Automated Transcript
Emily:
[0:00]
| Hi, welcome to be here. Am I really this close?
|
Sam:
[0:07]
| Your head's about the same size as mine on my screen. You're good. Now we wait for Yvonne.
|
Emily:
[0:13]
| How are you?
|
Sam:
[0:15]
| I'm doing okay.
|
Emily:
[0:17]
| Yeah? Living the dream?
|
Sam:
[0:22]
| Yeah living the i get i get to do fun things because i don't have to work but i'm not making any money thing you know but yeah.
|
Emily:
[0:31]
| Well that's well that's it same having a good time that's for sure.
|
Sam:
[0:42]
| Oh there's mr bow.
|
Ivan:
[0:44]
| No people we have people.
|
Emily:
[0:48]
| I'm here i was prompt lots of people and i don't have my mic going you two are all fancy and i got i got great backdrops okay.
|
Sam:
[1:01]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:03]
| I have a hyper expensive backdrop. Don't. Yeah. I have to.
|
Sam:
[1:15]
| You know, you have to look impressive on video calls every day. Basically.
|
Ivan:
[1:22]
| Regularly, at least. Maybe not every day. But, you know, if I'm trying to get a CIO to purchase like a million dollar contract from me, you know what? I don't want to be looking like me. Yeah. Yeah.
|
Emily:
[1:37]
| You need to dress for the job.
|
Ivan:
[1:39]
| Yes. Dress for the job.
|
Emily:
[1:42]
| Yes. But it's background expensive because it has a lot of degrees back there. So that was it.
|
Ivan:
[1:49]
| Well, no, no. All the cabinetry and stuff. From both. From the furniture. Well, yes, the degrees, yes, the degrees were expensive.
|
Emily:
[1:56]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:57]
| Well, actually, not totally.
|
Emily:
[1:59]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[2:00]
| But, you know, Carnegie Mellon University, when we went to school, I remember, it was only like $12,000 a year.
|
Sam:
[2:07]
| Because that was a long time ago.
|
Ivan:
[2:09]
| And my master's degree was free. I got a full scholarship plus expenses to get my master's degree. So, therefore, you know, so in real relative financial terms, they were not expensive right now compared to today.
|
Emily:
[2:26]
| Yeah, I think, well, my parents would probably beg to differ, but I managed to get out of, you know, it was a state school, but I paid $16,000, I think. That was after, like, yeah, and I got two degrees. I went every summer, which was helpful. I would get, like, I got it in that amount of time. I think I went maybe one more quarter, one more class to get my final political science one.
|
Ivan:
[2:52]
| Sam and I, look.
|
Emily:
[2:53]
| So summer. Wait, summer.
|
Ivan:
[2:55]
| Summer, summer, come on.
|
Emily:
[2:56]
| I did go to summer school.
|
Ivan:
[2:57]
| Sam and I, we're very lazy people. We don't go to summer school.
|
Emily:
[3:04]
| Well, I'm lazy too, and summer school was not about just school. It was about partying at WSU in the summer.
|
Ivan:
[3:11]
| Look, I could get partying done without having to have the excuse of going to school, okay? That was not a requirement in any way, shape, or form. I could figure out how to party without being at school. Thank you very much.
|
Emily:
[3:25]
| Me too.
|
Ivan:
[3:27]
| Okay, I got subjects lined up. I got things.
|
Sam:
[3:33]
| Yeah, we had a few things happen.
|
Ivan:
[3:36]
| Really?
|
Sam:
[3:38]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[3:39]
| Calm. Everything is fine. All right, well, come on. Let's get this show on the road. Let's go. Come on.
|
Sam:
[3:48]
| Okay, everyone ready?
|
Ivan:
[3:51]
| Ready as we'll ever be.
|
Emily:
[3:52]
| Never ready, but I'm ready.
|
Sam:
[3:56]
| Here we go. Welcome to Curmudgeons Corner for Saturday, January 17th, 2026. It is just after 3 UTC as we are starting to record. I am Sam Minter. Yvonne Bowe is with us. And this time we also have Emily Wicks with us again, who is, of course, the co-host of the UMSUR podcast and is joining us again. So thank you, Emily. Thank you, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[4:49]
| Hello, hello.
|
Emily:
[4:51]
| Hello.
|
Ivan:
[4:51]
| You know, you guys, what's the temperature up there where you guys are at? Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[4:56]
| Just checking right now. 42.
|
Emily:
[4:59]
| It's really nice.
|
Ivan:
[4:59]
| 42.
|
Emily:
[5:00]
| We've had really sun skies lately.
|
Ivan:
[5:03]
| And it was 42 this morning over here. All right. Look, it's 60. I was out with a sweater, a jacket. I'm indoors. I'm freezing my ass off. You know, I. Yes, I know. And it's going to be. Yes. And it's going to be cold again tonight. I'm not. I'm not doing well.
|
Emily:
[5:25]
| So when would it Cold means 40s. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[5:29]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[5:29]
| No, no, no, no, no. That's that's that's Arctic. No, cold is 60.
|
Emily:
[5:37]
| Wow. You don't belong in Washington State.
|
Ivan:
[5:40]
| No, I do not. There is a reason I live down in South Florida. Look, I mean, I'm Puerto Rican, for God's sakes. This is not my, no, no.
|
Sam:
[5:51]
| Look, Yvonne, here at 60 degrees, people are wearing shorts and T-shirts.
|
Ivan:
[5:56]
| Listen, I got a whole bunch of Canadians down here. Not as much, not as many as we usually have gotten, you know, thanks to our dear old Presidente, okay, you know, that are all around in shorts and whatever and stuff and bathing suits. And I'm looking at them and, you know, my wife takes out her winter coat, literally takes out her winter coat. I'm not exaggerating. You know, high 50s, 60s is you go to a Starbucks and there are people wearing boots and winter coats.
|
Sam:
[6:26]
| Yeah, ridiculous. You guys are, I don't know what to say. You know, I know you're not used to it, but come on.
|
Ivan:
[6:34]
| I'm going to tell you something. Look, I made some notes about some stuff that's been going on. One thing, you know, a few weeks ago after my surgery, they drew some blood work. And they tell me this thing. Hey, you know what? Your cortisol levels are high. Now, cortisol is related to stress. And they asked me, hey, have you been enduring stressful situations? And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Where are we living, for God's sakes? Have you seen the news? Between the news, my job, this shit, or whatever? You know, yes, of course.
|
Sam:
[7:11]
| My cortisol is high. Not to mention the surgery as well. And the surgery, right.
|
Ivan:
[7:15]
| And the surgery.
|
Sam:
[7:17]
| You know, like, this reminds me, like, you know, Both when my wife and my mother both had surgery recently as well. And in both cases, the doctors at one point or another, as they're preparing for surgery, were like, your blood pressure is a little high. Are you nervous about something?
|
Ivan:
[7:40]
| No. No.
|
Sam:
[7:44]
| Yeah. So.
|
Ivan:
[7:45]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[7:46]
| Anyway.
|
Emily:
[7:47]
| Well, have you done the, because when you have high, like, stress levels, you're supposed to do the superwoman stance or the superman stance. It lowers your cortisol levels, you know? Like, when you go, we always tell people before you're going to a stressful interview, go into the bathroom or go wherever you need to do and stand like this with your, you know, like, or just, like, go big. And then it lowers your cortisol levels and it helps.
|
Ivan:
[8:13]
| I am taking some new supplements that they recommended I take. So based on that, I'm doing that. But I got to be honest. This is, I'm kind of like at a point, like right now, where this is like, I've realized this is the normal. You know, you... Look, I saw that you had done a post about, you were doing an interview about stuff that's going on in the Capitol recently. But the thing is that I went to the podcast episode, and it's not what I was listening that you had. You mentioned something about being, there was a whole bunch of different subjects, but the one that I heard was about living in different places.
|
Sam:
[8:56]
| You're talking about UMSR, of course.
|
Ivan:
[8:57]
| I'm talking about UMSR. And you mentioned about, I guess you recently visited Brazil.
|
Emily:
[9:02]
| Oh, yeah. Well, no. It was 2018.
|
Ivan:
[9:07]
| 2018. Well, relatively recent.
|
Emily:
[9:09]
| Yeah. And I was just listening to your podcast when you guys recorded when you were in Brazil. And that was what? Was that 2006 or 2009?
|
Ivan:
[9:15]
| That was 2009.
|
Emily:
[9:17]
| Oh, my God.
|
Sam:
[9:18]
| You were listening to a 2009 episode?
|
Ivan:
[9:20]
| So this is what happened. She mentioned that she was in Brazil. And I realized that I said, I realized that, you know, I mentioned, well, I remembered, Sam, we recorded a lot of podcasts. episodes from when I was in Brazil. Okay.
|
Sam:
[9:34]
| Well, in general, when you had the job that you were traveling internationally every single week, we recorded episodes with you all over the world.
|
Ivan:
[9:44]
| Yeah, basically. Yes. Did we, did we, no, we did not record from Russia. I think I avoided recording from Russia.
|
Sam:
[9:49]
| No, no, I don't think we recorded from Russia, but I know, I know we recorded when you were in Asia. I know we recorded in South America. You know, you were all over the place.
|
Ivan:
[9:58]
| Yes so so we recorded episodes from from everywhere but i i must tell you so that's your only visit that you went to brazil.
|
Emily:
[10:05]
| Yeah i mean i it was what city.
|
Ivan:
[10:09]
| Did you go to.
|
Emily:
[10:09]
| We just we went to rio de janeiro that's where we spent most of our time and then we did take a trip to ila grande the island okay it was so funny because my friend was telling me he had gone there he had stayed with a family there for many years and his wife so we went with his dad and And we went with his wife at the time and his daughters. That was her first time, like, coming back. His wife was, she was from Brazil. She's Portuguese and, not Portuguese, she's Brazilian.
|
Ivan:
[10:39]
| Brazilian, yeah, don't, yeah, don't say, listen, don't, do not ever say that to.
|
Emily:
[10:44]
| Yeah. You're right, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[10:45]
| Don't tell a Portuguese person they have a Brazilian. Oh, my God. Talk about the ultimate insult. They will, yes, they will kill you.
