.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:07]
| Listen here's the one thing the people who are doing this have repeatedly, said this out loud, not thinking that there is no fucking evidence that they've got nothing that they have absolutely not a fucking thing for them to chase on and they've said this on multiple times you know, like, it seems like it's just, one guy went and called well, our political, oh, I mean our investigation, you know, it's like, I mean, he himself like, in his head, said it like that way.
On the other part, more than once have they said that they've got nothing!
It's a wild goose chase. They have absolutely nothing!
|
Sam:
[1:38:52]
| Another congressperson when asked about, and why are you doing this?
Just went Trump 2024, Trump 2024.
And, and essentially, yes, this is the thing that, and of course people have been asked, right? Like, well, what's the point of this?
Of course, he's going to be acquitted in the Senate. And you can say exactly the same thing of the impeachments of Donald Trump, right?
Cause they, they knew that wasn't going to go through in the Senate either.
But the answer effectively is the verdict in the Senate doesn't matter.
What matters is months of going through this process of, you know, first the investigation and calling the witnesses and subpoenaing the Bidens.
And like, this is another case where it's like the Biden administration better be turning over whatever they ask for in the subpoenas, or they can say, oh, well now you're obstructing justice and have like another charge on there.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:47]
| Listen, listen, listen.
Yep. Okay. That's true. Here's the thing, though.
How well has that worked for the parties that have done this in the past?
|
Sam:
[1:40:27]
| It has generally backfired.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:29]
| Has it really? That's right.
So I am all for this impeachment investigation. Go right ahead.
|
Sam:
[1:40:39]
| Now, Biden still won in 2020.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:42]
| No, that's true. But but the reality is that, look, in terms of popularity, you know, we talked about how that election, given everything that happened, it shouldn't have been as close as it was. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:40:57]
| OK.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:58]
| All right. I mean, that you've got, you know, that you've got all the criminal, all the criming, all the Russia stuff, the fucking pandemic.
What the fuck else? I'm forgetting.
And this guy still still was was was literally, you know, just thousands of votes away from being president again. get right.
|
Sam:
[1:41:22]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:23]
| Even with all of that. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:41:25]
| And, and definitely the, the pattern we, the pattern we definitely saw was that, you know, remember Nancy Pelosi, the first impeachment was like so reluctant to go there.
I mean, as much as Republicans were like, Nancy wanted to impeach from day one, she was holding back the people in her party who wanted to go after impeachment impeachment because she knew it was dangerous politically.
And that entire time that investigation and trial and everything else was going on, Trump was getting stronger in all the polls the entire time it was going on. His popularity was going up.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:04]
| Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So that's why I'm like, you know what? Look, I think.
|
Sam:
[1:42:11]
| And by, and by the way, by the way, I kind of expect the same thing if any of these trials actually managed to happen in 2024 instead of getting delayed.
I fully expect the same thing. He's going to get like his people all riled up and the sympathy vote coming out and people like...
|
Ivan:
[1:42:29]
| But I think, But listen, here's the one thing. What I've seen is two different animals happen.
I've seen with these kind of figures, a criminal trial and conviction is bad.
I see like, but these impeachments where it's like a political thing, they go the other way. But here's the one thing.
It's great. Look, because, okay, so Trump has his trials.
They're trying to impeach Biden. Perfect.
Offset each other. Beautiful.
Okay fantastic thank you we're getting late on time my i think this whole drag i mean what listen every time that i've seen i'll say this clear okay every time i see them dragging trying to drag biden through the mud for a week's done for his son and you look at the notes and the stuff in detail that they actually bring this in public and you're like oh my god he's such a nice His dad, he was really trying to help his son so much.
And these guys are trying to make it out like it's some act of evil.
|
Sam:
[1:43:45]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:46]
| Yeah. So anyway. All right. Yes, it's getting quite late.
|
Sam:
[1:43:51]
| Okay. So let's, let's, I have one more thing and I, I, and I, I won't say the magic words about how this will be quick. Cause that always jinxes everything.
