Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Hey, this is Sam from the future. Just to say, during the show, at one point, we briefly in passing mentioned that the Syrian rebels were making some progress and taking some ground and blah, blah, blah. But we didn't really talk about it at all. It was just sort of literally in passing as something we weren't really going to spend time on. But since we recorded the show and before I'm putting it out, the Syrian government of Assad, of Bashir Assad, fell completely. He left the country. The rebels have taken over. The prime minister is handing over the reins of power, etc. There were some rumors for a little while that Bashir himself may have died in a plane crash, but it seems that was false. And he has actually made it safely to Russia.
|
Sam:
[0:53]
| And there's a lot of question about this HTS group who's taken over. And they're the ones that actually took over Damascus, but they're in a coalition with a lot of other rebel groups. And it's historically a jihadist group, but are they more moderate now? They're claiming to be or not, or what will happen next, and blah, blah, blah. Both Israel and the U.S. are attacking various things in Syria to try to take out weapons stores and other stuff to keep them out of the hands of the rebels that just took over. Developments are moving rapidly, in other words. Things are happening, and we did not talk about it on the show at all. Depending on what else happens in the world over the next week we may or may not end up talking about it next week but major development that happened in this interim period between recording the show and putting it out so i thought i'd just make a note of it anyway here's our show do do do hello okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:54]
| I can only be on briefly.
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Sam:
[1:55]
| Okay all.
|
Ivan:
[1:58]
| Right so one yeah she's because they like you know they give you this stuff that basically just like numbs down the leg like like crazy but that's wearing off.
|
Sam:
[2:09]
| Okay okay uh so i could just join.
|
Ivan:
[2:14]
| To i don't know talk for a little bit and.
|
Sam:
[2:16]
| Then i'll let you how long do you think briefly is are we talking half an hour i.
|
Ivan:
[2:20]
| Don't know if you maybe yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:22]
| 15 minutes 10 minutes five i don't know depends.
|
Ivan:
[2:25]
| On when i get the call that she's she.
|
Sam:
[2:27]
| Needs help okay okay then let's just uh get the sucker going here we go, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, December 7th, 2024. It's just after 20 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Menter, Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[3:08]
| Hello.
|
Sam:
[3:09]
| So, so, so. I mentioned last week.
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Ivan:
[3:13]
| I run a hospital, Sam.
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Sam:
[3:15]
| So tell us about this. I only mentioned last week that you were out due to a family health thing and that, you know, your wife had been injured. Do you have any more you want to share on that?
|
Ivan:
[3:26]
| Well, yeah, she ruptured her Achilles tendon playing basketball with my son last Wednesday. Now, look, my wife is somebody that actually partakes in a lot of athletic activities, including Spartan races. I don't know if you've ever seen a video of those. They're nuts. There are these massive obstacle races where you have to climb ropes and you have to do all sorts of crazy things while you run for miles, for example. Um you know she you know she exercises a lot lifts weights does all this shit so it's not like she's out of shape and doing exercise so she was just doing some light basketball with my son and all of a sudden in some drill her achilles tendon snapped she had to be taken to the er they diagnosed it she can't you couldn't walk doc it's happened a weekend before thanksgiving our Thanksgiving weekend plans were completely ruined.
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Ivan:
[4:23]
| Monday, I got her to the doctor. They confirmed the diagnosis at the ER. Then they had to do an MRI. And the same day that I needed to do a CAT CT scan for my lower intestines because of my episode the last week. So I had an MRI in the morning and then a CT scan in the afternoon. And then the next day, surgery, which is thursday all day for your hospital for my wife yeah because apparently i'm i'm fine and then you know there was a condo election this week that also happened on tuesday that was.
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Ivan:
[5:03]
| Basically my election for the board is a mirror of the 2020 election for president 2020 not 2024 yeah not 2024 2020 yeah in which i did in re-election so.
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Sam:
[5:24]
| So wait if if it's 2020 so then you're the trump character here you're the the evil person in charge and somebody's trying to kick you out.
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Ivan:
[5:32]
| No no no i'm well no it's it's 2020 in the sense that i'm i'm i'm like biden And I did win. Okay. But the election has been heavily disputed.
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Sam:
[5:46]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[5:48]
| By the other people. A lot of it because they didn't really understand the law. Even though it's a whole bunch of flurry of actions and things have been filed by this person. But let's be clear about this. This guy who was leading it is an attorney. And then I go and I look at, okay, where is he an attorney at? Okay. I don't know if you clicked on the information I sent about him, Sam.
|
Sam:
[6:18]
| No, I just read what you said. I didn't click through.
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Ivan:
[6:21]
| Okay. So you didn't read that he, it's a, it's a law firm that has four lawyers, two, two partners, but the main partner is a guy that has been on the defense team for Rudy Giuliani, uh, Papadopoulos, Carter Page, Kyle Rittenhouse. Okay. And is an attorney that has been the one that represented the, the most J sixers.
|
Sam:
[6:50]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[6:51]
| And this guy is his young apprentice. And he came in screaming how I, at this election, I always bring our legal counsel to make sure that the election is run in accordance with the statutes. Okay. And this guy kept screaming how that's not the law. And my attorney kept having to say, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
|
Sam:
[7:19]
| Lovely.
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Ivan:
[7:21]
| And has continued to file a series of actions and things and challenges, all which are basically have fallen flat because he doesn't know the law or he's choosing to ignore the law. I'm actually on the side that he doesn't really know the law because he's barely passed the bar a couple of months ago. This guy is a 23-year-old, 24-year-old guy as far as I can tell, 26, 27, something in the 20s. But one thing about being a lawyer and you having passed the bar a couple of months ago is that if you're that young a lawyer and haven't really practiced, you don't really know the law yet, okay? It really takes a lot of work for you to get. And there are a lot of specialties, okay? You know, a lawyer that is a criminal attorney doesn't know condominium law, okay? Or tax law, for example. They're not the same, you know, the same things. And so anyway, uh, uh, he actually last night, well, wait, wait, wait, but it gets better because last night after a surgery or whatever, after our property manager in violation of privacy laws, for some reason thought it was okay to share the email addresses of all the owners of the association without their consent, which by the way, needs to be done, sent out a solicitation to have me recalled from office.
|
Sam:
[8:43]
| Mm-hmm.
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Ivan:
[8:46]
| And so, I mean, I'm like this guy, you know, I don't know that I, it's just all these people that are in this circle. They think that just screaming and yelling and saying, you don't know the law. When I'm like, no, the guy that doesn't know the law is you. I don't know. They keep citing incorrect law. And they were driving me crazy.
|
Sam:
[9:12]
| So let me ask a fundamental question. and then we can move on because like nobody cares about the details of your condo association to be frank but no like is there actually a contentious issue here like why does anybody care.
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Ivan:
[9:27]
| Like is there something they hate i'll tell you well here that you're doing that they don't like, listen as far as i can tell the only issue has been that there was a construction project that did that got very delayed okay you know because as construction projects do and they were irate about the delays in the construction that that's it i there's nothing else really and and a few people have repeated that to me and it's just that you know you do construction projects and contractors being contractors and you know it it wind up it wound up making it that the construction the pool wound up closed supposed to be closed for four months it wound up being closed for, 14 months okay that's and i understand it's a bit longer and i understand their their of frustration, but, you know, look at some point at month five, as they were going along and the pools moving along, all of a sudden all the workers walked off the site and I'm like, well, what the hell happened? And then they told me, well, we're subs and the contractor stopped paying us.
|
Ivan:
[10:33]
| And I'm like, well, we paid the contractor already. So, so, you know, it's like the contractor is not paying them. And so this began a multi-month delay in the construction because the, the, the, because of that. And then, and then they hadn't filed for the permits and then there were permitting issues. And then when they finished this, the, the, the city inspectors came and said that a lot of the work had been done was not up to code.
|
Ivan:
[11:01]
| So it was just uh okay uh you know but but unfortunately i've been in a lot of construction projects to anybody out there construction projects are never on time i mean if that well maybe not never but it's a rarity for any construction project to be completed on time okay anybody seen any construction projects like large like public works projects like Like, you know, highway, you know, already remembers like the Boston, like the big dig, like whatever that that thing was supposed to be a few years took 20, 30 years to complete for God's sakes. You know, but, but listen, at any scale, these construction projects are always, always, always, always delayed. And so I get that, but there was another issue, which goes back to a little bit to 2020, some election issues, which is that, okay, every year we mail the ballots. Okay. I'm supposed to send them back. I don't know what the hell the problem has been with the mail or the provider or what the, where the, I don't know where the glitch is.
|
Sam:
[11:59]
| Some people didn't get their ballots.
|
Ivan:
[12:01]
| That's right. The ballots were massively delayed. Okay. I don't know why. I really, at this point, don't know why. And some people are saying that we did it on purpose and I'm like, shit, use the same vendor we've used. I don't know why the ballots didn't get there on time. But the thing is that the statute basically says as long as the ballots were sent, as long as the statute is that we need to send the ballots on a certain date and we have completed the law.
|
Ivan:
[12:34]
| Receiving the ballots, we need to receive them on the day of the election. If they're not received, we can't count. Okay. No ballot can be received after the, we start opening envelopes from the ballots. That's it. No more ballots can be received. And so it's one of those, it's one of those where, you know, this, this issue with the mail, you know, we talked about mail voting and how that's an issue. It really impacted us as well. I mean, it's a process that we've done for many years. And then all of a sudden, you know, we sending first class mail and it takes all of a sudden two weeks for people to get it. The statute says two weeks, you need to send them out two weeks in advance. So one of the things that's discussing with attorney, it was like, look, you send them on time. You can't do anything about it. I mean, I was like thinking, that to postpone the vote somehow, but they told me that we couldn't do that because he had to be done during the calendar year and i'm like well so a lot of people are irate about that but unfortunately it wasn't i don't know it wasn't intentional so anyway it created a lot of them.
|
Ivan:
[13:47]
| I got a lot of angry calls emails things i i got i actually got both sides i got positive ones i got negative ones you know part of the whole thing is i don't know just a lot of false accusations about shit also oh my god so many false accusations i i have not i i have i've not been insulted and yelled at like this in a long time which is the i i'm gonna say that's the one thing that's just i've got my wife in surgery i got all this stuff or whatever i'm gonna uh whatever and i'm basically just being hammered with insults not not exactly great what's.
|
Sam:
[14:23]
| The right way to ask this question why do you care enough to not just say okay fuck it i'm out.
