Sam:
[0:04]
| Hello hello can you hear me yes okay shall we just go go go since yes since we're half an hour i'm sorry okay my computer sucks i know okay here we go, welcome to curmudgeon's corner for friday february 23rd 2024 it's just before 4 utc as we're starting to record i'm sam mentor and yvonne bow is here hello yvonne hello, you sound so thrilled oh.
|
Ivan:
[0:56]
| I'm i'm i'm tingling.
|
Sam:
[0:57]
| Not again yeah no they have medicine for.
|
Ivan:
[1:01]
| That they do oh okay well get that get on that right away.
|
Sam:
[1:07]
| Anyway our plan we're gonna do the usual because we have no plan that's we're gonna do about first where yvonne and i will both do you something a little bit like the.
|
Ivan:
[1:17]
| Plan but you know there was some technical difficulties.
|
Sam:
[1:21]
| Yes basically it's.
|
Ivan:
[1:22]
| It's it's nature's way of saying that sam needs a new computer.
|
Sam:
[1:27]
| Yes because i i am now in the habit of like always trying to reboot right before we record because it tends to work out better if i do but this time i went to reboot and it didn't come back, and you know it and and admittedly like i waited five minutes and then i got impatient and i like forced another reboot i have had the experience in the past when it does this where it eventually like if you just leave it be after like 10 minutes it'll come up or whatever but i will.
|
Ivan:
[2:03]
| Tell you that that what's happening is not a good sign because.
|
Sam:
[2:07]
| That's exactly how.
|
Ivan:
[2:09]
| My previous computer. Yeah. It was showing it's deaf.
It's, it's, it's, you know, deaf signs yeah it started happening that and it's not it's a problem with the hard drive whatever you know whatever drive you're because you're booting off an external drive i'm.
|
Sam:
[2:35]
| Booting off an external flash drive at the moment which i.
|
Ivan:
[2:38]
| Could like go and replace yeah i and and you know because that's what killed my last computer the the drive was having issues and then finally elita drive died now you do have an external drive which gives you the possibility of maybe changing that you know i i mean i probably could have replaced the hard drive on my imac but it was six years old and i was like you know what now you know all the all the new you know it was an intel computer and you know those and and actually well well actually beyond that there was no point in doing it i i forgot that i it had it had come up on the list of computers that were not going to be supported for the next operating operating system version and i found that out like just i just found that out and i knew you know the hard drive problem had been one that had been that had been an issue for a while that reboot where it was just whenever i rebooted it it just just wouldn't it was struggling to yeah start up again and that's not normal for these machines no when they're when it's fine and they were booed up i mean you might like it eventually on.
|
Sam:
[3:54]
| The third or fourth try it came up but.
|
Ivan:
[3:56]
| You know it's.
|
Sam:
[3:57]
| Like and like sometimes it comes up and the bluetooth mice aren't recognized and i have to reboot again and you know and and also just you I've expressed already, I'm memory starved anyway.
This thing ends up crashing because it runs out of memory.
It hasn't had an uptime more than 48 hours in months.
|
Ivan:
[4:20]
| If you can't notice that my voice is a little bit struggling, I've had a cold.
I've been in very cold climates repeatedly recently. I will restate my dislike of these books.
Uh by the way might just check my uptime right now i am at 37 days, anyway just wanted to point that out i'm at 30 i'm at 30 i'm at 37 days 7 hours 59 minutes yeah yeah i remember the days when.
|
Sam:
[4:54]
| The only time i rebooted was for software updates but not.
|
Ivan:
[4:57]
| Actually i have a pending software update i just noticed so therefore yeah so i'll break the yeah.
|
Sam:
[5:03]
| No the The first, the first time a new computer will even be remotely in the budgetary possibility is like June.
So I just have to like, I just have to make it like last a few more months.
And even then, honestly, like, you know, there are other things I probably should spend money on my cars.
My car has issues too, but like for me, computer is the priority over car, but you know, we'll see.
|
Ivan:
[5:32]
| I mean, you could just tell the office that, you know, my car is dead.
I can't go. I mean, that's...
|
Sam:
[5:38]
| I'll just have to walk.
|
Ivan:
[5:40]
| Right. That won't take long. No. You know, but I think...
I can't remember what the last show we did was. I have been...
Look, I looked up. I have spent...
In this first month and a half of the year, a little bit more over 20 nights in a hotel.
|
Sam:
[6:05]
| And this used to be normal for you, but it's been, it used.
|
Ivan:
[6:08]
| To be normal, but it's been a while, like a long while.
Okay. Like a long, long ass while. Right. And I got to tell you, I'm not shit. I'm man.
This is hard.
|
Sam:
[6:22]
| You're out of practice.
|
Ivan:
[6:23]
| And I, and I, and I, yeah. Yeah, and mine who got a little bit of a cold, which then I wound up getting, which a little bit of a cold for an 11-year-old is a far worse event for an older, aged individual now.
|
Sam:
[6:38]
| You know?
|
Ivan:
[6:40]
| Yeah. And my voice has been a little bit paying the price for that.
I mean, shit. I mean, I spent, I looked up, so I've been staying for the most part in Marriott hotels.
|
Sam:
[6:53]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[6:54]
| OK, for I used to stay a lot in Hilton when I used to travel mostly domestic and internationally.
I found Marriott to have better properties.
OK, and so, you know, the reason I try to stay consistent is because if you stay there, then you get benefits.
Then they'll upgrade you. They'll give you free water.
They'll get one important benefit. They'll give you late checkouts, which are sometimes some days you need a late checkout.
OK. I mean, some places have an 11 a.m. checkout, and it's like, that's too early.
I don't want to leave. I mean, by 11 a.m., you got to be scrambling out of the place. So you can get late.
So I'll stay at the same place. And so I looked up the account that I got for Marriott, and I already, as of today, have slept more nights in a Marriott this year than all of last year.
|
Sam:
[7:47]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[7:48]
| Okay. Yes. I already slept more nights in the first month and a half at Marriott than I did all of last year.
It's, and I'm like, what the fuck? I, you know, I, I, I, I'm, you know, I don't, I'm not doing very well with this.
|
Sam:
[8:09]
| You used to love it. You used to love the travel.
|
Ivan:
[8:13]
| I don't know. I don't know. I, okay. I, I, I used to, I used to like it more. Yes.
|
Sam:
[8:19]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[8:19]
| I have to, I have to say that it was, it was not, it was not a grind.
This is a grind right now.
|
Sam:
[8:27]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[8:29]
| Unheld the flights haven't been long paul i mean you know usually two three hour flights i will say one thing it's just a little bit maybe i'm like a little bit unnerving you know so i was in guatemala city a couple of times and um you know one of the things that in my last visit, almost every 30 to 50 feet there were like military armed people with with like machine guns guns like but like not like one or two i mean i was like counting like i looked out place oh my god i mean it was like i could i if i went on the street the other day and i could see like just turning around and looking around me like 30 or 40 now i guess maybe i should think well okay well i'm being heavily guarded or something really shitty is about to go down and i'm here with all all these guns right i you know so i don't know i don't know what the deal is with that i looked up online to see if anything and there wasn't anything like particularly out of the norm i will say one thing that i saw where the u.s embassy i for whatever reason i went by where the old u.s embassy was in guatemala and the new u.s embassy is in guatemala okay i have to say because they do handle quite a lot of.
People coming in for applications and stuff.
The old one was in a very how do I say, old part of the city which was probably pretty cramped in space and the new one is just a massive structure that looks like it will withstand a nuclear blast, I have to say.
It's very heavily fortified, nice looking, but also looks like it's heavily defended.
And there was a significant line of people there at the embassy everybody i've been talking to recently about embassy appointments and stuff they have gotten better okay since the biden administration has come in but you know one of the things that the trump trump did is that they broke so many of those processes so much that people are still waiting an inordinate amount of time to get any right any any any just ordinary Ordinary.
Visitor visas, shit, that kind of stuff, et cetera. It's just a lot longer than it was before Trump. Okay.
And it's just one of those things that it's easier to break something than it is to build it back. Yes.
The other day, I finally saw a CEO that actually understood what I've talked about related to this and the labor market and hiring people back.
And it was actually actually, by coincidence, the CEO of Marriott Hotels that was on TV.
|
Sam:
[11:24]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[11:24]
| And he was being interviewed precisely about the cycle of how difficult it's been to restaff, okay, the hotels, you know, post-pandemic and whatnot.
And that one of the things is that when they went back to hire a lot of people, the people that they had before had found other jobs in many cases.
So many of the people they wound up hiring, the biggest problem was that they didn't have hospitality experience, is what he's saying.
And so, so basically one of the reasons why people feel like they're complaining about service and they're complaining about productivity is because look, you lost so many years of knowledge and experience and that, you know, it takes a while for these people to get back.
I mean, you've got somebody that's worked in a hotel and understands how a hotel works for 10, 15, 20 years, and you lost that person, and you're hiring somebody brand new that has never worked in a hotel.
There is just no way to get that person. And he was pretty flat out emphatic that explaining that when so many people are talking about people not wanting to work or poor service or whatever, that they're not understanding that it's it's it's getting better now because people have started to get that experience as time has worn on.
But that's been the biggest cause of productivity issues that they have had at at hotels.
It's just that that loss of of of of learning. So anyway, so, so I thought that was, that was interesting.
I hadn't heard many CEOs openly talk about that.
All they are, you got so many people just bitching about lazy workers and stuff and whatever, and bring them back to the office because I need to see them here.
Right. Otherwise I don't feel comfortable if they're not here.
|
Sam:
[13:11]
| And especially like in the hotel industry, they should be working from home.
|
Ivan:
[13:15]
| Oh yeah.
|
Sam:
[13:16]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[13:16]
| The hotel industry is especially. Very, very, very, you know, very conducive to absolutely working from home, of course. Right.
I think it makes perfect sense. Every hotel employee should work from home.
|
Sam:
[13:30]
| Exactly. Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[13:32]
| I will say I was kind of frustrated with one hotel, and it wasn't because of the employee services.
So one of the Marriott's, almost every Marriott I've stayed.
What are the cool there's a couple of things that marriott has added to their hotels which makes it nice okay one thing is that their tvs have streaming so you can watch like you can log in with your credentials and you can watch streaming instead of like linear tv yeah log in your netflix.
|
Sam:
[13:58]
| Or your disney plus or whatever right.
|
Ivan:
[14:00]
| Exactly and that's very convenient where you've got like hilton has started to do that for very few places they just got linear tv and i'm like well it's really useless who the fuck wants this yeah you know right now you know You want to get on your damn streaming.
And Marriott's been very good about putting that on a worldwide basis.
You can find it almost in any Marriott hotel anywhere.
They've got these boxes that basically just plug in.
And they talk to the hotel stuff, so you have access to your folio services or whatever.
They've been pretty good about that. But one other thing that they've got is that on the Marriott app, you can do a couple of very convenient things.