|
Emily:
[10:55]
| Two things. I know Spanish relatively well, not well, but I can get around if I need to. I'm not good at just busting it out, but it can get around. But my friend was like, oh, yeah, Portuguese is just the same. You can build on it. And I was like, I don't know. Like, I was doing Duolingo for a year before we left. It was so hard. And I go, this is not the same. And then you go there.
|
Ivan:
[11:21]
| It's no.
|
Emily:
[11:21]
| And the way that I thought you were supposed to say something was not the same. because the country is huge. It's like trying to listen to somebody, you know, speak in Texas or like Chicago or Boston and then talk to someone.
|
Ivan:
[11:34]
| The accents are so different between cities, like, you know, Sao Paulo accent or Rio accent. They're so very different. But one thing, what I will tell you, listen, there is one thing I want to say that you mentioned that you did on the trip that I cringed a little bit, okay, is that you guys did this whole, when we were, when I spent a lot of time in Brazil, one of the things that we were talking about, American tourists go for the first time, was this. Focus on doing favela visits, which people locally were like, why are the Americans crazy? And they think that they want to come over here and visit the favelas. Like, like, you know, it's not, it's like to a lot of the locals, it's very, a very big cringy thing. But you said that you didn't go on one of those.
|
Emily:
[12:25]
| We had a host. We, that was actually where my friend stayed. So we were actually a host family.
|
Ivan:
[12:31]
| Oh, but you stayed with a host family. Okay.
|
Emily:
[12:35]
| That was his host family.
|
Ivan:
[12:36]
| No, because there are people that go on these bus tours. And I'm like, okay, so it was that you were staying. Okay, that makes me feel better. No, the one thing is that I think to a lot of people, and I say that, you know, I saw, I visited Brazil so often for like 25 years. Last time, the last trip that I did, and I think I saved the boarding pass on my desk. It's right here. Okay. Yeah, I have. This is the boarding pass from a flight from Sao Paulo to Miami on the 12th of March of 2020.
|
Emily:
[13:17]
| Okay. Gosh.
|
Ivan:
[13:18]
| Now, if you think about how that date may be important in our world history, it's because it was right before the COVID shutdown. And I actually, I was very concerned about this. And when I landed... The satellite internet had stopped working on the flight over overnight. So all of a sudden, I was trying to get updates on what's going on. We're all very worried about what's going on with COVID rearing, about shutdowns, things, stuff, or whatever. And we landed, and literally all our phones blared, and all the flight attendants, and everybody from America's flight attendant was standing nearby. We're all in shock because America announced right when we landed that all flights to South America, international, were all suspended. And that was the moment that we landed.
|
Emily:
[14:06]
| Wow.
|
Ivan:
[14:06]
| So I beat, like, not being stuck, like, in some foreign country for months by a very, by a whisker, okay? And so, but one thing is that. i i love brazil i have a lot of friends it's a great country i just always like go to people it's like i saw how brazil had one of the biggest developments of a middle class that we've had in history from when i used to visit in the 90s to like now where i mean brazil was so poor when i I used to visit in the 90s. And one of the things to give credit to the current president, even though he was sent to jail for bribery and he's out and now he's president again. But okay, you know, who's counting? But who's counting, right? Okay, at least they did send him to jail. Okay, I can say that. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[15:07]
| That they take a lot of people out of poverty. It was just the transformation where I still remember one thing that I always found incredible was looking out a window out of our office. We're back in the 90s. There was this huge favela. And as time passed, it disappeared. And it's not because, you know, like in certain places, you know, in cities where they try to like hide all the homeless. No, it's because people were making more money. It's because actually, heaven forbid, there was income distribution. It happened where the poor got more money instead of just the rich having money. There was an economy that grew and the poor were made richer. And it was just one of those things that, and it was just kind of one of those interesting things that I saw out a window where you saw, I remember this place where all of a sudden it was favela and all of a sudden disappeared, disappeared, disappeared. Yes, what happened? Oh, well, people got money. They got houses.
|
Emily:
[16:04]
| They moved out. he got to go to places it's like it's one of those things good i just remember something with the it rained one night really it was really crazy so yeah we were not in a bus i'll just say we were not tourists in a bus we had people that knew the area that were from okay very specific area, but i yes but i had a lot to learn and it was really helpful to learn about that experience while i was there with a friend who was like this is what i learned as a white person from marysville washington as well and like who's traveled here and stayed here for a long time so there's a lot of things that i didn't understand like the tipping culture i thought was really interesting um they don't i i was like i want to tip and he's like do not tip them do not tip they.
|
Ivan:
[16:49]
| Don't yeah they don't it's not yeah.
|
Emily:
[16:51]
| That was something that you know threw me off but that i do remember we were having a great like you know we are having steak at a friend of his home it started pouring down rain. We saw, you know, police officers like coming up, you know, the favela, like the hill that was right up.
|
Ivan:
[17:10]
| Yeah, yeah. It was really- Usually on hills. Yeah. And when it rains, I mean, the storm of water that comes through is a gusher.
|
Emily:
[17:18]
| Yeah. There was a couch that came down the hill.
|
Ivan:
[17:20]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll happen.
|
Emily:
[17:23]
| Side, but underneath things watching, we were like, holy shit. Like, you know, But, you know, his host father that was there was talking to us about how he felt a lot safer in the favelas than he did when he was, you know, out in other areas of the city. And we were there during New Year's Eve, which I'll tell you was, you know, being on Copacabana Beach, I'll never see fireworks, no matter what, that will ever, like, compare to that firework show. and but i did have a um it was a i was wearing a necklace someone told me not to wear you know jewelry and i was wearing like a cheap gold necklace it was nothing it was like you know i forgot i even had it on it was just so flimsy or whatever and this you know kid started going like you know getting in front of me went like this and then grabbed at my neck to grab my necklace and this was as we were like going there to to new year's and going to the beach and i was what the heck? And my friend, you know, pulled him aside. Later, he went to go find some friends of his that were trying to find us, which I don't know how he found us back on the beach because we just slow.
|
Ivan:
[18:30]
| There's like so many people. Yeah.
|
Emily:
[18:31]
| I mean, we made our little area and then we just, you know, it just zoomed in. We had nothing at the end of it. And so he said that he ended up seeing that little boy later and he was beat to a pull because he was, you know, like basically trying to rob people at the beach. It was just like.
|
Ivan:
[18:50]
| Yeah, probably some people were like, okay, enough, you know, come on.
|
Emily:
[18:54]
| He was, you know, helpless, you know, or like, I mean, yeah, it was really, it was just interesting. And then that was also when, it was 2018, you know, my husband and I remember this because my spouse and I, we got engaged on the beach and it was really interesting.
|
Ivan:
[19:10]
| Oh, oh, there you go.
|
Emily:
[19:11]
| He was literally holding this ring that he wouldn't want to get robbed. whole time.
|
Ivan:
[19:17]
| Listen, I did get robbed in Brazil. Okay. They stole my briefcase at the airport. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was, it was, it was, it was an opportunity to, it was stupid. I was checking in at the ticket counter and there actually had a gang of people that were preying on, on people at the ticket counter. I was super exhausted. I put my briefcase on the floor and they caused a commotion behind me. And all of a sudden I looked down again at my briefcase.
|
Emily:
[19:42]
| Yeah, I mean, that was an experience I don't think I would ever, like, have been able to do without having the relationship with the friends that we had, that my, you know, husband had. It was incredible. But we were there for three weeks, and that was too long. Oh, there you go. That was too long to go anywhere and to be away. Sam, have you been to Brazil?
|
Sam:
[20:04]
| I have not.
|
Emily:
[20:05]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[20:06]
| But he's been to Portuguese-speaking countries. That is true.
|
Sam:
[20:10]
| I lived in Mozambique when I was two to four years old, yes. And I visited there once when I was college age as well.
|
Ivan:
[20:18]
| When you were in college, yeah.
|
Emily:
[20:20]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[20:20]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[20:20]
| Somewhere over there.
|
Sam:
[20:21]
| But yeah, no. And I believe on the way back from Africa, we stopped in Portugal.
|
Ivan:
[20:29]
| Yeah, okay, that doesn't count.
|
Sam:
[20:30]
| When I was four years old. Like, we stayed there for like a week or something.
|
Ivan:
[20:34]
| Okay. Well, very good, Sam.
|
Sam:
[20:37]
| I have very vague memories of this house we stayed at when I was four years old on the way back to the U.S. from Africa because the guy had an accordion, and I was very intrigued by the accordion.
|
Ivan:
[20:51]
| Oh.
|
Sam:
[20:52]
| Outside his place, they had people playing, what is it, bocce ball or whatever?
|
Ivan:
[20:57]
| Yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[20:57]
| I was very intrigued by that. And I believe this is also where I got a little toy truck that I really, really enjoyed until I lost it when my parents and I were visiting New York City several years later. And it upset me ever since. To this day, I am upset. It was a little double truck thing, like matchbox car size. And I probably had it from when I was four to when maybe I was like six or seven. And then I think I left it at the house of the people we were visiting. But I never got the damn thing back. And I'm pissed to this day. I'm like, I should call up my mom and dad, find out who we were visiting, and go see if they're still alive. As you can see.
|
Ivan:
[21:48]
| Sam will hold grudges for a long time. Okay, so don't cross them.
|
Sam:
[21:55]
| Hey, it's been slightly less than 50 years, like maybe 48 or 49 years.
|
Ivan:
[22:04]
| So, well, I'll make one, you know, aside from like asking Emily about her podcast and like her adventures, I want to just say one thing because we didn't talk about this in the last week because we didn't record after this happened. that I'll make a mention about... My buddy that passed away on Wednesday.
|
Emily:
[22:27]
| I'm so sorry.
|
Ivan:
[22:30]
| So last, when I was around after Christmas, I had a call from a mutual friend of ours that a friend of our friend, a friend I have, Bob Corby. He, uh, but he was sick. And I was like, Mark, how sick is he? I don't know. Wow, baby. And, you know, Mark is old, but much older. And I met him like 20 some odd years ago. and i met him because we had boats i i used to do a lot of stuff with boats and and i go and i'm like you know so but is he okay i think he's okay okay well i i call him back i call bob a couple of days later hey bob are you okay no i'm at the hospital i'm like shit you're at the hospital well do you know do they know what you have they don't know they're doing tests so i go i went to visit him and he was jaundiced he was yellow i mean he was not looking good of course and the doctors were there for and they couldn't figure out what the heck was wrong with him, Next day or two, they said that they had discovered that he had a cancer that metastasized. They'd metastasized all over. Basically, there was nothing that they could do that they were just sending him to hospice right away.