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Ivan:
[14:29]
| Uh because i'll tell you immediately.
|
Sam:
[14:33]
| For me i'd be like none of that's worth the hassle screw it i don't care.
|
Ivan:
[14:37]
| Somebody else can do it you know because i've lived here for a long time and i know that a lot of people that are owners for a long time would probably be harmed, by a number a group of inexperienced people taking the the the board you know and i and And I also worry about the employees of the association, you know, to having somebody that is in every communication I've had with them, be belligerent, be a people manager. I've got some employees here that have worked like 15, 20 years, and I honestly don't want them to be.
|
Ivan:
[15:16]
| Supervised by somebody that, that is going to treat them poorly. Um, you know, and I do worry about the other, you know, because it impacts the community as well. Other owners are going to get impacted because they don't, a lot of the things that they have discussed and proposed, one of the biggest concerns is keeping costs in check. And they're, they're not, they don't understand that A lot of the financial things that they have talked about are just going to backfire financially. And so, you know, it's one of those things where, well, wind up hitting my pocketbook as well. So I, it's, it's tough. I honestly, listen, believe me, I had given thought to that, but, but the thing is that when the people are using lies, intimidation, it, listen, it's, it's the, it's this lies an intimidation tactic to try to get people to just bend to their will and i i'm just not very i i don't want to just do that.
|
Sam:
[16:23]
| And just to be.
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Ivan:
[16:24]
| Clear like.
|
Sam:
[16:25]
| You said they have a lot of complaints about like a delayed construction project from the past what would what are they saying they do differently going forward does.
|
Ivan:
[16:33]
| Nothing they haven't said that another thing okay okay uh i mean they said that well well the thing is that they keep saying that nobody listens to their suggestions I had somebody that went and listed suggestions that they said that we didn't listen to. And I actually said, you know what? All those things that you said are either already done or in process of being done. So I don't know what the hell you're saying, that we're not listening to your suggestions. What do we actually do? Either did them or we're in the process of doing them. So I don't, I, I'm, I, I, I'm baffled because I don't, when you look at what they're asking for, they're not really asking for, for anything.
|
Sam:
[17:14]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[17:15]
| It's to make America, it's to make a, make America great again.
|
Sam:
[17:17]
| Okay. Okay. So I, I didn't mention agenda. Agenda is as usual. We're doing this, but first segment. And then if Yvonne is able to stay, we'll see how long Yvonne can stay because he might have to go attend to his wife. We will do more serious stuff after that. So first of all, for my but first, I'm just going to update my one from last week. My second attempt at buying the stupid microphone, I actually got a proper new one that was.
|
Ivan:
[17:50]
| Oh, yeah. Look at that.
|
Sam:
[17:51]
| Clearly, like when it came out of the box, it was pristine. It was wrapped properly. All the seals were sealed. And like when I took it out, it was undamaged.
|
Ivan:
[18:03]
| The seals being sealed are important.
|
Sam:
[18:04]
| You know, I don't know if you listened to last week's show. Like the first one I ordered, I ordered a new one, but it was clearly used and damaged when it arrived. And so.
|
Ivan:
[18:14]
| Where did you buy it from?
|
Sam:
[18:16]
| My employer. But it was one of their. Third parties anyway i complained about this a lot last episode listen to that if you care but anyway i have i have a proper this this one is actually new and good and happy so well, yeah and so that that's my update i did i did set it up it's it's it's good yeah so i i have nothing else to say about that i figured uh since you uh might have to go early we can uh take a break and jump right into the serious stuff. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[18:50]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[18:51]
| So here we go. Okay we are back so yvonne there was actually like you know a few newsy things that happened this.
|
Ivan:
[21:01]
| Last week uh where would you where would you like the one i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you the one that i want to start with i.
|
Sam:
[21:08]
| I have a guess let me see if i'm right.
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Ivan:
[21:10]
| It's the the united healthcare i was right i.
|
Sam:
[21:14]
| Was right i knew where yvonne was wanting to go go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[21:16]
| I mean look it it well first of all i mean i don't i don't recall the last time a ceo of a company was arrested i mean it was was murdered um difference between those two things but yes yeah very very much of murdered i don't man i i'm i'm scratching my head i don't i don't really remember that this is a thing in recent times but the one thing that that that came out is this on social media in in in in for the most part okay zero empathy before.
|
Sam:
[21:56]
| You get to that like just the fundamental facts ceo of.
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Ivan:
[22:01]
| Look he was he was got there was an investor there was a uhc there are these investor meetings that are held regularly in order to met for big investors to go and and the company will make presentations about strategy financials what they're doing what's going on and so forth and so on and a lot i mean a lot of them all are held in new york city obviously you know for because many many many of the invest you know like for example hedge funds and other companies that hold like large holdings of the stocks that they're there so you know you'll you'll hold them there and And early in the morning, he was heading to the hotel where the meeting was held. He was walking towards the property, and somebody came up and shot him. And shot him with what appeared to be a gun that was either produced or a little sound or was silenced, okay, in some way. And the person very quickly, the one thing that I was reading is that because of the way that he did the shooting, it took people a while to realize that somebody had shot. So it gave this guy plenty of time to just, you know, take off and, you know, until people realize that this guy was murdered and, and, you know, that we needed to investigate what the hell happened. And one thing that they found is that the shell casings had three words written on. I believe it came from a discovery motion on some lawsuit related to denied insurance claims, okay?
|
Ivan:
[23:31]
| And it said that somebody, what they said was that the strategy that they had, that they need to follow to deny that is deny, defend, oppose.
|
Sam:
[23:44]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[23:45]
| So, you know, you deny the claim, you defend the claim, and then, you know, if they want whatever, you start this deposition process of all those involved, you know. And so that's what, and that's a strategy. And I, and I will tell you like right now that I, I mean, this part of being deposed by insurance companies, I went through a lot of that where I had a medical insurance company that put me through a series of depositions related to lawsuit. And they were like, they were, I actually, at one point at the attorney, it just told them, I'm like, you're just doing this to fuck with me and to bill hours. Right.
|
Ivan:
[24:31]
| I mean, you know, you're just running up the fucking bill at this point. Hey, you just want to fucking, you just want to fuck with me.
|
Ivan:
[24:40]
| And so I get the antagonism that dealing with insurance companies, which I have fought with medical insurance companies for close to 30 years. So Jesus Christ. Yeah. Related to our business, related to my, my, my son's health, more specifically, more than anything, how I have had to repeatedly appeal.
|
Ivan:
[25:04]
| Fight, you know, all these things in order to get my son's treatments covered. I will say that for the most part, I prevailed in almost all of, all of them. But the one thing that I, that I, what I, what I was telling people is that, that to always be careful because they, they are, I mean, what I said, and I, and I was, some of the people ask me what the strategy is to deal with this kind of stuff. And I said, look, number one is that they will like the whole deny thing. But man, when in doubt, they'll just deny it. And what happens is that 98, 99% of people won't appeal. So I'll get a denial and they won't fight it. And so that's part of the business model. Unfortunately, the insurance companies are counting that most people just will not appeal. And, but I, anytime anything got delayed, the opposite, I would appeal, I appealed every single time. And 90, I'm going to say, well north of 90% of the time, I wound up getting whatever the hell it was denied cover. Okay?
|
Ivan:
[26:10]
| And so I understand that. And I would say that I personally, I mean, if you look at my track record and all the shit I've had to deal with the insurance companies, you would think that I would have extreme animosity towards a CEO of one of these healthcare companies. But the reality is, I also know that part of this and why the insurance company is because the entire medical system in the US is structured this way. And it's a fucked up system, okay? in which he's also, in certain ways, you want to say it or not, a cog of this fucking system. And I don't see how assassinating a CEO of a fucking insurance company is a proper response to getting health benefits denied. You know, I mean, there are so many, we say, well.
|
Ivan:
[27:02]
| You know, so many people that out of pocket and they died or whatever, But I also know a lot of people that without their damn insurance that they, you know, how much of their care has taken care of them in, like, very difficult situations. But the problem is the system itself and the fact that, I mean, President Obama did a lot of reforms to it to make it better than it was. Obviously not as far reaching as they wanted but it it's it's one of those things where, it obviously i don't see how we make any further changes anytime soon given the political climate yep the only changes that the gop has proposed would actually make it a lot worse, so so this creates this animosity which i i understand the animosity but So you were starting to talk. Take your fucking legislators.