Oh God. I just said them. oh god I need to make no I wanted to talk a little bit about threads and mastodon.
So we we've been taught, you know, and this is just the latest saga of the, where does everybody go now that, you know, what used to be Twitter is much worse than it's ever been before and blah, blah, blah.
And, you know, I, I, I took off to Mastodon a little more than a year ago and have stayed there.
The biggest competitor that seems to have arisen so far where all the big names have gone is Threads.
Meta slash Facebook released slash Instagram released Threads, which was their version of a Twitter clone.
And all of the folks that, to me, sort of made the old Twitter, all of the journalists, all of the celebrities, all of the major organizations, all of the politicians, all of those folks, Threads seems to be where they've all chosen to go.
And frankly, that makes me sad because I've tried Threads a number of times and I check it out a few times a week, but it hasn't been appealing to me in the way that I can make it a habit just because of some- I will say this, that Mastodon, I am on threads a lot, but Mastodon is better.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:34]
| Okay. I find that my Mastodon experience is always better.
But all these people are going to threads. Yeah. So I'm going over there because I'm trying to see what the hell they're saying.
|
Sam:
[1:45:46]
| Yeah. No. And, you know, and I'll be honest, I rely on Mastodon of a handful of accounts that routinely sort of repost stuff from other places, whether it be threads or Twitter or or whatever.
Right. And get sort of secondhand of that, but I'd much rather get it directly.
And so from the very beginning, Threads has said, we intend to federate with Mastodon. We intend to have...
Possible to coexist with these two.
And like, to me, that's, that's like my perfect world. Like, cause that means I can use my Mastodon client that I prefer.
I can do all the Mastodony issues.
Things have their interface. And again, one of the things with Mastodon is like, there are dozens of ways to get to it.
There are a whole bunch of different clients for, for iOS, Android, Android Mac, you can access it through the web.
So like everybody can have their personal preference and find the one they like. You know, I like ivory.
I've seen other people be like, I don't like ivory. I didn't work for me, but this other one is great.
And I use that one. And that's, that's the kind of variety that you can get from people who don't lock down their APIs like Twitter did.
So you pick what you like, you use the one you like. And, and so like, Like I want to be able to use my preferred interface and get on and see people, but I want to see all those people who are joining threads and doing most of their activity on threads.
Like I feel like I am missing out by not getting those content sources directly.
So from the beginning, Threads said, yes, we will federate with Mastodon.
We will do that. They took their first actual steps towards doing that this week.
And they specifically said they're just testing in a long thread posted on Mastodon via threads this week.
The head of that effort, I forget his name, M something.
Anyway, he said, look, we have all of these things we intend to do, but we're doing it slowly. it's going to take like a year before it's fully interoperable right now.
What they've done is simply, they are testing with a handful of accounts, like literally like this guy, I should look up his damn name.
Miss his name is that's a nice name. Yes. Yes, it is.
It is very, very nice name.
Adam Mosseri. and his account is just Mosseri at threads.net so his account is federated and apparently a handful of other people from his team but that's it so it's not like you can just pick out any old threads account and follow them they're testing it all right it's a test right now yeah they're testing them with like five accounts or something, And so I've followed him on Mastodon, and that's awesome. But right now, that means I can see his content.
But right now, if I reply to it, he does not see it.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:00]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:49:01]
| And also, no one on Threads can follow me on my Mastodon account yet.
But he put out a long thread today, basically saying, look, all of that stuff is coming. make.
We plan to make it so that anybody on Mastodon or the rest of the Fediverse can follow anyone on threads, not just a handful of test accounts.
And we want to make it so that if you reply to it, that person on threads and anybody who looks at the responses to that person on threads can see all of the responses too.
And they want to make it so threads people can follow follow Fediverse accounts and, and all of this.
And he even said he wants to make it possible for a threads user to migrate their account to a Mastodon account and leave threads and keep their followers on threads.