Is this one is chat directly to the hotel okay hey i asked for a pickup at the airport okay uh yes we can confirm your pickup at the airport so you don't have to call whatever you just send you send these messages and directly to that property and it's great the other thing is to a lot of times is to order food at the hotel right okay if they have room service or if they have a pickup or whatever the in the app you go boom boom boom click click click you don't have to call all food gets delivered food is ready for pickup whatever whatnot well one of the hotels had in their app the messages were fine and they had the little thing to order food and i was working from the hotel and i'm like okay i ordered food well apparently they had enabled the app but they weren't they they said all of a sudden i asked because over an hour and a half had a apps and no food had come oh we we don't actually deliver that food but i'll have somebody come and bring it to you and i'm like um well you know where it said in the app that says deliver asap, What are you doing?
|
Sam:
[15:48]
| Did they want you to pick it up from downstairs or did they just not have it at all?
|
Ivan:
[15:54]
| No, they actually, they, they actually, they didn't even say that they realized, I think that some people have made that mistake.
And so they went and like, look, I'm going to have somebody put it together and bring it to you.
|
Sam:
[16:06]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:07]
| Okay. So they, they brought it in, in a paper bag and stuff. It was fine.
The food was fine, but it was just weird that they, but if you're going to put it on the fucking app and you're gonna put the deliverer i mean there is an option there to for pickup so you can limit it just for pickup so you can say hey oh my food and you know you go past the food area whatever like oh yeah oh order food for pickup you could take it you could take it upstairs i mean they could have done that but i don't know yeah so okay that was that was a little bit uh that was that was confused any.
|
Sam:
[16:38]
| Other travel anecdotes you want to share before uh i do uh my little thing.
|
Ivan:
[16:45]
| Any other travel anecdotes? What the hell else happened?
|
Sam:
[16:48]
| You don't have to. You can say no. I don't have any more stories.
|
Ivan:
[16:52]
| No, no, no. I'm trying to see if anything else happened significant. I mean, you know.
I will say that this is one other thing that I've noticed and, and, and this happened from before, but became more acutely visible right now is this whole thing with the airlines, just not even selling food on a whole bunch of flights now. Okay.
Because they had gone for a while where, okay, we would give, you know, 10 plus years ago, you would get food.
|
Sam:
[17:24]
| You'd automatically get a meal and then it went to, you get a small snack.
And if you want a real meal, you have to.
|
Ivan:
[17:30]
| Pay for it then right then.
|
Sam:
[17:32]
| It was like you you you have to pay for the snack too you have to pay for anything you get and now you're saying you can't even buy.
|
Ivan:
[17:38]
| It if you want now now you get now you get a uh this is on american airlines to be specific you'll get a soda and you'll get like like a cookie or whatever yeah something yeah you know which i do like their little biscoff cookies if you haven't tried those biscoff cookies are good okay all right i.
|
Sam:
[17:56]
| Know know what you're talking about i i think they're okay i'm not excited.
|
Ivan:
[17:59]
| I i i don't know i like those i don't know i i have a little bit of like an addiction to those biscoffs which is why i don't buy any of them okay for the house okay because my father bought a huge box and i'm like what are you doing oh my god no take those away from me anyway but but the the thing is that i mean they're they're now it's like they won't sell food unless the flight is over three four hours something like like that and i'm just like fuck guys why don't you just sell some fucking food a snack box something anything they were used to be selling snack boxes they're not they're not selling those anymore and here's another thing that they have done which this one is a little bit so so now, they they you can't get an upgrade even if you're an elite flyer they just they just no upgrades now the one thing that they have done started doing is actually trying to sell you the upgrade And so, so let's say for example, The ticket, you bought the ticket when you looked at it, $500 round trip, $600, $700 round trip in coach. Okay.
Business class, they sold it for $1,500. Well, I'm like, or $2,000.
I'm like, I'm not going to fucking pay.
You know, the flights, when they're that short, I'm just like, is this not worth it? I'm like, whatever.
I can deal with a couple of hours in a small seat. Oh, shit.
Okay. So I'll do that. You know, fine. Well, the company won't pay for it either.
Either you know it's not in policy i was doing some of these for business and so but then then you're then you're getting your seats hey we'll sell you the upgrade for 385 dollars well that's too expensive well we'll sell the upgrade for 250 dollars well that's still pricey hey we'll sell you the upgrade now for 125 i'm like oh fuck well i'm gonna get in late i'm not gonna have a meal meal that'd be annoying fine i'll give you 100 bucks okay all right i i've you know literally paid probably 100 bucks just to be able to get a fucking meal okay on on the damn plane uh so.
They've scammed me into that a couple of times because sometimes it's like i mean shit the time that i'm i'm leaving time i'm getting to the airport getting on the plane by the time i'm gonna get there it's gonna be like so late so i'll be starving maybe there won't be room service maybe i can't get food and i'm like fuck shit i i i wound up they wound up getting me to fucking pay 100 bucks so i would be in first class now the thing is that if you look at the wait list there's supposed to be a wait list sorted by your order almost every time you look at the wait list there's like 50 people on the wait list seriously it's like crazy i don't know everybody's got some some kind of elite status right now 50 whatever seats available zero seats available one i'm like well what the fuck's the point of this stupid list you know we got 50 people on a fucking wait list where there goes there's one seat available okay you know and i'll be like right now because i haven't been flying as much as i used to be i used to be number one on those lists so i would get the upgrade there was one seat but so many of them there's been zero there's no upgrade even to to be had.
It doesn't matter. Right now, I'm usually like number there's 50 people, I'll be number 12.
Okay. You know, but still being number 12 on a list where there may be one seat available is not exactly very good.
The odds are impossible.
So, you know, shit, they're just, you know, we'll just sell you the upgrade.
Hey, oh, you'll pay 100 bucks? Okay, so 100 bucks is better than us giving it away. So that's, that's, I guess they're thinking like right now.
So I, I don't really, this is fucking bullshit, but just like, whatever.
|
Sam:
[21:50]
| You're what, what you're saying is traveling by plane sucks these days.
|
Ivan:
[21:56]
| Say it sucks but it's just they've just compared.
|
Sam:
[21:59]
| To how it used to be.
|
Ivan:
[22:00]
| Well compared to how it used to be i mean on the meal look the food the food part i mean fuck fine you don't want me to give me free food sell me something.
|
Sam:
[22:11]
| The the food the the how close together the seats are everything's sort of gotten.
|
Ivan:
[22:16]
| Now one thing is that i'm usually sitting in this in this section i'm usually pretty pretty good even in coach finding seats there are i i get either the extra roomy section or on the exit row right which they do have plenty of room okay especially.
|
Sam:
[22:33]
| Since the door came out.
|
Ivan:
[22:35]
| Well yeah of course that makes it extremely roomy but one thing is you know they've actually shrunk the size of the of the area in first class where it's kind of like you know shit if i'm on the exit row i got more you know i was on the exit row and nobody sat beside me which is not usual anymore right now because the airlines have gotten really good at packing planes now and this is this is something based on on on algorithms technology money look it used to be it was typical 30 years years ago that an airplane would go with an average load factor of like high 50 60 that was normal okay even for a profitable airline a profitable airline maybe a little bit in like the low 60s okay now load factors for all the major airlines are in the 90 over 90 it is so It's so rare to get an empty seat on an airplane where that was in the past.
Man, that was normal. I mean, I listen, I had made a whole thing and I had and I did this and I encouraged other people to do this, especially when they charge like change fees.
I'm like, fuck the change fees. You don't know. You don't pay no change.
What flight you want to take? Oh, I've done the four 30. Listen, you show up to the airport, you get there on standby, guarantee you there will be a seat.
And that never failed. Even on the busiest fucking day of the holidays, whatever that never fucking failed.
|
Sam:
[24:09]
| But not anymore.
|
Ivan:
[24:11]
| Now, now there's a lit. I mean, there's a list of people on standby that never, it's like the, it's like the list for an upgrade.
|
Sam:
[24:18]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[24:19]
| Same fucking thing. They are so adept right now. It's selling the damn plane out that they're, they you don't get that anymore either so.
|
Sam:
[24:28]
| Okay so yeah so let's move on let's move as usual since i am still catching up from the strike that lasted a few months a movie this time the movie is the The third Pink Panther movie or the third Inspector Clouseau movie. Which one?
|
Ivan:
[24:54]
| Wait, which one was this one? What was the name of this one?
|
Sam:
[24:57]
| Okay, so this one was the one that was actually just named Inspector Clouseau from 1968.
It is the third one. And very specifically, it is the first one that did not have Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau.
Up like he was like i don't want to do this anymore he does eventually come back but he was like i don't want to do this and they got alan arkin oh.
|
Ivan:
[25:24]
| My god it got oh i have seen this i thought it was terrible.
|
Sam:
[25:29]
| This was horrible horrible horrible horrible thumbs down thumbs down look i remember this.
|
Ivan:
[25:37]
| I was so confused i didn't understand what the fuck is alan arkin doing this it's like Like, it's like, it's almost like it's a spoof because it's so, because he's so bad at it.
|
Sam:
[25:50]
| Yeah. Now, you know, I had previously watched a few years ago, the first two, The Pink Panther and A Shot in the Dark from 1963 and 1964.
And even there, I was sort of like, it's okay, but it felt like it didn't.
Like, this is one of the ones that doesn't, hasn't aged particularly well, I don't think.
Pink um like the the pink panther well you know i it just neither one of them i thought aged particularly well i remember them being such a big even i mean when i was a kid these were already 10 15 years old but i remember like seeing a couple of them in revivals i remember my dad thinking they were amusing etc they they were sort of i thought they were amused there was a they were a big part of pop pop culture and like yes and i found them amusing at the time but like I feel like they haven't survived well anyway, but then this one particularly, the thing that made them work at all was...
Was Peter Sellers.
|
Ivan:
[26:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[26:53]
| And like, I have not seen the Steve Martin one or this to Steve Martin ones. I have not seen that.
|
Ivan:
[27:00]
| I have, I have not seen the Steve Martin ones either.
|
Sam:
[27:03]
| So I can't speak to them. Maybe eventually I'll see them, but like Alan Arkin, certainly it, the whole thing just fell flat.
Like every single, like there was not practically a joke in the whole thing that I even found funny at all.
It was painful to watch. At least I felt it was.
|
Ivan:
[27:20]
| It wasn't even Blake Edwards that directed it either.
I'm just looking at it right now as somebody else, because Blake Edwards was the driving force of making those movies.
I must admit that I had seen this, Alan Arkin acting as Inspector Clouseau, and I thought it was a spoof.
Right i actually now that you told me that this was part of the pink i thought it was a spoof i thought they were trying to make and i thought they're trying to make fun of it it was poorly and poorly so because just weren't as funny as peter as peter seller so you know peter sellers like some other actors that have been typecast in certain roles like sean connery comes to mind you know with being bond um he really wanted to speaking.
|
Sam:
[28:17]
| Of sean connery real quick.
|
Ivan:
[28:19]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[28:19]
| And moving to the other guy in.