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Sam:
[27:58]
| You were starting to talk about. Take your fucking legislators. When I interrupted and said, give the background, you were starting to talk about the social media response.
|
Ivan:
[28:06]
| No, the social media response I found is just appalling. It's just the complete. I mean, just.
|
Sam:
[28:12]
| Just to be clear, there are lots of people saying, yay, this is what should be happening. He deserved it.
|
Ivan:
[28:17]
| Let's murder more CEOs.
|
Sam:
[28:19]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[28:21]
| And I'm just like, I mean, this is not a, this is, this is not a good escalation on how to resolve the issues that we have as a society. I will say that, but, but we've had, listen, but we've had eras of, in the past, of a lot more assassinations. And I, you know, look.
|
Sam:
[28:42]
| And political violence in general. And political violence in general. We've talked about before how, you know, people always point to the 1960s, of course, where we had several high profile assassinations. We had all kinds of other lower level violence in the background all the time here in the U.S. And of course, other countries each have their own histories. But, you know, I and I've said before on this show, not that I'm in any way advocating for the violence, just to be absolutely clear, but I have actually been surprised we have not seen more. And it's not that we've seen zero. There have been a number of high-profile incidents. Of course, you had the couple of attempts on Donald Trump over the last few months. You had, going back further, you had Gabby Giffords, and you had the congressional softball game or whatever it was. You've had a variety of those. I've just honestly been surprised there hasn't been... Oh, and Nancy Pelosi's husband. You know, I've just been surprised there hasn't been more and that more haven't been successful for the most part. And to be clear, again, like I'm not saying it would be a good thing if there were more. It's just given the overall state of... More animosity in the country right now. It's surprising there's not more. And it's interesting in this case.
|
Ivan:
[30:08]
| Like most of the people.
|
Sam:
[30:09]
| It has been escalating. One of the things I wanted to say is most of the people I just mentioned, like I spit out a whole bunch of politicians, this is a little bit different. It's a corporate CEO, but there's lots of anger there too. Like, you know, if I look at social media, even before this, there's a whole bunch of sort of eat the rich, billionaires don't deserve to exist kind of, talk and you know this is just sort of the next sort of level of that i guess i mean and you may have you may have someone here who is specifically aggrieved right you know right you know we'll i don't know well it what we'll end up finding out in terms of like was the killer directly affected or was he hired by somebody he who was or whatever who knows but like you know it may well be a situation where somebody had a specific case that was denied that resulted in about bad outcome for a family member or something and this is them taking revenge you know yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:10]
| I mean i can see i mean there was a movie about this like a long time ago like i remember the ceo there's one called desperate measures where there was like i think it was a michael keaton who their child got denied certain life-saving care and he took hostages or.
|
Sam:
[31:28]
| Something or.
|
Ivan:
[31:28]
| Whatever in order to force the insurance company to go and like give the life-saving care to their to their child i mean it's not like people haven't like this hasn't been a controversial thing in the past i mean i have to assume that there you know because there has to be some direct, relationship between some kind of medical denial and, you know, what, what, what's that, that, this, this, you know, this murder, I don't see how else that it given, you know, the evidence has been found and how it happened and how targeted it was. It has to be, there's just no other, no other explanation.
|
Sam:
[32:10]
| You know, there, there has to be something, right. But we don't, we don't know yet. The other things are that people have been talking about a lot are how quote unquote professional this was like in terms of the person who do it. The person who did this seemed like they knew what they were doing. They had an escape route planned out. They had sort of meticulously planned things. It looks like they messed up one or two things, but like, you know.
|
Ivan:
[32:35]
| For the most part, they, they, I mean, they can't find them yet. They can't find them or identify them.
|
Sam:
[32:40]
| Right. Although every day we've had a few more clues dropped that, you know, so they're on the trail. Like now they're on the trail. Now there are a lot of people who are like, ah, they'll never find him. But, you know, these folks are good. These folks are the folks who dig into this kind of situation are good.
|
Ivan:
[33:00]
| You know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[33:01]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[33:02]
| So there's a lot to go on.
|
Sam:
[33:04]
| Yeah. My expectation right now is still that they're going to find this guy. But, you know, you're right. There could be a direct thing. But hell, for all we know, this is motivated some completely different way. And, you know, this was a kill for hire on some unrelated thing. And part of the professionalism here was putting in clues to lead people the wrong direction. Who knows? I mean, it's probably the more straightforward case. I mean, the most straightforward case here is that someone got screwed by the insurance company who happened to have a set of skills along these lines already, and they were just like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to take my revenge. I have the skills. I know how to do this. I'm going to do this. That's the most straightforward explanation and the most likely, but we can't rule out other more esoteric things at this point. We just don't know yet. Um but going back to the reaction though like you know what one of the yeah it ha it almost has to be like a direct revenge kind of thing right for something because like if you're after like oh i want the insurance company policies to change this is not going to do that you know well i.
|
Ivan:
[34:25]
| Will say that look i'm not gonna totally say that.
|
Sam:
[34:30]
| Okay their.
|
Ivan:
[34:32]
| Reaction by some in the health they they they they are a little bit.
|
Sam:
[34:37]
| Chastened by this oh.
|
Ivan:
[34:39]
| Yeah listen i i mean number one thing is i heard well ceo calls for uh executive protection i mean almost every damn ceo now is demanding some kind of.
|
Sam:
[34:51]
| Fucking additional security that they didn't have. That's what I was actually going to say. Like the changes that come out of this are the CEOs are going to have more security. It's not going to be the insurance company decides to be the general.
|
Ivan:
[35:01]
| No, but I also heard some stuff related to... I got to tell you what.
|
Sam:
[35:08]
| I mean, we had that other company...
|
Ivan:
[35:10]
| Because a lot of these decisions...
|
Sam:
[35:10]
| We had that other company back off on that anesthesia thing, and people were trying to imply that was related. I really doubt that it was, but...
|
Ivan:
[35:17]
| Listen, a lot of decisions... For denial are, are, are not, how do I say? They're not, they're not clear or cut. They could go either way. Exactly.
|
Sam:
[35:30]
| And so, and so right now the thumb is on the scale, like you say, default to deny. Like you, you could change your guidelines to people to just be a little bit more generous and ambiguous cases, you know?
|
Ivan:
[35:45]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[35:45]
| There, there's a potential bottom.
|
Ivan:
[35:47]
| Line and there's a human factor but but the thing is it's not even change it's not changing the policy it's the humans involved and their fear for well this was an iffy one and maybe that before they were just like oh fuck it deny it and now they're like all right i don't want to hear any i don't want some guy to come in with a gun in here whatever okay fine fine fine let him in let let him get a shit because there these are humans behind a fucking decision right.
|
Sam:
[36:13]
| Well and And this is the case too, like in this particular case, they went after the CEO. You could see an alternate history where they go after the case manager.
|
Ivan:
[36:23]
| Fuck. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, that kind of shit has happened in other businesses and things. Sure.
|
Sam:
[36:33]
| Or for that matter, somebody just goes into the nearest office and gets whoever's there.
|
Ivan:
[36:39]
| It starts right. Starts just what? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[36:42]
| You know, so that, and you know, this all, I don't know. It's. It's hard to tell with these kinds of, you know, do we have a trend or not, like you said, when they're small numbers to begin with. I mean, like we can look at the overall murder rate or something and see trends reliably. But if you're talking about like, you know, how many company executives are getting murdered, you know, well, what do you count? Like, are we only counting CEOs? Are we counting the whole C-suite? Are we talking just like, you know, anybody who's a high level manager and which companies count? Are we talking about only Fortune 500? Are we talking about like, like when you, when you were mentioning, I can't remember the last time a CEO was killed. I was trying to Google it. And like, I found some tech CEO in Baltimore that was killed in 2023. And apparently, oh, but that was apparently unrelated to her job.
|
Ivan:
[37:41]
| Right, right, right.
|
Sam:
[37:42]
| Et cetera. I found another list of like, you know, 10 CEOs that have been killed or whatever that was from, from way back in 2011. And I didn't recognize any of the names. So they were, and a lot of them were non-US foreign all over the world, you know? And so I'm like, I don't know. How, how do you even measure that? And it, and because you're dealing with such a small group of people like if there's zero one year and one the next year you've had an infinite increase that's that.
|
Ivan:
[38:14]
| Is that is totally an infinite increase absolutely yes.
|
Sam:
[38:17]
| You know so but at the same time i think the general you can sort of get a feel of like and it definitely seems like i mean how going back to the the the donald trump stuff i mean we had two high profile attempts Trump's on Donald Trump in the space of a couple months.
|
Ivan:
[38:38]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[38:39]
| You know, that's, that's something. Um, yeah. And you know, they failed. We'd be in an entirely different universe if they hadn't failed. Just saying, but, The, I don't know. I mean, on the one hand.
|
Ivan:
[38:57]
| I just think that this shows an uptick in this kind of shit.