So all of this is on the agenda. They, they expect it to take a year, but this is the first step.
And I'm like, I'm, I'm glad for this step.
I want to follow all all these people. I miss it a lot from Twitter, but I don't like the threads interface.
I don't want to, I mean, like I said, I check it a couple of times a week, but I haven't gotten motivated to make it a habit.
I check it a couple of times a week just to check it. And then like, if somebody repost something from threads, I'll go look at it. Right.
But of course the Mastodon people are Are going fucking nuts about this.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:32]
| Why?
|
Sam:
[1:50:33]
| You know, because, well, half, and I've seen a couple of like, you know, these informal polls and stuff.
The Mastodon community seems to be split right down the middle.
Half are sort of agreeing with me like, oh, great threads.
I can follow all these great new people.
It'll be wonderful. Blah, blah, blah. blah. The other half is throwing a fucking fit and being like, you know, meta is evil. Why are you letting them in here?
Our instances are going to block threads preemptively before we even do anything.
And then the most vociferous people are not only are we going to, not only are we going going to block threads, but we will block any instance that doesn't block threads.
And like, so there's potentially a schism coming in the world of Mastodon where you end up dividing the entire experience into sort of instances that are okay with exchanging information with threads and instances that are not.
The primary concerns of those who are not, by the way, are one...
Threads is moderation. They're like threads is moderation. Isn't sufficient.
They have, they, they have anti-trans people.
They allow to speak. They have Nazis on there. They have porn bots.
They have all this stuff.
And we don't want to poison our Mastodon experience with all of this stuff.
And it's too hard to block those accounts individually.
Threads is way too big. So we're just going to preemptively get rid of threads entirely because threads, Thread's approach to moderation is not sufficiently strict for these folks.
And so they're like, we're just going to get rid of it entirely. That's one objection.
Another is I've heard a lot of people say, you know, Meta is going to do this embrace, extend, extinguish thing where just through their massive size, they're essentially going going to take, take over Mastodon, change the culture entirely, and eventually rug pull it so that you have to go back to threads.
And, and then I've heard other people complaining about Meta's privacy policies, and they're going to suck all your Mastodon information into, into Meta and use it for advertising and all this crap.
And, you know, and so these, these are the kinds of things.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:02]
| And I think here's, but here's one thing like right now, And I'm like, Threads is not, I mean, Threads, Mastodon's not growing anymore.
I subscribe to one of the Mastodon accounts, which is about the reports, how many users are joining Mastodon. The tracks, like the number of, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:53:21]
| The tracks. Yeah, I subscribe to them too.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:23]
| And man, that, yeah, and that number's been flat. I mean, that number has really flattened, even as a lot of people are fleeing Twitter.
Yep. They really have, you know, it used to be that when people were fleeing Twitter, there would be these massive influxes into Mastodon.
And ever since threads started really taking off, it's not happening.
They're not coming to Massadon. And they're not going to Blue Sky.
|
Sam:
[1:53:53]
| No, and I've seen a bunch of high profile people talk about this too, in terms of the reasons why they didn't.
And it started out, a lot of it was like, it's so hard to pick a server, blah, blah, blah.
And it's not really that hard to pick a server, but it's an extra step.
But then more pointedly, it is an extra step.
Then there's the difficulty of finding people to follow, which something like threads, like if, if you come in blank and you're not following anybody, you'll see shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:26]
| You'll see. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:54:27]
| First of all, they'll prime it with anybody you've followed on Instagram.
And second, they will, they will push it at you.
That is popular that lots of people are talking about, blah, blah, blah.
And so a lot of people have come to the conclusion that, you know, I like that algorithmic feed.
I like the fact that it will surface people that I don't follow.
Like I very much like, I want to separate that stuff out. Right.
And actually threads has done, you know, they have a following tab.
That's only people you follow and they have the for you and they're separate.
And I actually, and Twitter kind of did that too for both of them.
