Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:23]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, June 29th, 2024. It is just after 2.30 UTC. I'm Sam Mentory. Von Bo is here. And yeah, it's another week.
|
Ivan:
[0:36]
| Yeah, we're here. It's another week.
|
Sam:
[0:39]
| It's another week.
|
Ivan:
[0:40]
| We are going to talk about the Copa America tournament that is going on right now.
|
Sam:
[0:47]
| Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[0:47]
| How the U.S. was embarrassed by Panama yesterday.
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Sam:
[0:53]
| I know lots about this.
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Ivan:
[0:55]
| I'm sure that you're all, I know, I'm sure that you've been following this very closely.
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Sam:
[1:01]
| Very, very. I've been obsessively following every detail I could possibly find on that.
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Ivan:
[1:08]
| Of course. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:10]
| Now we're, we're going to do our butt first with casual stuff, and then we're going to do a couple of segments of newsy things. And I get, I bet you guys can guess what we're going to talk about. At least some of the things.
|
Ivan:
[1:23]
| Uh the weather yes.
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Sam:
[1:25]
| The weather it's been hot.
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Ivan:
[1:27]
| It's been hot a lot of places not.
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Sam:
[1:30]
| Here here it's been fine where i am in the pacific northwest.
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Ivan:
[1:34]
| I you know this last it it got we had a spell where it was today was it was like 10 degrees above normal above averages it's gotten closer to the averages It's still above average, but it's gotten closer to the averages, but, but we, we definitely have been a spell. I did have somebody that recently moved to the U S that was, I saw today and they were telling me that they went to, uh, DC last week and DC was in the middle of, of, you know, this heat wave we've had. And I don't, my experience with DC heat, DC gets really humid, far more humid than, wow. I mean, I mean, I come from a place that's hot and humid. And when I went to DC in the summer and it got hot and humid like that, I felt it was so much worse than, than any of the heat that I usually experienced in Puerto Rico.
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Ivan:
[2:46]
| I don't know why that is, but that was the way I, I experienced it. And yeah, these guys, you know, they, they went there and they were like, whoa, no, they had moved in. They, they moved to the U S from Chile. Okay. Uh, relatively recently.
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Ivan:
[3:05]
| So, you know, they, that was like, just, you know, that's one of the things they actually, it's an interesting thing when you, you meet somebody that just recently moved from another country. As i think they they told me that they had visited like new york before and i think they had visited dc but never to philadelphia never to boston never to that area you know so they they they really you know hadn't visited so they decided to to to you know just to visit the country right i mean you moved here to the u.s and they just wanted to go and like visit the of places. And so that was one of the things that they did recently. And, you know, they went to their first time to Boston Philadelphia. It's sad that they had a really great time. So, you know, doing, they did do, I guess it was pretty smart. They did a road trip where they took a rental car, they drove all the way up there, but they had airline tickets to return. So they, they, they flew back from the road trip. So that was, that was interesting. So anyway, that's our weather segment for today and travel that.
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Sam:
[4:12]
| That was that was very exciting I kind of tuned out I must admit I was looking at other things.
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Ivan:
[4:17]
| Oh it's not that thrilling it's it's not it's not thrilling you know and travel no no you're not yeah.
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Sam:
[4:25]
| So so given that yes what's the what's your real but first.
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Ivan:
[4:34]
| I went to the I went well not that we have I don't have an office anymore here, but I kind of, one of the reasons I saw that person is because I kind of like went to the office. Well, we had, we had a, like an all hands meeting for our region. And so they went and over here, we don't have an office anymore. So they, they got us a conference space at one of these coworking places. And so I spent the whole day, I had to drive to the, to the, to downtown.
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Sam:
[5:05]
| Oh no.
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Ivan:
[5:06]
| And meet with all these.
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Sam:
[5:06]
| Oh no, I feel so awful for you. Oh, it's, it's, I, you know, it's, it's a horrible, horrible fate that you have had. And I can't possibly imagine anything so bad.
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Ivan:
[5:24]
| So. And I spent the whole day there. And I got back like, oh, gosh, I don't know, close to seven, like around seven. I'm going to tell you, that's it. It's tiring. I actually wound up taking a nap when I got home. That's how tired I was from this whole thing.
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Sam:
[5:44]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[5:44]
| I mean.
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Sam:
[5:46]
| I feel you. I like, look, I, I am forced to go into the office three days a week. Most of the time it's pointless unless there's something specific I'm going in for. And, uh, it's annoying. It's, it's just annoying. Like, and, and look again, I have no issues whatsoever. When there's actually somebody there to like i'm gonna have a meeting i'm gonna have a conversation i'm gonna do some whiteboarding i'm having lunch with somebody whatever those are all fine it's the going in and sitting in an empty office after having to do the commute like for well.
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Ivan:
[6:25]
| I did meet well i well that was the thing that that's the positive i mean i did meet with people.
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Sam:
[6:31]
| Yeah yeah Yeah.
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Ivan:
[6:31]
| We did have something that we were discussing. One of the things is that because we're doing the all hands, I did prove to be a little bit of a guinea pig for the slides in the in the all hands because, you know, trying to make sure that whatever was on there, the content made sense, made sense. Yeah, because they had been working on it. Right. You know, like our senior VP and and his staff, you know, they go to one slide. OK, well, you read this. This makes sense. I went through it. It actually did. I mean, I actually went through all the bullet points. And I think there may have been one that I didn't know what, you know, I was a little bit fuzzy on some of the stuffs. Okay. On some of the stuffs. Stuff.
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Sam:
[7:15]
| The stuffs. The stuff. The stuff.
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Ivan:
[7:17]
| I think, you know, because there's certain things that maybe some new stuff that we're talking about, like one thing that we were talking about that we talked about, heaven forbid, is AI, of course.
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Sam:
[7:28]
| Oh, of course. Of course. You can't have a meeting without talking about that.
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Ivan:
[7:33]
| No, apparently not anymore. I can't even escape it now. So the one thing is that I know that we have been, you know, a couple of things that we talk about sometimes is not just the capacity of AI, but AI services and how to make AI practical. So, uh, there was a good discussion around that, about, I think the things that we have complained about and how to make sure that we, we can enable people to be able to get value out of it.
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Sam:
[8:03]
| Yeah. Use it where it makes sense, not where it's stupid.
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Ivan:
[8:06]
| Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and actually we had the discussion about it and, and by the way, I, one thing that our discussions on that proved to be very helpful.
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Sam:
[8:14]
| Oh, good. Good.
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Ivan:
[8:16]
| Related to that. Yes, that was good because I was able to provide some real feedback related to that. So that was received positively. So that's good. I didn't mention that we had a discussion around that. But the one thing, we did have a discussion about working from home in the office and the fact that we were all together. I did bring that up. Well, I think the one thing I brought it up was because we haven't had, Like, we've onboarded a lot of new people.
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Sam:
[8:50]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[8:51]
| And what I did bring up was very, you know, I took the opportunity to bring up specifically, you know, the issue with sometimes, look, I get, you know, I know that many times I don't find it productive to go to the office like you mentioned. So I brought up specifically.
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Sam:
[9:07]
| But it's helpful for new people who are trying to figure out what's going on.
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Ivan:
[9:11]
| Right. And I was like, look, we need to figure out something with this. And we also, I think one of the things that, I don't know how it's handled at your place of work, and I know that this is inconsistent across different places, but I mean, we're in a company, I mean, at least us specifically. I think many companies aren't in this situation, but where the product and the portfolio are evolving very quickly. And when that is happening, getting people up to speed on understanding what the changes are and what's going into how to position those, it's difficult if you don't have some kind of... In classroom training or, or, or at least be with people and that it's not that it isn't virtual. I, I, I just, I think a lot of people tune into these webinars and most of them tune them out.
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Sam:
[10:16]
| It's very easy to turn. Well, it also depends a lot on the quality and blah, blah, blah, but it's very easy to tune out those things. Like, like if, if you're stuck in a classroom room and there are people all around you, it's kind of, you know, if you goof off, people will notice.
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Ivan:
[10:33]
| Goof off, people will notice and you're more bound to wind up focusing on what the hell is going on.
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Sam:
[10:38]
| Yeah. If you're watching something, especially like it's, and what you're talking about in terms of like instruction is different than a meeting. Like in a meeting, you're talking back and forth and you're participating. And if you're not participating, you probably don't need to be at the meeting anyway. And so, but, but like with a thing that is, it's like either somebody talking at you or you going through slides or whatever, it's just really easy to be like, okay, well, this is interesting, but I'm going to check my phone real quick. And you're right. I'll, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll like, you know, I'll have it on my headphones, but maybe Maybe I'll like go do the dishes. I don't know. Like, yeah, it's very easy to like decide that the right thing to do is to multitask. And, you know, I know some people are better at this than others, but personally, like if I start doing something else that is even slightly more engaging, I can go minutes and then suddenly realize, oh crap, I should have been paying attention to that thing.
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Ivan:
[11:46]
| Yeah. What the hell was going on? Right.
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Sam:
[11:49]
| Yeah.
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Ivan:
[11:49]
| And so I, I, I guess that's the thing. I think that I'm going to say like 20 years ago, it was a common practice that we would get taken to a training that was developed in conjunction with actual people that design training, not just, hey, you're the SME on something. Make up some slides. No. Right. This was a training that was, you know, designed by people that, you know, together with the SMEs, it's meant for to to teach. And also, a lot of the times there were practical exercises and testing. Interesting i mean just to see how much you learned and because that also helped to like identify okay what what was absorbed what wasn't and so forth and so on and i don't think we i don't think, Companies do enough of that anymore. And that, that used to be quite a lot more common.
|
Sam:
[12:55]
| I remember like when I was, when I was at Merrill Lynch and even in my early years here, I think I was sent to a couple of courses. It's been forever. Like, not that, not that like I actually want one, but, but it has been a long time. It used to be something that.
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Ivan:
[13:15]
| But if there is something that you want to really have people learn, that's the way to do it.