|
Sam:
[39:00]
| I mean. I could see that. Well, and just forget the specific like murders and attempted murders for a second. Just the temperature of conversation and the level of polarization has been on the upswing for the last decade. Now, I'd argue we're still nowhere near where we were in the 60s, or the Civil War, for that matter, going back even further. But it's still on an upswing, I think. And I don't think it's crested. Maybe. I mean, the one thing I could see that was like, that is a sign to me that maybe it's crested is that the response to Donald Trump winning for the most part has not been, oh my God, let's, let's gird up for a major battle and we have to fight the forces of evil and all this kind of stuff. And it's just sort of like, we're tired.
|
Ivan:
[40:07]
| Okay. My, my, my reaction has been to bury my head in the sand.
|
Sam:
[40:11]
| Exactly. Exactly.
|
Ivan:
[40:13]
| Like, I mean, I, I, I have been, I have done a remarkably good job at burying my head in the sand, but it's not, I right now watch no TV news. I have my feed now filtered on threads where I can only get, get stuff like stuff on formula one and like the nba or you know just innocuous shit like that i i turned off so many of my you know no news notifications i'm not i i'm not gonna lie i still do catch some of what's going on and i probably catch eventually most of what's going on right but it's not the urgent alert i'm just like later on i'm like you'll you'll see it in a daily update.
|
Sam:
[41:00]
| Once ever yeah you'll you'll.
|
Ivan:
[41:02]
| You're fine if you see it the next morning exactly i'm like oh look what's his name they might name the santas as secretary of defense oh that's that's interesting you know or you know whatever i'm just i i don't i i listen in between let's see in between me being in the hospital in between my wife being in the hospital in between my job in between my fucking condo board okay and add this goddamn fucking you know trump presidency i'm just like you know what listen i need to, I need to simplify here. And I gotta be honest, the stress of a lot of this stuff in part played into why the hell I wound up in the fucking hospital in October. Let's not kid ourselves. Okay. That had to do, you know, because I'm in so many fucking things at the same time, you know, that, that, yeah, this did not help. No, no. no so yeah i gotta like i mean i gotta i gotta i need to filter some of this shit right now i just can't deal you know.
|
Sam:
[42:17]
| Well and and i think like i was saying i think the reaction has been such like there were there was worries like you know oh okay if harris had won how would the trump people react now honestly i think that was overblown too i think for the most part the Trump people were also like, we're tired, you know, like the enthusiasm levels that we saw, like in the Trump rallies at towards the end were low. I think if they had lost, we would not have seen like, oh my God, the MAGA militias, or we would not have seen even a repeat of January 6th from four years ago. Right. I think they would have been like, okay, that's it. And same thing, what we're seeing from the left who are sort of just resigned and accepting of what's happening. And, you know, you know, and I think, you know, you never know how things are actually going to turn out once he's actually in office and things are happening. But I feel like the, I don't know, maybe it's just a lull and the tensions will increase again, starting in January. But I'm hopeful that this is sort of a we've had the climax of this sort of tension and we can start calming down again I don't know a lot's going to depend on what Trump does or does not do I don't.
|
Ivan:
[43:43]
| Know who knows.
|
Sam:
[43:44]
| You don't let like right now on the other hand let's go ahead and have the damn civil war and have the blue states secede from the red states and have two countries and maybe we'd all be happier.
|
Sam:
[43:56]
| After a civil war no you you know like it could be a respectful divorce you know it doesn't have to be i mean that's okay you could you would end up on the red side there in florida but you know oh well no of course what people say is like yeah there's there's a lot of people who would be screwed by such a transition uh so that's not necessarily a good outcome either but it's something, you know, the, the.
|
Sam:
[44:25]
| I don't know. I feel like we'll see. I'm still, I'm crossing my fingers that we have, everything sort of calms down. And as opposed to this, these assassinations and assassination attempts over the last few months are the precursor to worse. I'm hoping it's not the precursor to worse. And instead we calm down, you know, and I don't know. And I'm hoping like, you know, like I said, on election night, I think like our best hopes are that, you know, Trump doesn't do most of the shit he says he's going to do as usual. Like he, he may want to do stuff, but he doesn't succeed. And, and so like, you know, things aren't as bad as they could be. And then we move on. And then, you know, in four years we have president Vance or something and, you know, and then we move on, you know? So i don't know anything else on the this yvonne or anything else that you want to bring up before we take a break and i do whatever i'm gonna do no.
|
Ivan:
[45:35]
| No let's go to i don't know something.
|
Sam:
[45:37]
| Something something yeah okay here is our second break.
|
Sam:
[46:48]
| Okay here i am so look i'm just looking over this list i i've already known what i'm going to pick but here's some of the things i'm i'm not going to pick that we still haven't talked about we we never talked in depth depth about gates dropping out we didn't talk about how the trump team is, is skipping a lot of that yeah i forgot about it's ancient history at this point how trump is skipping a lot of background checks and stuff he finally signed some of the documents i guess some Maybe I'm in a bubble, blah, blah. We haven't talked. There was a tied to our last topic. There was a wave of swatting both of Trump team members and of Democrats over the last few weeks. And then more recently, there's been a major rebel offensive in Syria. There was this thing in South Korea with attempted martial law that didn't last. Oh, God.
|
Ivan:
[47:41]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:41]
| We had the government in France lost a vote of no confidence. Oh, and also in France, we had the reopening of Notre Dame after the fire a few years ago. We have the issues with the other Trump nominee for defense secretary, Hegseth, has some issues. There's more on Blue Sky. There's a legal thing on TikTok. Let's see.
|
Ivan:
[48:05]
| Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, because I can't forget the Hegseth comment.
|
Sam:
[48:10]
| Okay. Okay, and then I'll get to the topic.
|
Ivan:
[48:12]
| Yeah, yeah. The Hexed comment I understood is, what did I say? Oh, if you let me be sect-deft, I'll quit drinking. I swear.
|
Sam:
[48:22]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[48:26]
| I am.
|
Sam:
[48:29]
| This is because the more time elapses since Trump announced him as his choice, The more we found out about his history, he has two issues. One is sexual harassment and assault and things like that.
|
Ivan:
[48:48]
| That's actually a job requirement for the Trump administration. What are you talking about?
|
Sam:
[48:53]
| Practically and then second is apparently like serious drinking issues like drinking that.
|
Ivan:
[49:01]
| Trump doesn't like.
|
Sam:
[49:02]
| Now he does not like that but he does not like that we were talking about drinking on the job at fox we were talking about going out to to events and getting blacked out drunk so much that his friends had to like, carry him home and stuff like that on a regular basis, not like, oh, there were one or two incidents, but this happened frequently enough that it was talked about. And, and yeah, up to and including, like I said, that being, being drunk at work too, like, you know, showing up for his Fox morning show, clearly in talks, drunk off his ass.
|
Ivan:
[49:36]
| Oh, nice.
|
Sam:
[49:37]
| You know, and so all that's been coming up. So that's why the promise, but, you know, clearly from the description. Like it's hard to like diagnose from afar, but he sounds like he's got an actual issue. He's got a problem. It's not like just, oh, he overindulged a couple of times, you know, and, and if he's actually like flat out alcoholic, blah, blah, blah, you know, ask anybody who has successfully gone from that state to being sober. It's hard. It's not just like you decide one day, you know, oh, you're done. I mean, some people do go, go cold Turkey like that, but even the people who do have said it's really difficult. It's not just, it is very difficult. Not, not a big deal. Like, I, I.
|
Ivan:
[50:24]
| Especially moving into a very high stress job. Um, you know, which that would be, you know, that definitely is. I mean, come on, give me a fucking break. Being a fucking talking head on Fox has, you know, what, like 0.05% of the stress that you have as a fucking secretary of defense of the United States. Give me a fucking break. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't understand, you know, why, you know, we're putting on a clown. Well, I understand Trump. What am I, what am I saying? What am I, what am I doing? What am I saying?
|
Sam:
[50:58]
| It makes perfect sense, Yvonne. It matches exactly what you would expect.
|
Ivan:
[51:02]
| I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I forgot what the fuck I'm talking about. The hell am I saying? The hell am I saying?
|
Sam:
[51:10]
| You know, this is another one, though, where it seems like he doesn't have the votes at the moment. And by the way, the other thing, since we're talking about this topic for a few minutes, all of this talk about Trump forcing Congress to go into a recess and doing recess appointments for everybody, nobody's talking about it anymore. Congress came – apparently, you would need – at the very least, you would need the Speaker of the House on board and to force the situation and activate this provision where the president can force the Congress into –, Not remission. That's the wrong word.
|
Ivan:
[51:52]
| Remission? Remission?
|
Sam:
[51:54]
| Yeah, that's the wrong word.
|
Ivan:
[51:56]
| Not recess.
|
Sam:
[51:56]
| Recess. Recess. Recess.
|
Ivan:
[51:58]
| Not a recession.
|
Sam:
[52:00]
| Not a recession. It can force them into recess if there's a disagreement between the two houses, whatever. But apparently, basically, the Senate and I guess the House, too, basically said, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We are not going to just go into recess and let you put whoever you want without saying.