I don't like the fact that, you know, it wasn't, it won't stick to your default.
Like if I, if I go to my follow feed and then I leave and come back, it'll still plot me in my, for you.
I want to just stay there as the default and only move when I want to, but they give you, they, they give you both of them and they separate that, which is nice.
And I don't, and frankly, I don't mind that on mass done either.
My primary are the things I follow, but a few times a day I check out the trending stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:28]
| Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:55:31]
| That's not quite quite the same as the algorithmic, but I check it out a few times a day. Cause like, he's not the same.
And that includes people I don't follow. And I'm fine with that because it's under my control, because I'm choosing when to see that.
But for a lot of people, even with that, with Mastodon, you do not get a good experience until you put some time and effort into figuring out who to follow or what to follow or hashtags to follow.
And it seems very clear that the audience who is willing to put in that, that kind of work is limited.
And so like, even the folks who are like the working on the main core Mastodon are thinking about better discovery features and stuff like that.
But in the meantime, they kind of missed the boat. It's too late.
Hey, you didn't move fast enough. Now thread is there.
And, you know, there was always a lot of folks, you know, on the Mastodon side, there are a bunch of folks who are like.
A big selling point for them is the fact that it's not corporate, that it's federated, that there are multiple servers and you can move between them and blah, blah, blah.
The percentage of people who care about any of that shit is tiny.
It's so it's so small for for the vast majority of the public they the fact that it's run by a big corporation is a big plus yeah it means it's got resources behind it it means it's going to not like randomly crash one day and be out for several hours well well like i happened which has happened to me i mean you know or or suddenly have things delayed by hours which has also happened to you, I believe.
Of course, some of those outages are now happening with Twitter, but whatever.
But the notion that...
|
Ivan:
[1:57:25]
| Twitter is not a big corporation anymore. Let's be clear.
|
Sam:
[1:57:29]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, but the fact that Meta is behind it is actually a positive for most people.
Most people don't care about the privacy bullshit. And most people...
Want and love the fact that you do not have to spend time to figure out who to follow.
It just finds stuff that's interesting and puts it in your face, you know?
And so, yeah, of course, you know, now threads also like had a big boom and then went down a little bit and now it's, it's more steady as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:02]
| But let me tell you the, the, the last, let me tell you something, think the last month plus the last two months it's been growing fast because of the oh yeah it's been it has really been an influx of of a lot a lot of big groups a lot of famous groups a lot of people that were exclusively on twitter that have basically just i mean every day i'm I'm seeing, you know, you know, people, the one big one that, that had been stubborn to leave more than, more than others was sports.
And, um, and it was just because that community was there and I'm seeing so many sports people leave just right. That, that so many of the big ones are there.
They also just yesterday, I think it was that announced that there it's available in the the EU now, and which it wasn't before.
And that brought in a massive influx of people as well with that EU launch.
I mean, I saw a lot of new accounts from, you know, people that I used to follow that all of a sudden, in Europe, that all of a sudden I'm like, oh, well, we're now on threads.
And I'm like, it is really, I got to tell you that.
It's right now it's turning into the inevitable it it i mean i i'm it it is turning into the inevitable which is why elon musk has been ranting and raving louder than ever because he is seeing all his metrics go into the crapper all of them um you know one thing i'm gonna mention guy kawasaki is a fucking moron okay all right i don't know you okay tell us okay so on threads he kept saying hey why don't you hold on to your twitter account and i'm like people are telling him for what it's like what do you want to hold on to it it's like look i uh well what you know he came up with all sorts of ones ideas and he's like look i don't want my account there i deleted So what if somebody hijacks my user and starts posting random stuff?
Well, shit, if I deleted the account and I deleted everything there, I'm not famous. Who cares?
Well, so should Barack Obama delete his account?
No, you fucking moron. That's not who I'm going to find. I'm not fucking Barack Obama.
And by the way, fuck face, okay, this is when I started getting pissed off.