|
Ivan:
[23:50]
| And I went to, this was like, so this was Tuesday. Thursday, I found that out. Friday, I saw him at the hospital. They were sending him to hospice over the weekend. I was going to go try visit him this week. I found out where they sent him to hospice on Monday. so and Wednesday morning they called me that he passed away hmm that's awful uh, and that was just you know Bob was I posted something online about, look I met him just because I needed somebody to drive a boat I come down here and I didn't I I'm one that knows how to drive a boat I took Sam to the, Virgin Islands on a boat with a compass and a map back then there was no GPS Yes, basically from Puerto Rico. All I had was a, not even a map. I didn't even use a chart. I knew where we were going. I'm like, I just used the, I'm like, ah, we're going to go, we're going to go west. There you go.
|
Sam:
[24:44]
| That way.
|
Ivan:
[24:45]
| That way. Basically. Just follow the compass. But over here, I didn't know this area and it's like dangerous, honestly. Charts don't show everything.
|
Emily:
[24:56]
| You didn't have to jump on an island when you were there somehow that you shouldn't have been on, right? like on that trip.
|
Ivan:
[25:04]
| Sorry. No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[25:06]
| But Yvonne has mentioned we passed within sight of it.
|
Ivan:
[25:10]
| Okay, we did pass within sight of it. Yes, we passed actually less than, Probably a couple hundred feet from it.
|
Emily:
[25:19]
| Okay. Okay. I've already written this down. We are coming to visit you, and you are taking us on a boat. Me and Sammy need to go.
|
Ivan:
[25:27]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[25:28]
| He doesn't have the boat anymore. He got rid of it a long time ago.
|
Ivan:
[25:31]
| I don't have a boat right now. I've got to buy another boat at some point, but, you know.
|
Emily:
[25:35]
| These people tell me to come to Florida, and until I met you, I didn't feel like I had a reason.
|
Ivan:
[25:41]
| I don't have a boat. My wife wants me to buy another boat, but I don't have a boat right now again. But we did come within a couple of hundred feet, you know, of that island. That island is exactly there. When you leave, if you go to St. Thomas, okay, specifically, and St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands are a chain of islands. You got St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, which is further south where Joe Biden was on vacation recently. But that was like further south. But St. Thomas and St. John are very close. And when you go from the capital of Charlotte, Amalia, to get to St. John, you actually, the passage that you cross in order to go over there goes right by Epstein Island. It's like right by there. OK, so, yeah, it's an island that I saw and passed by many times through there. And I saw the house. I remember you could see the house. But I never in a billion effing years thought that's what was going on at that damn place.
|
Emily:
[26:45]
| I mean, I would if there's just a bunch of, like, you know, expensive fucking boats there. Excuse my French, but, like, I'd be like, something's going on over there.
|
Ivan:
[26:54]
| You know, there's a lot of, listen, a lot of expensive boats out there. And as far as I remember growing up, there was no pedophilia going around, okay, all right, with the people, at least the ones I knew, okay? That's all I know.
|
Emily:
[27:08]
| But you know what, though? Like, I look back. on, you know, we read Virginia's book, right? Gouffre's book. And I, all I can think of when I'm like listening to or reading her book and thinking back about this time was just, you know, Britney Spears growing up in this world of, you know, the Christina Aguilera's, the Britney Spears, the feeling.
|
Sam:
[27:30]
| I remember, I remember the countdown pages for various female teenage celebrities, like on the web you could go to like pages and be like how many days until they turn 18 and are legal.
|
Emily:
[27:42]
| Seriously that.
|
Ivan:
[27:44]
| That that was a thing.
|
Emily:
[27:45]
| Oh yeah for like for the olsen twins for britney spears for.
|
Sam:
[27:52]
| All if if you had a famous.
|
Emily:
[27:54]
| Female celebrity who was a teenager there.
|
Sam:
[27:58]
| Were countdowns for like when they turn legal.
|
Emily:
[28:01]
| The the way that we were like i was treated as like an old millennial you know like i remember that like the what we needed how we needed to look how we needed to feel what we were jealous of the expectations of women it is it's so creepy it's like hindsight's 2020 though too because i didn't see it but like looking back and reading the number of quotes that she quotes, like, the odd songs, you know, in her book.
|
Sam:
[28:28]
| Yeah, and, well, you're talking, like, the early aughts. If you go back to the 80s or 90s, it was worse. Yeah. You know, if you look at a lot of 80s media, like, there are all sorts of movies that have as a theme the older guy and the teenager. There's songs going back to the 50s and 60s that have that theme.
|
Ivan:
[28:51]
| Look, to be fair, okay, look, in the reverse, Look, I did like older women, okay, especially when I was younger, and I did date. Like, when I was 16, I know more. Once I went out with somebody that was 18, 19, 20. Okay, and when I was 18— By the way.
|
Sam:
[29:11]
| 16 and 18 is starting to push it a little bit, but it's still, like, within the realm of, eh. But, like, what we're really talking about is the 16-year-old with the 30-something guy.
|
Ivan:
[29:22]
| Yeah, well, okay, but the girlfriend that you met that I had when we were at Cardi Bell and Sabina, when I was 18, 19, she was 23.
|
Sam:
[29:32]
| Right. Well, once you're 18, 19, it's a little bit different, too.
|
Ivan:
[29:37]
| Like there's a, there's a lot bigger of a difference that we were 22. Okay. It was like, you know, my point is, you see, I realized why I wasn't interested in those countdown pages because I liked older women. I was like, no, no, no, I don't want, I don't want young image. No, no. Give me something, you know, give me older. No, no, I don't want to deal with that.
|
Emily:
[30:00]
| That's the way to do it.
|
Ivan:
[30:02]
| So anyway, so that was it.
|
Sam:
[30:04]
| And now you're creeping on the 70-year-olds whenever you get a chance.
|
Ivan:
[30:07]
| Right. Exactly. Of course. Yes. Well, listen, the youngest woman I dated, who is my current wife, because I met her at a party. Listen, I met her at a party in South Beach where it was a work party, okay, that somebody had bought a condo. Somebody from a friend of mine or a co-worker bought a condo. This was, by the way, this is when condos in Miami Beach were cheap. Okay. All right. This is like 25 plus years ago. and you know bought this little condo whatever and we went there for a party and i met her and i thought she was like i don't know my age or whatever then i realized she was like i was like eight years older and she was and i was like the heck i'm like i didn't realize that i was you know, but but you know she was of age anyway she was like this was not like you know she's 20 she was in her 20s we were both in our 20s i just thought that she was like my age not not eight years younger than I was, you know. Damn it. But then we're not getting married.
|
Emily:
[31:03]
| God, I always keep you scared of me.
|
Ivan:
[31:07]
| Well, Sam, are you going to review a book? I mean, a movie?
|
Sam:
[31:13]
| Well, I was going to, but we've sort of like been going on and on and on.
|
Ivan:
[31:17]
| No, but we're way behind on your movie reviews. We need to catch up on a movie review. So come on.
|
Sam:
[31:24]
| Just one?
|
Ivan:
[31:26]
| Yes. Let's get to movie review.
|
Sam:
[31:28]
| The next thing is actually a book. It is not a movie.
|
Ivan:
[31:32]
| What the heck? My brain actually picked it out. This is, Okay. Somehow, for some reason.
|
Sam:
[31:38]
| You got it right.
|
Ivan:
[31:39]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[31:39]
| This is one that Alex and I read together. As I've mentioned on the show before, all of my book reading at this point, both one series I have of ones I'm picking for myself and a separate simultaneous series of ones I'm picking for Alex that are mainly books that I liked when I was his age that I'm choosing to read again with him. So we got both things going. This is from, this actually came up in my list, but then we are continuing the series with him. But all of these, by the way, the way we're doing these, despite the fact that he's 16 years old right now, is I am reading them out loud to him.
|
Ivan:
[32:23]
| This is so ridiculous. I mean, how long does it take? I mean, this has to be the slowest damn process in the history of mankind to go through a book.
|
Sam:
[32:35]
| Well, we're doing it in half hour chunks. Like, we do a half hour at a time, and I will read for half an hour.
|
Ivan:
[32:40]
| So how many pages do you go through in half an hour?
|
Sam:
[32:43]
| I don't know. I'm reading on a Kindle. I don't know what a page is.
|
Emily:
[32:46]
| It's true. I love that idea I read to James when he's driving like you know when we take long road trips it's either you know or it's me reading with him I know some people can't do that but I'm lucky that I can so I like to read out loud my.
|
Ivan:
[33:04]
| Wife on a road trip goes to sleep and we blast like EDM music the whole way on a and my wife somehow figures out how to go to sleep and between us like just go and like on a, on a heater of just bagged music.
|
Sam:
[33:22]
| Anyway, to move on, this is a book I liked when I was a teenager. It's A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, published originally in 1968.
|
Ivan:
[33:36]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[33:36]
| It is a fantasy novel. She wrote both fantasy and science fiction. This particular one, reading from Wikipedia, It is regarded as a classic of children's literature and of fantasy within which it is widely influential. The story is set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea and centers on a young mage named Ged, born in a village on the island of Gaunt. He displays great power while still a boy and joins a school of wizardry where his prickly nature drives him into conflict with a fellow student. During a magical duel, Ged's spell goes awry and releases a shadow creature that attacks him. The novel follows Ged's journey as he seeks to be free of the creature. Anyway, and this is the first of a series of books. It was originally written as a one-off, but then she ended up doing a bunch of sequels afterwards. And I think back when I was a teenager, I read this first one and maybe the second one, but not any further in the series. And I didn't, you know, I didn't really remember much from the second one, but the first one, you know, was, was impactful for me. There were several items, there are several bits of it that I remembered, even though I hadn't read it since I was a.