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Sam:
[13:22]
| Well, yeah. I mean, and you're even talking about like real courses on something that. Oh, yeah. But like, it's even worse when it's the stupid little mandatory training about harassment or bribery or whatever. Like, those are just so dumb.
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Ivan:
[13:41]
| But well those everybody has to do every year but but i but you know what we did talk about that one but but again you know what they may be dumb but look that shit happens still all the time.
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Sam:
[13:58]
| They guarantee that everybody has seen it so if you do the things you're not supposed to you can't You can't plead ignorance.
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Ivan:
[14:06]
| You don't have the fucking excuse exactly that you were not told and trained that this is wrong. Yeah.
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Sam:
[14:16]
| I thought it was just fine. Like, you know, they only gave me a car.
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Ivan:
[14:22]
| Somebody was mentioning today how in some years past. Yeah, because in the industries, and I've lived this, where you've got a company with a product or service that's sold through a third party. Man, those, especially that deals with government, man, those are wide open for abuse, okay? You know, I think I probably mentioned that somebody that was our senior VP 20 years ago, while he was working at another company, wound up going to jail on an FCPA investigation sometime like, yes, this must have been about. Eight or nine years ago.
|
Sam:
[15:14]
| Okay.
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Ivan:
[15:16]
| And, you know, this is something that is notorious. And I know that I had somebody, somebody was mentioning today how I was talking about that there was a series of people that I had heard had been terminated some place or whatever, whatnot, that we knew. And they mentioned to me that look I've been through training I know what the hell is right and wrong about this stuff and that some years ago like a long time ago had to go to one person and they were on a call they heard these people talk about stuff they didn't specify what they said but he hung up the call and called them called one of them I think reported and said listen Listen, I don't know what the hell's going on with you guys, but everything I just heard on that call is inappropriate. And you guys were casually talking about it like it's no problem.
|
Sam:
[16:20]
| That's lovely.
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Ivan:
[16:22]
| Yeah, I know. Yeah. And, you know, you said is that, you know, taking this training, you know, over and over as at least Adam in his mind reminded him that what the fuck it is that you're supposed to be looking for, whether it's related to harassment, whether it's related to inappropriate practices related to third parties, customers and so forth and so on. You know, I wound up having to terminate people for this shit. And, you know, people will play dumb. People will say they didn't do anything. It's not good. It's just, you know, it's not good. So anyway, but I will say that despite the exhausting part of that, I did have a good time going in and being with people.
|
Sam:
[17:17]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[17:18]
| I was tired at the end of the day.
|
Sam:
[17:20]
| It could be good, like, sometimes.
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Ivan:
[17:23]
| Sometimes yeah you know sometimes yeah well i'm not having i'm not gonna have to do it again like next week well so there you go that's.
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Sam:
[17:31]
| Good i guess.
|
Ivan:
[17:32]
| Okay is.
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Sam:
[17:34]
| It my turn.
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Ivan:
[17:35]
| Yes it's your turn okay so you're covering a movie no.
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Sam:
[17:40]
| Normally i would.
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Ivan:
[17:41]
| Cover a.
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Sam:
[17:42]
| Movie but i i need to give like an update. I took this week off to work on election graphs.
|
Ivan:
[17:51]
| Ah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[17:53]
| And so I'm adding the various things that show, probabilities that take into account the amount of time left before the election as opposed to just if the election was today all the time.
|
Ivan:
[18:10]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[18:11]
| And Monday and Tuesday we're all dealing with the data like getting all my old data from 2008 and 2012, getting it into right formats making sure all my calculations were right, adjusting doing all the math stuff and I finally, I came out of all that and there was one thing that really annoyed me, I found, error in my spreadsheet from 2012. Okay. And apparently back in 2012, I had all, I had found it. Cause like I looked at my 2012 post-mortem and it included the correct number, but like in my spreadsheet was a wrong number. And that wrong number had been propagated through the stuff I'd done since then. And so I found it, I corrected it, but the curves that come out of the process looked better with the error than with the real data, which was kind of annoying. But, you know, and it took me like, I spent like an hour or two convincing myself, that it really had been an error before and the new numbers were better than the old numbers and I should go with the new numbers, not the old ones. Anyway, that was Monday and Tuesday. By the end of Tuesday, I'd gotten all that done.
|
Sam:
[19:36]
| Wednesday I made the I don't even know what day it is like I'm getting confused Wednesday I did the state detail pages and added this functionality and it worked really well and by the end of the day I launched it I put out a toot on Mastodon saying hey this is on the state thing national National is coming soon. So I was really happy. Now I say Wednesday, but really it was, I did an all nighter Wednesday into Thursday morning, but, but I did it and I was really happy with the progress. I was, I felt like I was a little bit behind my intended schedule, but I was, I was okay. So Thursday I started working on the national stuff. Wait, I'm getting the timelines confused, whatever. It doesn't matter. I had the state stuff. Worked and I moved on to the national, like all the days have sort of merged into each other. Cause I pulled a couple all nighters and when I have slept, it's been like three or four hours and then I've gotten up again. And the first half of the week I was doing this thing where I was alternating with other activities I wanted to get done. Like for instance, I did an upgrade to wiki of the day early in the week as well. Uh, you know, I, let's see the, the, the two main things are one, uh.
|
Sam:
[20:58]
| Has a wider variety of voices than it had before. Like the, the service I use to do it, Polly had added new voice engines and I had stuff in place to automatically take into account of new voices within existing engines, but they added new engines. So I had to like change things to, to, to take advantage of those new voices, which I did. And also one thing that's bugged me about wiki of the day from the very beginning was that compared to other podcasts, the volume was a little low. really.
|
Ivan:
[21:28]
| Yeah i don't think so okay.
|
Sam:
[21:31]
| It's it's just a little like normally like most podcasts are normalized to what's called like by something called luffs and it's like negative 16 luffs is standard and the wiki of the day was a little softer than that but i didn't have a good way to normalize to luffs i i it was only like you know i think there was a way you could just say louder butter, please. But anyway, I figured out how to normalize it to love. So it's now normalized to the same levels that curmudgeon's corners normalized to et cetera, et cetera. No one cares about that, but I did some, I did some, cause whenever I was listening to podcasts in the car and wiki of the day came on, I'd have to turn it up a little bit to be the same as the others. And that was, that's been bugging me for years. I finally fixed it. Anyway, the first half of the week I was doing other stuff. I was cleaning around the house. I was doing some dishes. I was doing some laundry. And by the time we got to Wednesday afternoon, I was like, no, I have to like concentrate on this. And so anyway, I got the state detail pages done. I was really happy with them, how they turned out. They looked great. And then I started doing the, the national stuff. And I have a test page where I'm sort of building all the stuff. And I was really, really happy with the progress there. And then I did something.
|
Ivan:
[22:47]
| You did something. something wow i.
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Sam:
[22:50]
| I did something yeah.
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Ivan:
[22:52]
| What did you do.
|
Sam:
[22:53]
| Basically i fucking broke everything ah.
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Ivan:
[22:57]
| Great that's always always always very you know.
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Sam:
[23:02]
| And of course like i do this crap by the seat of my pants editing things directly on the server without any version management whatever blah blah backups you.
|
Ivan:
[23:12]
| Know yeah no.
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Sam:
[23:13]
| I have i had some backups well i did i did have like yeah.
|
Ivan:
[23:17]
| But But not version management, I get, you know.
|
Sam:
[23:21]
| Not recently enough. Like, I had a backup from before I started doing any of this work. I didn't have stuff that I could go back to, like, where I was an hour ago.
|
Ivan:
[23:29]
| You could, exactly, yeah. You couldn't roll. You couldn't just roll back.
|
Sam:
[23:34]
| I couldn't just roll back. And of course, anybody out there in the software world is going to be like, well, Sam, you deserve everything you fucking get, you know?
|
Ivan:
[23:41]
| Yes, you do. Yes, you do.
|
Sam:
[23:43]
| Like this is best practices that people have known for decades, you know? And yes. Um, but no, no, I'm sitting there directly editing files on the server, on the live server. And like something breaks and I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. It breaks. And then I fix it. But then I got myself into a real mess. Like, all kinds of things weren't working right.
|
Ivan:
[24:04]
| Yeah, right. And you could just roll it back.
|
Sam:
[24:08]
| No. And right now, at this very second, like, I'm distracted as I'm talking to Yvonne because I'm discovering more things screwed up on the live site as we're speaking. Like, and...
|
Ivan:
[24:19]
| Good work, Sam.
|
Sam:
[24:21]
| Yeah, so... And my time is up. Like, I took the week off, not two weeks off. I do have the weekend, but I have...
|
Ivan:
[24:28]
| I told you to take two fucking weeks off.
|
Sam:
[24:31]
| Off i know i know i know but anyway so like i.
|
Ivan:
[24:35]
| Mean next week is a fucking short week anyway.
|
Sam:
[24:38]
| I know i know i've got the weekend and i've got blah blah blah but anyway so like i'm looking at like one of the graphs on there and i'm like that graph is completely wrong that graph is wrong why is that graph wrong what did i screw up on that one the other thing that i did was i had the way I originally set it up to do like some of the stuff was fast enough, but use too much memory. So like if I was trying to do deal with too many pages at the same time, it would blow up my server's memory. So I've been trying to change it to something that is, that would be faster, but I ended up making it slower instead. And so that's no good. Like, and, and like once it's cached. You can just bring up the cache. But the thing is, if something changes, then it like takes a little bit to like calculate the new results and cache the new version of the page and all this kind of stuff. And the problem is that time to do the caching moved from minutes to like an hour. And I'm like, oh man. And so like, anyway, so like I've been.