|
Ivan:
[52:22]
| Listen, I am pretty positive that part of this is a future political calculus, not a short-term calculus. Because look, let's be clear about this. A lot of these people, like a Mike Johnson or these guys, are pretty young, right? So if you put in a secretary of defense who is a liquored up lunatic, okay? All right. It's the, the, the, you know, like we've said, Trump might die before the end of this damn term, for God's sakes, you're going to have to be living with, with the, with the shit left behind by this crap. And so I think that they're thinking further ahead right now as well. We only got four more years of this guy. If, if he makes it that long, you know, we can't just, you know, rubber stamp, you know, people like, like, like this, you know?
|
Sam:
[53:11]
| Well, and basically I think the whole exercise and some of these picks specifically were Donald Trump flexing to see just how much power.
|
Ivan:
[53:22]
| How far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[53:25]
| And I think, and I think he found out he has limits. You know, we were honestly worried that the Senate would just completely roll over on everything. It looks like, no, they're, I mean, where's the line?
|
Ivan:
[53:40]
| The new leader of the Senate. The new leader of the Senate.
|
Sam:
[53:43]
| You know, but.
|
Ivan:
[53:44]
| Yeah. Well, I mean, the line is with Gates.
|
Sam:
[53:47]
| And maybe.
|
Ivan:
[53:48]
| I don't know. I don't know if.
|
Sam:
[53:49]
| I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[53:51]
| Does RFK Jr. have the votes to get nominated?
|
Sam:
[53:54]
| Look, the ones that are in trouble right now. I think Hegseth is in trouble. I think Tulsi Gabbard is in trouble. And I think RFK Jr. Is in trouble. Now, if all four of those get blocked by the Senate, that, you know, Trump keeps saying, oh, there's no significant blow. This is fine. Blah, blah, blah. If he loses all four of those, that, yeah, that's a significant, like, sorry, Trump, you ain't getting these, you know, and this, this defines where the line of acceptability is, even for a Senate that is a lot Trumpier than it was before.
|
Ivan:
[54:28]
| Oh, hell yeah. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[54:30]
| Like, even in the last time the Republicans had the Senate. I mean, people- Well.
|
Ivan:
[54:35]
| The leader of the Senate that they chose is not really an ultra-magnet. It's not the Trumpy choice.
|
Sam:
[54:42]
| You know, Trump wanted somebody else.
|
Ivan:
[54:44]
| Trump wanted Rick Scott.
|
Sam:
[54:46]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[54:47]
| And the problem is with Rick Scott that I keep finding out is that everybody keeps all of sudden finding out is that everybody really hates rick scott i don't understand how the hell the only reason he's getting he wins is one in florida is because right now for whatever reason people are voting just for the r guy but if you went on a popularity survey of republicans republicans say fuck this guy we hate him so it's another one that is like on the ted cruz kind of side of Republicans where, yeah, he's, we're a hold our nose. He's our guy, but fuck him.
|
Sam:
[55:21]
| Right. Right. Yeah. So I think it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. It'll be interesting. And the other thing, just to be clear, like that's interesting here is Trump is, is explicitly not putting all of his political weight behind these people. Like, he made a couple calls for Gates, but he didn't, like, put his foot down. You know, he told Haggath, Haggiseth, Haggiseth, Haggiseth, whatever, Haggiseth.
|
Ivan:
[55:52]
| Who cares? Fuck him. Whatever.
|
Sam:
[55:54]
| Anyway, he told him that, you know, he's not making calls for him. He's, you know, he can do whatever he wants. Once you can get the senators on board, but he's not like, if he really wanted to, Trump could be strong arming all these senators. Trump could be all about like, Hey, I'm going to go against you full, full tilt. If you don't do this, he's not doing this.
|
Ivan:
[56:15]
| Here's what I'm hoping. Here's what I'm hoping. Okay. Here's what my hope is. We had lazy Trump. I'm serious.
|
Sam:
[56:25]
| Yeah. Yeah. No. Cause, cause look, here's, here's the fundamental deal. And we've talked about this before, like Trump, aside from a couple issues that he's passionate about, like get rid of all the damn brown immigrants and tax cuts for all my rich buddies. Those are the only two things he actually cares about. Everything else is like shit about anything else. And like the main reason he ran for president was to get rid of all of his criminal charges.
|
Ivan:
[56:53]
| Power and money.
|
Sam:
[56:54]
| You know, like, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[56:56]
| Power and money and staying out of jail. Yeah, it was like he got now he's got all three.
|
Sam:
[57:01]
| Now he's got all three.
|
Ivan:
[57:02]
| Really? He's got all three. Look, he's not going to go to jail. Let's be clear about this, at least on anything federal. There's no way he's getting to.
|
Sam:
[57:10]
| And even the state stuff is pushed off at least four years, probably more.
|
Ivan:
[57:14]
| Right. And even the state stuff is staved off for indefinitely. Who the hell knows how long. OK, he's going to exit the presidency, the richest ex-president ever.
|
Sam:
[57:25]
| Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[57:26]
| And, you know, he's going to be able to enable all his friends to do whatever the fuck they want. So he's.
|
Sam:
[57:32]
| Yeah, I think for the most part, I mean, as much protest as there was about like, well, Project 2025 isn't like Trump's thing or whatever. He's hiring a bunch of people who are involved in that. And for the most part, he's going to be like, I don't give a fuck. Here are the people. Yeah, I'm appointing people. They can do what they want. Except. I think.
|
Ivan:
[57:52]
| The Doge Commission, their number one suggestion that they want to do, that these fucking morons, which, by the way, Congress will tell Elon and Vivek, go fuck yourself, is to go and cut VA health care. That's their number one suggestion. That they've come up with so far.
|
Sam:
[58:11]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[58:11]
| They got $120 billion for veteran affairs health care. And you know what they're going to tell them? Fuck you. You're out of your minds.
|
Sam:
[58:21]
| Right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[58:22]
| No, the head start. Listen, 12 to cut head start, Sam. I mean, everybody in the public is going to tell him, are you nuts? Cut 8 billion from federal prisons.
|
Sam:
[58:34]
| Well, and they've been giving out the message over the last couple of days, too, that they're starting to look at Social Security and Medicare. And those are on the table, too.
|
Ivan:
[58:43]
| Yeah. Yeah. How are those going to go? How well is that going to go with the constituents? Let me tell you something. Republican House members that would vote for cutting Social Security will wind up, they all know, they will wind up losing. I mean, that's like, you want to talk about a third rail of politics?
|
Sam:
[59:03]
| The term third rail of politics was coined for Social Security.
|
Ivan:
[59:08]
| Yeah, that's the third rail right there, okay? You guys are crazy. You want to go cut Social Security? Yeah.
|
Sam:
[59:19]
| People have also mentioned that the whole Doge thing was possibly Trump's, like, oh, here, go play with this toy and get out of my face.
|
Ivan:
[59:31]
| Right, because he's been Jesus Christ. He couldn't get rid of him.
|
Sam:
[59:36]
| But basically saying, like, look, you can go play on this commission. You can make some recommendations. None of it's going to go anywhere. And nobody's going to care what you say. But if you're playing with this, then you're out of my hair for other things.
|
Ivan:
[59:51]
| I'm hoping that Trump really spends his presidency mostly golfing. I really want him.
|
Sam:
[59:57]
| And this is a very realistic possibility.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:00]
| I propose that we enable that Trump really spends four years golfing. I really do. I really do.
|
Sam:
[1:00:09]
| Well, and of course the question is.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:11]
| That's all I want.
|
Sam:
[1:00:11]
| Somebody else is actually going to be making decisions and then what do they do?
|
Ivan:
[1:00:15]
| Who knows?
|
Sam:
[1:00:16]
| But yeah, I think it's actually very, very light. I mean, look, even in the first term. I mean, exactly. It's not only the golf.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:27]
| It was for me golfing. I want him to at Mar-a-Lago and wherever. I don't know. Listen, just, just, I want him to listen, just take a vacation on our dime. I'm fine.
|
Sam:
[1:00:40]
| I mean, even the January 6th stuff. I mean, part of the, I mean, part of the criticism was like, he land out and was involved in the whole thing. But on the day of people were like, all he's doing is watching TV. He's not helping in any way. Of course, the reason why he wasn't helping was because he wanted it. But, you know, whatever. But he was, I mean, we all know what happened in the first term. I think it's going to be more of the same. It's going to be, I think you are going to have a lot of Donald Trump only engaged in a handful of things he cares about. And for the most part, saying, as long as they don't embarrass me, people on my team can do whatever the fuck they want.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:22]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:01:23]
| And and then the question is, like, what do those people do and what damage are they able to do? Because they have some pretty, you know, pernicious agendas as well. But I think it is a good sign as we're reaching for straws or whatever the term is, looking for silver linings, whatever, that the Senate at the very least is actually showing some hesitation to some of his nominees. So... Okay. Now I had intended not to talk about that, but, and the thing that I actually wanted to bring up was not on the Trump side of the equation, but on the Biden side of the equation, which is pardons. And what we, of course, since my last show, like you weren't here, but since the Hunter Biden pardon actually hit, like, as I was pushing out the last show. So obviously we didn't talk about it on there, but also there's been talk about preemptive pardons or some people are calling them protective pardons or whatever. And what should Joe Biden do? So first of all, Hunter Biden, like the big thing is, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:02:42]
| Joe Biden famously had said over and over and over again that he was not going to pardon Hunter Biden. He was not going to commute Hunter Biden's sentence. He was not going to do any such thing because the proper, you know, the consequences would be what the consequences were.