|
Sam:
[35:05]
| Oh, yeah, I remember really noticing and thinking, oh, this is an important insight. This is really cool. This is whatever. Back when I was a teenager. Anyway, reading it again with my son. First of all, I really enjoyed it again. Big, huge thumbs up on this one, too.
|
Ivan:
[35:25]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[35:26]
| It is sort of a coming of age teenager, goes through an adventure, becomes an adult sort of through the process of maturing and figuring out what's going on. So it is that kind of story. I remember originally sort of being blown away by the ending, being like, oh, wow, you know, and reading it now, on the one hand, I was like, actually, that ending was kind of telegraphed and obvious. But then again, I remember I'd read it before.
|
Ivan:
[36:02]
| You read it before.
|
Sam:
[36:03]
| And I knew what happened. And so I was anticipating the ending the entire time I was reading the book again. But I think... I think as an adult, having read a lot more things and have gone through a bunch of tropes, I probably, you know, anticipated the ending anyway, even though, but it's hard to tell. Like, what's it, is it really more obvious than I thought it was when I was a teenager? Or did I just know the ending because I'd read it before?
|
Ivan:
[36:31]
| I'm going to guess that you knew the ending because you had read it before. Yes.
|
Sam:
[36:36]
| But anyway, big thumbs up. The other thing that I had not caught on to at all when I was a teenager that I noticed a lot this time and comes specifically because I was reading it out loud is how much the word choices were such that it's almost obvious it was meant to be read out loud. There's a lot of places where there's like a rhythm in the words.
|
Ivan:
[37:09]
| What's the age target that the book you think had when you read it?
|
Sam:
[37:14]
| The age target was definitely, it was intended as older children, young teenagers. That was the target audience for the book original. And I think as you go through some of the sequels, it ages up with them a little bit. But the thing is, it was, you know, just reading it, it was almost poetic in a variety of places. I mean, it was never outright like, I'm reading a poem. But it was clear that the author paid a lot of attention to things like the cadence of the words, the rhythm that was going on, that the fact that when you said it out loud, it had more power than if you were just reading it and zooming past the words, not thinking about how they were pronounced and how they were said. And so that, I kept noticing that over and over and over again as I read this book out loud. You know, places where, You know, there was alliteration. There was, I keep saying rhythm. There was definitely rhythm. There were definitely, like, patterns to the tone where all of it sort of came together in a way that I noticed because I was reading it out loud. Okay, question.
|
Ivan:
[38:33]
| How long did it take you to read the book?
|
Sam:
[38:37]
| Okay, hold on. I will tell you.
|
Ivan:
[38:40]
| I know you know this. I know he knows it. He tracks this.
|
Sam:
[38:43]
| Yes, I log all these. Let's see.
|
Ivan:
[38:46]
| Right. Of course you do.
|
Sam:
[38:48]
| And, you know, I should have brought it up already to have that ready, but I didn't.
|
Ivan:
[38:54]
| Come on, Sam.
|
Sam:
[38:56]
| I'm going for the logging.
|
Ivan:
[38:58]
| I have to cut your pay, Sam, again.
|
Sam:
[39:00]
| Yes, definitely. Okay. Wizard of Earthsea began on May 8, 2024, finished on March 2, 2025. It was 198 pages long. It took 298 days to read it. So that's an average of 0.7 pages per day. Now, keep in mind, keep in mind, this is, we were not reading every day.
|
Ivan:
[39:28]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[39:29]
| I mentioned we would do the half hour of reading maybe once a week or so. So.
|
Ivan:
[39:35]
| And then what, did you all of a sudden pack a few, you know, like a long reading session where you read out loud for what, an hour or so?
|
Sam:
[39:42]
| No, no, no. Every, it was always half hour sessions. So if you estimate, we did a session about once a week and it was 0.7, then 0.7 times seven, about five pages a day.
|
Ivan:
[39:55]
| Five pages a day.
|
Sam:
[39:56]
| Five pages per half hour session.
|
Ivan:
[39:58]
| Per half hour session.
|
Emily:
[40:00]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[40:01]
| Approximately.
|
Emily:
[40:01]
| There's no judgment here. You know, you gotta.
|
Ivan:
[40:06]
| No, no, no. It's just, you know, it's just, I'm always, I'm not judging. I always just laugh. Sam's methods are always like very interesting to, to understand, you know, what, how he, how he goes about to get a task completed, you know.
|
Emily:
[40:21]
| See, I don't know is why we've been wasting our time on JK Rowling. her bullshit when this existed, you know, when this book's here. And also I needed to.
|
Ivan:
[40:30]
| Can I say that I've been at the forefront of the anti-JK Rowling thing because I never wanted to read any of her shit or watch any of her movies. So I consider myself a pioneer.
|
Emily:
[40:42]
| Yeah, you are.
|
Sam:
[40:43]
| Well, you know, there are similarities. Obviously, this is a wizard who goes to a wizarding school and figures out stuff. And, you know, so you got some similarities. And this was, of course, many decades earlier. The details are all completely different, of course. But, you know, there's definitely some similarities there. And I think this is definitely superior in sort of a literary and how well thought out it is sort of way to J.K. Rowling. And there are also some things. She has complained, the author of this, who died a few years ago. But there were a handful of attempts to make made-for-TV movies or miniseries or whatever out of this book, and she hated all of them.
|
Emily:
[41:33]
| Oh, yeah.
|
Sam:
[41:34]
| And one of the reasons she hated him all is that she intentionally made the main character black. And when they made, like, movies, the miniseries or whatever, they made him white.
|
Emily:
[41:49]
| Yeah, he's like, not just white, because I was looking this up because I wanted to see. He's like, he's like redhead white. Like, he's as white as you can be. It's not even, like, white passing. it's like white.
|
Sam:
[42:04]
| Yeah and you know and i i we are going through the rest of the series now we actually just started the third book in this series a couple weeks ago but but yeah like i have not watched any of the the things the the the video remakes of this i have put them on my list i will see them if they come up but all but apparently she hated them she was like upset that she'd sold the rights because she was guaranteed that they would do a good job and she'd have some creative input and then they didn't do any of that um and but but yeah this is it's good stuff i enjoy it and apparently this is the only series of hers i've read but she has a bunch of other output that she did both in the science fiction and fantasy genres and apparently it's almost all universally really good.
|
Emily:
[42:56]
| So they, it sounds like thumbs up.
|
Ivan:
[42:59]
| Well, thumbs up for sure.
|
Sam:
[43:01]
| Absolutely.
|
Ivan:
[43:01]
| Okay. All right. So double checking, make sure that we got our preview.
|
Emily:
[43:05]
| It also sounds like A24 is currently developing a new TV series with hopes for a more faithful rendition.
|
Sam:
[43:12]
| Oh, nice.
|
Ivan:
[43:13]
| There you go. Hopefully you can fix that.
|
Emily:
[43:15]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[43:15]
| Well, but to be fair, look, we are. I know. You know, the other day I was hearing somebody complaining about how they portrayed some Cuban or something as a redhead. Look, one of my best friends. I think you met him.
|
Sam:
[43:30]
| I met the one you're talking about.
|
Ivan:
[43:32]
| Yes, it's a massive redhead and he's 100 percent Puerto Rican.
|
Sam:
[43:36]
| Well one of the things she did in this book is she very intentionally she set out a world that had a lot of diversity and there were a lot of people you know with a whole bunch of different descriptions it is a hell hole.
|
Ivan:
[43:49]
| For steve miller sam is what what she said she designed a complete complete the the nightmares of which hannity's nightmares and you know what's his name steve miller and what's that other asshole and fucking fox news i keep forgetting for for an idea the other the other fucker i care tucker oh tucker carlson the one they took.
|
Sam:
[44:09]
| Off now the one thing i did read in her introduction is that after the fact after this first book came out and was very popular and whatever she realized and criticized herself for being a female author who created a very male book for the first book well there are a couple of female characters but they're secondary or even tertiary characters and so she corrected that in the second book and there was a major female character in the second book but but she's like what the hell am i doing you know.
|
Emily:
[44:43]
| George rr martin says that to people all the time you know i mean he's creating like i don't know it's kind of weird to me sometimes hearing the stories about these women that george rr martin wrote it you know about women but Yeah, like, I think good for them. Take a different perspective.
|
Ivan:
[44:59]
| Sometimes, look, like I've mentioned that we talked about this here sometimes. So we have these subconscious bias and things that are created to us, even including ourselves, about who we should be and how should something be portrayed and who should be in it. Just because culturally, that's what's been told to us. And that's what we, you know, go and project. So, but it's, you know, and we don't sometimes, sometimes we don't, we don't even think about it. It's not, not even, it's not conscious. So, no, well, but she fixed it. But she realized it and fixed it. So that's good.
|
Emily:
[45:32]
| It sounds like she has a lot more self-awareness than J.K. Rowling. And I'm like, want to make this person, sorry, Ursula, let's help her. I know that she's no longer with us, but yeah.
|
Ivan:
[45:46]
| Maybe her family is like, make a buddy off of this. I don't know. They're good people. Who knows?
|
Emily:
[45:51]
| I'm excited to read this. I've been wanting another good fantasy book. And I think it's really cool that it's, you know, from the 60s, you know.
|
Sam:
[46:00]
| And presumably, you won't read it half hour a time a week or two apart. And so it'll take you less than 298 days to read it. It's actually a relatively short book and a relatively quick read if you just pick it up and read it normally.
|
Emily:
[46:17]
| I'll let you know if I feel like the ending is surprising.
|
Sam:
[46:21]
| There you go. Let me know. Like, yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't just surprising. I mean, even as a teenager, I might have seen it coming, but it was sort of, it was still sort of a powerful ending, I thought.
|
Emily:
[46:37]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:38]
| But again, that's my teenage brain talking, a little less so rereading it, but, you know, whatever, you know.
|
Emily:
[46:46]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[46:47]
| Okay. Shall we take a break and then start?
|
Emily:
[46:53]
| Sorry.
|
Ivan:
[46:54]
| No, no, no. You're good. You're good. Say hi.
|
Sam:
[46:57]
| Okay. Ready? Ready? Ready for a break?
|
Emily:
[47:00]
| Ready.
|
Ivan:
[47:00]
| Ready for a break.
|
Emily:
[47:01]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[47:02]
| Okay. Here comes the break. And then when we come back, Emily, we'll let you pick a topic first. Oh, I don't have to. Yeah, we got a lot of stuff going on this last week.