|
Sam:
[25:50]
| I've been beside myself like all freaking day to day, like since about 11 a.m. Like was when whatever I did that started breaking things happened. And I've been trying to recover from that ever fucking since. And it is not there yet. I was actually, I think I was just realizing and during the next break, I'll do this. That it's, it's in a bad enough state right now that I'm going to put like a little red warning on the homepage or whatever saying things are screwed up right now. Come back later. You know, cause it's just, it's just a mess right now. Like some of these, I'm like, I don't know what the hell it's doing. And I like as recently as like, like I said, around 11 AM today, Friday, I was like, this is going really well. I might even finish this before I talk to Yvonne for the podcast. And then everything went to hell and then completely to hell and it's all messed up. And I I'm, I'm like, I was thinking that I'd be done with that and I do the podcast and then go get some sleep. And then in the morning, like, and then, you know, maybe clean up some stuff over the weekend, but it was, would be basically done and I could move on to other things. Instead, I'm now thinking as soon as I get done with this podcast, it's back to debugging bugging and it's another freaking all-nighter probably.
|
Ivan:
[27:16]
| Nice. Yeah. There you go. Congratulations, Sam. Good work.
|
Sam:
[27:21]
| Yeah, like even the stuff that I launched, even the stuff that I launched like Wednesday and put out the announcement about and everything, it was like, it was great. That stuff screwed up right now too. It's like, and anyway, so. So anyway, coming soon, I will fix all this stuff. It's just been a pain in my ass. And, and, and it's frustrating because it felt like it was all going so well and it was coming together exactly the way I had it planned. And then it all blew up. Nice good job congratulations yeah congratulations that's exactly right so i'm i'm researching stuff on how to like improve performance in one place and then in another in another place i'm like you know i'm like how do i do this in memory caches instead of off disk and stuff like that and then made one attempt and it didn't work right and then i'm making another attempt and that didn't work. And now I'm like, okay, this isn't working, so I have to set up this other thing, and I don't know, blah, blah, blah. And meanwhile, like I said, other things broke. And I feel like some of it is almost certainly like data's getting saved to the wrong place and overwriting something it shouldn't. And I know I can, it's just a matter of tracking it all down. And at this point, I'm tired. But the problem is live, so I need to fix it. yeah.
|
Ivan:
[28:47]
| So is it is it is it because of your age sam it.
|
Sam:
[28:51]
| Probably is because of my age it's it's because, i'm decrepit and over the hill yep and i'm cranky and the fact that i'm an old tech curmudgeon is one of the reasons i'm doing things like edit live on the damn server like if i'd been brought up any more recently than i was i would have been in indoctrinated into the proper use of all these these technologies to save you from shit like this from, from the very beginning, you know, I'd have, I'd have a staging server. I would have a version management. I'd have this, I'd have that. And in a professional capacity, I know all this stuff in a, what the hell I do at home. I'm just like, let's edit it live.
|
Ivan:
[29:34]
| Ah, fuck it. Live, live in production, baby.
|
Sam:
[29:40]
| Exactly. You know? And so, So, oh, man. So, yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm frustrated right now because I was I was it was so close. I felt it to being done. And then kaboom. Everything's fucked now well um you'll.
|
Ivan:
[30:00]
| Get you'll be you'll figure it out.
|
Sam:
[30:02]
| I i'm sure i will figure it out but in the meantime i'm unhappy well i'm smiling while i say that it's like it's kind of been fun well the the get the making it actually work was kind of fun the stress of oh my god not everything's broken, less fun, less fun.
|
Ivan:
[30:25]
| Less fun, but you know.
|
Sam:
[30:27]
| It is what it is. So, all right, I should, I should eat sometime too. I don't think I've eaten in a while.
|
Ivan:
[30:34]
| That, that would be good.
|
Sam:
[30:36]
| But you know, whatever I eat, I'll, I'll eat the website.
|
Ivan:
[30:41]
| Oh, that's that though. That'll be tasty.
|
Sam:
[30:43]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[30:43]
| You just print it all, but it's just take all the code, just print, print everything, print, you know, reveal all the, uh, html encoding and whatever on every page i.
|
Sam:
[30:54]
| Was thinking more of a fax service where somebody could fax me a request for information on what's going on in a state and i would sort of manually write out a response and fax it back.
|
Ivan:
[31:05]
| That's something i haven't done in quite a while you know i had somebody that i think i can't remember what the heck it was this was like not that long ago that was like the way this was communication was working i i i they they said that they didn't use email, that they would just use fax. So I would write out a fax and I could, I used to be able to fax from my computer. I talked about this, that my service got discontinued, but that I could fax from the computer and then they would write a note on paper and then fax it back to me.
|
Sam:
[31:40]
| Lovely. Okay. Well, you mentioned our ages, so I think it's time to take a break. And I guess there's an obvious topic, which is the Biden-Trump debate. And then there might be some other things to talk about.
|
Ivan:
[31:57]
| Maybe.
|
Sam:
[31:58]
| We're going to start with that, right?
|
Ivan:
[31:59]
| Yeah. Okay. We'll start with that.
|
Sam:
[32:01]
| We'll start with that.
|
Ivan:
[32:02]
| I guess we have to.
|
Sam:
[32:04]
| We have to. There's no choice. There's no choice. We will be back after this. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[33:56]
| Well, let me ask a question because this was recorded a while back. Does Alex still hate curmudgeon's corner?
|
Sam:
[34:03]
| Alex, do you still hate curmudgeon's corner? He nods. Yes, he does.
|
Ivan:
[34:08]
| Okay. All right. Good. So, okay. So that hasn't changed. Okay.
|
Sam:
[34:11]
| So during the break, I did, like I said, I put a big red note on election graphs.com. Oops. I've been trying to do some up, some upgrades to the site and instead broke a bunch of stuff. Don't trust anything you see at the moment. I'm working on it. Come back later.
|
Ivan:
[34:26]
| Good job, Sam.
|
Sam:
[34:28]
| Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are some things that are still correct, but like there's a lot that's not. So yeah. Anyway, hopefully this will be fixed by the end of the weekend. Hopefully it'll be fixed tonight, but realistically, maybe not. We'll see. Cause I'm tired anyway. So somebody else was tired. Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[34:49]
| You mean the, the president of the United States?
|
Sam:
[34:53]
| Yes. the president of the united states.
|
Ivan:
[34:56]
| I'm gonna okay you know i don't i don't i don't know if it's worth going over any of the details of the debate here here's my take about the the actual details of the debate itself yeah and it's and and a reason why i i haven't like really watched a lot of these things in recent times it's more important what whatever the conversation around it is than anything that actually happens okay yes yeah i mean you know because that's irrelevant it doesn't matter it doesn't matter how i view it because that that you know that it's just my view and i have my perspective on what i believe about each of the candidates and so that that's it's really irrelevant. What's irrelevant is what, People's takeaways are from the thing. And so with that in mind, you know, this, this morning was a morning of quite a lot of, well, even last night and this morning has been of quite a lot of aggressive reactions by many people, you know, in, in the democratic side. I mean, I, I just saw.
|
Sam:
[36:15]
| So, so since we didn't say it, let's just start with the fact. Yeah. All of this reaction has been due to the near universal feelings that Joe Biden did not do well at this debate.
|
Ivan:
[36:28]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[36:28]
| And Donald Trump had his issues, but had to had Donald Trump came off better from a certain perspectives than than Joe Biden, at least relative to expectations.
|
Ivan:
[36:42]
| Like, I think that that's the key thing. Relative to expectations, Donald Trump significantly overperformed relative to the average expectation and Biden significantly underperformed. Yeah, that's the reality.
|
Sam:
[36:58]
| I mean, when we talked about this debate over the last couple of weeks, we basically, we were focused on Donald Trump. We were like, look, in all of his recent public appearances, he's seemed scattered and addled and like not coherent, particularly.
|
Ivan:
[37:18]
| And tired.
|
Sam:
[37:19]
| And tired and whatever. The Donald Trump that showed up to the debate was the usual sort of lying bastard without a sense for the truth or without any morals and with horrible policy ideas. But he was energetic.
|
Ivan:
[37:39]
| He was energetic.
|
Sam:
[37:40]
| He was forceful. He was able, he was responding quickly on his feet. Meanwhile, the Joe Biden we got was not the Joe Biden from the state of the union or certain other events. He, he had a cold. yeah he his his voice was not strong he looked tired he would like just as he was standing there he often just had his mouth open while he was looking at donald trump giving his answers and then at various points in the conversation he sort of was trying to rattle off some things and sort of got lost and confused as to what he was trying to say and had to circle back and And basically, it was just not a good look for Joe Biden at all. And so to what you were starting to say, the entire political universe on the left has been in – well, I want to split this up into a couple of groups. There's some –.
|
Sam:
[38:46]
| That have always been anti-Biden who are like, I told you so, you should have dumped him a long time ago. There are a lot of people who are Biden supporters who seem to be in somewhat of a panic. Meanwhile, of course, the MAGA guys are gloating and are very excited about how well their guy did. And they're also like, we told you so, Joe Biden's going senile, blah, blah, blah. And so it's been a spiral of negativity from the moment the debate started frankly i mean i i've sent my first negative comment about oh shit this isn't going well within like a minute like.
|
Ivan:
[39:21]
| Like in the first minute first couple of minutes yeah yeah it was very quickly.
|
Sam:
[39:24]
| Yeah and and but it's spiraled to like all kinds of people talking about how joe biden should pull out talking about brokered conventions talking about like one one person even suggested that he should resign the presidency not just the candidacy yeah you know the.
|
Ivan:
[39:43]
| New york times editorial board.
|
Sam:
[39:45]
| Is saying.
|
Ivan:
[39:45]
| That he should resign which is just i i.
|
Sam:
[39:48]
| Not run or resign from the presidency or.
|
Ivan:
[39:52]
| Not run right.
|
Sam:
[39:53]
| Because one person said he should resign from the presidency but right.
|
Ivan:
[39:56]
| Right okay but but can i look i'm gonna Today, like later in the afternoon, as I was driving home from my long day, one thing dawned upon me very quickly. We did have a conversation at our late lunch about this, but one thing dawned upon me very quickly. You know, Sam, that in two weeks, no one is going to remember this fucking thing. But let me listen.
|
Sam:
[40:28]
| Yeah, okay, finish, and then I'll counter.