Listen, anybody who is famous, okay, should, by the way, not just control their accounts, But they should probably even squat domains that they don't want that are similar to theirs It's a very different thing that you're talking about.
It's all talking about an individual so what if they take your your your user ID and like post porn and I'm like So what I deleted it.
They can't track it back to me. I'm not gonna be in trouble for it What the fuck does that mean? It's like what do you know?
By the way, that guy is very dense. I don't understand how that guy worked how that guy designed the first advertising for Apple, but there's a whole bunch of tech stuff that he keeps posting on stuff that I finally decided to block him.
I'm like, I said, I can't listen to this much stupidity. I'm like, why did this guy in my feed get the fuck off my feed?
Good God, he's a moron.
|
Sam:
[2:01:29]
| Anyway, yeah. I think you're right, though, just in terms of the inevitability.
I mean, Threads clearly is the winner right now in terms of adoption.
I mean, they may not yet technically have surpassed Twitter's numbers, but I think it's coming before long.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:49]
| Oh, it's coming.
|
Sam:
[2:01:50]
| And all of these other things, like you said, Mastodon's topped out, I think.
|
Ivan:
[2:01:56]
| I think blue sky is still like invite only, you know, and it's, it's really, um, I mean, that, that thing is, I mean, you know, that, listen, that, that has to be the dumbest fucking thing ever to have made it only invite only.
|
Sam:
[2:02:11]
| They completely just, well, I think part of, part of the reason was they, they weren't, I don't think they were set up to handle the scale if they lifted that.
So, yeah. So anyway, but so they, they've sort of missed out.
And then there were like a half dozen other competitors whose names I don't even remember anymore because they're so irrelevant. Right.
And, and I think like, and to me also, like this whole thing with threads federating with Mastodon, like to me, that's, I'm, I'm hanging on to that because I want, I want the federation to come, come as fast as possible, be, be successful because I want to interact with threads, but I want to do it through my Mastodon client.
You know, that's, that's the bottom line for me.
And if they were not federating though, at a certain point, I'd be making peace and going, oh shit, well, I have to be on threads because that's where the content I want is.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:10]
| Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:03:11]
| You know?
|
Ivan:
[2:03:12]
| Okay. All right.
|
Sam:
[2:03:14]
| Because, you know, I'm, I'm not on, I'm not on Mastodon for any of these highfalutin theoretical, oh, it's non-commercial, it's federated, it's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Fuck all that.
That's not why I'm here. I'm here for getting the feed of content of stuff I want to see that I find interesting.
And if all the people I want, or most of the people I want- In a way that you want it.
Yes that too like like but you know i can go to threads and hit the following tab i find i find the ui even in the following time kind of kind of obnoxious in terms of how they deal with replies and blah blah blah there's some things i find obnoxious about it but you know it's it's it's where the people i want to follow have gone and so like if if they but like even the threads people People admit the threads.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:10]
| People admit that this was basically a beta that they basically rushed out.
Yes. I mean, yeah, they just I'm sure it will continue to improve.
|
Sam:
[2:04:19]
| But yeah, like I said, I'm hanging out for the full integration so that I can use the client I like and still see their content.
And I'm hoping they can do it.
Leave the thing to the end of the year where it's like migrating accounts and shit because like whatever.
But let me follow and be followed and reply and have my replies go through the threads and vice versa.
Then, you know, that's what I, at that point I'm happy and I'm hoping, you know, it doesn't take the whole 12 months, but like, I, I mean, I'm anxious even, even if it's only one way, I'm like, okay, like, when are you going to open it up from these five people to like, I don't know, the top hundred thousand people on threads.
Cause even that like, boom, you get me most of what I want right there, you know?
And so I'm hoping that's not that far away because I'll be following like there's probably a hundred people that I would follow like instantly the second that was possible. Right. Maybe more.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:25]
| All right. Okay. Well.
|
Sam:
[2:05:27]
| Okay. We're done.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:28]
| I want to go to bed. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:05:31]
| Oh, bed. Come on. You know, Yvonne, where I am, it's only like 930.