Let's see which one in the curse of the Pink Panther from 1983.
|
Ivan:
[28:30]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[28:32]
| Inspector Clouseau was played by Roger Moore.
|
Ivan:
[28:37]
| Oh yes that's right that's the one that was after peter sellers died it.
|
Sam:
[28:41]
| Was the second one after sellers died yes yeah.
|
Ivan:
[28:43]
| And he supposedly was yeah he it was he.
|
Sam:
[28:47]
| Had plastic surgery and turned into right exactly but like that's but like the whole movie was about trying to find inspector clouseau so he only showed up for like a few seconds or something like i i don't i don't know if i've even seen that but like i saw that on the wiki.
|
Ivan:
[29:03]
| I saw it it was terrible i mean i remember it's terrible that now that was garbage that was just.
|
Sam:
[29:08]
| Look let's just put it this way like i eventually i may see all of these and but again like i have not seen the steve martin ones but aside from that just as a general principle if it's not peter sellers it's going to be crap uh.
|
Ivan:
[29:24]
| Yeah that that that's that's that's that.
|
Sam:
[29:26]
| And honestly that probably applies to steve martin too i i haven't seen them but i'm guessing like you just can't i.
|
Ivan:
[29:33]
| Don't know that they have i mean they did a sequel So I guess it must have gotten a.
|
Sam:
[29:37]
| Must have done a critical reception.
|
Ivan:
[29:39]
| Oh, my God. Pink Panther has an approval rating of 21% based on 143 on Rotten Tomatoes. So that's not good.
The film is nominated for two Razzies and they still did up sequel.
|
Sam:
[29:51]
| Yes, apparently.
|
Ivan:
[29:53]
| Okay. All right. Well, I mean, I remember, you know, I saw shot in the dark.
I remember seeing a return of pink Panther.
There's another one. I mean, there was, there was this, which is the weird one where I don't know.
It, it, it kind of like the, uh, what's his name was supposed to be dead. And he was back alive.
Uh, the, his boss, uh, but you know, the specter Dreyfus and he had gone crazy.
And there were some really weird blood.
Lot i i'm gonna say the early ones were good but it really started going bad but but my main point was peter sellers was trying to get out of doing this role yeah and i remember that he just didn't want to do it it was a big it was a big payday but he didn't want to do it anymore and i remember that there's a documentary about peter sellers that okay as peter sellers died a pretty, depressing lonely death okay well that's um i.
|
Sam:
[31:03]
| Was yeah okay i'm like okay i.
|
Ivan:
[31:07]
| Have to look at this documentary not a this was this is not a happy ending in his life it's not a happy documentary, um so that to be aware he was a brilliant cinematographer but he was he was not he was not a happy man and and you know he died a pretty lonely death so so yeah that was not now yeah if you're gonna i i'm trying to look up what was it because there was a name.
|
Sam:
[31:42]
| Of the documentary.
|
Ivan:
[31:43]
| Yeah the name of the documentary what the heck was the name of the one that i watched which i I believe I saw on HBO.
I remember it was the life and death of Peter Sellers. Okay.
Yeah. HBO films. That that's it. Yeah.
So, yeah. Yeah. If you see the story, Peter Sellers, unfortunately did not have a happy life or marriages and relationships and died a pretty depressing death.
|
Sam:
[32:15]
| Well, that's so cheery on that.
|
Ivan:
[32:18]
| And after we gave a thumbs down to the movie that, well, it didn't have him, so we're not ripping him.
|
Sam:
[32:24]
| Yeah, this was the first one where he was like, I'm not doing another goddamn Pink Panther movie.
And so they got Alan Arkin to do it, and then he came back to it.
They must have thrown a bunch of money at him or whatever, but you know.
|
Ivan:
[32:39]
| Well, I mean, I will say, I think Alan Arkin, I enjoy his acting. It's funny.
Just not in this instance.
|
Sam:
[32:49]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[32:49]
| It was bad.
|
Sam:
[32:51]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[32:51]
| Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, really bad, bad.
Thumbs down. All my thumbs down. Lower were many I can use.
|
Sam:
[33:00]
| Yes. I would agree. I just, it was, I did not enjoy it at all.
I think I started the whole thing by saying that. but yes okay well with that we should move on and we will talk more newsy things after we come back from this break but first yvonne this break for the you know it's been a little while since we had one of this but it's an apple dream it's apple dream 44 okay oh.
|
Ivan:
[33:31]
| Oh the apple dream is back.
|
Sam:
[33:35]
| Okay here we go here is abeldream 44 i.
|
Break:
[33:41]
| Was interviewing for a job at some kind of like startup company that was well funded so they had a nice fancy office and blah but it was clear it was run by like young kids who didn't know what they were doing at least that was my impression and i'm not entirely clear what their product was i was sitting in on a demo of the product and they were showing it to somebody and somebody asked how it started how the first version of the product was and they said like something to do with a blog and it was really stupid it was like, incredibly insane simple technology but somehow they sold this and got it to a few customers and And then they got funding for more.
And the first few customers were newspapers for some reason.
But I forget what the product actually did. I wish I could remember what the product actually did. Because maybe I could make fun of it.
Or maybe it would actually be good. And it would be an idea.
Anyway, I was talking to them. And they told me to wait in the lobby.
Because it was time to...
They were going to take me to lunch or something. thing. And...
In the lobby, for some reason, I was changing clothes. Well, yeah. In the lobby. Of course. I don't know why I would change clothes in the lobby.
I think, once again, I spilled food all over myself. This seems to be a repeating theme.
This has happened in a few other Apple dreams.
Anyway, I was changing clothes in the lobby.
|
Ivan:
[35:18]
| Makes sense.
|
Break:
[35:19]
| And I kept changing into clothes and realizing the new clothes were also dirty and disgusting and would not come out well to impress the people I was with.
But then they came out while I was changing and kind of looked at me like, why are you changing clothes in the lobby?
So I guess that was probably worse than having spilled food on my clothes or whatever.
But anyway, then they went to like, they were going to go take me to lunch and they they were gonna drive us there and there was this old weird ratty van, like it was you know like really old like 1960s like it wasn't the mystery machine from scooby-doo but that kind of van and all sort of beat up and like Like, painted psychedelic stuff on it.
And they were all, like, getting ready to climb into the van and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[36:23]
| No, dog.
|
Break:
[36:25]
| And my alarm interrupted my apple dream. Damn! That was rude.
|
Ivan:
[36:30]
| Yes.
|
Break:
[36:31]
| Anyway, then I woke up. And now my alarm is going off. So I can't go back to sleep.
Bye. I guess I'll find out how to combine these two videos in TikTok.
That'll be the first time I've done that.
Because my alarm interrupted my Apple dream, which was rude.
|
Sam:
[36:54]
| And that was it.
|
Ivan:
[36:55]
| Okay. Well, you know, I recently took some people, customers out to, and a co-worker out to dinner.
|
Sam:
[37:08]
| Did you change clothes in the lobby and take them on an old psychedelic van?
|
Ivan:
[37:13]
| I did not. But the one thing is you talked about how all these people are very young people.
|
Sam:
[37:21]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[37:21]
| And I realized that at this damn dinner, or I'm with the director and his employees or whatever from this company, that son of a bitch, man, I'm the oldest guy in this fucking dinner.
|
Sam:
[37:32]
| Yes, yes.
|
Ivan:
[37:34]
| And I'm the oldest guy in this dinner probably by at least five years.
And I'm like, you know, somebody posted today talking about how their network is geriatric.
Okay talking about some young people in in like what they're you know or they're networking companies that are and now my my my my comment was like cheerio if yours is geriatric mine is positively prehistoric right now at this point i mean i i feel like you know i don't know shit, I was the oldest guy at this one. Sam, you know, I realized how, holy shit, this didn't used to happen to me, man.
|
Sam:
[38:17]
| Yeah, that's the circle of life, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[38:21]
| I'm the fucking old guy at the damn table. I'm like realizing what the fuck is going on.
|
Sam:
[38:28]
| And Yvonne, there are people there at work who were born in the 2000s. Not all.
|
Ivan:
[38:37]
| Hell yeah. Yeah, listen. Oh, hell yeah. Listen, one of them was, no, they weren't. They were, let's see, I think the youngest was 26.
It was close. They were born in the late 90s.
|
Sam:
[38:50]
| Yeah, but there are plenty of workplaces where you have 21, 22-year-olds.
That is not an unusual age.
|
Ivan:
[38:57]
| No, no, no, no, no, I get that. But these were 26, 27, 28, 29, so they were still born in the last century.
|
Sam:
[39:06]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[39:07]
| You know you know at least at least i got that okay you.
|
Sam:
[39:12]
| Know we've talked before about like people saying oh wow you remember the 1900s but yeah fuck you fuck you but i i saw someone pointing out the other day where they were talking to like i don't know someone in elementary school or something and they were like whoa you remember the one thousands fuck thousands, mother fucking me jesus christ you know you remember years that started with a one i.
|
Ivan:
[39:46]
| Remember years started with a one.
|
Sam:
[39:49]
| Anyway von the first newsy topic is up to you where do you want to go.
|
Ivan:
[39:56]
| So I go, let's see, what are we, um, I mean, let's see, what do we got here?
Well, we've left a whole bunch of stuff on the table. Okay.
Well, I'm going to combine two things.
|
Sam:
[40:18]
| Okay. Let's do it.
|
Ivan:
[40:19]
| Okay. Because, well, I now realize they're probably more related than they are.
So we had, you know, we had Tucker in Moscow.
Now we found out that the key informant for the House impeachment investigation is basically a paid Russian agent.
|
Sam:
[40:44]
| Well not quite not quite he may he may also be but that hasn't been proved yet what it is so far he's an fbi informant he was paid by the fbi but he's had a lot of contacts with known russian agents and many of the things that he passed along were sourced from them we we i don't i don't think I don't think it's been established that he's paid by them.
|
Ivan:
[41:10]
| Well, yeah. Yeah. But, but, but the whole, but the whole thing is that every, okay.
But, but everybody, apparently today I heard that they were trying to get him back into custody. They re-arrested him.
They re-arrested him. But the explanation that I saw was because apparently he had a large amount of money that he would be able to abscond with easily. Okay.
And I used the word abscond. Look at that. out of there.
|
Sam:
[41:35]
| Well well because they they had arrested him and then the the judge let him go on bond or whatever with like he had to have gps tracking and some stuff and that you know the feds were like basically like what are you what are you doing you should not be letting him go and i get i don't understand exactly did they get the judge to reverse themselves on the existing agreement you meant?
|
Ivan:
[42:02]
| I thought they charged them with something else.
|
Sam:
[42:04]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[42:04]
| I thought they charged them on something else, which is usually one of the things that they do is like on some of these cases where they don't just bring out all the charges just in case something like this happens, of course. Well, but but, But the bottom line is that everything that he, that it seems that almost everything that he has provided, that was the, the crux of the house impeachment investigation of, of president Biden.
|
Sam:
[42:34]
| Which by the way, they were very, very specifically trying to pin down a bribery charge.