|
Ivan:
[40:30]
| Okay, maybe they'll remember it, but it's immaterial. And I'm going to tell you, look, you remember when the Grab Him By The Pussy tapes came out?
|
Sam:
[40:42]
| Yes, I do.
|
Ivan:
[40:42]
| How quickly after that did anybody not give two fucks about what's-his-name and the Grambyte pussy tapes?
|
Sam:
[40:52]
| Well, it's all a question of what news comes up to supplant it, right?
|
Ivan:
[40:57]
| Correct. Well, here's the thing that's coming to supplant it, Sam.
|
Sam:
[41:01]
| The Supreme Court ruling on Monday?
|
Ivan:
[41:04]
| No.
|
Sam:
[41:05]
| Trump's sentencing?
|
Ivan:
[41:07]
| That's right. And that's coming up pretty damn soon. Okay and i i'm just like it's.
|
Sam:
[41:16]
| On the 11th i think right.
|
Ivan:
[41:18]
| On the 11th yeah let me tell you something these cycles with this shit okay i mean listen if this is not forgotten just like the state of the union right was what february yeah how quickly did people forget about the state of the union and i mean 50 about a large number of people saw that too okay yeah yeah i mean how quickly now it seems that nobody remembers that three weeks ago we're all jumping up and down in joy because trump was convicted he was convinced that he's now a convicted felon yeah it doesn't seem like it was an eternity when trump was convicted it's.
|
Sam:
[42:04]
| Always been that way hasn't it.
|
Ivan:
[42:06]
| Yeah and so So attention.
|
Sam:
[42:10]
| Spans are really small. Lots of people still aren't focused. But look, I mean, here's everybody.
|
Ivan:
[42:16]
| Listen here. But look, the reality is that related to what we saw and from what I've been hearing, because I was out talking to people, listen, most people have these opinions formed already.
|
Sam:
[42:32]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[42:33]
| Biden's old. Trump's a piece of shit.
|
Sam:
[42:36]
| Well, we've, we've always said everything is about the margins. Like, you know, there, there's this small slice of people who actually could change what they're doing.
|
Ivan:
[42:46]
| But the question is about this, right? And, and that's the question is what the hell their reaction is to this. And will they remember it by the time it's supposed to matter? Okay. When we're talking that it's June and the election is in November. Okay. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[43:06]
| And so again, I really think that this entire crazy, ridiculous reaction is, is, is way over the top because as much as Biden under, you know, did not come off, did not perform well yesterday and he didn't, and he didn't. Okay. I agree that he didn't. And I'm just, you know, maybe I think that one of the things that I measured today that colors my thinking about this is that, I don't know. I mean, you and I have seen Biden in the public stage for what, over 30 years. OK, Biden had a fucking presidential campaign already derailed by him, his mistakes in public speaking.
|
Ivan:
[44:06]
| Literally, this is what derailed one of his first presidential campaigns, a series of gaffes that he kept committing that were related to him in public. Public he has been he went to this debate obviously prepared for the wrong type of debate he was like focused on the minutiae and the stuff and basically what they should have done is let him rest fuck whatever the details are and just have him up there and be forceful even if the facts are all wrong because nobody gives a fuck about the facts i.
|
Sam:
[44:47]
| I couldn't like Like, I had this conversation briefly with somebody on Mastodon, like, where I was like, you know, he was badly prepared for this debate. And they're like, he was well prepared at Camp David, seven days. And we're talking about the most professional politicos in the world. The prep was world class. And I'm like, look.
|
Ivan:
[45:13]
| Prepared for what?
|
Sam:
[45:14]
| What is it? Unfortunately, and I don't understand it because this same mistake has been made over and over again by incumbent presidents coming into their first debates like and other candidates too. It's like they always are stuffing them full of facts and saying, right, you got to memorize these things and you got to make sure to hit these talking points and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And almost invariably the candidate who does that. Comes off looking badly. And then there's a round of people saying, you got to just let the candidate be the candidate, let them be themselves, you know, and all of this kind of stuff, because you made them, they, they come off as unnatural, even if they do it well, they come off as unnatural. And if they do it badly, like Joe Biden did, it just is disastrous. Now, having said that Is the prep all of it? This person who was talking to me was just going on about how it's clearly dementia, he's sundowning, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[46:18]
| Well, is the prep all of it? Well, here's the problem. If they knew that he had a cold, the question was...
|
Sam:
[46:24]
| It's a no-win scenario. What do you do?
|
Ivan:
[46:26]
| Exactly. Because I'm like, okay. Because one call could have been, fuck it. We're canceled. You know? We're canceled. canceling but man that would have looked very bad that would have looked off right to just go and cancel it.
|
Sam:
[46:43]
| Was a no-win scenario it.
|
Ivan:
[46:45]
| Was a no-win scenario and so you agreed to this and they.
|
Sam:
[46:52]
| Should have had been a full isolation protocol for two weeks before the debate.
|
Ivan:
[46:56]
| Yeah basically Basically, but you know, so, but you had it. So that was, that would have been also a problem, but maybe not as bad.
|
Sam:
[47:07]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[47:07]
| Is what I'm thinking.
|
Sam:
[47:08]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[47:09]
| I, I, I'm thinking that, you know, people get sick, you know, whatever you say, listen, you're, you're, you know, just cancel it.
|
Sam:
[47:18]
| Well, the thing is like the, and I, I put a lot of it on the prep as well as the being sick because immediately after the stupid debate. He went to like a watch party that, and like watching him on the, on video, like meeting and greeting at that watch party and the little remarks he gave at the beginning, he was instantly miles better than he'd been at the debate. And then let alone the rally he had on Friday.
|
Ivan:
[47:47]
| I think it goes back. Listen, but the prep part, listen, the prep part, listen, the prep part. Yeah. Let me just say this. The prep part. We're under...
|
Ivan:
[48:00]
| The prep, I'm sure it wasn't just about the details. I think that based on the debate rules, okay, they said, well, this is what's going to work. Because I kept thinking of, based on the rules as they were written, I remember some old debates a long time ago where a question would be asked, one candidate would answer, the other candidate had a time to rebut, the other candidate had time. Time and the time was strictly managed. And that was that. Based on what I saw in the rules, that's what it looked like would happen. But I was not watching the debate. But the one thing that they had on the New York Times page was this thing that measured how much time was being given to each candidate to talk. And the reality is that I guess the Biden folks, maybe they thought, you know the cnn was going to manage the time but they sure as hell did not they let trump talk.
|
Ivan:
[49:03]
| Way longer on every question than than biden had they weren't managing hey it's like because i remember i'm thinking debate no you have one minute then you got minutes to rebut no so they They were letting them talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. And Biden thinking, well, all I got to do is respond and, you know, say my details about this and then we're done. And we're going to just let Trump look crazy. And the problem is that that really didn't work.
|
Sam:
[49:41]
| Well, no, it doesn't work. First of all, the fact that Trump is crazy is baked in. Everybody has known that for years. But second, like, and Democrats in general, and I hate to paint with a broad brush, but it's a recurring theme. Democrats in general like to be wonks. They like to talk policy. They like to talk like government and how it works and like the details of how, you know, how things we're going to do this and then that's going to do this. And this is why it's good for you and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
|
Sam:
[50:16]
| And that doesn't resonate with the general public. Now, for folks like us who are into those details and follow things closely. OK, yeah, that sounds great. Great. But for the wide audience, it's all about the emotional connection and how you make people feel. It's not about the specifics of your damn policy. Like, yes, like the specifics of your policy matter when you're governing, when you're running for office, like they are, they are sort of the, they look, I'm not saying ignore policy policy does matter, but the thing that's going to get people out is you have to excite them. You have to make them feel good. You have to like, you have to appeal to their emotions, not to their brains. Like appealing to the brain is always a sure way to lose.
|
Ivan:
[51:17]
| Well, I mean, I think it's just, I mean, you mentioned policy specifics, but, you know, and you're right. If you went and I saw somebody that said, listen, if you pull down the transcript of the debate, forget about looking at it. And you just read the transcripts.
|
Sam:
[51:36]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[51:37]
| You would have thought, ah, this went okay. You know, maybe a draw. I mean, you know, Trump said just a whole bunch of, and you actually, you might have thought that Biden won. Because you know like i mean i was looking at some of the crazy shit that trump said yesterday that nobody is focusing on today on abortion for example well apparently by the way i i didn't know sam i there's there's black the black jobs did you uh.
|
Sam:
[52:10]
| Yeah yeah yeah.
|
Ivan:
[52:12]
| Yeah well in other times i mean people would have been fucking focused on this kind of shit okay i mean black jobs sam what what the fuck are the black jobs you want to explain to me what the fuck the black jobs are i guess janna i'm sure that in his mind it's fucking you know i guess uh you know picking cotton and cleaning floors is that what it is uh-huh but that's what he said on the fucking stage Yeah.
|
Sam:
[52:43]
| I know.
|
Ivan:
[52:43]
| I got people going crazy because Biden sounded tired when that fucker said that on stage.
|
Sam:
[52:52]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[52:53]
| I mean, seriously. So I'm going to, you know, I will go back. And I think that the guy that probably had the best perspective on this, because he's unfortunately had to live through this, was Fetter. Fetterman today basically said, and he literally said, replied how I said, fuck all of you.
|
Sam:
[53:21]
| And he literally said it.
|
Ivan:
[53:23]
| And thank you. Thank you, John, for channeling me. Okay. He said, listen, I've had the bad debate like this where everybody basically said that I should quit the race because that happened to Fetterman at the debate. Okay. And what he said is like, you know what? Fuck all of you. This is just moronic. I don't, you know, the whole problem with this replace them thing. Okay. Start off with where all these people.
|
Sam:
[53:57]
| Yes. Yeah. There are a few. Go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[54:01]
| It's just this man. Most of the information tells you that this is a bad idea. That it probably guarantees a Trump win. That's the that's that's all any other time that a presidential candidate has like harry truman for example or lyndon johnson whoever the fuck it was okay i decided not to run it's been bad every other time that we've had a candidate who has been the incumbent okay even you know with issues shoes they have had a tailwind that has made them over perform versus whatever the fuck the polls have said bush in 2004 with the gulf war with all this shit with bad debates because he had bad debates right okay what and still one okay and he had all of this shit behind him trump barely lost okay and he had a pandemic that killed millions and the guy.