|
Ivan:
[47:10]
| Okay. Yeah. If you go to the show topics list, you can pick some stuff or you can just pick.
|
Emily:
[47:15]
| You know. Okay. I'll tell you. I already know.
|
Sam:
[47:18]
| Yeah, because we got Minnesota. We got Greenland. We've got Venezuela. We've got Iran. We've got like, we got all kinds of stuff. We got all kinds of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[47:28]
| Where are my anti-cortisol pills? God's sakes.
|
Emily:
[47:32]
| I'm going to let you guys know what's up. I'm going to be like, tell me what happened. I know kind of everything, but like someone dive deep because I could not this week.
|
Sam:
[47:43]
| Okay, here's the break. Back after this.
|
Ivan:
[48:05]
| Oh, God. It's the break we wind up with. Excellent. Thank you, Sam. Okay, great.
|
Sam:
[48:10]
| Of course. It's beautiful. Okay, we are back. So, Emily, what have you chosen?
|
Emily:
[48:18]
| I want to talk about Kristen's cinema.
|
Ivan:
[48:22]
| Oh, that fucking... Okay. Oh, that's... Okay. Well, there you go. You know, this is good, so we don't have to talk about something depressing.
|
Emily:
[48:31]
| We can talk... Everything's depressing, even this.
|
Ivan:
[48:34]
| No, no, no, not this. Because, you know, at least we can shit on this fucking bitch, for God's sakes. I, you know, it is the, I must say, one of the things that, to this day, still, I always, when I think of cinema, that really, really, really pisses me off, to no end, is how she, just like a lot of her Republicans that have been, recent additions to the Senate and House, their main focus is getting fucking rich. OK, I mean, she came in with a net worth of bupkis into the Senate and left with tens of millions of dollars. And you're trying to fucking tell me that this was out of just, you know, not insider trading or not, you know, bullshit. OK, and so many of them have been doing this recently, especially in the G. Because, you know, AOC hasn't done that. You've seen her financial filings. I know that my representative, you know, over here, you know, that I sat beside her in coach many times flying, wasn't also doing that either, okay? But, yeah, but she, what, I mean, I saw the lawsuit and I'm going, what the fuck?
|
Sam:
[50:00]
| Okay, fill us in the details. I know some of it. Let me read the article title.
|
Emily:
[50:07]
| The article title says, MDMA and steamy texts alleged as ex-senator sued over Trist with Bodyguard.
|
Sam:
[50:18]
| What publication was that in?
|
Emily:
[50:21]
| Well, it's in Raw Story, so that seems pretty right based on.
|
Sam:
[50:26]
| So Raw Story doesn't ever do their own reporting. They summarize other places and link to it. But you can find it there.
|
Ivan:
[50:34]
| But there was a lawsuit that claimed that I, and I know I, didn't I share this? I don't think I shared it under the news side. That's why, because I didn't think it was like really news. But it was like, they talked about that some, who was it that sued her over this?
|
Emily:
[50:53]
| His wife, and it was a controversial law in North Carolina.
|
Sam:
[50:58]
| The wife of the person she had the affair. So she got involved with, like, one of her bodyguards or something, and it was the bodyguard's wife, right, who's suing?
|
Ivan:
[51:08]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[51:09]
| Yes, that sounds right.
|
Emily:
[51:12]
| North Carolina law allows a person to be held liable for malicious interference in a marriage. That's an interesting, I mean, it's controversial because like, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[51:26]
| Okay, so here, I found a story because, I don't know, for some reason I didn't find a link on our Slack. But MDMA, the title, MDMA and Steenie Tex alleged as ex-senators sued over Tristwith Bodyguard.
|
Ivan:
[51:47]
| A former lawmaker was accused of sending sexual text messages using MDMA and having sex with her former bodyguard in a lawsuit filed against her for alienation of affection. Alienation of affection. I loved how that sounds. According to reports Thursday, the lawsuit was filed by Heather Amel, Matthew Amel's wife, who alleged in a lawsuit filed in North Carolina that Foreigner Senator Kirsten Sinema sent her husband photos of herself wrapped in a towel and recommended via signal messages that he bring MDMA on a work trip to guide him through a psychedelic experience that Daily Beast reported. The ex-bodyguard's wife also alleges Sinema was having sexual relations with other security members. So this was like some kind of security orgy that was going on. The alienation of affection lawsuit falls under a controversial North Carolina law that allows a person to be held liable for malicious interference in a marriage, the Beast reported. Heather also claimed in the allegations that Sinema told her husband she could help him overcome his mental health challenges after his U.S. Army service. Yes, I can see how she was helping. Mental health challenges. Sinema served in the U.S. House of Representatives, blah, blah, blah. So anyway, yes, apparently she was, you know, having orgies and drug parties with her security staff.
|
Emily:
[53:17]
| What a fucking idiot.
|
Ivan:
[53:18]
| Sounds like she should have been a Republican. I don't understand how the hell you wound up with her.
|
Emily:
[53:22]
| She was getting there.
|
Ivan:
[53:24]
| Yeah. I mean, you know, but I'm confused. Am I confusing her?
|
Sam:
[53:30]
| What's she up to anyway?
|
Emily:
[53:32]
| What?
|
Sam:
[53:34]
| I was thinking the same thing, but I think she was always advertised herself as bi.
|
Ivan:
[53:39]
| Oh, she was bi. Okay. All right. Okay.
|
Emily:
[53:42]
| I think.
|
Sam:
[53:44]
| But my first memory was, wait, wasn't she a lesbian? But I think she was bi.
|
Ivan:
[53:50]
| Now I don't know. But yeah, but that was. But you know what? while the details were salacious, honestly, I read it and I'm like, this is not shocking me in one bit. This is, you know, Not really surprised, especially who we're talking about.
|
Emily:
[54:08]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[54:08]
| Well, what's she been up to anyway? She's a lobbyist for like energy firms or something, right?
|
Emily:
[54:13]
| I don't know. You got to do something after that failure.
|
Ivan:
[54:17]
| You know what? Something. Listen, let me see. What is she doing? I'm looking it up because usually these people wind up being partners in some damn law firm where they wind up getting paid millions of dollars or something. Just like career after elected office. Sinema joined Coinbase. Oh, crypto. Jeez. You know, fucking tracks.
|
Sam:
[54:37]
| Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[54:37]
| Global Advisory Council to advocate for the cryptocurrency industry and help it coordinate with U.S. lawmakers. Gee, another shocking development is that she's peddling crypto. Okay.
|
Emily:
[54:51]
| Wow. Can someone know what a proudest socialist is? Because she called herself that in 2004.
|
Ivan:
[54:57]
| What the fuck does that even mean?
|
Emily:
[54:59]
| I don't know.
|
Sam:
[55:01]
| It means she's a socialist, but she likes expensive stuff.
|
Emily:
[55:07]
| Everybody, you get a Prada, you get a Prada, you get a Prada.
|
Ivan:
[55:11]
| I mean, that was the one thing I kept saying. Look, I had this dinner with some friends of mine, executives at a few different companies around here. And we were talking that we had a few of our wives and kids that they were talking about. you know they were all like talking like they were all these socialists but they were socialists and they are you know with their expensive watch and bag and shit or whatever and we're going what the fuck are you assholes talking about you guys have with Louis Vuitton bags and shit or whatever you're talking like socialists what are you, what is that bullshit yeah why why it's disgusting yeah yeah well although i.
|
Emily:
[55:57]
| Love listening to the every outfit podcast it's one of my favorite and they uh talk fashion all the time but it's like something i i don't have or care about like i'm like i got this at the thrift store that is it that's where i'm going.
|
Ivan:
[56:09]
| You could be a fashionista from shit from the from the thrift store let me tell you something it does not require money exactly.
|
Emily:
[56:16]
| Yeah well i know and i love but i love my vogue magazines but i'm still never gonna be that person unfortunately i like just looking at it.
|
Ivan:
[56:25]
| No but my whole thing is these people that go and like oh i am a proto social listen this is fucking bullshit and and i mean i'm sorry every time that you saw her dressed up and you're saying listen this outfit cost how many thousands of dollars every fucking time you saw her because Don't give me this shit that you're the socialist defender or whatever the fuck. Every time I see you dress, it's costing like $5,000 for every outfit that you're wearing, including a purse. Give me a fucking break. No. And of course, now she's peddling crypto.
|
Emily:
[56:56]
| But also, why would she ever say that she's a socialist?
|
Sam:
[56:59]
| If you remember, if you remember when she was first senator, wasn't there a brief blip of like publicity or news articles over the fact that, you know, she was selling outfits on eBay or something?
|
Ivan:
[57:13]
| That's right. That's right.
|
Sam:
[57:15]
| Like, worn once by Kyrsten Sinema, you can buy this for, like, $600 or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[57:21]
| Probably paid with campaign funds, actually. You know, I wouldn't be surprised.
|
Emily:
[57:26]
| Those are the people that drive me fucking. Also, I'm sorry, but, like, wasn't she, isn't she, like, a, where, why would she ever say that she was a socialist? Am I, like, maybe I'm forgetting something because, like, even a Prada socialist, because isn't she just a horrible Democrat?
|
Ivan:
[57:44]
| But listen, listen, listen.
|
Sam:
[57:47]
| So this was one of the things that came up after she was elected originally, because she campaigned as a lefty. And then as soon as she got into office, she started moving right quickly. And then immediately started figuring out the place where she could... I guess, you know, tying into what Yvonne started this conversation with, tying into the grift part of it, the way that she could leverage her position the most was to be right on the edge and the key vote for things. where she could she could then say like you need me and therefore you know you can you know and so she put herself her and mansion were the key votes that the democrats needed anything almost anything and so she put herself in the position where you know depending on who would do what for her, she might change what she was thinking in that key spot.
|
Emily:
[58:55]
| Well, that's what you get from Arizona. No, that's Arizona.
|
Ivan:
[58:59]
| Oh, come on. We got Mark Kelly. He's not anywhere nearly as bad now as this.
|
Emily:
[59:03]
| We love their freeways, though. That place is ridiculous. I can't drive. I don't like the roads there. That's my complaint about Arizona.