Charge now there are other things that they're supposedly investigating but they were that the theory was there was like a five million dollar bribe paid to biden while he was vice president or something like that right.
|
Ivan:
[42:53]
| Well bottom line is look it's everything that has been showed that he is.
|
Sam:
[42:58]
| It's all about has been.
|
Ivan:
[42:59]
| False yeah it's all false.
|
Sam:
[43:01]
| Well and the thing is and people have been been pointing this out ever since this first came up that all, none of the details added up. They didn't make sense.
There was no documentation besides this, besides this guy saying it.
But also when you looked at the details of even what he was accusing them of, like the different pieces did not fit together properly.
They couldn't all be true at the same time. And so there were lots lots of reasons to be suspicious from the beginning.
And in fact, the FBI was specific, specific. The FBI was suspicious.
They did not believe him and they did not move forward on these charges, which of course is why the Republicans were trying to go after the FBI as part of some coverup because they weren't going after Biden for this.
And then, yeah, yeah, it turns out that everything.
It's all made up and there's proof that it's made up and not, and it's not just like normally, like if an informant says something to the FBI that they don't believe, they don't necessarily go after them for lying to the FBI, which was one of the first charges they put against this guy.
But in this case they did, which means that it was fairly serious they've got lots of evidence of this they've got and probably it means they believe it's part of something larger and meanwhile the republicans on this have been saying basically like that doesn't matter he wasn't really an important part of the case anyway it doesn't change it doesn't change anything we still know all this stuff is true.
They reissued a letter that they had sent out asking for information from various witnesses they they sent it out right before this happened then right after this happened they sent a new version said disregard the previous version look at this one instead and the only difference between between the two versions, they removed all references to this guy.
|
Ivan:
[45:14]
| Okay. Well, I'm reading here in the Washington Post.
Prosecutors had argued that Mironov's claims of having significant relationships with Russian intelligence operatives, as well as millions of dollars at his disposal, meant that he was a flight risk.
So it's so interesting guys in Las Vegas I mean what the hell it's like you know I mean I guess it makes sense you know, let me see what else did they say here but there was something, well this is all about his allegations should be shown to be false basically and that he had close ties to Russian intelligence, and you know so yeah i mean this guy is just you know probably a use another one of these useful people and i was talking well the reason i brought this up at the same time as tucker carlson you know going to moscow and being dazzled by by shopping stores and stuff and grocery stores which show that i guess this asshole hasn't stepped in a grocery store ever I mean, I guess he must have his, oh, his wife gets, of course, he was.
|
Sam:
[46:33]
| He was dazzled by the carts that take a coin and stuff. And that, that's not super common in this country. That's like normal in Europe, apparently, but okay.
|
Ivan:
[46:41]
| But, but it's, but it's more normal, you know, because people steal them, steal the carts. Yeah.
So we don't really worry about that as much, you know, he, he.
|
Sam:
[46:55]
| He, well, he, he, he, aside from the cart thing, he was, he was like being astounded at the low prices of groceries.
But the thing was like, yeah, there, the, the absolute prices of some of these things when translated from rubles to dollars was low, but as a percentage of the average Russian, they're astronomically high.
|
Ivan:
[47:19]
| But the thing is, it also shows that this son of a bitch doesn't leave the country ever, because that's something I encounter all the time.
And it depends to where you go, okay?
So I'll go, for example, recently in Guatemala, right?
And in Guatemala, of course, the price of food and groceries and that kind of stuff is really a lot lower in absolute dollars because so many of that is locally sourced.
It's based on local prices.
You got purchasing power parity. And then as a percentage of their income, it's probably higher or worse than what they get. Yeah, but when you come in as a foreigner with a U.S. dollar, which that's another thing.
The U.S. dollar is close to an all-time high against the rule. Okay?
And it's like trebled in the last like decade where it was like 30 to 1 to like 90 to 1. Right. Okay?
Well, when you go to a country like that where the currency has shifted like that so much, prices are just stupidly cheap when you're going out in dollars.
And that happens all the time. but i go to say if i can go to hong kong and everything looks fucking expensive let me tell you on u.s dollars you know because salaries are higher and everything expensive people make a lot more money and so forth and so on and it's just his his in his his.
The fact that he has no idea that this is so, or because it's one of two things with this prick, it's either he knows, but he is, you know, making this propaganda grift, you know, because it serves his purpose, whatever the fuck it is, you know, for having a white America, I guess that's the only purpose I can see like right now. and basically any of the statements that he makes.
Or he's just an idiot. He's just a complete fool.
|
Sam:
[49:22]
| Or all of the above.
|
Ivan:
[49:23]
| Or all of the above combined.
|
Sam:
[49:27]
| Now, just stepping back a second, you mentioned the connection between these two things, but I think it's...
|
Ivan:
[49:36]
| There is a connection.
|
Sam:
[49:37]
| Yeah, I think it's...
|
Ivan:
[49:38]
| There is a connection. Sorry, go ahead.
|
Sam:
[49:40]
| I was going to say, I think it's reasonable to say that this...
Certainly these two are connected, but they're connected to something even larger.
I mean, if you look at, and there was a good article by Josh Marshall on TalkingPointsMemo.com published February 21st called A Bigger Story Than You Can Possibly Imagine.
I had shared it on our Commodion Score Slack as well.
But basically he mentions trying to talk some of these things together.
And hold on the the, Yeah, apparently this was one that you have to be a member to see the whole thing.
|
Ivan:
[50:28]
| Yeah, I was going to tell you that. Thank you.
|
Sam:
[50:31]
| I am a member.
|
Ivan:
[50:33]
| Are you a member of TPM?
|
Sam:
[50:34]
| I am.
|
Ivan:
[50:35]
| Okay, so you are a member.
|
Sam:
[50:36]
| I will try to send a thing. But basically, here's the thing.
A few other people have brought this up too.
The this is all connected to the hunter biden laptop stuff this is connected to you you remember that like what was her name barry not barisma that's the ukrainian from uh right barina maria butina maria butina there she is who was like just working her way through conservative institutions And politicians and stuff like that.
There there's how the whole Mueller report, the whole like Russian influence over 2016, everything that they were doing to ingratiate themselves with the Trump campaign and the people surrounding them.
There's Rudy Giuliani, who is being fed by Russian agents all over Ukraine and everywhere he was searching for information about Hunter Biden.
And, you know, there's, look, there's significant accumulating evidence, much of which has been exposed already, but like nobody necessarily is putting it all together into one big picture, that there has been a very concerted Russian intelligence information, Russian intelligence operation to influence the American right.
Going back 10 to 15 years, if not longer, to basically...
Insert themselves into that universe, get them aligned and influence what direction they were going in and what they think is true and not.
And, and I am not saying that these people are knowing Russian agents.
It goes back to the old useful idiot kind of thing. They are being manipulated.
They're Republican members of Congress that are in this category.
They're leaders of organizations like the NRA and the various anti-abortion organizations and various others.
There's been a concerted effort to manipulate them.
Now, the Russians haven't stopped there only it's clear they're manipulating the left too you got you know what's you know what's her name stein you know for for the green party you've got you you've got other places there too and you famously i love one of the best examples from the whole 2016 thing that like i just loved and it may have been an isolated example but if you guys remember there was a the case where they used Facebook to rile up two different people, two different groups of people on opposite sides of the immigration issue and arrange rallies at the same time on the same corner to try to get the two groups there to fight each other. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[53:47]
| And that, that's been their, you know, but that's been, you know, this has been going back to the Soviet times, their, Their MO of infiltrating different places to stir infighting amongst different groups.
I mean, there is extensive evidence, for example, that shows how the British labor movement in the 60s and 70s was heavily, heavily infiltrated by Soviet agents that were basically causing these massive strikes in the UK that were crippling the British economy at the time to a big extent.
Extent and and so this kind of activity and influence that they have wielded with their intelligence services and putin comes from that oh yeah is is is just there that is it's just his playbook that he is you know doing everywhere and very aggressively and and look let's not say that you know the u.s doesn't do some of this you know in terms of trying to influence things in other But but not to this extent of what he's doing, like with these agents that are like, I don't know, like the patinas of the world and like and this kind of stuff.
Most of the time, American foreign efforts are more at propping up certain people that say, hey, I'm a dissident that has, you know, that is opposing the regime here that we don't like, and they will help him in a certain way.
But not exactly like this in which they're, I mean.
|
Sam:
[55:18]
| Well, I assume we've done a whole bunch of crap, too, like especially in the.
|
Ivan:
[55:23]
| Well, I mean, I'm saying, oh, no, I'm going I'm talking more recently. No, no, no.
I'm talking more in the last, you know, what the U.S. has done more in the last 20 or 30 years.
If you go back further, well, yeah, we didn't even war or something.
We assassinated. I mean, we fucking took them out.
We didn't like them. I mean, let's be clear about this. We killed them.
|
Sam:
[55:43]
| And we arranged coups all over the place. Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[55:46]
| And we arranged coups and we assassinated them. Yeah. But I'm talking more like in, in, you know, say in, in, during, during the time that Putin has been in Russia, that the efforts that the United States go goes are not that there are efforts. That's what I'm saying.
It's not like fun, but, but it's not.
|
Sam:
[56:05]
| Not, not part of, part of, part of, part of Putin's whole argument is that like it was Americans trying to influence things.
That got a pro-Western government in place in Ukraine in the first place, and that's one of his reasons for going in.
|
Ivan:
[56:19]
| Well, that's what he's saying, but that's what I'm talking about, the difference.
The reality is that while we may have been supportive of that, the reality is that Ukrainians are the ones that didn't want the fucking government.
And that's the difference. It's one of those things where, as in like what I was talking about in other places, they are planting completely fake stories, paying people directly in order to incite conflict That didn't exist in order to make the situation somewhere else less stable, which, like I said, it's something that we used to do very frequently, but we just don't do that as much anymore.
There's very little evidence that we engage at that level of infiltration and manipulation at this time.
|
Sam:
[57:02]
| I've seen speculation that is, as far as I can tell, nothing more than speculation, because anybody who actually knew anything would not be talking about it, that there is likely a bigger investigation going on at the federal level into all of this kind of stuff that we're talking about and what we've seen so far as the tip of the iceberg.
But that's the kind of thing that like of course anybody can say that right like oh this is big huge thing like you don't want to be like the conspiracy theorist right like you don't want to be like making up all kinds of shit that there's no evidence for but there's a whole bunch we do have evidence for like people minimize what was in the muller report but there's a lot of really shocking stuff there.
|
Ivan:
[57:50]
| Is a lot of shit.
|
Sam:
[57:52]
| That about just how well.
|
Ivan:
[57:55]
| Not Not according to Bill Barr.
|
Sam:
[57:56]
| Well, yeah, yeah. No obstruction, no collusion. Right.