|
Ivan:
[55:16]
| Way over performed what the fuck the polling said polling was saying months before oh my god biden's this should be a you know eight points whatever the fuck it was and it was way closer than that i mean it really came down to just a few fucking thousand votes in multiple states right and so and and that is a testament to the fucking advantage of the incumbency.
|
Ivan:
[55:45]
| Scene because people wind up at the moment that they get up there they're thinking about well the psychopath or fuck i stay with this old guy like right now who you know i mean he's done pretty decent but but he's old and senile whatever the fuck else they say about him you know and that for whatever the hell reason historically has had significant weight Well.
|
Sam:
[56:15]
| Here's the thing, too. The difference between some of the historical examples, because almost every incumbent president who has had a bad first debate performance, and there are a number of reasons why that might be, but this is the first one that's had this level of reaction to it with all the calls to drop out and this and that. And here's the thing. The reaction to the debate is far more damaging than the debate itself.
|
Ivan:
[56:48]
| Oh, I agree. But here's one thing about this. I think, okay, but we are also in a situation that is far different. And I think the Democrats, because the Democrats are far more scared. You say, this isn't 2004. This isn't 92. You're not thinking that the other guy is going to try a coup. I'm wondering why the overreaction? That's why the overreaction. Okay. I really think that that, you know, there is in America, in a large part of America. And I'm talking about for not voters, just adults in general, a sense of fear about Trump getting back to the presidency, a sense of fear that is not, I'm worried about Romney being president.
|
Sam:
[57:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[57:55]
| And I think that's why the overreaction is so bad. I mean, we've had fucking people have bad debates before or bad performances or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[58:06]
| I just think that the level of of panic is is related to the level of what they see, probably not incorrectly, as the threat of a Trump presidency. But but again, the problem is why the fuck why the fuck did in 2020 we wind up with Biden as a candidate? Hell, I didn't even vote for Biden, the fucking primary. OK, and I like Joe. Okay. But for some fucking reason, most of the voters in the democratic party wound up voting for Biden. Okay. And my philosophy is like, look, I like Joe. It wasn't my first choice and I'm going to support Joe. And like right now, no credible opponent showed up. You've got Joe there. And Joe is Joe. I mean, that's what he is. And I'm just like, what the fuck? Why are you guys trying to put in a fix that the reality is that if you look at the data, it probably makes it worse for November. Okay? I don't see how any of the options makes it better.
|
Sam:
[59:30]
| Well, there are a couple of things here. One, I think you're right that part of the reason for the panic is that people are like, Donald Trump is so bad. The risks of him winning are really high. The other part of it is people are not taking this as he had one bad debate. They are taking it as this is proof that folks were right all along. And like the, the, the, the people on the far left and the MAGA folks, when they're saying, you know, dementia Joe, and that he's losing it and he's diminished and he can't handle the job.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:13]
| But here, here's the fucking problem. I, my, my thing is that, yeah, they're taking is proof of dementia. And I'm like, what dementia? All he, you know, he stumbled, he was slow, he had a raspy voice. It's a fucking dementia. The fuck is wrong with all of you?
|
Sam:
[1:00:33]
| And again, like the event immediately after the debate, he pepped up and he was happy and he had energy and he did a rally in North Carolina on Friday afternoon and it was good.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:45]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:00:46]
| It was, I mean, again, he was energetic, he was passionate, he was whatever. And like for both of those things, I'm like, why the hell didn't that guy show up at the fucking debate, you know, like, and, and, you know, maybe he's just feeling a little bit better than he was. Maybe it was the over-preparation. I don't know, but I am not, you know, and people are like, well, you know, that's how like, you know, mental decline goes. You have your good moments and your bad moments. And I'm sure that's true, but like, and you know, So the person on Mastodon said, I'm in denial. You know, I'm like, you know, if and here's the thing, too, like part of it for me is if something does happen to Joe, I'm fine with Kamala.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:38]
| So am I. I mean, that's the thing. Well, I'm like, oh, my God. So what happens if Joe dies? Well, fuck. I mean, so you've got Kamala. What's the problem?
|
Sam:
[1:01:47]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:49]
| I mean, that's been my thing. I mean, I'm like, what is the fucking problem? What the hell is the fucking problem? I mean, I don't get it.
|
Sam:
[1:01:58]
| And honestly, I would not be surprised if Joe Biden wins if he doesn't serve out the full four years. Like, four years is a long time at that age. A lot can happen. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point he decided his health was declining, he wanted to spend time with his family, whatever, and handed it over to Kamala. And the thing is, I'm okay with that. But of course, like the MAGA folks are like, you vote for Joe, you're actually getting Kamala. Like, it's a bad thing, you know, but I mean.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:29]
| Right. Why, why is that a bad thing? The main thing about this, all this shit that we're talking about is shit that I've already heard repeated over and over the negative things about Biden. And and I think that from what I what I keep seeing is that there there is a number of people that have had that perspective the entire time and they will never get off of it. It doesn't matter what Biden does. It doesn't matter what Biden does. He's old, he's senile, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And they have been saying that for shit. I mean, since he was, since he ran the first time around it. So, so I just don't see how you move these people off of that.
|
Sam:
[1:03:21]
| No, but, but I think one thing is true and like, you're right. There are going to be news events that push this off the headlines, but I think Joe and he started already with that rally on Friday. But he has to turn this narrative around because right now it's like spiraling.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:39]
| Listen, he has to. Okay. Listen, I turned a narrative around.
|
Sam:
[1:03:47]
| Like he needs to be having events like with the one he had in North Carolina, like every freaking day.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:53]
| No, no, no. I get that. But, but I, but, but listen, I, I.
|
Sam:
[1:03:57]
| He, he has to show that he has to show that the debate was an aberration, not the norm.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:02]
| Well, okay, now that's correct. But all that does, all that does... Is maybe it just it just shuts down the volume of these people that are screaming for biden to to you know to quit drop out and drop out that basically thought that all i thought that all along yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:04:31]
| Like there's a lot of people in that boat who are who who never wanted biden never liked Biden and this is their excuse. You know, like we've been saying forever, everybody's like, are these really the two choices? And are desperate for any thread to hang on to of some scenario that gets you to somebody else besides these two. And look, at the moment, like people have been talking about the rules of the DNC and committed delegates and blah, blah, blah. Basically, the only way for Biden not to end up the nominee is if he chooses not to be the nominee. There is not a reasonable mechanism for the delegates to abandon him in flight because they are bound by the votes in the primaries for the first ballot, and he's got enough to win. So people have been talking about scenarios where, well, maybe we can get Jill Biden to To convince him not to run. Or maybe Obama can go talk to him. Or something like that.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:37]
| But again. Sam. Here's one thing. Anything about.
|
Sam:
[1:05:43]
| I think it would hurt.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:46]
| And that's my point. I'm like okay. You know what. I'm like okay. Because a lot of people are saying. Biden doesn't run. But not really giving me. What the hell is a compelling. Thing that we can do. that wins this election by having your incumbent president not run again. I'm, you know, I, I just, I'm, I, I, I, I, because if there was every.
|
Sam:
[1:06:12]
| Other potential candidate has their own negatives.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:15]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:15]
| Now, you know, like people talk about Kamala, but frankly, you know, a lot of people didn't like her last time around, uh, in, in the primaries and Republicans, like a whole bunch of Republicans have, are going to have issues with both the black part and the woman part.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:34]
| No, no kidding.
|
Sam:
[1:06:36]
| And so like you got a bunch of swing voters that like people always used to say that Hillary Clinton lost 5% right off the top just because of sexism. I think Kamala would be up against the same kind of fight. Now I think she might be able to do it.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:49]
| But, and the fact that she's African American and that.
|
Sam:
[1:06:54]
| And you know, so, but you know what, you're going to go with Newsome from California. Like most people don't know him.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:02]
| You know, that carries a lot of baggage. Well, Well, I think people know him, but Newsom has a lot of baggage, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:07:10]
| Well, junkies like us knew him. If you pick a random person off the street in Idaho, they have no idea.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:17]
| They wouldn't know who the fuck he is. I mean, that's my point. Who the fuck are you putting up that really is known and as a well-known quantity as, say, Obama obama or or or biden or hillary clinton for that matter any any of those who who the fuck is and the answer is nobody you've got nobody that you you really don't have a good option well.
|
Sam:
[1:07:48]
| So like the the one guy who is suggesting obama resign from the presidency not just not run are.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:54]
| You Biden.
|
Sam:
[1:07:55]
| Oh, Biden. Sorry. Yeah. I'm as...
|
Ivan:
[1:07:59]
| I mean, Obama's going to resign?
|
Sam:
[1:08:01]
| I'm as old and cantankerous as Biden. No, but part of their theory for this, and I forget who it was, some talking head on one of the cable networks, blah, blah, blah. But they were a Democrat who was like, you let Kamala be president for a few months. That'll give her the boost she needs to win. But it's all super high risk. And I know what people are saying is like, well, leaving them there is high risk too. And that's why.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:32]
| It's a whole lot of less risk than fucking just plucking like Gavin Newsom and sticking them at the head of the ticket or.
|
Sam:
[1:08:40]
| Whitmer or various other people.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:42]
| Or Whitmer or any, any of them.
|
Sam:
[1:08:45]
| Yeah. And look, The thing is, any of these changing horse scenarios are super, super, super high risk. And I think people underestimate that. Because the thing is, the Democrats look even weaker in that scenario.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:04]
| Hell yeah!