|
Ivan:
[59:10]
| I'll say, listen, I'll say one thing. I've only, I've been to Arizona, I think, only once or once. And I remember that I got in the car at the thermometer. I mean, I'm fine with heat, but I remember that it was 11 o'clock at night and it was over 100 degrees. And I'm like, oh, come on. Give me a break. OK, this is just ridiculous.
|
Emily:
[59:29]
| I mean, I can go to a hot place or whatever. I just if you're like like I remember James and I went for spring training before I had gone this last November to Arizona. And, you know, it was it was Peoria area, you know, a Phoenix area. But I I was like guiding him. We had a rental car. Like, there's no way you can really get around there without having either taking a Waymo, taking a cab. Like, their transit sucks. And I said, okay, you're going to turn at the next block. It's coming up. It's coming up. It's still coming up.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:04]
| For many miles. So let me get this right. You're blaming her turn into grift on the road network in Arizona.
|
Emily:
[1:00:14]
| I'm saying that I like Mark Kelly, too. But the Arizona folks, they love their roads. They love roads. And I can't stand it.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:25]
| Okay.
|
Emily:
[1:00:26]
| Separately, Kyrsten Sinema sucks.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:29]
| Yes.
|
Emily:
[1:00:30]
| Ruben Gallego. They're on the way up. Mark Kelly, yes. You know, they do have some good folks there. But Mark Kelly wanted more freeway. And I'm like, remind me to tell you never to run for president because I don't like that. So I'm glad he didn't become the vice presidential nominee is what I'm saying. He was up there.
|
Ivan:
[1:00:55]
| Well, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:00:56]
| Okay. So, Emily, do you have another topic for your segment before we take a break and let Yvonne pick one?
|
Ivan:
[1:01:03]
| Well, wait, wait. No, we can own one and a break. We've got to pick. You know, we only went like a few minutes. Let's go. Let's pick one other topic.
|
Sam:
[1:01:14]
| Okay. We usually take a break between who is picking, but, like, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:19]
| Let's see. So.
|
Sam:
[1:01:20]
| Unless we're explicitly doing a lightning round. We want to do a lightning round.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:23]
| Go ahead, anyone. Well, we went short on that one, so let's go.
|
Sam:
[1:01:27]
| Yeah, that was short. It was all short. It was, like, 20 minutes. What's it? Yeah, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:31]
| I know.
|
Sam:
[1:01:32]
| 15, 20 minutes.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:33]
| Anyway. Well, let's see. Next.
|
Sam:
[1:01:35]
| Wait. No, no, no. I am wrong. I misread my notes. It's been more like eight to ten minutes.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:40]
| That's what I thought. What are you doing to me, Sam? You're driving.
|
Sam:
[1:01:45]
| You know, math is not my strong point.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:47]
| But that's why we need that math as a service software application that you wanted me to develop and charge $50 a year.
|
Sam:
[1:01:57]
| I shared a joke video from TikTok on the curmudgeon score of Slack of this guy who was like, He was setting up a service. It did have a free tier, but for full usage, it was $99 a month for a Celsius to Fahrenheit converter.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:15]
| $99 a month.
|
Sam:
[1:02:16]
| But like hardened. And then unless you're an enterprise, then you have to call sales.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:22]
| Right. They have to call me. I'll charge. I'll charge. Man. And I'll charge.
|
Sam:
[1:02:29]
| I only shared one video, but he produced a whole series of videos responding to people's comments on this and taking himself completely seriously. Obviously, it's a joke, but he was taking himself completely serious.
|
Emily:
[1:02:42]
| I feel like you guys could do this without this.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:47]
| I'm like, do we really need to be this precise on our temperature conversions? Really? Is it really not necessary? Do I really need a whole data center in Arizona, you know, in order to crunch the numbers, you know, for this conversion?
|
Emily:
[1:03:02]
| Here's my code. I was like, why do we need this?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:05]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:03:09]
| Okay. Anyway, Yvonne, what's next?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:11]
| Look, let's talk about fucking Minnesota. Okay?
|
Emily:
[1:03:15]
| Oh, we're Minnesota.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:18]
| Because, I know, because it sucks.
|
Sam:
[1:03:23]
| And it seems like it's getting worse before it gets better too but okay so bring us up to speed there have been a lot of things happening you want me to bring us up to speed?
|
Ivan:
[1:03:34]
| You bring us up to speed because there's been so much shit going on.
|
Sam:
[1:03:39]
| Okay, so let's start with this. You know, for the last year since Trump became president, it's been almost exactly a year. Three more days, it'll be a year. And Trump has sort of, on the anti-immigration ICE stuff, he's sort of picked one location to pick on at a time. You know, he did L.A. for a while. He did Chicago for a while. There was talk of several other places. But the most recent place that he's sort of surged is Minneapolis. And he's been sending many hundreds of ICE folks into Minneapolis to do raids all over the area. a Minneapolis-St. Paul area, suburbs, et cetera, where they're just going around, they're doing their normal thing, going around often in unmarked cars, wearing masks, et cetera, et cetera, going and basically finding brown people to harass, grabbing them, asking for their papers, et cetera. in Minnesota specifically and this has happened in the other places too but people don't like this gee you think yeah, And not just the brown people being targeted, but also the white folks around them, too. Look, let me just say this.
|
Ivan:
[1:05:03]
| I had to live with this for a number of years in Puerto Rico specifically. And the one place where it was stupidly annoying was at the airport when you were taking a flight. Because we are inside the United States. We don't need to. We don't clearing immigration. However, at some point, the fucking CBP people decided to install some people to start asking everybody if you're a fucking U.S. citizen. And they started getting belligerent at one point if you didn't answer, okay? Until one time many years ago, people sued, ACLU sued, and it went all the way to SCOTUS. And SCOTUS actually ruled against CBP and said, you know what? You can't do this. However, since the advent of Trump, it's happened to me more than one occasion that all of a sudden I've been, it hasn't happened recently, but it happened, where I'm boarding a flight to go to Miami and all of a sudden they're asking for people for their fucking papers on a domestic flight in the jetway.
|
Emily:
[1:06:12]
| Wow.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:14]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:06:15]
| So anyway, people have been organizing to basically do peaceful, nonviolent interference. So one of the common things is people... So monitoring where ICE is going, sending out alerts on social media, sending out alerts on various apps, and even things on the ground like blowing whistles and stuff to basically warn people, ICE is coming, hide, get out of the way, do whatever you need to do, etc. One of the things that they have done in some places is sort of intentionally like create excess traffic on streets where ICE is trying to go. I'm not going to say explicitly block them, although in some cases they have. the particular situation a little bit more than a week ago is that this this one woman who was there there are actually conflicting reports whether she was explicitly trying to do this or whether she was just leaving her house and was at that spot but i gotta be honest i've.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:24]
| Watched that video many times and she seemed that she was just trying to maneuver around there and she wasn't blocking the street let's be clear cars passed around her.
|
Sam:
[1:07:33]
| She was waving people past Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:35]
| She was waving people past.
|
Sam:
[1:07:36]
| So, but anyway, she got in, you know, they were, they started telling her to get out of the way, to move, whatever. And as she was, I've seen the video too, as she was apparently trying to start to comply, they shot her. Initially, the reports were that she was shot in the face. Earlier today, more detail came out. She was apparently shot twice in the chest, once in the arm, and perhaps a fourth shot grazing her in the head. But, and apparently, the initial reports were also, she was shot twice in the face, she was dead instantly. No, apparently not. When the paramedics got there.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:15]
| No, she had a pulse.
|
Sam:
[1:08:16]
| She still had a very weak pulse. They were unable to revive her. But, but yeah, so, and most likely the injuries would have been fatal no matter what.
|
Emily:
[1:08:27]
| They were supposed to shoot to kill anyways So they fucked that up Sorry, I'm being rude.
|
Sam:
[1:08:33]
| Yeah, I'm just no.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:34]
| No, that's that's that's curmudge's corner. Now you're being you're you're you're you're you're doing our show now. So, yeah, no, no. Yeah, they missed bastards. You know, they failed their training.
|
Emily:
[1:08:48]
| I'm just sick of men saying that to me that like like guns all the time. Like, yeah, you're when you shoot, you shoot to kill. I'm like, why? Why don't you be good at like not shooting to kill? I'm like shooting someone in the leg where they can't go after you or something. But whatever, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:06]
| That that thing. Can I be honest? The people that I hear that they talk like about that, about guns shoot to kill, are usually the people that are the least trained in actually using guns who have actually done any shooting. These are just the cowboy idiots.
|
Emily:
[1:09:20]
| They're not good at it either. That's clear.
|
Sam:
[1:09:24]
| So to continue bringing us back up to speed, her name was Renee Good, by the way. And, you know, she had just finished dropping off her six-year-old at school. She was with her wife. you know etc the wife was there with her when it happened but since then things have escalated further because obviously this.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:48]
| Situation wait wait but let's be clear they they went around that incident for they they have claimed that she ran over this guy they have claimed that she and that the guy was hit even though all videos show that that's not the case they had claimed that the guy was in the hospital. They actually published a fucking video narrated by some jackass. Just a complete fabrication of lies about everything that happened in the incident. You know, and it's just, they have completely created this entire fabricated story. Somebody was, I think, in the Bulwark podcast, they were talking that these guys must have this entire, like, fill-in-the-blanks lie form where they have already all this shit ready. Just to put in the names of the new person, Oh, this is the lie that we're going to tell this time. Oh, yes. The guy was like bleeding internally and dying, hit by this person who was, depending on what it was, whether it's the illegal immigrant or the interferer or whatever.
|
Sam:
[1:10:45]
| Blah, blah, blah.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:45]
| And it's just the same prefabricated bullshit story. Yes. They called her a domestic terrorist. Yes.
|
Emily:
[1:10:51]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:52]
| And then as for her wife to be investigated for domestic terrorism, it's just the most preposterous fucking bullshit.
|
Sam:
[1:10:59]
| Yeah. The whole damn thing. A number of federal prosecutors resigned because they were being ordered to investigate her and her wife for— over this incident at the same time that the feds locked out the local authorities from the investigation and the evidence. And from all appearances, we're jumping straight to the conclusion that she was guilty, the officer was not, and we're not doing any sort of serious investigation. There have been some reports that the other ICE officers on the scene very quickly cleaned up the evidence and who the hell knows where it is right now, et cetera, et cetera.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:42]
| But here's the thing about this, and I'm a little bit alike, that Minnesota has been very timid in this investigation because clearly there is sufficient video evidence to have that guy charged.