But there was a lot of sort of, you know, you could quibble terms about what collusion is.
They didn't charge any conspiracy, but there was certainly lots of suspicious looking interactions.
Let's put it that way. Between the Trump folks and the Russians.
And like I said, all of this other stuff, the the NRA had issues there.
Tons and tons. This clearly an effort was going on by the Russians.
How successful it was.
Hard to tell. Yeah. How much of it is stuff that the Americans would have been doing anyway without the influence observation?
Hard to tell. Well, how much of it is like actually like Russians influencing Americans versus they just have the same ideas and same interests?
And they both want sort of white nationalist conservative type thing going on.
They both want to bring everything back to the 19th century.
I don't know. Like it could just be aligned interests.
But there's clearly a lot going on.
And you've seen it. You've seen it in other countries, too. It's not limited to the U S yes.
|
Ivan:
[59:21]
| It's not just, not just in the U S definitely. It is a, it is a global effort.
|
Sam:
[59:27]
| And so I don't know how much we'll ever see of this, you know? And I don't know. Yeah.
Again, like it, it doesn't make any sense to go into like, pure make-shit-up speculation land. But there's plenty that we actually know of, you know?
And it's just like, are they all just isolated things?
It certainly doesn't seem like it. It seems like there's a concerted effort here, and there are a whole bunch of folks on the right who are either duped or are happily going along with this.
I saw one person describe it as, you know, they're not duped, they're, you know, they agree with the russian mindset anyway so it's sort of like hey if the russians are willing to give us the best information they've got why would we turn it down let's use it if they if if they've if they've got the information from hunter biden's laptop by all means let's run with listen.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:24]
| It's one of these it's one of these things where we've been seeing all this stuff about people and their susceptibility to propaganda and do fake and for information that is that is is provably false.
And they're there. Look, the American right right now is, is, is, is just so, so, I don't know what the word is. It's not susceptible, but just so has this propensity to just believe any bullshit.
And as long as it, if it's, if it really is in tune with what they want to believe it.
|
Sam:
[1:01:02]
| Or if it will help them get to their objectives regardless.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:05]
| Right. You know, you and I spent on the, on, on here, we, we kept talking about alpha bank and, uh, and, uh, and a server and Louise mentioned all this stuff.
And as long as we mentioned it right but the entire time we're like this.
|
Sam:
[1:01:20]
| Is bullshit there's no way this is there's no way.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:23]
| And it's like it's not like we wouldn't want it to be true, but we spent the whole time saying this has to be bullshit you know i i mean i'm reading it and some people are saying whatever but it's the secret signals and.
|
Sam:
[1:01:40]
| Blah blah blah it's like And.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:42]
| It just doesn't line up.
|
Sam:
[1:01:44]
| They got some spam or some random internet pings from the usual probes that are going on all the time to try to find vulnerabilities.
Whatever. Yeah. That was clear bullshit.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:59]
| But look, it's like this entire thing where this graph that was being shown about people's feelings on the economy. Based on who was president.
|
Sam:
[1:02:13]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:13]
| And you could see the Democrats had some movement or whatever, depending on who was president. Yeah.
And you could see that Republicans, the swing was like.
|
Sam:
[1:02:23]
| Much bigger.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:25]
| It wasn't just much bigger. It was while Trump was president.
It's fantastic. The moment that the other guy was in, it's terrible.
And you're like, what the fuck is wrong with all of you?
|
Sam:
[1:02:40]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:42]
| And I'm just like, how can you people just be so gullible but but they are you know they just you know they've got somebody in their ear oh look i got the hunter biden like think whatever they're like yeah, give it to me yeah yeah yeah it's real oh yeah hunter he got the pair oh the five million i'm like you know you and i hear this and we're like oh come on man.
|
Sam:
[1:03:12]
| Well and this.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:14]
| Is bullshit you know not not in hunter biden i'm talking about right right right you heard about this about trump we're like looking at it we're like come on you know you know you know we're like you know it's like it can't you know you know we're like this can't be you know is it real we're like i mean this.
|
Sam:
[1:03:34]
| Is another thing in the in the talking points memo article and for anybody who isn't a tpm member you should be a member of curmudgeon's corner slack because i just shared the whole article there but another thing you mentioned is the whole thing with the hunter biden laptop again right it's like yeah the the information on it was you know okay they're his emails they're.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:58]
| Yes they're clearly there clearly is emails but like.
|
Sam:
[1:04:02]
| Do we really believe the story that hunter biden who at the time was living in california went and dropped off the stuff at a a computer repair shop in delaware where you know this guy the guy dug into his files and then gave him to rudy giuliani and then this and the whole.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:25]
| Story he didn't go he didn't go to an apple store he went to a computer shop he went to a random computer shop in delaware from some rabid right-wing gop and.
|
Sam:
[1:04:36]
| And and look the the whole thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:38]
| What a coincidence and.
|
Sam:
[1:04:40]
| And you know Now, look, the the the hack DNC mails were real DNC mails, too.
It doesn't you know, that doesn't change the fact that the provenance of them was clearly being manipulated in some way.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:54]
| It doesn't also, you know, hide the fact that because, you know, whoever was releasing them, you have no idea if they released everything.
And so therefore, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:05:04]
| Is yeah, there's what is they could be releasing things selectively to only include the most incriminating stuff. they could all and that stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:11]
| That actually like rebuts whatever the hell the other one is whatever because you're not you're not dealing with somebody who is releasing it just honestly they're they're just.
|
Sam:
[1:05:20]
| You know and there there could be subtle changes from the real ones you don't know now in this case hunter biden and his lawyers have not disputed a single thing that came off that laptop to say it wasn't they.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:31]
| Have they have not yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:05:32]
| So so i assume it's real you know But it's all about manipulation of the situation. It's not like...
It's not that they're making shit up. It's that they're trying to influence the perception in a certain way.
And, you know, and folks are just, you know, going along, I guess like, you know, Hunter is, is, is submitting legal briefs at this point saying you're going to drop all this stuff now.
Right. It's all like, cause even the stuff he's been charged with, some of the information came through this source as well.
Now, what's interesting is it's the same special counsel who's dealing with Hunter Biden, or the same prosecutor, I should say, who's dealing with Hunter Biden, that's dealing with this guy who they just arrested in Vegas as the source.
Because apparently it's like, as part of the Hunter Biden investigation, they determined that this guy was lying to him.
Duh! You know, so...
|
Ivan:
[1:06:40]
| Amazing.
|
Sam:
[1:06:41]
| Now, of course, that's not to say, like, the things they've charged Hunter with...
|
Ivan:
[1:06:46]
| What they charged Hunter with was tax stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:06:50]
| And gun stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:52]
| And he's taxing gun stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:06:54]
| It certainly seems he's guilty of all of those things. Let's not pretend he's not.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:00]
| Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the whole thing, the only reason we didn't have a deal was because Hunter wanted basically just blanket immunity.
|
Sam:
[1:07:14]
| Well, part of what's being brought up with this new guy is apparently he had something to do with scuttling the arrangement to with Hunter.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:25]
| Because why?
|
Sam:
[1:07:27]
| I don't know. He was, he was providing information to the prosecutors or something that made them think that they.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:33]
| I don't know that he was hiding something or there was something additional. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:07:37]
| Yeah. Something. I don't know. Let's I, I, I could be wrong on that detail.
I thought I read it earlier today, but I don't have it in front of me.
So let's pretend I'm full of it.
And I didn't say that, but yeah, there's, there's all kinds of intertangled crap going on here.
That's the point is that, you know, there there's, there's a lot of this.
And, and again, I keep like, I feel like you go too far down this road and you're going to be like one of those people with every portion of their wall filled with stuff with string in between to make all the connections and you're ready to be carried off to the loony bin too okay so so.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:20]
| So you're that's you're making a horrible bosses 2 reference did you watch that movie.
|
Sam:
[1:08:25]
| No i've not i mean you know for me it's a homeland reference oh the tv series well when.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:33]
| When did that appear in the tv series homeland because.
|
Sam:
[1:08:36]
| Well actually to be clear the the whole trope of the rooms full of stuff with strings between them goes back many, many decades.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:45]
| Well, that's true. It does go back many, many decades. You're right.
You're right. You're right. Yes, that's true.
|
Sam:
[1:08:51]
| But yeah, because you start sounding like a crazy conspiracy theorist when you're like, it's the Russians! The Russians are everywhere!
|
Ivan:
[1:09:01]
| Yes. They kind of are.
|
Sam:
[1:09:04]
| Take all the speculation out of it. there's a whole bunch that's already like their charges have been filed you know people have been arrested you know you don't have to make stuff up and add the connections there are there's a lot that's already flat out in the court systems i mean you know etc i mean butina was charged and then released as like some sort of swap right like prisoner exchange swap thing was.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:33]
| That it was that That would happen. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:09:37]
| We got some American out of Russian jail in exchange for.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:40]
| Wow. Okay. Well that's, I mean, that makes sense.
|
Sam:
[1:09:45]
| And now she's in the Russian parliament or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:47]
| Gee, what a shocker.
|
Sam:
[1:09:51]
| She's famous over there.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:52]
| Yeah. Well, gee, what a shocker.
|
Sam:
[1:09:56]
| And yeah. Okay. Anything else on the grand useful idiots parade?
|
Ivan:
[1:10:04]
| Yeah. One more thing. Okay. Fuck Tucker Carlson.
|
Sam:
[1:10:12]
| Okay. yes let's do that well no no let's not do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:17]
| Let's not do that i'll you know look i i if i see that son of a bitch on the street i might get arrested for punching him and i don't there are very few people that i would do that on this earth and he's one of them yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:10:32]
| And occasionally you mention others on this show yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:35]
| But it's a short list but he's on it okay.
|
Sam:
[1:10:40]
| So let's let's We've been going long enough. Let's take a break.
But when we come back, I will continue the useful idiot trope, sort of, by another topic that Yvonne added to our list earlier.
But I think it's a natural flow out of what we were just talking about, which is the GOP taking Unhinged to the next level.
Like the crazy shit coming out of their mouths and of course donald trump is one of them but all of these other people too is just out of control and getting worse and also people have said like look the the masks are coming off like they're they're saying the crazy parts out loud that they used to try to keep quiet.
Anyway, we will be back right after this.
|
Break:
[1:11:39]
| Do you want to understand what is really going on with the presidential election cycle?
Then go to electiongraphs.com right away.
There you'll find charts and graphs covering the nomination processes in both parties and the general election race for electoral college votes.
For the delegate races, we track not just delegate totals, but also the ever-important analysis of how each candidate has to do with the remaining delegates in order to actually win.