|
Sam:
[1:09:06]
| It's not like, oh, they've done the right thing and now they've got somebody strong. It's like, look how disorganized and messy they are that they can't even blah, blah, blah. And i mean you can say all the same things about like the republicans picking trump but like you know convicted criminal and all this kind of stuff but you know i don't know like do i do i wish joe biden was younger yes yeah i wish he had do i wish he had a little bit more like charisma yes do i wish that he was a bit more energetic sure like we spent 2020 talking about how we really, really wanted somebody in a younger generation to, and we wanted these folks to pass the torch, but it didn't happen. You know, it didn't happen. And so, you know, and there was a lot of evidence that the younger folks would not have done as well as Biden. Biden won 2020 because he was like the, the, he was nobody's first choice, but lots of people were okay with him. And the problem is now there's a lot of people who are like, well, you know, we've had almost four years of him and you know, I'm not really happy. And they're not, and they're not the fact that like, what would Trump do? Ah, you know, well, he wasn't that bad.
|
Sam:
[1:10:30]
| He'll be fine. You know, all these people are exaggerating about all the things they say about him, you know, blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:37]
| Uh, somebody with a Twitter handle reason versus fear called Lee. It says Lisa Brown tweeted. Oh my God, you guys, that Roosevelt guy is in a wheelchair. I'm going to have to switch my vote to Hitler. He looks strong. Yes. That is how stupid some of you sound.
|
Sam:
[1:10:57]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:58]
| I, you know, I, I, yeah. I mean, that, that's basically the crux of it. it i i just i mean the whole it's just this guy i mean i i just i i i really think and i i understand that my impression yeah which is one reason why i didn't didn't watch this because i'm pretty sure that it wasn't going to change my my opinion of either of them i mean i'm colored by having I haven't seen Joe Biden for 30 plus years. I mean, I just know what the hell I, I knew what the hell I'm getting. There's just so many people that basically probably for the first time ever tuned into that, unfortunately. And, but I also, I also don't think that people are, how do I say?
|
Ivan:
[1:12:01]
| They're, they're not they're not they're not really looking at this from any other perspective other than the tone of their voice i think it was pete that shared this cartoon showing some guy coming up to somebody at the office you know and it's that guy had a nice voice but was lying or whatever and yeah oh that's so great but the this other guy showed up and sounded like like biden oh my god call hr and that's all it is it.
|
Sam:
[1:12:42]
| Comes back to what i was saying before like oftentimes not not certainly in debates but just in general it's very rarely about the actual things They say or their policies. It's about the feeling they enlisted in the audience.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:01]
| And it just goes back exactly to what we talked about, what the fuck they prepped for. And again, you know, putting all these wonky details in his head didn't really prep him for what the fuck this was going to be.
|
Sam:
[1:13:13]
| And and and and i i started to say this before but i think i got on a tangent like we've known donald trump here in the political realm since 2015, you know what he's like at debates you know what works you know what doesn't you know that this like, What were they thinking?
|
Ivan:
[1:13:34]
| I think they thought I, I, I, I, I, I, again, I go back.
|
Sam:
[1:13:38]
| I think they thought Trump was going to implode himself. And so Joe could stand by and watch the implosion.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:43]
| Not, not just that, not, not just that. They thought that this was going to be far more tightly managed than it was. And it wasn't.
|
Sam:
[1:13:50]
| Yeah. Which, which network have they watched ever? Like these debates are always like this. And like, you know, people have been complaining about the fact that, for instance, that people People have been complaining that there was no fact-checking. Donald Trump lied over and over and over and over again, and the moderators said nothing.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:07]
| They didn't challenge him, right?
|
Sam:
[1:14:10]
| Well, and that was one of the written rules. They weren't supposed to. CNN management insisted that the reporters not do real-time fact-checking as part of how the thing was set up. They weren't going to do that. The position was, if somebody's going to fact-check him, it needs to be Biden. You know but this is this is how they always go like the one time a an anchor if you remember it was in one of the obama romney debates an anchor actually told romney he was wrong about something and like it was a big huge shit storm big huge shit shit something shit storm yeah and and i i I think she didn't stay at CNN that much longer after that. I think it was Candy Crawley, I think. And, you know, so no, they, you know, whatever. I think, you know, part of the thing was, no, the moderators didn't keep a tight control on it. But the moderators almost never keep tight control on these things. And Biden didn't stand up for himself.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:17]
| Well, yeah. Yeah, but again, it goes back to what the hell they prep for. It's just, hey, let me be wonky about the details, and it's just, that's just not gonna.
|
Sam:
[1:15:29]
| Well and part of the talk beforehand was how like oh look biden spending all this time prepping while donald trump is just like going golfing and talking to a few folks on the phone about what do they think that you should say well.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:42]
| Apparently but trump did the right prep look.
|
Sam:
[1:15:44]
| You know yeah uh.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:46]
| You know he was relaxed i mean he was you know he was rested and relaxed I mean, look, one guy who had a horrible debate that I remember, that was a horrible debate for the ages. It was worse than Biden. It was Dan Quayle. Now, he wasn't running for president. It was vice president. But his debate performance was horrible. Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:16:16]
| Even before the Jack Kennedy moment.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:19]
| Even before the Jack Kennedy moment. moment he was he was just absolutely horrific but here is one thing about that the second time that he debated okay he was way better yeah and i recall this he changed completely uh his his his prep and what he was doing because he did almost the exact same thing that that biden did which was focus on all the wonky details of whatever be prepped and have my lines and let I mean, it's not just talk too much and whatnot. And the second time that he had, that he had a debate, he was, he was definitely far more on point. I do think that what the hell do you prepare to do with the debate matters a lot. And, and I have seen candidates fuck up the baits, come back the next time, do way better than they did the first time. Just simply changing their, their style of what they're held are going to do.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:20]
| And I, I, I gotta be honest. I think that a lot of what's going on today is just all based on just a lot of fear of another Trump victory. Now, somebody today did give me perspective and, you know, they, they were talking about why all this fear. Year and you know i was with people from chile argentina different places and you know they said you know the problem is over here with with people they're not used to shit shows we're used to shit shows you know we're used to having you know crazy presidents that did that you know that do all sorts of shit and, And whatnot and whatever. And that the reality is that even, you know, even with getting Trump back, you know, or getting somebody like that back, that we still will figure it out. And that, you know, I mean, look, you see, I'll give an example right now. Look, Brazil, for God's sakes. Look, Brazil right now has as their president a guy that was convicted and in jail. For crimes that he committed during his previous presidency. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:18:40]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:41]
| All right. You know, this was the guy on the left, you know, there, that was, there was a massive, massive bribery scheme that ensnared companies and things all over Latin America. Puerto Rico was, was in some of those investigations. They had him on tape, you know, accepting, you know, negotiating and accepting the bribes he was convicted he went to jail he got released okay and he ran for president and he beat this guy who is the guy that loves uh that loves trump bolsonaro okay right and so and i mean bolsonaro himself went and after you know he lost he tried to pull a j6 you know in in brazil too yep and by the way he's under criminal he's under criminal an indictment for that now too right of all fucking things and so what they were saying is that yeah you know i know you know we've been so used to things running well well comparatively i guess comparatively comparatively sam yeah yeah we have been so used to that that they're all like you guys you know you just you guys just you know not used to this shit you know we lived this their entire fucking lives.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:01]
| And so they were taking it in stride, you know, just, you know, even the fact that Trump might, might, might come back. I, I, I'm just like, I don't know if I want to, I don't know if I'm there yet, but I, I, I'm like, you know, but also I was thinking from the perspective, you know, even Germany, you know, came back from having Hitler.
|
Sam:
[1:20:24]
| Took a little while, but yeah. And a big war, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:28]
| Yeah. But they did. I mean, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:20:32]
| So not that that's the kind of future I'm hoping for here.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:37]
| No, but, but, but, but I'm just, you know, I think we got to be prepared for whatever the hell it is. And I'm like, I don't, I don't think that I, I, one thing that this is definitely true. That I'm definitely certain of is that making any decision like this, just purely based on fear, which is what a lot of people are doing with all these op-eds, is a really bad way of making decisions.
|
Sam:
[1:21:05]
| Right. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:07]
| And I have never seen it to be a proper way of making decisions. And that I think is the one thing maybe that is really driving me crazy with people. Thing because it's just you never make good decisions just purely based on just just you know where your fear is the one that's in the driver's seat i mean objectively you look at this and you've got about what the hell is the best way to try to win you can't right now go and And draw me a different fucking scenario where Biden is not president and tell me that any of those is going to be any better than having Biden go and run. Just I mean, I don't know. Or maybe I'm missing one. You want to tell me which one you think has a higher likelihood?
|
Sam:
[1:22:03]
| Well, no, no, I, I, I think I'm with you, but I think the what people are thinking is like, look. Look, we've been looking at polls showing Biden behind for like forever. And right now they're sort of tied. But they're feeling really insecure about that. And they look at his performance and basically say, we're screwed if we stick with him. So might as well gamble with somebody else because we'll definitely lose with Biden. That's what people are thinking.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:39]
| It, even though all the data is showing you that that's not, that that's, you know, that that's not, that's a, you see, all of those are all fear-based. I, I, I, because the data is not showing you that. Yeah, that, you know, that that the races, you know, were screwed, you know, that I mean.
|
Sam:
[1:22:57]
| It is clear like Biden's been behind. That's not false.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:03]
| I mean, it, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:23:06]
| But but at the same time, you everything you say about the incumbent advantage is true. Everything people have been saying about how Democrats have been overperforming is true. Everything that people have been saying about the salience of the abortion issue is true. Now, of course, there are people on the other side scared about immigration, but there are a lot of reasons to not think it's hopeless. But there are reasons to be concerned too for sure but i'm not sure the well.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:35]
| There are reasons to be concerned i'm saying i'm not saying that i'm.
|
Sam:
[1:23:39]
| Not sure the right way to respond to that is like oh well let's let's let's pick some random person and hope that they magically do better.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:47]
| Exactly i mean hey you know oh i'm concerned that this house might not might not sustain the hurricane well let me torch it and let me try to build a new one with the hurricane arriving in two weeks. How about that? I mean, because that's basically what they're saying.