|
Sam:
[1:11:57]
| Okay, without any of the physical evidence.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:00]
| Without anything else. Without anything else. There is sufficient video evidence to have that guy charged and arrested, okay, for that incident, period.
|
Sam:
[1:12:12]
| But Yvonne, J.D. Vance says he has complete immunity.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:16]
| Yeah, what is it? Complete immunity now they call it? Is a new thing now? Now it's complete immunity. It's the new thing.
|
Sam:
[1:12:22]
| I forget the exact word.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:24]
| It's like, you know, it's like new Coke or like new whatever. Now it's complete immunity, you know? The new brand, newly and improved, yes. What's complete immunity? Complete immunities. We can do whatever the fuck we want when we say we want to do it. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:12:37]
| The theory that has existed for cops for a long time is basically they do have immunity from things done in the course of their duties. And as this has gone through the courts, that is generally upheld in most situations, except when there's something extenuating and it's like, you know, okay, they completely, they weren't doing what they were supposed to.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:01]
| Look, it's like in almost any situation that somebody that is doing their job and it's doing it according to, you know, the rules that exist for that job, that they are usually protected from a lawsuit or legal action. However, there is nothing in this incident that indicates that this guy was doing anything of the sort.
|
Sam:
[1:13:24]
| Well, I mean, one of the things is they, you know, people have published the actual ICE guidelines for how to deal with vehicles and situations like this. And the guy violated every rule in ICE's own guidelines.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:39]
| Exactly. Exactly. Violated their own guidelines completely. So that's my point. There is nothing in there that the guy has done.
|
Sam:
[1:13:48]
| But, you know, one of the media outlets, I forget which one, maybe it was the New York Times, maybe it was somebody else, dug up 14 other incidents of ICE or Border Patrol interacting with vehicles over the last few months. And this exact situation, absent the gunshots at the end, has replayed, well, even absent the person dying at the end. like there were something like 14 of these and i believe it was in a majority of them they actually did end up shooting into the car even though they're not supposed to it's just the people survived and you know and so this is a pattern of behavior regardless of what the guidelines are and it's becoming increasingly clear that even when the administration officially does have guidelines, the actual guidance to people on the street, is, oh, ignore all that shit. Just do what you need to do and be badasses.
|
Sam:
[1:14:51]
| Go crack heads. Oh, and by the way, mandate to everybody, get as much video as you can because we want to be able to publicize this and make people scared and all that kind of stuff. And in fact, one of the issues going on with this one is the cop that did the cop, the ice person, they're not cops, who did this, was videoing on his phone with one hand while he was shooting her with the other, and.
|
Emily:
[1:15:20]
| And and they.
|
Sam:
[1:15:22]
| And they released the video.
|
Emily:
[1:15:24]
| Thinking it would make them look good, they're so stupid but there's also stupider people out there that are like sitting there repeating this nonsense over and over my friend who works in the same like democratic policy and public spaces as me she was like my dad was like oh she was a domestic terrorist and i showed him videos and then he was like i don't know why she was shot like literally just showing someone like the truth actually like helped that person in that situation they're not seeing the same things that we're seeing that's what's really scary and they're not having those experiences like we are And it's all.
|
Sam:
[1:16:07]
| They hear is J.D. Vance saying domestic terrorist.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:11]
| Yeah. Listen, Emily, they live in a completely alternate reality. You know, it is everything that they look at is just, you know, it's crazy. You know, it's like every once in a while. I don't I don't try to do this very often. I have this four up thing on my TV that I that I have here in my office where they've got like, say, the different news feeds. And I'm usually watching the business feeds. And so they've got the Fox Business feed versus the CNBC feed versus the Bloomberg feed and some other channel that is nonsense. I don't even understand. There's this Cheddar News channel. It's complete nonsense. It makes it that is the most useless channel. I don't even know how to consider that news. But anyway, you know what?
|
Emily:
[1:16:54]
| It's good for a bar at night when you can't.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:58]
| Yeah. That's what it's good for. If I'm hammered after quite a few drinks, I'm like, oh, look at this bullshit. Oh, look, maybe, maybe, maybe I could get like this dog crypto shit from Saudi Arabia. And if I buy like five bonds and exchange them for Argentinian currency, maybe I could create this synthetic. Oh, Jesus Christ. It's like anyway. But no, the thing is, Fox News, what they're talking about, you see on the other channels, hey, Jay Powell's being, you know, forced into this. Jay Powell's being arrested over there. The immigrants are invading the North Carolina border today with, you know, and you're like, what? Which, which, what, what invasion? Which one are they talking about now?
|
Emily:
[1:17:49]
| Yeah, it's nuts. I think what's even easier is that the ICE officers now, like three or four videos that I've seen of people, of the public recording the ICE officers, where the ICE officer is sitting there being like, have you learned nothing from the past few days? As if they think that is going to... you know, deter people. I mean, it will. I mean, yeah, but I think this is actually.
|
Sam:
[1:18:19]
| This is actually key. The ICE folks and the administration for the matter, for that matter, think the lesson that you should take out of that is protesters should go hide at home and stop doing this because their opposition to ICE is the terrorism. Whereas polling has shown The general public responds in exactly the other way that, you know, by like a 75-25 sort of margin that, no, the lesson here is that, you know, to use a term from years ago, I mean, we got a bunch of jackbooted thugs over here that are running rampant and are trampling on people's rights, left, right, and center. And, you know, these folks who are, I'm not the first one to point this out, but these same folks who are going, don't tread on me and keep the government out of everything a few years ago are now saying comply or die.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:20]
| Comply!
|
Emily:
[1:19:21]
| Mm-hmm. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:22]
| You know, and so you were getting at these for me.
|
Emily:
[1:19:27]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:19:27]
| You were you were getting at these folks, you know, warning the public, basically, don't do like she did or you're going to get shot, too. But generally speaking, over the last week, there's been escalation. The protesters have gotten more mad. The protesters are coming out in bigger numbers. There have been—.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:50]
| They're sending a thousand more fucking ICE agents to Minnesota, these assholes, for God's sakes.
|
Sam:
[1:19:57]
| Outnumbering the local police forces by almost 10 to 1 at this point. And basically, you know, the governor and others have been warning— And they've been getting some flack for this, basically saying, look, don't take the bait, don't get violent, you know, don't give them what they want. Because the administration is telegraphing almost completely obviously that what they are hoping for here is to set up a situation where there is a violent confrontation and not just their folks shooting some innocent white woman. But a confrontation where protesters do something that they can use as an excuse to further crackdown. Trump is talking about the Insurrection Act and nationalizing the Guard and bringing in regular army and stuff to basically go take over these cities. Just a little while before we started recording, I saw that there was a report that Trump has instigated a federal investigation of Walls and several other Minnesota politicians to...
|
Ivan:
[1:21:09]
| Well, but he did that to news. He's done that to everybody.
|
Sam:
[1:21:12]
| No, no, no. Right now, it's part of his playbook, but that's the point. The point is he's using all the aspects of federal power to harass anyone who goes against But.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:24]
| Here is the thing, Sam, but here's the thing. This is the opportunity, Sam, that we have been forgetting, okay? Because as all these people are getting investigated, look, if you want to steal a lot of money and bribe somebody big time all the way, this is the perfect opportunity. And by the way, you will get out of jail. Listen, we should be figuring out a way to steal millions of dollars at this point. Because one thing that's guaranteed is that I will go, if I steal $50 million right now, and I take out $5 million to put into MAGA whatever thing that I need to put in, I will be pardoned.
|
Sam:
[1:22:08]
| Yes. No problem. And by some reports, like, some people are paying $5 million. Some people are paying less and still getting, you know, their- Two and a half. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:17]
| They pardoned the fucking- Let me tell you, Emily. They pardoned today. the fucking ex-governor of Puerto Rico who was on, Goddamn recorded soliciting a fucking bribe from this Venezuelan banker, okay, for her goddamn campaign in exchange for her terminating an investigation and firing the guy that was the head of the fucking office of financial institutions in Puerto Rico to fire that guy because he's investigating the bank that was a Ponzi scheme and a fraud. And, oh, by the way, hey, this guy donated $2.5 million to Trump, and all of a sudden he's pardoned and she's pardoned, and they're all out of jail today.
|
Emily:
[1:22:58]
| It's crazy. There's no integrity. I remember my friend Cindy was running for county auditor, and she was running on this, like, bringing integrity because she has so much of it. And I was like, no, none of these fucking people care about integrity.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:14]
| Care about integrity.
|
Emily:
[1:23:15]
| They don't do that, unfortunately. can I bring it back to something really quick did you talk about oh no well.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:21]
| Sorry we we are.
|
Emily:
[1:23:22]
| Very good.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:22]
| On our tangents.
|
Emily:
[1:23:23]
| Yes okay how.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:25]
| Far are we off.
|
Emily:
[1:23:26]
| This is kind of an old story but I like it I always it always comes to mind like I mean it was only January 2025 but did you talk about the Seattle man that came to a Sunnyside City Council meeting which Sunnyside is in you didn't see that So this was in 2025, in January, so early 2025, and this man, claiming to be a bounty hunter, made threatening comments at a press conference—it was actually at a city council meeting, I understood, or as I saw it—saying that a U.S. immigration and custom enforcement plans to deputize and pay private civilian forces to detain undocumented immigrants—.
|
Emily:
[1:24:06]
| He said, you can put a price on every human being. Every human is worth a dollar amount. He identified himself as Martin Alvarado before being hushed by the city manager and residents and attendants. He was basically saying, like, they're going to pay us all of this money to put people away. What are you going to pay us to protect yourself? Because this is what we're doing. It was the most frightening thing that I've ever heard happening in Washington state. And what was even more frightening is that the city council members that were hearing, I mean, he was somebody posted he was warning us, you know, like he was. And the council was like, you need to get out of here. You need to get out. You're scaring everybody. And it was, you know, a predominantly Hispanic council there in the Sunnyside area. And it was just, you know, they didn't want to hear anything about it. They just wanted him out of there. But he was literally explaining what is happening right now and what was happening and was going to happen very quickly.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:57]
| Well, well, here's the thing. I don't know. No, it's like, I mean, the thing is, listen, right now, can you really tell the difference if you wound up with a whole bunch of scammers dressed as fucking ICE agents that went around and started grabbing people and then holding them for ransom?