For the Electoral College, we track state-by-state poll averages to categorize which states are actually in play and which are not in order to show you the range of likely electoral results and how that changes over time.
Sure, you can get some of this stuff elsewhere, but not in exactly the same way.
And not from me, Sam, your prime curmudgeon. I think my election trackers are better than the rest, so come look at mine, electiongraphs.com.
|
Sam:
[1:12:40]
| And if you missed it last week, I had an extensive election graphs discussion.
Go back and listen to last week's show for that.
I'm doing my once every 50 days update that I'll be due for next week, I think, in another week or so. So we'll see how that's going.
Bottom line, and then we'll move on. Biden still isn't rebounding in the polls the way you would like.
It's still like I just entered some new polls and they're still looking crappy, but you still have the huge amount of people that are like, I don't know what I'm going to do.
And so there's a lot of potential volatility in there.
There's a lot of indications that the polls could be wrong because of how special elections have been going. There's all kinds of reasons to have doubts, but I would still feel a lot more comfortable if the polls started moving in the other direction.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:35]
| Oh, God, I would, too. But I must admit that I'm not particularly worried.
|
Sam:
[1:13:42]
| You're not worried?
|
Ivan:
[1:13:43]
| I'm not stressing about it. I mean, obviously, I'm mindful.
|
Sam:
[1:13:49]
| I don't think it's time to stress yet.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:50]
| No, no, no. I'm not.
|
Sam:
[1:13:52]
| No, like if, if, if the polls looked like this at the end of October, I'm going to be stressing a lot more, but we, we, we got time.
There's a lot of stuff going on.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:04]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:14:04]
| Yeah. Et cetera. And, and, you know, but anyway, so Yvonne, like I, I got a couple of examples, but you know, you added this to the list.
So like, do you have some favorites of like kinds of things that these idiots have been saying?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:20]
| Oh my God. Let me pull up some of the stuff that I have been.
Jesus, because it's just, you know, there was.
Okay, this one, which is one that I just posted today.
Charlie Kirk. Okay, asshole.
He went and this is one of the things that he said at CPAC.
Okay, he went and he said that he wants Coca-Cola sponsored.
Sponsored television executions of Trump's political opponents.
Okay. This is, you know, and that suggested that children should be forced to watch them.
|
Sam:
[1:15:04]
| This is your, this is your party of family values, right?
|
Ivan:
[1:15:08]
| Yes. I'm like, what the fuck is going on with these people?
So this is, this is just, this is just, you know, and the truth is in the GOP right now, one thing I was about to share this is that I'm getting a little bit numb about this because it really feels like Thursday.
|
Sam:
[1:15:27]
| Right. Right. I mean, another one from CPAC, Jack Posobiec. I don't know how you say his name.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:35]
| Posobiec, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:15:36]
| Whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:37]
| Fuck face, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:15:38]
| Yeah, he's one of the Trump hangar honors MAGA folks who've, yeah, there's a whole world of these folks.
He specifically said, welcome to the end of democracy.
We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn't get all the way there on January 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of And.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:57]
| Steve Bannon was over on the side, like, you know, like cheering him on.
|
Sam:
[1:16:27]
| Oh, I remember. This was somebody on Fox a couple days ago reacting to Trump's sneakers.
You know, Trump is now selling these $400 sneakers, ugly little gold things, whatever.
This guy on Fox went on like a three minute thing about how this was part of Trump's grand plan to win over more African-Americans to vote for him because black people like shoes.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:02]
| Yes. Sneakers.
|
Sam:
[1:17:04]
| Sneakers specifically. Yes. Yes. And like they're, they're going to come swarming over because they think the shoes are so cool that they need to vote for Donald Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:16]
| That's right. Yes. Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:17:19]
| I mean, that is not only naive and stupid. It's also a racist.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:24]
| Racist and offensive.
|
Sam:
[1:17:26]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:26]
| Offensive. Yes. Okay. Everything all in one.
|
Sam:
[1:17:30]
| And, but this is again.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:31]
| Wednesday on Fox.
Here's another CPAC panelist at Babies Are Us event the best moment of my life this is a woman talking the best moment of my life was when Trump's Supreme Court justices ended a woman's right to choose now we have an opportunity to fully enact our agenda, i i'm sitting.
|
Sam:
[1:18:01]
| Over here and i'm speaking speaking of right to choose type issues another thing that happened this week that's related because.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:08]
| Bet carson's not dead i bet carson's at cpac no it's not bet carson the guy that died.
|
Sam:
[1:18:14]
| No it's ship.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:15]
| It's cane cane yes.
|
Sam:
[1:18:17]
| Herman came out.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:18]
| Of that yeah yeah no.
|
Sam:
[1:18:20]
| Another thing that happened this week is alabama there was a court case that that basically declared frozen embryos to be children.
And so there are all kinds of implications on that.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:33]
| This is one of the most idiotic rulings in our history.
|
Sam:
[1:18:39]
| Oh, but the judge specifically said in the ruling that this is because God said so, essentially.
Yes. But look, the thing is, and look, there's all kinds of horrible things about the implications of that ruling and what it means for in vitro fertilization and all kinds of other things.
But what's been somewhat amusing to see and relates to the unhinged Republicans is all sorts of Republicans falling all over themselves, trying to answer what they think about this.
Because on the one hand, they absolutely want to say embryos are babies.
On the other hand, some of these same people have previously supported IVF.
Some of them have used IVF, like Mike Pence's son was an IVF baby.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:26]
| Mike is an IVF, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:19:27]
| And apparently it's very popular in evangelical circles because they're all about maximizing the population and please have more babies and this helps to have more babies.
But at the same time, oh wait, a natural consequence of IVF the way it's practiced is there are lots of embryos that don't make it through one way or another, like everything from they implant more embryos in the hopes that at least one will be viable.
But very often you get multiple pregnancies there of not just like twins, but quadruplets, octuplets, whatever.
And the normal way they they react to that is they thin them out using selective abortion.
You know, you've got eight implanted embryos, but you only, you want, you want, you want or two, you know, because also if you have all eight in them, there's a high chance that not all of them would survive or maybe none of them will survive.
And so, you know, that goes along with it. And plus, you know, there are many embryos that aren't used at all and get disposed of. Right.
You know, there's all kinds of stuff like that. And you've heard, you know, there have been clips of Tommy Tuberville trying to react to this in a completely incoherent way that makes makes it clear he doesn't understand what's going on.
You've got Nikki Haley doing backflips over this, you know, Tommy Tuberville.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:03]
| Idiot, another idiot. And for some reason I'm trying to still I'm scratching my head as to I mean is she such a loser Let's trust Was it CPAC You know Yeah I mean The one that was outlasted by Lettuce Was it CPAC For some reason You know, She was talking Like, You know, she was talking about how trying to say, like, the American economy sucks and that she wasn't allowed to do her thing when.
Let me let me tell you, if there is an economy that has been doing like shit for a while because of conservatives, it's fucking the UK economy.
You know wait.
|
Sam:
[1:22:05]
| Wait are you saying something like brexit did not work out well.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:10]
| Well finally after a long time the majority the vast majority of the british you know population has realized what a fucking mistake brexit was and all polls show it very clearly now, unfortunately it's like after they got completely fucked but yeah yes the the overwhelming majority of the people in the uk now realize holy fuck what have we done uh-huh.
|
Sam:
[1:22:48]
| Okay what what other unhinged conservative stuff do we have this week yvonne i know there's more i'm just like i should should have i should have made a proper list or you should have it was your damn topic.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:02]
| Well let's see uh mike lindell was out claiming that he's broke, mike lindell was going but mike lindell was actually on a video i just saw where he's talking like his car is moving his car is moving but he's not looking at that down the road and he's driving He's driving an Audi, not even like a Tesla where you can tell me about full self-driving baby, even though we know it's not great.
But I'm like, what's this guy doing? He's talking about how he's broke again.
You know he's crying about it you know desperately because he's really pissed off because this five million dollar judgment.
|
Sam:
[1:23:40]
| Yeah against.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:41]
| Him it was reaffirmed.
|
Sam:
[1:23:43]
| This is the one where he offered a prize if somebody could prove him wrong right or is that a different one.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:49]
| No that's the one.
|
Sam:
[1:23:50]
| Okay yep he had a bunch of bogus evidence about voting machines doing something or other and he had like like this big document that he complained.
He, he, he.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:01]
| He downloaded a whole bunch of data saying that this is vote fraud.
|
Sam:
[1:24:06]
| He claimed it was data that was transmitted over the internet from the voting machines, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he said he would give $5 million to anybody who proved him wrong.
Somebody actually took him up on it and showed that the documents had absolutely nothing to do with anything he was talking about.
It wasn't even remotely like.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:25]
| And it went to court. and the guy won and you know and the judgment has been affirmed yeah so you know and so you know i love how these people just don't like to pay up on we're gonna take off go fund me for michael lindell sure.
|
Sam:
[1:24:40]
| No i was gonna say should we transition at this point then if you don't have more like unhinged stuff to from unhinged to all the conservative, Asshole people who are having to pay up money now.
Because we've got several.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:01]
| Well, I will bring up one more. I will bring up one more. Okay. Carrie Lake.
|
Sam:
[1:25:07]
| Oh, okay. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:09]
| Carrie Lake this week, after she was one that basically disparaged John McCain in public very, very viciously. Okay. All right.
For some reason now, because she's finding herself that, you know, any campaign that she's running is doing like shit all of a sudden.
Try to make amends with Meghan McCain.
|
Sam:
[1:25:35]
| Okay. All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:38]
| And hey, hi, Meghan, as mothers, both with two kiddos.
I know we both agree that our children's future is too important to let it slip away.
Way and i am look i don't agree with the whole bunch of things making mccain but there are certain things we do but i i 100 endorse her response which was no peace comma bitch, so that one was you know that that one was uh that was so so that's the last one i've got really of the of the uh so we'll talk we'll talk about money okay we'll talk about the money thing okay well i got let's let's start with about good wait wait you mentioned.
|
Sam:
[1:26:27]
| Mike lindell we got alan jones we got trump himself of course anything new on giuliani we let's go through the list.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:36]
| Well let me go alex jones so alex jones they finally the sandy hook family's finally decided well we're We're going to liquidate the bastard.
Okay. You know, fuck this shit. Payment deal. My ass. We're going to liquidate your ass. Okay.
So pretty much with this happening, that means that pretty soon, uh, Marshall's are going to be coming to Alex Jones and start taking everything that he's got.
|
Sam:
[1:26:59]
| Beautiful.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:00]
| It's, it's fantastic. It's glorious. And they're going to be go, go grabbing everything that he's got because he doesn't, I mean, not, I think if you add everything, no, he's not, he doesn't have a, he doesn't have 1.5 billion in assets. So they pretty much had to round up everything that he's got and liquidate it.
And oh, by the way, here's another thing, which is great, that even after you liquidate everything, if he's still short, they can't discharge it. He still owes it anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:27:24]
| Yeah. So anything new he gets, they can take it as soon as he gets it.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:27]
| Correct. Yes.