|
Sam:
[1:24:05]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:06]
| I'm like, no, you gotta listen. You, you batten the hatches, you do what you can, you know, Hey, the data shows that more than likely you're going to be okay. You know, but damn it. You know, you know, the other alternative is stupid. Now I just don't, I just, I just, you know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:24:28]
| I mean, And look, look, if there was a time to switch horses, it was more than a year ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:37]
| Yes, exactly. It wasn't now. Yeah. It's not now.
|
Sam:
[1:24:41]
| No. And again, the only way that it could happen is this point is if Biden initiates it. If Biden says, you know, you guys are right. I'm out. And then we would have to deal with that scenario. And that would be messy. Like, you know, it.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:56]
| Would be super messy.
|
Sam:
[1:24:57]
| You know, like, because on the one hand.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:00]
| Because I don't know if you told me like right now, OK, Biden's not running. Who is next up? Honestly, who's next up should be Kamala.
|
Sam:
[1:25:10]
| It should be.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:11]
| Yes, but it should be. But I don't think a lot of these people with a scenario, I don't think have that in mind. They think that we should just, you know, pluck Ozio. We're going to bring in Ozio. That's it. Ozio. yeah no anybody that any of you don't know the reference from the book primary colors where they are using as Cuomo, You know, that was the name that they gave him on the book because they changed all the names. And the reality is this was during a campaign where Clinton was the front runner. He had a whole bunch of scandals and shit going on and they wanted to bring in the savior and the savior was going to be Cuomo.
|
Sam:
[1:25:56]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:57]
| Same fucking bullshit. I'm thinking about it. Jennifer Flowers, horse shit. Not that it was horse shit.
|
Sam:
[1:26:06]
| Yeah. Yeah, but you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:08]
| There were scandals, there was, there's bad speeches, bad debates, bad everything. You know, you had the third party guy, the only, the only thing changing really, you know, the couple of things for you is that, that Bill Clinton was young.
|
Sam:
[1:26:24]
| Not old, and he played the saxophone on Arsenio Hall.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:30]
| Right. And that HW Bush was a psychopath.
|
Sam:
[1:26:34]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:35]
| So those two factors, you know, but, but they were screaming for the savior. I mean, it's the same fucking, it's the same fucking screams.
|
Sam:
[1:26:44]
| It is. And you know, we always said this year was going to be a wild ride and here we are.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:52]
| Fuck. But I don't know. So we'll see.
|
Sam:
[1:26:58]
| Like, like you said, we got sentencing coming up, coming up soon. And then like a couple of days after that, we've got the Republican national convention. So yeah, things are, things are happening. It's, it's in the, it's getting in the swing of it. And yeah. And we, and we have the Supreme court case on Monday, like probably unless they punt it to next year or this summer or fall or something, which they could do theoretically. Right. But everybody seems to think it's coming Monday on the presidential immunity case. And just to get my predictions out before we take a break and do something else, I don't know what else. But my prediction has remained the same. time, I predicted they were going to release it on the very last day of the term possible and that they will do the thing where they define what's immune and what's not, but send it back to the lower court in order to determine what does or does not meet that rule in this particular case. And by doing so, they build in additional delay and additional chances for appeal. Appeal and you know because the only scenario that gets you to a trial even starting before the election is if absolutely everything went in a perfect way and that's not going to happen so okay that's my prediction we'll we'll find out on monday i guess so.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:26]
| Anything else so we got okay.
|
Sam:
[1:28:28]
| Well let's take a break and then if you got another topic you think of in the meantime we can we can do that otherwise we can like just make noises for another 15 minutes and then say goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:41]
| Okay all right.
|
Sam:
[1:28:42]
| I mean that's some people would say that's what the show is anyway we're just making random noises ah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:48]
| Okay all right well i could i could give it a try.
|
Sam:
[1:28:50]
| And speaking of random noises it's time for this random noise, I actually hit the wrong button. It was supposed to be a different one, but it still fit. It was fine.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:46]
| Well, I mean, that was, I mean, that was, that sounds like sounded accurate. I mean, you know, based on what you said, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:29:55]
| Yeah, I know. There were a couple of them that would have met that description, but anyway. So Yvonne, anything else you want to talk about? Or should we just like read the stuff at the end of the show and be done?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:07]
| I mean, I don't know. is there anything else that happened this week that that merits we.
|
Sam:
[1:30:13]
| Had a bunch of scotus decisions not the immunity one but we had.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:17]
| Uh you you know that there's something else that people are just there's something else that people are despondent about you want to talk about you want to you want to mention anything about we.
|
Sam:
[1:30:26]
| Had julian assange.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:27]
| Oh julian assange yes he's back in australia he went to you know i did not realize that there was a federal courthouse in saipan.
|
Sam:
[1:30:36]
| Now now you know for when you're indicted.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:39]
| Oh great so i can go and like you know travel to saipan for my my my arraignment yeah exactly you know i i i came up with an idea i i i i you know i i don't know if i could play this out loud but but i i i i could i i could do i i one time sam Sam got really angry at me because we had an extra hour on, on the radio at, at, at, at, at WRCT.
|
Sam:
[1:31:06]
| Come on Eileen.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:07]
| No, it wasn't. Come on Eileen.
|
Sam:
[1:31:09]
| No, that was another time. Somebody else did that to me then.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:13]
| That. Yeah, no, I, I started playing on repeat the 2001 space odyssey, the, the, the, the, the theme song from the beginning. And I kept, I kept playing it over and over.
|
Sam:
[1:31:25]
| Which by the way, is the next movie i have to talk about.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:27]
| Oh oh oh look apropos but i i can't i can't i don't think i can i don't think right now is where we're we're podcasting i can't play it out loud so oh well yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:39]
| Maybe i'll add it in post.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:40]
| There you go you can go and like close out the show with with with that you know uh that has uh true so so.
|
Sam:
[1:31:48]
| Scotus wise we had the the big one was the chevron one one, right? That's the, like, there were a few others, but like they, they all, they also did things like rule that laws saying that the homeless couldn't sleep in public were fine. Uh, things like that. But, uh, the big one was they call Chevron, I guess it was a 1980s Supreme court decision. But basically the, the point of it was that courts should defer to experts at agencies about.
|
Sam:
[1:32:21]
| Regulations and policies when the law was vague. And this is important because I'm sure it's a big surprise to people. Laws are often vague, especially when it comes to enabling legislation for agencies. They basically say, I mean, I'm oversimplifying, but basically say, oh, you want an EPA? Okay. The Environmental Protection Agency is going to now exist and they will have the authority to make regulations related to the environment without Congress having to explicitly call out the details of all those regulations. Again, oversimplification, but basically what the previous rule was, as long as the agency made a reasonable interpretation of the law, then the courts would defer to that. Basically, the ruling today says, nope, it's interpretation of the law that's up to the courts, not to the agencies. And so no deference, we will decide. If there's a question about what was or was not authorized by some law, which look, the courts have always been involved in that in cases that were egregious. Basically, this just said, as long as the agency's interpretation was reasonable, the court would defer to it they would only overturn things.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:46]
| I think but but one of one of the issues with this and there was a a ruling the day before related to agencies that had in-house you know basically processes that that wouldn't that were like uh that that were outside of the court system i mean there was because you know because many agencies had like the irs for example had an in-house tribunals okay that that did not rely on the on the court system, and i know that a lot of people found those unfair and that they were really slanted in favor of the agency and so that was a challenge and they overturned that and said they got to go to of court. So one problem with, I think, with both of these rulings, not talking more from a practical sense, is that the federal court system is already for a long time been overburdened. And cases take a long, long time. If you guys haven't noticed, like, why the hell do you guys think that these Trump cases are taking so damn long? And the federal ones specifically. And so all of a sudden, those two rulings make it that a lot of things that were being handled in a different way or that did not have to come to the court all of a sudden have to come to the court. Yeah. And I think that has some really serious practical implications for the federal court system.
|
Sam:
[1:35:12]
| Well, it has implications for the court system. It also has implications to what agencies can do in the first place.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:17]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:35:18]
| The bottom line is if you say you can only do something if Congress specifies it in detail, Congress is not good at that.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:26]
| Well, the thing about it is that I think that it's not that they can't define it. The problem is that before, the courts were deferring to their interpretation.
|
Sam:
[1:35:41]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:42]
| But now it's like they can define something, but it could be far more easily challenged in court. And so that's why I'm thinking that this brings a hell of a lot more litigation period for practically because, hell, you know, it used to be that it was far more difficult to to sue related to any of these. And now it makes it a hell of a lot easier.
|
Sam:
[1:36:06]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:07]
| So. It is a bonanza for lawyers. Tell you what, Jesus, they're going to be able to rack up fees.
|
Sam:
[1:36:15]
| I mean, the whole thing about this is it ties into like Steve Bannon's old deconstruction of the administrative state. A bunch of these rulings have the effect of making it much harder for government to effectively work. You know, and you can say like, you know, Congress should have to pass a law in order to do this or whatever. But realistically, this makes it much harder for government to do stuff. Now, if you are one of those who just outright thinks that, you know, government shouldn't be doing anything anyway, then this is all great news for you. If, on the other hand, you think that, yeah, you know, having a government who's able to effectively regulate certain things actually is helpful, then this is potentially kneecapping the abilities of what can be done for potentially decades until like the court changes laws change etc which you know is not a fast process yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:17]
| Not it's not going to be a fast process so i i do think that and.
|
Sam:
[1:37:21]
| I think you're right in the short term all kinds of things are going to end up in court and yeah you know when we're talking all right like i mean i know criminal versus civil versus whatever, but the, all of them are super slow.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:33]
| Yeah. All of them.
|
Sam:
[1:37:33]
| I mean, we're, we're talking about how long the, the Donald Trump stuff has been hanging on, but some of the, the court cases and the corporate court cases are also go on. Like there was a news, I forget which, which company it was, but there was something about them proceeding on a case that had been going for like well over a decade coming up on 20 years. Now it's been going back and forth in court. And. To me, this is ridiculous. It's already too slow. We should be figuring out ways to speed it up and come to a conclusion faster. This is just going to clog everything up even more.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:09]
| More money for the courts.