|
Sam:
[1:03:02]
| And nevertheless, this last week, he issued a very broad pardon to Hunter Biden, not just for the things he's actually on trial for, but basically for anything he might have done during a 10-year period. And so, of course, there are all kinds of people angry and not just like Republicans. There are all kinds of Democrats being like, what the hell are you doing, Joe Biden? This is the wrong thing to do, et cetera.
|
Sam:
[1:03:36]
| I'll give my quick take, which is from the moment Joe Biden started saying that he wasn't going to pardon Hunter Biden, I was like, that's bullshit. Of course he is. like on his last day in office, whenever that may be, whether it's coming up now or whether he had run for reelection and won or whatever, at the end of his presidency, of course, he's going to do it. Of course, he's going to do it. There's no way he won't. And I think I was proven right. But like, the thing is, there is one scenario, I think, where he would not have. And that's where Hunter Biden was already cleared. Or had a sentence that did not involve jail time and was in no further danger. If that had been the case, I think, and I think that's what Joe Biden was hoping would happen. And if that had happened, I don't think he would have pardoned him because he would have decided he doesn't need one. He's fine. But that's not the scenario we're in. You know, one Hunter was, of course, a lot. Yeah, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:44]
| No, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:04:46]
| I was just going to say one Hunter was a few days away from getting his sentence in the case that he's already pled guilty in. And so one question I had is why not wait till the last day, wait till January 19th or something. And the reason he was, he was about to be sentenced. The other is that the Trump team has been very, very explicit and you can choose not to believe them perhaps, but they have been very, very explicit, including Donald Trump himself, that what was this election about? This was about retribution. This was about going after the people who were against him all this time. Now, some of that is against, you know, the Jack Smith and the prosecutor team and people in Congress who are involved in the J6 investigation and things like that. But, you know, Hunter Biden has been core to this all the time. Of course, you would go after Hunter Biden more, you know? And, you know, so the rationale is, look, I believe that if I didn't do this, my family, Hunter specifically, but quite frankly, probably other people in his family too, are going to be harassed for the length of Donald Trump's term. And I'm going to prevent that.
|
Sam:
[1:06:12]
| And so, okay, go ahead, Yvonne. What's your thoughts on Hunter? And then we can talk about if he should do more.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:18]
| I think the thing is that all the dynamics related to Joe Biden saying he wouldn't pardon Hunter Biden really had a lot to do with the fact that he –, I think that, and well, I, I thought myself that Joe was going to at least either get reelected or, you know, somebody, well, it started off from Joe, I thought was going to get reelected. Okay. You're right. Exactly. And so, you know, if, if Hunter went to jail for stuff that he was convicted, then he might plead a deal. He was going to let the system play out.
|
Sam:
[1:06:53]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:54]
| Because the Justice Department, under his direction, wasn't going to do this kind of stuff that Trump was trying to do. However, the reality is that with Trump coming in and pledging revenge.
|
Sam:
[1:07:15]
| Well, in terms of politicizing the Justice Department and using it as a political tool, let's be absolutely clear. If Joe Biden had wanted to stop the Hunter prosecution, he could have done so at any time.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:29]
| At any time?
|
Sam:
[1:07:30]
| At any time. And not just with a pardon. He could have just told DOJ to drop it.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:34]
| Just to drop it. Right.
|
Sam:
[1:07:36]
| You know, and also, you know, and of course, Donald Trump is all about, oh, the Jack Smith stuff is all political, blah, blah, blah. If anything, the Biden administration held back and only did these things when it became absolutely clear that they couldn't get away with not doing it.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:59]
| We are very, very pissed right now that they were not as aggressive as they should have been.
|
Sam:
[1:08:05]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:06]
| Against Trump. They should have moved on him earlier. These cases should have been already tried and not just convicted by now.
|
Sam:
[1:08:15]
| Well, there are a couple of things. I have heard some really cogent arguments about how the there was actually stuff going on during the time period. We think they hadn't even started yet. And there were a lot of there was a lot of back and forth.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:30]
| Too long. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:08:31]
| But yeah, no, look, I generally agree. I think they were not as aggressive as they could have been.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:36]
| They took way too damn long, period.
|
Sam:
[1:08:39]
| But, and also there are other things they could have gone after. And besides just these things, there was the leftovers from Mueller that, you know, they allowed the statute of limitations to just run out without doing anything about. There are all kinds of conflict of interest and emoluments things that they could have gone after. No, there's all kinds of things that they could have dug into and gone after. So if anything, if anything, the Biden administration was restrained and, you know, only doing things that were so blatantly, obviously bad that they had no choice, you know. Right. So anyway, but I interrupted. I apologize.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:23]
| No, my whole thing is that I think it really changed his calculus, obviously, the fact that, you know, Trump won re-election and that he was coming in with a complete, you know, I mean, a stated, you know, intent to prosecute, you know, to harass all these people.
|
Sam:
[1:09:45]
| I mean, honestly, if Harris had won and Hunter had been sentenced to jail, I don't know how that would have played out, but I would not have been surprised if they had let Hunter go to jail.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:03]
| Well, you know, I really think that it probably would have changed the calculus whether Biden was going to pardon him or not. But I do think that But the bottom line, Is that with Trump coming in and with his stated intent, yes, there is no fucking way that he could not pardon him. And by the way, do the other preemptive pardons as he's considering doing. This is what's making this calculus. It's it's the stated intent of the incoming administration to go and target these people, period. End of discussion. And so, I mean, this is what you have.
|
Sam:
[1:10:46]
| Cash Patel, who is now the nominee for FBI director, who, by the way, he has to fire the current FBI director to even appoint a new one because they have 10-year terms and he's got three years left. The FBI director, he appointed in his last term.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:00]
| By the way, it was appointed by him.
|
Sam:
[1:11:02]
| Right. But the the cash Patel, the new FBI director nominee, who is another one, by the way, who may or may not make it through the Senate. We'll see how that goes.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:15]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:11:16]
| But in his book, he has an appendix that literally has a list of people, he says, that should be gone after by the next Republican administration for criminal charges. That includes lovely that includes not only hunter biden not only jack smith but go all the way back to hillary clinton and bill clinton and basically any any prominent democrat joe just.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:42]
| Take that list okay.
|
Sam:
[1:11:43]
| And uh okay there's no preemptive.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:46]
| Pardon list yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:11:47]
| You know oh and of course fauci fauci's on the list. They want Fauci too.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:54]
| Yeah. Put them on there. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:11:56]
| You know, and so look, so let's talk about the preemptive pardons now. The argument for is everything you've talked about. The Trump administration is telegraphed explicitly, They're going after these people. Now, to be clear, you can never get them to articulate specific charges that make any sense or specific evidence on any of these. And to be clear.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:20]
| They can still make their life miserable. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:12:24]
| And we've said this before, right? Like if somebody is actually guilty, like Yvonne, you and I would have no problem if Hunter actually went to jail. Like he did stuff. Now, is it absolutely true that he probably wouldn't have been charged at all if he wasn't Joe Biden's son? Yes. But he did stuff. He broke the law. Like, you know, but like, so if any of these people actually committed real crimes, by all means, we should go after them. And I think that's one of the things I posted, I think, on the curmudgeon corner Slack, that one of the things that has to be on Biden's mind that would never in a million years be on the mind of the Trump equivalent is what if I give them a blanket pardon and it turns out they actually did something? You know, because I don't want to pardon them for something they're actually guilty of, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:19]
| Well, he needs to do some serious vetting before he goes and does it.
|
Sam:
[1:13:24]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:24]
| Well, and you've got time to do that.
|
Sam:
[1:13:28]
| You've got some time left. You can decide what to do here. But the the the thing is, what's with with the Trump folks saying explicitly, we don't know exactly what they did. We don't know exactly what crime it is, but we're, we're going to dig in and we're going to find them and we're going to go after them and we will blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then. Yeah. I mean, a blanket pardon, like, like the kind he did to Hunter, which basically said, you know, any, any federal crimes you may or may not have been involved in, in the last decade off limit done. I mean, I could see doing that to a variety of these people where you feel like there's just, That vindictive targeting with nothing else. Now, the counter argument is you're setting a really bad precedent, you know, because what does this mean Donald Trump can do? Donald Trump can, the day he's leaving office, just pardon everybody. Pardon everybody in the administration in anticipation.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:31]
| Okay, but, but, but, but, but, oh my God, setting up, listen, I'm sorry. How many people did he not pardon out the door specifically because of that the last time around?
|
Sam:
[1:14:42]
| I mean, he put pardon Maniford.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:44]
| He pardoned Maniford, he pardoned, well, less than he could have.
|
Sam:
[1:14:47]
| But you know what.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:48]
| But that was more, but that, but that was more before, no, because some of those people, like he is with people, it kind of like pissed them off. But he went with the guys that he, you know, anybody that he really wanted pardoned, he pardoned.
|
Sam:
[1:15:04]
| The thing is though, he did, those were all after the fact pardons for things that were already charged. He didn't do any preemptive ones. Like one of the things people talked about, he could have, and same thing, he was mad that they didn't succeed, but he could have preemptively pardoned all the January six people. You know, he could have preemptively pardoned himself.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:22]
| But, but Sam, Sam, I don't think you remember. I don't even know if he's going to pardon these people now. Do you remember what the line was about these guys? They're losers. They fail.