There's another guy down here in Miami, by the way, which is a crazy Republican that had been misusing his office, Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo, that the guys that he was trying to use his power to basically destroy his business sued him in federal court and also won like this.
And they got a $65 million judgment against this asshole, okay, who has been a cancer on Miami politics for 20 years.
And by the way, the federal marshals did start showing up this week to collect this shit.
And the guy was about to start crying. And honestly, because this guy is another one of these right-wing lunatic GOP cancers that just cannot be stopped.
I will say that that was one of the most glorious things that this guy almost cried because they're taking everything from him.
The marshals was just tagging his shit and started taking his shit away. Okay.
And this guy, you know, he got into it because he did. He basically was abusing.
Basically using city resources to harass this business to almost go out of business.
|
Sam:
[1:28:30]
| Excellent. Is that wrong, Yvonne? Is that is that wrong in some way?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:35]
| So I've heard. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about Mike Lindell, but let's talk about Donald.
|
Sam:
[1:28:41]
| Yeah. So the latest update just from today, by the way, is that his lawyers put in a request that said, hey, you did this wrong when you put in the judgment against us because you didn't give us a chance to say whatever, blah, blah, blah.
The judge said, okay, well, what's the problem that that you have.
They found one math error in what one of the other non Donald defendants owed.
I forget which one it was. I think it was Weisselman or somebody. And, Fixed it. Donald Trump was saying, because you made this error, you need to give us more time.
You need to stay this while we do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Judge said, no.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:29]
| The error was immaterial. It doesn't matter.
|
Sam:
[1:29:31]
| The arrow is immaterial. It doesn't matter to anything. You've shown absolutely no reason for delay.
I'm issuing the order. And I guess the 30-day countdown for Trump to pay starts as soon as the clerk officially enters this, which we're recording this Thursday night U.S. time. It's expected to happen Friday morning.
And then the 30-day countdown.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:54]
| Well, but there was another shenanigan that he tried.
|
Sam:
[1:29:56]
| Oh, yes, yes, yes. I did see this. I did see. Explain.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:58]
| Explain he went and like in the filing went and like he tried to put this under nosy what he was trying to to claim that all his businesses had moved to florida yes.
|
Sam:
[1:30:09]
| And they and they immediately caught that and we're like no no.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:15]
| Sorry you didn't move all your businesses to florida well and also.
|
Sam:
[1:30:18]
| They've they've been under supervision for like the.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:21]
| Last year or so they can't do that they can't they can't do that no no.
|
Sam:
[1:30:25]
| They they can't they have to have everything they do approved.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:28]
| I mean And they would have had to do a filing, you know, exactly.
They've been under supervision.
You know, such a filing is a filing in corporate. Plus, anyway, if you're doing business in the state, you need to be, you need to have a legal representative.
I mean, you can't be doing business in New York without having some form of legal entity and just all of a sudden claim, we're all in Florida. No.
That doesn't work.
|
Sam:
[1:30:52]
| And all the main business was still being done out of New York.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:56]
| Well, apparently one thing, you know, you know that right after the verdict happened.
|
Sam:
[1:31:00]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:01]
| Trump had said something about getting new lawyers. Okay. And, um, for the, or, you know, for the appeal or whatever, whatnot, and all this stuff.
Well, it seems like he hasn't been able to really find new lawyers because as far as I can tell.
|
Sam:
[1:31:15]
| He is just going through a very intense interview process. He's being very selective. Only the best.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:22]
| Only the best. Only the best. Only the best. Yeah.
So, so I, I mean, again, this is another, the case of, of I've seen these guys operate.
It's very difficult when clients like this always struggle to find anybody to represent.
Nobody reputable wants to do it. It's just, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:31:39]
| Well, he's got so many things against him at this point. Not number one.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:43]
| He's a terrible client. I mean, forget about, listen, forget about whether the cases are true or not.
|
Sam:
[1:31:48]
| No, I was just going to say the two things are he's a terrible client.
He won't listen to legal advice. He won't follow instructions.
He tells the lawyers what to do, even if it makes no sense legally.
And also he doesn't pay.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:01]
| And he doesn't pay. And then, by the way, once he loses, then he loses.
Then and then he just takes him out, calls him idiots. yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:32:09]
| Right so do we have anything new about like trump's ability to pay like i we.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:17]
| Speculated on this a couple weeks ago rumor the rumor you know is a rumor that that he there there there is a rumor going around that he's thinking about filing for bankruptcy, this only as alex jones found out this only delays and it's it's worse because well leticia james is already.
|
Sam:
[1:32:41]
| Saying if he if he doesn't pay up we're going to start seizing stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:43]
| Right but but here's the one thing that even under bankruptcy the the judge will probably immediately appoint a trustee yep to run everything and so therefore he won't have control over any over it any he.
|
Sam:
[1:32:56]
| Won't he won't have control over it and these kinds of legal legal judgments go to the top of the list when you're paying off the debts.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:02]
| Correct. And, and you know, they, they, you can't just discharge them.
Okay. They did. It's not, you know, it's not a credit card debt. Yeah.
He can, he can get that discharged, but he can't discharge this.
The other thing is what I've said.
|
Sam:
[1:33:15]
| Wait, wait, Yvonne, you have just given the solution to this entire credit cards.
Yeah. Oh, he, he just has to pay, pay this off with his master card. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:26]
| Probably Amex.
|
Sam:
[1:33:27]
| Say maybe well the thing is the amex you have to pay back in full the next month.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:31]
| No no no but they've got some things where you can like you know you can do a pay over time.
|
Sam:
[1:33:35]
| I know i know okay but yeah yeah i i oh wait you you know that was there there's just that merger announced between capital one and discover he should put it he should put it on his discover card you get cash back discover.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:50]
| Card again get three three percent check three percent 10%?
|
Sam:
[1:33:54]
| That's right. Cashback?
|
Ivan:
[1:33:57]
| You know.
|
Sam:
[1:33:58]
| You have solved Donald Trump's problem.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:01]
| I've solved Donald Trump's problem, amazingly enough. Look, right now, my thing about him, because one of the things is to post a bond, right?
Yeah. The thing about posting a bond, this is what has gotten, what I know is going to be tricky, okay? OK, is that, look, the value of whatever the property is valued at.
And we know we've had this issue with appraisals and value and what they were.
|
Sam:
[1:34:30]
| This whole case was about him lying about the value of his properties.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:34]
| And the thing about this is we've gone around as if this whole case is based on that.
Makes you wonder how much, how much, how much in mortgages to our guests, these properties that he inflated the values. Okay.
And so, which makes it more difficult for him to put this up as equity, because if say, give you an example, say he said, okay, Mar-a-Lago is worth a billion.
Okay. Which might, by the way, Mar-a-Lago might be worth 500 million, a billion dollars.
It's a, it's a large enough property in Palm Beach, one of the largest ones.
So that, that could be possible.
|
Sam:
[1:35:07]
| Although people have argued one of the reasons it's not worth as much is because of the way it's encumbered and your use of it is restricted etc.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:14]
| Well well that's true so that's true so so you know yeah you're totally right because it is land but there's a lot of restrictions on on the land use yes so say it's worth 500 say he got it to a price of 500 million so or he called the value 700 million but the real value is 400 million but he borrowed 600 million, so so he's upside down so he can't pledge a fucking property that's upside down right as collateral because there's no collateral there's no equity on it and so this is the big fucking hole where he's in right now where if you go if we go right now and and you go through these properties that he could supposedly put up as collateral okay how many they really have the the equity that really needed in order to do that because this guy has historically borrowed a lot of money from a lot of people and so now you know like i've said before you know but maybe i'm not said it but others have said it i think including himself i don't know will this some saudi prince or somebody just go and like buy something for about a billion dollars.
|
Sam:
[1:36:25]
| Or hell they don't even have to do that they could just pay it outright right like they'll pay the bond.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:30]
| Well they can post a bond they.
|
Sam:
[1:36:33]
| Could post the bond or they could just like put up the entire amount for for the settlement you know they could just say here's 500 million have fun.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:41]
| Well of course that's taxable income well yes, but i i mean i look i i mean that that's you know i i find it that given the situation.
|
Sam:
[1:36:58]
| Elon could pay.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:59]
| Elon doesn't have i mean elon is cash poor there's a billion already, discussed that so i mean he had to borrow from my boss money so it's not you know he so you know i i just it it's gonna be interesting to see how he how what he does like right now for this i i don't you know i think that the saudis have been on a very aggressive campaign, on trying to be unwashing their image in the time since what's his name that got murdered okay They have been very aggressive. They've been trying to do peace talks.
|
Sam:
[1:37:44]
| Oh, you're talking about the Washington Post guy. Yes. I'm blanking on his name.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:51]
| I know, I'm blanking on his name right now. I feel bad.
They've been aggressively doing that. This wouldn't help that.
And also, okay, great. Let's give him this money. What happens? Okay, Trump loses.
Which is a big possibility. Now what? So we gave this asshole what?
Billion dollars. What do we get in return? Nothing.
So that's also, I mean, that has to be a calculation.
|
Sam:
[1:38:18]
| You get the warm feeling that you have helped a fellow human being.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:24]
| Is he a human being?
|
Sam:
[1:38:30]
| I mean, now look, his lawyer, Haber, whoever her name is.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:35]
| Yeah, whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:38:36]
| Says, look, no problem whatsoever. We'll post it. We have the money.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:40]
| Uh-huh. I want to see that. I really want to see that.
|
Sam:
[1:38:45]
| And another thing that was brought up though, is it is unclear like whether there has to be disclosure of where it comes from.
Like he could just show up with the cash essentially, or do a wire transfer, however they do it with these amounts.
And we may not know where the money came from.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:14]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:39:15]
| No, actually, obviously, if he has to explicitly sell major properties, then we'll know those transactions. We'll know that.
But he could just show up and say, OK, it's paid. And then the big mystery, where did it come from?
|
Ivan:
[1:39:32]
| I don't know if that's the case. OK, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure. Now, I think that most probably whether somebody else can pay it for him, I think that that's probably correct.
But the question is whether he can do it without disclosing the source of the funds.
|
Sam:
[1:39:54]
| I heard some conversations about it saying that that was.
He probably doesn't. If he just shows up with the money, it may there may not be a disclosure requirement.
But all but the people talking about it said they had to look into it it was a little bit unsure you know you said elon's cash poor but you know my old boss who's no longer ceo of my company, just sold several billion dollars worth of stock he's got some cash ready to go i don't think i don't think he's floating no i don't think he's floating he can just hand some over to donald yeah i don't think i don't think your boss is gonna hand him any money ex-boss he's not in charge anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:32]
| Ex-boss. I don't think your ex-boss is handing him any money. No. I doubt it.
|
Sam:
[1:40:41]
| By the way, all of this, the deadline for this 30 days from now is very very close to, To win his first criminal trial is starting too. So the timing is all coming together.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:57]
| Here's the one thing I would say, if I'm any of it, listen, here's the one thing. If I were.
|
Sam:
[1:41:02]
| Oh, and wait, wait, wait. Before the 30 days, by the way, for this, the clock is just starting.