|
Sam:
[1:38:12]
| Yeah, like anybody's going to give them money. Come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:15]
| No, probably not.
|
Sam:
[1:38:18]
| Well, the government's not going to pay them through our taxes, but plenty of people are apparently giving lots of judges money, especially Justice Thomas. us but you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:27]
| Well especially says did i not understand like the where the hell did i see this interpretation of also uh was this a scotus case the one where they uh oh.
|
Sam:
[1:38:38]
| The bribery one yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:39]
| Yeah the bribery one where wait a minute yeah where i'm sorry but apparently but my understanding was that this definitely was a mistake in the federal law because i saw that state law that The states that have these anti-bribery laws are far more explicit about this. Okay. But apparently the federal, the way that the federal one is written, it basically allows you to just go and say, Hey, here official. Oh, here's 20,000. I'm like, Oh, it's just a gift. Thank you. Oh, there's no print quote book. Oh, here you go. Here it's just, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:39:22]
| Well a part a part of it was also apparently like if there's no agreement beforehand you can give them a thank you for doing the thing that you wanted thank you right yeah so thank thank you very much for passing that law that helps me you know here's here's.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:42]
| A hundred thousand dollars.
|
Sam:
[1:39:44]
| Yeah so it makes you wonder like you know what the fuck that well I was gonna say how bad it this is Menendez that he like gets caught with gold in his house and like is on trial for this when apparently all this should be legal.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:00]
| Basically I'm just you know I don't so I this is giving me a headache.
|
Sam:
[1:40:10]
| Okay are we done Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:13]
| This actually is giving me more of a more of a headache than i mean thinking about some of the implications of these cases than anything else i i mean i i just but the one thing is that on the on the payments one it should be an easy fix but congress i mean you know i know the fucking, republicans are not going to vote for making that illegal.
|
Sam:
[1:40:34]
| No no fucking way a lot of democrats won't either to be honest like this is part of the problem with anti-corruption legislation in general is that like there's a non-trivial number of people on both sides who are taking advantage every way they can but.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:50]
| We you know at some point we passed a law against this.
|
Sam:
[1:40:54]
| We did there were laws at various times in the past they've been weakened over time like every once in a while you get a moment usually after some sort of scandal where congress is embarrassed enough to pass some laws against the stuff that caused the scandal but in between they're like you know nobody say anything because we're having fun with whatever we're getting right now you know like one one of the examples is just the stock trading oh god where we're like yeah congress congress can there are no restrictions on congress trading stocks on information that That they have through their official duties.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:37]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:41:38]
| And they have to disclose them. Like months later. But they're not prohibited from doing anything. And. And so like a bunch of congress critters. Have made a lot of good money. Based on information that. The general public was not aware of. Like there's actually some guy. Who set up a fund. That basically just tracks. Congressional investments. And does the same thing.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:02]
| How is it doing?
|
Sam:
[1:42:03]
| Apparently pretty well. You know, there's a little bit of a delay because he has to wait till the reporting happens. But yeah, right. Anyway. Let's wrap this sucker up. I got to get back to the stupid election graph stuff. It's given me a headache and I'm tired and I'm hungry. So anyway, the usual stuff at the end of the show election. No, not election graphs. Don't go to election graphs right now. It's all broken. Maybe it'll be fixed by the time I put out the podcast. But at the moment, it's all freaking broken. Can anyway no go to curmudgeon-quarter.com and you'll find our transcripts and by the way i still haven't like figured out the trick to make apple like my manually created transcripts it's it's worked once for me and hasn't worked the rest of i don't know it says it doesn't like them it rejects them says i'm not following their guidelines but it doesn't tell me what I'm doing wrong. So I can't fix it.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:01]
| Ah, it's always helpful.
|
Sam:
[1:43:03]
| Yeah. So anyway, it's got transcripts. Sometimes it's, we got archives. You can go back to listen to old shows. It's got all the ways to contact us. And of course it's got a link to our Patreon where you can give us money at various levels. We'll mention you on the show. We'll send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug, all of that sort of fun stuff. And at $2 a month or more, we'll invite you to our Slack where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners chat throughout the week about the goings on. Obviously this week we talked a lot about the debate, but any other thing you want to highlight from the Slack this week, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:41]
| Well, I guess continuing on the theme of, sociopathic things that Donald Trump talks about, Donald Trump proposes migrant fight league during bonkers rallies oh yes okay so apparently he wanted to propose some kind of you know you, know gladiator style fighting between you know i guess migrants because they're like you know i mean i'm sure that he thought about it from the style of the movie gladiator did you see that movie.
|
Sam:
[1:44:16]
| No.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:17]
| Well, gladiator.
|
Sam:
[1:44:18]
| I know what a gladiator is.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:20]
| Well, it's like, uh, you know, gladiator.
|
Sam:
[1:44:22]
| There used to be a game show on TV. I didn't watch that either.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:25]
| I didn't watch that, but, but you know, so he wants them to fight, you know, kind of like Roman empire style over at the Coliseum kind.
|
Sam:
[1:44:33]
| Of a thing. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:34]
| Basically.
|
Sam:
[1:44:35]
| Yep. Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:37]
| It fits entirely yeah and of course we're worried about biden like not not not being articulate.
|
Sam:
[1:44:45]
| Oh yeah and a rumor has uh donald trump may announce his vp any day now as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:50]
| You know i've been hearing that already for weeks and i just you know well.
|
Sam:
[1:44:54]
| The specific rumor was it was it if he did badly at the debate he would change the news cycle by announcing his vp right away.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:01]
| But he.
|
Sam:
[1:45:03]
| Doesn't need to do that so he may he may wait to pull it out around the time of his sentencing.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:08]
| Well another thing is andy borowitz with you know at least with some comedy relief went and posted one there are some you know so we're talking about replacing a joe uh you mentioned uh hey there are some compelling arguments for replacing joe with hunter you could still use biden 24 campaign regalia he's a generation younger and the fact that he's a convicted felon could attract republican voters there.
|
Sam:
[1:45:35]
| You go yeah that's that's that's perfect.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:38]
| So why not yeah i mean you guys want to replace it but you know what the hell why don't we go toe-to-toe with the republicans hey let's put our convicted felon versus your convicted fellow what do you think of that i.
|
Sam:
[1:45:49]
| I just i just don't know what to say it's yeah i.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:54]
| Mean you know and you know look you know unfortunately hunter has a substance abuse problem i'm sure that you know what if he's going to go on the debate stage i'm sure he'll take a hit of coke or something or whatever before he goes on there to make sure that he's he's all energetic yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:46:15]
| Like we said last week, they should have drugged up Biden. Come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:20]
| Well, he was sick, so it probably was the perfect moment to drug him up.
|
Sam:
[1:46:24]
| They probably gave him things that made him sleepy. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:30]
| Might have, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:46:32]
| So, ah, well. Oh, well. And so just hopefully we'll see energetic, vibrant Biden a lot more over the next couple weeks So he can sort of turn this thing around. Otherwise, like it's just an easy spiral thing anyway, but I don't think he's dropping out.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:53]
| I don't think he's dropping out. I also, you know, look, if like, like I said, my, my, my thing is, I don't know, the narrative and the, and these, and these cycles changes so quickly that, you know, in two weeks from now, we're going to be talking about the sentencing. I mean think about what if what if trump gets sentenced to jail which i think is very likely it.
|
Sam:
[1:47:16]
| Could happen now now there might there might be a sentence to jail pending blah blah blah so it's like there'll still be appeals they'll still be right.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:28]
| No no no i get that i get that but but still so.
|
Sam:
[1:47:32]
| He's not actually going to jail most likely.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:34]
| Most likely not most likely but but but But what if he gets sent to jail? How does that play into all this narrative?
|
Sam:
[1:47:44]
| It'll be interesting to see. That's all I got to say.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:48]
| Yes. Oh, God.
|
Sam:
[1:47:50]
| Okay, we're done. We're done.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:52]
| By the way, by then, you know, I will say one final thought on all of this.
|
Sam:
[1:47:58]
| Yeah, one final thought.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:59]
| You know, one problem that we have over here is that we, you know, which may be, we haven't hit rock bottom with this entire cycle with Trump. No, Sarah, here's the thing. Look, look at what's happening in the British election with the conservatives and how they wrote all these morons. Yeah. Until basically just complete disaster. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:48:21]
| But yeah, that's next week too, right? We'll, we'll have, we'll, we'll, we'll have results of that by the time we record our next show, probably.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:27]
| And by the time we that, and all the forecasts show that the wipeout, the kind of wipeout that we would hope the Republicans get at some point, but haven't yet at some point. is what they are getting there, finally.
|
Sam:
[1:48:41]
| At least that's what it looks like today. We'll know for sure in a week.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:47]
| We'll know for sure, but it's highly likely that they are going to get completely crushed in an epic fashion, like no... Government or you know whatever or party of you know party like conservatives has gotten crushed ever and it's all a product of all this bullshit and all these games and all this same usual right wing cozying up to bullshit that that's that the republicans have been doing and and amping up with with with trump so plus brexit plus brexit you know at that and that and that's their waterloo I mean, basically, I mean, it drove him to, you know, a policy that is basically just, you know, undermine the British economy for decades to come. So I don't know. Is that what it's going to take for the fever to break? I hope not.
|
Sam:
[1:49:38]
| But yeah, it might.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:40]
| It might.
|
Sam:
[1:49:41]
| Like, yeah. As the election approaches, I know how much you hate the topic, but we will undoubtedly have what happens if Trump wins conversations. So, yeah. But not today. I am done.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:54]
| Not today. I'm done.
|
Sam:
[1:49:56]
| Okay, everybody. The usual. Stay safe. Have fun. We will see you next week. And yeah, hopefully I'll fix my stupid website. Back up. No, not back after this. I'm done. Here's the outro. Goodbye. Say goodbye, Vaughn.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:18]
| Talk about the senile guy. Goodbye.
|
Sam:
[1:50:48]
| Okay any stop good night everyone.
| |
|