Yeah. You should just like keep your mind on West Coast time.
Yes, you should. Absolutely. Maybe even Hawaii time.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:48]
| Hawaii time. You know, I will say that listen, I will say that when I was in that I was in Hawaii and I was working from there for a little bit.
It was great because work ended so early.
I mean, it's just awesome.
|
Sam:
[2:06:09]
| But you had to start really early too, right?
|
Ivan:
[2:06:11]
| That's true. But it was just something about at noon, nobody, it was, it was done being done.
Oh yeah. It was done. I mean, you know, yeah, it was, it was, oh, it's so great. It was so great.
|
Sam:
[2:06:26]
| Anyway, let's close this up for, first of all, once again, I will remind you to go to to our thingy bop to give us things to predict about.
So the Google doc is at tinyurl.com slash ccpred2024.
Please, like we want suggestions. If you have any trouble getting to that, like if it doesn't work for you or whatever, then contact us in the ways I'm about to describe.
You can go to curmudgeons-corner.com and there you will find our email, our Facebook, our our Mastodon, like we were just talking Mastodon, all of that's on there.
And we would love to hear from you in general. And we would love to hear from you specifically, if for some reason you have problems with the Google Doc, or you just don't like interacting with Google, you can just tell us directly, here are the things we want.
And also on there are archives, including transcripts of all the most recent shows.
And of course, our Patreon. Our Patreon is the way to give us lovely cash money to help with the expenses of the show at various levels.
We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard.
We will send you a mug, all that kind of thing.
And most importantly for $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to our Commodions Corner Slack where throughout the week, Yvonne and I, and a bunch of our listeners are talking and sharing links and all that kind of stuff.
See, I've got that speech like down pat now, most of the time, unless I screw up.
So Yvonne, do you want to end with like one interesting thing from the Slack that we haven't talked about on the show?
|
Ivan:
[2:08:05]
| Ah, let's see.
Sorry, but I'm not with my computer, so this makes it a little bit more complicated.
|
Sam:
[2:08:15]
| And I surprised you because I never asked you this question.
|
Ivan:
[2:08:19]
| Oh, well, the thing is, I'm only on my phone, but I was looking.
Okay, look, Trump releases Series 3 of his digital trading cards.
If you buy all 47 for $4,653, you will get a small piece of fabric cut from the suit Trump wore when he was arrested, which he calls the most significant artifact in U.S.
History. And there's actually, I don't know if you saw, there's a video of him, you know, selling this shit.
Okay. He is actually talking about how great it is. Okay.
And it's just the most ridiculous, preposterous, fake, you know, just, just grift. It's just unreal.
|
Sam:
[2:09:09]
| I mean, it's just, you know, You know, if Trump was only doing this shit, or, you know, give him a show on QVC or whatever, he would be, like, we could safely just treat him as a joke.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:23]
| Right!
|
Sam:
[2:09:24]
| But no, instead, he's running for president, and he's ahead in the fucking polls. So, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:32]
| And somehow, he's doing this thing, and he's ahead in the polls.
I mean, why wouldn't you feel emboldened? Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:09:41]
| Yes. Okay. With that, we are done.
Thank you everybody. As usual, have a great week. Wake, wake, not awake. Don't have a wake. That implies like someone died.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:52]
| Don't have a wake.
|
Sam:
[2:09:53]
| Yeah, no. Have a great week, week and stay safe. And we'll talk Donald clump.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:02]
| Have a great wake.
|
Sam:
[2:10:04]
| Donald clump.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:05]
| What else? What else have you said?
|
Sam:
[2:10:06]
| You know, whatever, you know, whatever. Okay. Okay, we'll see you next time. Goodbye, everyone.
Say goodbye, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:16]
| Bye-bye.
Okay that's it i'm gonna hit stop all right let's see if this kind of works okay later yvonne.
| |
|