The 30 days for E. Jean Carroll is like almost halfway through already.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:13]
| Right. Right. I would say, if I'm any of these people, even if I'm a guy that's for him, right?
Because I would think, you know, because I- Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:41:26]
| Oh, the GoFundMe. The GoFundMe.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:28]
| Well, the GoFundMe, of course. Yeah, I think somebody did start one.
|
Sam:
[1:41:31]
| And the shoes. Wait, perfume too, right? Or cologne or something? You sell that too?
|
Ivan:
[1:41:36]
| Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:41:39]
| Between those three things, he's got it covered. Come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:41]
| He's got it covered. Yes, yes. Well, here's one thing that I would say that even if I'm a supporter, okay, all right, that I would want to know, like right now, how much money does he really have?
Because we know he's lied about it so much, right?
I would fucking, I mean, even if, you know, I'm like, why don't we run out the clock to see if he could really, you know, if, you know, he talks so much bullshit.
Shit, let's see him cough up half a billion dollars in cash in 30 days.
|
Sam:
[1:42:15]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:16]
| Hell, I've got a situation going on with some guy that's supposed to come up with, not impact me directly, but I know that is supposed to cough up 120 grand by Tuesday.
And he has been pushing it off for 30 days now.
And i'm just like look at this point my my speculation is he's not this is the same it ain't happening because you know look if if you've got 100 grand available you can make it happen you can make it appear like 30 i mean a week tops money appears if you're struggling for for 30 days. There's no fucking way.
It is not way. There's no way that's it today.
40. You're going to show up with it, which is why I think that's the reason why the speculation regarding Egypt and Carol and the bankruptcy, because we're talking right now where it's been a couple of weeks.
He hasn't coughed up the money. He hasn't filed an appeal. And we know he always waits till the last minute. But.
|
Sam:
[1:43:24]
| Right. And also, but on these New York cases, every day he waits as is accumulating interest at like 9% or something.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:33]
| Is that cheap? This is not cheap.
|
Sam:
[1:43:36]
| I for not for the E. Jean Carroll case.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:39]
| I believe that for E. Jean Carroll is accumulating interest too.
|
Sam:
[1:43:42]
| No, no, no. I know it's doing it on both, but I was going to say a number.
The number I've heard quoted for the $450 million is that for every day he waits before he posts the bond and or pays, it's $87,000 added to the bill.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:58]
| Nice. It's not bad. So basically like $3 million a month.
|
Sam:
[1:44:02]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:02]
| Close to it. Yeah. So, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:44:05]
| That was really impressive how quickly you did that math, by the way, assuming you're right. I'm not jacking you.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:12]
| Yeah, it's pretty close. It's like about 2.7, but okay. I rounded up to three. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:44:16]
| Thank you. All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:19]
| So, yeah, I mean, I would want to see if he can come up with a damn money, you know, even if I'm a supporter, because I, you know, this guy has been such a bullshit artist about how much he's worth.
|
Sam:
[1:44:30]
| Do you think we will see like definitive movement one way or another, try him trying to move money around before we get to the 30 days?
Or are we going to get to the very end and then something happens?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:43]
| I think we're going to see something at the very if anything happens it's going to be at the very end there's no way we're going to see anything before right i really don't see how but.
|
Sam:
[1:44:52]
| Like if he had like if if he has to sell trump tower or something you can't do that like very last.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:58]
| Well you can post it as a collateral yeah i mean of course he has to show what the mortgages.
|
Sam:
[1:45:13]
| Are this to play out is he gets to the end of the 30 days and just does nothing.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:18]
| That would be interesting and.
|
Sam:
[1:45:20]
| Forces latita james.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:21]
| To start seizing her name leticia start seizing shit leticia leticia.
|
Sam:
[1:45:25]
| James to start seizing shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:27]
| That would be great and and then it's like listen i just saw it already with this guy joe carollo start happening okay and let me tell you it's glorious glorious it's fucking glorious you see the marshals show up and they're posting shit and the guy is all pissed off and saying i don't have any i don't have any money to pay my stuff and i'm like oh poor joe fuck you.
|
Sam:
[1:45:55]
| Yeah i want i i want them to start with all the crap that has his name on it yes yes like the stupid power the the plane the plane oh the plane oh yeah that'd be great.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:08]
| Fucking take the fucking blade it's not worth.
|
Sam:
[1:46:11]
| A lot anymore.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:12]
| But you know.
|
Sam:
[1:46:12]
| No no but like make him yeah yeah yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:15]
| Yeah yeah well he had been flying for a while in the shitty type of jet until he was able to fix it that that you know had to do an emergency landing which is great.
|
Sam:
[1:46:24]
| Yeah yeah i remember but yeah anyway and of course secret service has to blah blah blah he's not actually going to fly commercial but you know what do you mean i.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:34]
| I think doesn't obama fly oh you know other presidents of you know ex-presidents of.
|
Sam:
[1:46:39]
| They sometimes they sometimes do yeah times do although usually, they yeah they they sometimes they sometimes but i so they sometimes do not always but But anyway, it'll be so we're not going to have like a month of chaos as he liquidates stuff or whatever.
You think we're going to hear nothing until the day this crap is due and then he'll somehow submit the money, most likely.
And then we'll try to figure out how he did it.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:09]
| Exactly. I think that's it. Let's go.
|
Sam:
[1:47:13]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:14]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:47:15]
| I think we're done.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:16]
| I think we're done.
|
Sam:
[1:47:18]
| Okay. The stuff at the end. stuff at the end go to curmudgeon-corner.com you'll see all our stuff you'll see our archives going back for years and years and years decades literally decades decades yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:37]
| It literally is now decades there.
|
Sam:
[1:47:43]
| You know you are you are talking about being the oldest person in the room yep and you know that you you're just underscoring that point it will not be long until you have people in those meetings who are born after we started the podcast oh.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:00]
| I'm sure of it.
|
Sam:
[1:48:01]
| Fuck oh anyway you can see our archives you can see the transcripts of more recent shows you You can find all the ways to contact us.
And of course you can find our Patreon where you can give us money, which, you know, we, I, I will promise you personally, if you send us money, we will not use it to buy Trump sneakers.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:26]
| Oh, that's for sure.
That's not happening.
|
Sam:
[1:48:32]
| Maybe Trump NFTs.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:34]
| Oh, the NFTs. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:48:36]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:37]
| Yes. Trump cologne.
|
Sam:
[1:48:40]
| But anyway, if you do donate to us on the Patreon, depending on the level, we will mention you on the show.
We will mention you on the show. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug.
Or at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the Commodions Corner Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners are hanging out all week, sharing links, chatting about things, etc. cetera.
So one last thing, Yvonne, what is the highlight of the week from the curmudgeons corner slack that we have not spoken about at all on the show?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:16]
| Planes top 800 miles an hour as a near record winds sweep high over the atlantic so this is a story in the washington post but there's been a lot of other places i've been posting this that the gulf stream okay going over over the u.s and the atlantic has been quite strong like some of the strongest winds ever recorded okay and so it's made that uh that jets flying, west to east okay have topped 800 miles an hour speed over ground they're really not supersonic because they're not moving through the air supersonic but but it is supersonic over ground okay it is over the speed of sound over ground but you know the the plane isn't moving through the air it's the air mass is carrying it and so therefore it but yeah i mean they've been breaking the sound barrier and speed over ground like heading over there of course now except not not really breaking.
|
Sam:
[1:50:08]
| The barrier because of what you just said that it.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:10]
| Is right it's just it's just faster over ground however however the one thing about this though which is which is terrible is that if you're you're coming from europe over here that's fucking you have the opposite effect i mean you have the opposite effect i mean usually flights i mean i remember you know first time i went to europe i was like it was like 19 or something like that i still remember you know Well, realizing that, you know, the, the, the flight I flew, I flew on a seven 67, I remember, which is, which is a novelty back then because almost all those transatlantics were on, on, on four engine seven, four sevens, but I flew on American like the first time and they had just, they, they had just gotten into flying transatlantic and they're flying seven 67s.
And, and the one thing I remember is, well, the seven 67s also have to fly at that time. they had to be within 120 minutes of an island or something in case of engine failure or so forth, which you can do over the Atlantic.
There's many islands across.
But the one thing was that I remember that on the way over, I remember there was like, eight hours or something or whatever and shit i remember that was flying back uh and it was from madrid and we're looking at holy shit 11 hours like what the fuck and we had a really really strong ass jet stream and it took 11 hours you know to make it back okay so yeah i mean it could get like it could really you know cut the time i mean you know it could make it quite a a hell of a long trip and i know that in some cases you know i've seen that where that effect has made it that planes have had to stop for fuel like in newfoundland or something like that because they've been like there have been you know a number of airlines have been doing some, transatlantic flights that they've been using like 757s or something like that that are barely at the range of of that and when they've done that if the winds get like that on the way over and then we have to hear uh well ladies and gentlemen we're gonna have to stop for fuel because we're running low which isn't really exactly what you want to hear from your pilots i would say but you know it's okay.
|
Sam:
[1:52:23]
| Yeah no well it's better than we're already out of fuel sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:26]
| Well it's better to hear like oh ladies and gentlemen you know captain speaking we're right out of fuel, please brace you know for it for an emergency ditching thank you enjoy your flight.
|
Sam:
[1:52:40]
| Yes yes yeah rather not hear that okay are we done.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:44]
| Yes okay.
|
Sam:
[1:52:46]
| Thanks everybody for joining us have a great week we'll see you next time, We'll see you next time. Yeah, stay safe. All the stuff we usually say at the end. And are there upcoming things?
Hopefully, by the next week, we'll have SCOTUS get back on the immunity thing and maybe some other things.
And we'll know a little bit more of what's going on with some of these court cases. I don't know.
Like, there's always news.
We have the South Carolina primary on the Republican side where Nikki Haley is going gonna get crushed you know so yeah now.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:25]
| That would be interesting if she did it would be interesting if she won or something like that that would be a scoop.
|
Sam:
[1:53:30]
| Yeah not gonna happen not gonna happen and and like here's the thing even if she gets close trump will get all the delegates it doesn't really matter i mean maybe it'd give her a little bit of momentum going ahead but like she's been lowering expectations on how she'll do but at the same time saying that she's she's got the funding she's sticking it out all the way to the convention. We'll see. Anyway.
We're done! Goodbye, everyone.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:56]
| Bye!
|
Sam:
[1:53:57]
| Yeah, bye. Yeah, bye. Bye-bye, bye! Here comes the music.
Later, Mr. Bowe. I'm hitting stop.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:29]
| Stop!
|