|
Sam:
[1:15:34]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:35]
| Right. So that's why he didn't pardon them. They were losers.
|
Sam:
[1:15:40]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:40]
| They failed.
|
Sam:
[1:15:42]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:44]
| So, you know, that's why he didn't pardon them.
|
Sam:
[1:15:48]
| But I think clearly the point though is like the, the precedent argument, the precedent argument makes sense in a non-Trump world. Like if you had, if you had normal, you know, pre Trump Republicans coming in.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:04]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
|
Sam:
[1:16:05]
| If you were about to have President Romney right now or President Jeb Bush or something like that, I don't think preemptive pardons would even be discussed in the slightest because you would expect those people to come in and act responsibly and go with the old tradition of you appoint an attorney general who's not going to put their finger in it, whatever the right metaphor is here. Yeah. Is not going to be a weapon like, and to be clear, all of that came from the fact that we used to have attorney generals like that. Johnson and Nixon and Kennedy used the Justice Department vindictively against their enemies routinely.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:16:53]
| They also use the IRS that way. They generally use the power of the federal government for their personal gain and against their political enemies. And after Watergate... We said, no, that's not okay. And a whole lot of protections were put in place to stop that. And that's what Trump is throwing out the window. But Joe Biden very much believes in that stuff. And if he thought somebody was coming in like these normal Republicans, pre-Trump normal Republicans, he wouldn't be thinking about this because he'd expect those people to, like you disagree on policy, but you're generally going to do the right thing on this kind of stuff. And, but there's no, there's zero trust that Trump will do the right thing. I mean, come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:45]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:17:47]
| And so, I mean, I, I, I said on our commutations corner slack that I think Biden should actually be very aggressive with preemptive pardons. Screw the precedent, screw people saying like, this is not the right thing to do. Stop. I mean, it's too late for a lot of things, but at least on this, don't be bringing the knife to the gunfight, you know, like the, the other team is going to do whatever they're going to do and they're going to make the full use of federal power. So while you've got the time to do it, do the same damn thing, you know, all of this, like, well, we want to restrain ourselves because we hope they will restrain themselves when they have the same power. No, fuck that. That that's from a previous universe. Like it's, I mean, I wish the Democrats had actually given up on some of that like a long time ago. Like, I mean, frankly, like a big part of this election back and forth we've been having is like people just, you know, blame the party and power for not doing what they want for not doing anything, not just not doing what they want, but for being ineffective in general and where where they don't understand checks and balances and stuff. So like should have ditched the filibuster years ago. It's just like God full speed ad getting shit done.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:13]
| Yeah. But fucking cinema and mansion fucking blocked it.
|
Sam:
[1:19:18]
| I saw one, I saw one thing the other day saying like all of the blame the Democrats got for not doing X, Y, Z. If you'd just gotten those two on board with the full big build back better or whatever, which I guess would have included having to do some sort of exemption of the filibuster or something. I don't know. I, I forget the details of all back then, but, but you could have gotten a lot of shit done. That was very visible and people maybe would have remembered, but even then, like people don't, people don't remember like the stuff that did get done. Nobody gives.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:54]
| Listen, listen, listen, I, I, I really look this environment right now of anti-incumbency because of yes, uh, the general economic situation. And the general economic sensation that people have had and this entire and and it's really fed by a combination of xenophobia trans basic mostly transphobia and then you add this this thing where a lot of people the the thing is that they see oh my god these costs went up yeah but but they don't see that they're making more money they can't they can't see the net well also they can't see the net but.
|
Sam:
[1:20:41]
| Also but also if i get more money it's because i'm awesome not because of something the government did if prices are higher it's not my.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:51]
| Fault it's the government's fault but but then but then the expectation that many have that they think that somehow the prices will go back down Yes. Which is ludicrous. Okay. You know, so you get, you get this entire thing where the thing is the, but I will say that the main thing that I've seen with many has a lot to do with this pricing thing where in their head, they're like, oh, whatever. And then, man, this entire anti-immigrant thing that they have fed, I mean, this entire xenophobic anti-immigrant thing that they have fed this monster where it's just, it's just so huge and it's global, right?
|
Sam:
[1:21:36]
| A lot, a lot of the things we're talking about are global. The price spikes were global pandemic fueled. And if anything, like the U S did better than most countries in terms of that.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:47]
| But that, but that doesn't matter that every other fuck in a country doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's the same thing. Like I said, I'm dealing with over here with so many disgruntled people in the condo association. All right.
|
Sam:
[1:22:01]
| Back to this.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:01]
| Because, well, no, but it's nobody, but it's related to the Sam. It's related to the price increase thing and how they see it, okay, and who they blame, all right? Because condo assessments over the last five years have gone up like 30% in our community. And the main reason has been a combination of inflation and mostly driven by insurance, okay? All right? But the reality is that they're up here 30%, but you go across South Florida, they're up 60%. We have one of the lowest rates of increase across the fucking state, okay, considering what's going on. And people still are bitching about the increases. And I'm like, people, you know what? I can't control insurance, okay? We can't control the fucking insurance, okay? Insurance rates have skyrocketed, okay? It's the biggest line item in our budget. And if it goes up that way, we've got no way. I mean, I've shopped it. It doesn't matter. But people still, they don't care, okay? They blame the leadership because you're costing me more. And it doesn't fucking matter why it is. It doesn't matter that you did better relatively to the other ones like Biden did the economy. Now, by the way, I still won the election. It's not clear. But it was a lot closer. Than it's been in the past. Way closer.
|
Sam:
[1:23:30]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:32]
| So, yeah, I mean, it's just the reason I can't bring that up is because what I see is the behavior, the misinformation, the anger, the, you know, this whole anti-incumbent thing in general. It just seems to be fucking everywhere about everything, period.
|
Sam:
[1:23:54]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:55]
| We want to make a change. Why?
|
Sam:
[1:23:58]
| So back to pardons preemptive preemptive pardons all around be like super aggressive I'm.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:05]
| All for it I'm all for it yeah fuck it I.
|
Sam:
[1:24:08]
| Think like you said I'm all for it it's worth doing some vetting like it's worth doing.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:14]
| Vetting you gotta take this list first you gotta vet it thoroughly make sure that you're not exactly you know doing something that you pardon somebody then you're like holy fuck what the hell but I'm all for it yes do it.
|
Sam:
[1:24:28]
| Don't hesitate just fucking do it and i feel like they're they're gnashing their teeth a little bit about this at the moment like trying to figure out like i think this they are considering it seriously but they have not definitely decided to do it i don't think at least the reporting says that there's some hesitation they're not sure if they really want to do this the precedent the thing the blah blah blah blah blah i think they need to get over that and do that one one other concern.
|
Sam:
[1:24:56]
| Was what if people don't want the pardons and aren't going to accept it? Well, ask them first. You know, if, if somebody is out there being like, I actually don't want a pardon. Okay. Then ask them, don't give them the pardon if they don't want it, you know, because there's also this implication and that people have worried about that accepting a pardon, Is perceived as an admission of guilt. Right. And just to be clear, there is an official pardon request process that people can go through. That they fill out a form and they send it to some agency and the agency vets them and gives a certain number of them to the president to make the final decision. I believe part of that process is an admission of guilt. In most cases, but it is not actually the actual presidential is unlimited. Like the the Ford's pardon of Nixon was a preemptive pardon without Nixon ever making an ever admitting guilt.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:03]
| That's right. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:26:05]
| Carter made a blanket pardon of Vietnam War draft dodgers. He did not even individually identify them, let alone look into the specific cases and who was guilty and who was not and blah, blah, blah. It was just a blanket pardon for anybody who might have committed that crime during the length of the Vietnam War, you know, and, and, and similarly, like, you know, there could be pardons here. The text of the pardon could explicitly say, we're not making anything on guilt or innocence. I think even the Hunter Biden one, I think, had some text about might or might not have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Having said that, though, there is no automatic admission of guilt as part of accepting a pardon. However, you may absolutely guarantee that the political opponents of anybody who gets one of these pardons will absolutely hang it over their head as if it was. And, and talk about it as if it was so, and some of these people are politicians, so they care about that. They care about the perception and like, you know, that they're not actually admitting guilt. And, you know, so there might be some people who don't want it. So don't give it to the people who don't want it. But, uh, I don't know. I, I, I want one.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:34]
| Can I get one? I don't know that I've done anything, but I'm like, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:27:40]
| I was going to ask, what have you done, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[1:27:42]
| Nothing that I know of, but, you know, I actually think it'd be kind of cool to get a presidential pardon.
|
Sam:
[1:27:49]
| Yeah, a preemptive pardon that says anything you've done in the last 30 years that might or might not have been a federal crime.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:56]
| Hell, at least, yeah, I mean, I'm kind of like guaranteed. I'm like, okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not going to be prosecuted, even if I don't expect to be. But, you know, hey.
|
Sam:
[1:28:07]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:09]
| It'd be kind of cool to like frame it. I mean, I'm sure it's got to come in some kind of like cool little thing that you can frame in your office or something.
|
Sam:
[1:28:17]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:18]
| I mean, I'm like, I mean, I would be, it would be nice. I mean, I mean, talk about a conversation piece.
|
Sam:
[1:28:23]
| Right. No, I, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:26]
| I have, I have a part.
|
Sam:
[1:28:27]
| And I don't know, I think Joe should also be thinking of what other places can he use presidential power with immunity over the next, what, we have a month and a week? Something like that?
|
Ivan:
[1:28:44]
| I mean, we have pardoned some fucked up people.
|
Sam:
[1:28:47]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:47]
| I mean, like Trump pardoned Michael Milken. I mean, who is the biggest fucking crooks. We talk about whitewashing all his crimes now with his milking foundation to fucking bullshit that he does you know and like nobody talks about the fact that he was one of the biggest fucking fraudsters in wall streets ever in history.
|
Sam:
[1:29:07]
| Yeah i don't know i mean of course the thing with pure executive power other than the pardon is that almost everything in that category are things that trump could reverse as soon as he got in but you can still make him jump through some hoops to do that. I don't know. Okay, anything else, Yvonne, or should we close this sucker up? You've gone longer than you thought you were going to be able to.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:31]
| My wife apparently is knocked out. I mean, I guess the medication really has her knocked out.
|
Sam:
[1:29:37]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:38]
| I thought she was going to really, I was worried that she was about to come to whatever and I'd have to, you know, do stuff. But apparently, I mean, she is out, out, out, out. So.
|
Sam:
[1:29:52]
| Well, good, I guess. You know, so.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:55]
| Well, yeah, she's not feeling pain.
|
Sam:
[1:29:57]
| How long is it supposed to take to heal from the surgery? Like how long is she going to be?
|
Ivan:
[1:30:02]
| Months.
|
Sam:
[1:30:02]
| Months.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:03]
| Months. This is not quick.
|
Sam:
[1:30:06]
| Beautiful. Yeah, no, this is not quick. I don't know if I mentioned on the show as well, like since we're talking family injuries, my wife's mother, my mother-in-law in, I guess it was October, got hit by a car and like broken pelvis, broken ankle, a head injury as well. So my wife's been in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania like so she was in the hospital a couple weeks then she was in like a a rehab a couple weeks and then they finally sent her home and my wife is there with her at home because they they sent her home before she was able to actually be self-sufficient so my wife has been with her ever since and I think the plan is next week my wife's coming back and my daughter's flying out there to take over but it's it's the same thing like this is months and months and months long recovery. Right. And so she is doing a lot better than she was right after the accident, but she's still like, she, she lived alone in a multi-story home. She can't do stairs yet. You know, she can, she's now starting to be able to go around on the first floor without like a walker or wheelchair sometimes, but it's very tiring, very exhausting and she can't do stairs yet.
|
Sam:
[1:31:27]
| And, you know, so these, ah, and, and she's a bit older than your wife. So healing also takes longer, you know, you know, so I don't know. She, she's doing better too. But yeah, these kinds of things. A few years ago, my father was also hit by a car. Somebody ran over his foot. That also took many many months to get back to where you were before you know i mean i running over your foot is better than getting hit square on you know but yes much better but still like it months to recover months to recover here's one thing i.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:06]
| We have a disney trip planned at the end of this month i i am gonna have to probably get her one of those little electric scooter things.
|
Sam:
[1:32:13]
| Yeah okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:15]
| At least they got those. I get her on one of those.
|
Sam:
[1:32:19]
| You need the electric one or just the one, the knee scooter thing that you push around?
|
Ivan:
[1:32:23]
| No, no, no. She's got the knee scooter, but for Disney, I'm going to get her the electric one.
|
Sam:
[1:32:27]
| Okay. The place is too big.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:30]
| I do have her. I do. I did get her a knee scooter. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:32:33]
| Get her one of those things that where the kind you sit in and like just scooter mobility scooters. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:41]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:32:42]
| Okay. Yeah. No, I can see that.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:44]
| Imanu will be happy because he can honk the horn.
|
Sam:
[1:32:49]
| Yeah. Well, so anyway, yeah. Long, long recoveries from these kinds of injuries, but hope it goes as smoothly as it can, Yvonne. And yeah. And hope, hope nobody else gets injured in the next couple months.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:03]
| You know, look, I'm hoping that I don't have a recurrence of my problem. And I wind up in the hospital because that would be a disaster. I don't know what the fuck we're doing. if we're both ill.
|
Sam:
[1:33:14]
| Right right now yeah that becomes an issue so hopefully it does yes okay let's close this sucker up hey everybody go to curmudgeons-corner.com you can find our what my son is passing me a dryer hedgehog that that he has he has made 3d printed versions of various sizes of the hedgehog. Okay. Okay, stop. No, no, no, no. Come on, I'm wrapping up. Okay, I'm going to mark this at it. Okay. Okay. Everybody go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You can find our archives, all of our old shows. You can find all the ways to contact us. You can find transcripts for some of the old shows as well. Like the last, it's been like two years now we've been doing transcripts. It's been a while. You can find links.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:08]
| Been a while.
|
Sam:
[1:34:09]
| Yeah. You can find links to our YouTube. I haven't added links to our TikTok yet. We didn't talk about TikTok may be banned again. Like, you know, they lost in court. we'll see how that goes maybe talk maybe maybe i i still think chances are probably not but we'll see, and then yeah you can go to our patreon and give us money of course at various levels we will send you a we'll mention you on the show we'll send you a postcard we'll send you a mug all of that kind of thing and at two dollars a month or more or if you ask nicely we will invite you to our Curmudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I are talking and chatting and sharing links throughout the week, along with a variety of our listeners. So Yvonne, do you have a highlight from the Curmudgeons Corner Slack that will make people so excited they want to get on there and log in all the time and see what we're talking about? Because it's so compelling.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:06]
| Yes. Residents of Northern California neighborhood had a good laugh after Thursday's powerful earthquake struck the region. A robotic vacuum cleaner that apparently got disconnected for invasion was found roaming the streets. So there was like a quake and somehow Aruba somehow wound up escaping this house and it was just roaming aimlessly down the street.
|
Sam:
[1:35:29]
| As Roombas do.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:30]
| Yeah. Well, also, also, I believe that we shared that there was this, here it is, Hawk to a Girl responds as people call for her to be jailed with fans losing life savings after buying her cryptocurrency. The viral cessation has been accused of pulling the rug under the investors. Her crypto coin plummeted by $430 million in just 20 minutes.
|
Sam:
[1:35:59]
| And just to be clear, percentage terms, that was like a 90% drop or something like that.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:03]
| Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, I do question when I saw this guy, one guy that said, I put my life savings in there and I'm suspecting that he had like maybe $20 as his life savings or maybe 40, maybe 40.
|
Sam:
[1:36:20]
| Look, I've said on the show before, I have gambled with some cryptocurrency. I've put in a little bit of excess cash into that, that I could afford to lose.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:28]
| Gambled in stocks and gotten killed look i i you know i had some penny stocks at one time i lost on one stock i mean my god i lost like sixty thousand dollars on a stock but i had a lot more in my portfolio it wasn't like you know i was like maybe at that point i don't know this was like 20 years ago i was like it wasn't it was it was like 10 percent of my portfolio at the time something like that whatever so it wasn't like you know i i could withstand a loss of 10 percent of my portfolio okay all right i didn't put all my money into a fucking penny stock that's.
|
Sam:
[1:37:02]
| Important i mean and look this is the point i was getting at like sure play around gamble with these things but recognize that's what you're doing and recognize it could go to zero and.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:15]
| Right and if you're not okay with that then.
|
Sam:
[1:37:17]
| You shouldn't be doing it at all like you know especially like hawk to a girl comes out with a new crypto coin.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:25]
| And you put your life savings in it i mean dude what are you doing i mean at least if you're talking about hawk to a girl as your financial advisor i.
|
Sam:
[1:37:37]
| Mean at least if you're talking about bitcoin or ethereum or one of the really big ones you have some kind of argument of something.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:46]
| Even there don't put your entire life savings.
|
Sam:
[1:37:50]
| Don't put your entire life savings in anything.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:37:53]
| You know... Yeah. I mean, seriously, like I, I, I have very little sympathy for the people who are like, I lost it all. Like, okay. If you want to play around with the Hawk to a girl currency or something and put a little bit in that you can afford to lose, it's the same. Yeah. then fine. But yeah, anybody saying that they've lost a significant amount that affects their lives. I'm sorry. You're just dumb.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:28]
| You're just dumb. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
|
Sam:
[1:38:32]
| Okay. Are we done?
|
Ivan:
[1:38:34]
| All right. We're done.
|
Sam:
[1:38:36]
| Okay. Thanks everybody for joining us for another curmudgeons corner. Have a great week. Stay safe. Oh, I mentioned last week that I was going to set up the, the Google sheet for our, our big prediction show at the end of the year, which is coming up soon. I haven't done it yet. I promise by next week, I will share a link to a Google sheet where people can add suggestions for things they want us to predict, but I haven't done it yet. I'm lame. Sorry. I'm just doing other stuff with that. Have a great week. Stay safe.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:12]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:39:12]
| Blah, blah, blah. Have a good week. Great week. Blah, blah, blah. Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:17]
| Blah, blah, blah. More blah, blah.
|
Sam:
[1:39:19]
| And goodbye. Say goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:21]
| Bye. Bye, bye, bye. Blah, blah. Thank you.
|
Sam:
[1:39:53]
| Thank you. Okay, that's it. Later, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:58]
| All right, let's stop this thing.
| |
|