|
Sam:
[1:25:12]
| Well, we have had a couple of verified incidents already where people impersonated ICE and did things like that. You know, most of them is actual ICE. ICE is acting badly on their own.
|
Emily:
[1:25:29]
| Why can't I go and be ice and just keep letting people go? I mean, like, no, man, that's not what was said. Like, actually, you got the wrong person. That's what I would do. Pretend to be ice and, like, derail their whole act. I might get shot, though, so maybe not good. I don't know. Maybe some of the men can do it. Maybe I can't sell it. I don't think I could. I wanted to say this real quick. How are you going to stop us from coming through? Because we don't have to worry about warrants. We don't have to really follow too many of the laws. And if we're going to be deputized by ICE, we can pretty much do anything we want, he said. $1,000 per illegal is a pretty good price just to do things that you kind of enjoy how or what are you guys going to do to stop that what are you going to do how what are you going to pay us more are you going to pay us two thousand dollars just to leave them alone, it's crazy sorry i just had to read that part it.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:22]
| Ain't but it is crazy the whole thing is crazy we are.
|
Emily:
[1:26:25]
| Situation right.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:26]
| Now that is just beyond nuts in terms of you've got an entire, They created this entire parallel military force right now. They had all these issues with, well, we want to send the National Guard, and all the court orders stopped us from sending the National Guard and the military to places, and we got turned away. So how do we scare the cities? Well, now we've got this army of fucking Gestapo people that are called ICE that we are sending and flooding cities with just to scare the living shit out of people.
|
Sam:
[1:27:03]
| Well, and that's the thing with the Insurrection Act as well. If he... Not if he, Vaughn. If Donald Trump initiates the Insurrection Act...
|
Ivan:
[1:27:13]
| Listen, if I right now have the right to fucking invoke the Insurrection Act, I'm sending it to Washington, D.C., and I'm grabbing this asshole, you know, from his bed and fucking dragging him out on the street and fucking, like, putting him in Fort Leavenworth. without a fucking trial. Then we'll discuss it later.
|
Sam:
[1:27:30]
| The thing is, if he invokes the Insurrection Act, then that is a completely different authority for nationalizing the National Guard, and he can also do regular military as well that has not gone through court yet. Now, obviously, and they're already talking about that, if he does that, like, people are talking about the scenario, like, why doesn't Walls bring out the National Guard under his command in order to help defend against dice?
|
Ivan:
[1:27:55]
| Because the federal government can nationalize the National Guard that he's fucking, okay? So it's not really a great solution at this point.
|
Sam:
[1:28:04]
| Right. And yes, so we enter a whole different universe if Trump actually initializes this insurrection act.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:14]
| What could he do?
|
Sam:
[1:28:15]
| Now, obviously it would instantly go to court again on that as well.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:19]
| Well, right now already, one thing, they've got a court order right now that happened this evening. related to ICE that we had posted on the Slack specifically where a federal judge restricted immigration agents' actions, Towards protesters, specifically, you know, restricting a whole bunch of the shit that they had been doing where they had been using force against peaceful protesters, where they had been like, just because people were peaceably protesting, they had been tear gassing them, attacking them, doing whatever. And there was a judge order today that they could not be using those broad dispersal tools, that they couldn't be like, you know, doing this thing on the road where they were like, like what they did to Renee Good. But basically, that was the order tonight. Of course, I'm wondering if it's going to be challenged.
|
Sam:
[1:29:06]
| I'm sure it will be appealed. I mean, if we follow the pattern of all of these other court things that have happened, whether or not there's an order in effect will go back and forth as it works its way up the courts. And then eventually, most of these will get to SCOTUS. And eight times out of ten, they're siding with Trump.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:30]
| Here is the one thing that's happening right now. This entire thing has gone from a nuisance into something that is hated by the majority of Americans, okay? It is supported by a very, you know, in terms of who says this is good right now, the polling has this down to like 25%.
|
Emily:
[1:29:55]
| Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:29:55]
| And I said 75, 25 earlier, but to be clear, it's actually more like 56, 25, and then a bunch of people in the middle who always say, I don't know, I don't know what's going on.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:06]
| No, but those people always don't know anything, whatever. They got their head up their ass their entire life. So, you know, it won't happen. But you've got a situation where... I shared that chart on the Slack of what has happened to Trump's disapproval this last two weeks. It has skyrocketed. Like, I've never seen such a surge in a brief amount of time. People are angry, okay? People are pissed. There are people that I've ever heard of basically calling these guys the Gestapo. People just disapproving of this en masse. And so The pressure on This kind of shit continuing You know is ratcheting up Significantly across the board I know that, One thing that could be done And some people started discussing is We gotta cut the fucking funding off this thing Okay The money has to be This shit where all this money Got given to ICE This money needs to be cut As soon as possible Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:12]
| Well, and here's the thing of this, you know, there, you are definitely hearing a few Republicans wavering on this now in the Congress. The question is, you know, is it enough? And can, you know, now Democrats can, the one point of leverage they have, even if they don't get any Republicans, is they could force another government shutdown. Yeah. But it sounds like leadership doesn't want to, you know, and that and unless you get a whole bunch of Republicans also willing to go along, that's pretty much the only thing that congressional Democrats could do. Now, there are, you know, on a few other issues, some Republicans in some other areas, like, look, there was a Republican senator, I forget which one, who made some comments about, like, I expect a serious investigation of goods killing, and they better have something real. and then there are a few others who said the same thing about the investigation into the fed there are republicans starting to splinter off but as usual there's not they are a whole.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:26]
| Bunch of fucking pussies.
|
Sam:
[1:32:29]
| I'm sorry they have no fucking sign to stand up to any of that what were.
|
Emily:
[1:32:40]
| You saying I said her ball sacks Well, they're ball socks.
|
Sam:
[1:32:44]
| There you go.
|
Emily:
[1:32:45]
| Pussies are strong. Ball socks are not.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:49]
| That's fair. That is very fair.
|
Emily:
[1:32:51]
| It's not offensive.
|
Sam:
[1:32:54]
| Um, so no, even on like the Venezuela war power resolution, there were, there were like a bunch of Republicans who, who actually voted on a procedural thing and then they backed off because Donald Trump called them and pressured them and they were like, ah, you know, and so that, that didn't go anywhere. And I think this is the pattern you have on a lot of things. You just don't, to really do anything, you need a whole bunch of Republicans to defect and we still aren't there, even though there are cracks growing.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:28]
| You know, the cholesterol is not working fast enough. Did you see, I saw some rumor today that apparently Trump had a stroke.
|
Emily:
[1:33:37]
| Oh, God.
|
Sam:
[1:33:38]
| We've been hearing that rumor of multiple strokes over the course of the whole last year. Like, this comes up every month or so.
|
Emily:
[1:33:48]
| I mean, he's not normal. It's not.
|
Sam:
[1:33:50]
| He's not doing well. He is clearly not doing well in all kinds of different ways.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:55]
| He had a fucking half stroke, a heart attack, something, anything. I mean, it's just, everybody in that party is just so scared of him, okay, to do anything. They just are so, none of them will stand up to him. And look, look at anybody that's stood up to him so far has gotten their political career put in a shredder. They have been burned completely.
|
Emily:
[1:34:25]
| MTG seems to be doing pretty good now.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:29]
| I'm seeing their political career. What is MTG even doing?
|
Sam:
[1:34:32]
| You say MTG is doing pretty well, but she's out of a job for the moment. I mean, yeah.
|
Emily:
[1:34:37]
| Well, yeah. I mean, yes. But I was just saying, like, there's, yeah. Yeah. I guess what's so frustrating about this whole situation is not even that, like, the Republicans can't stand up to him. It's also that, like, you already said this earlier today, that two prosecutors, like, quit their job or resigned because they didn't want to, you know, investigate. And it's like, I'm kind of sorry-sickening, and maybe this is just me not really understanding, but hearing that Tim Walz is not going to fight and just is going to leave after. I know he's gone through a lot as a governor. Like there's been a lot that happened in Minnesota from the shooting of the legislators to to everything in that in that state, you know, and he's gone through a lot. But like to resign, to not fight back, like let them.
|
Sam:
[1:35:23]
| Well, he's not resigning. He just announced he's not running for reelection.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:28]
| No, but that's me.
|
Emily:
[1:35:29]
| That is like he. Yes. But it does look like it.
|
Sam:
[1:35:34]
| I mean, the initial impression is that he did so because of these sort of thing.
|
Emily:
[1:35:41]
| Like the families.
|
Sam:
[1:35:42]
| Yeah. It was the nonsense Somalian fraud thing where the people actually committing fraud were not actually Somali. There were people committing fraud and there was an investigation already going on and it was being worked on. But like, you know, it was trumped up by the administration, pun intended. and they were using it as leverage against all of the Democrats in Minnesota when, you know, that's not really what was going on and it was whatever. Like, as usual, it's misrepresented. But...
|
Emily:
[1:36:17]
| People that are stealing millions, we're pardoning those people.
|
Sam:
[1:36:20]
| Yes, of course. But also, Wall's, I mean, his stated reason is, look, I have to concentrate on, you know, Minnesota's under attack. I have to concentrate on this stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:33]
| And by the way, I do understand that reasoning right now, given the situation that Minnesota is in. With all these investigations and all of this stuff, trying to actually do a campaign at the same time, it's kind of very crazy. So I do give him credit that, look, if you're going to focus on something, Minnesota, against this assault against the state, which is a federal assault against the state, it's very difficult to also be campaigning for an election as well. and you know what at least it also and the assault against you personally with all these frivolous.
|
Sam:
[1:37:09]
| Investigations and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:10]
| But it deflects fire away from him is the one thing because you can wind up okay whoever is going to run as a democrat you know he can be taking the fire for that while the other person is running a campaign to make sure that the democrats win the state so I think that in terms of his motivations for doing this I think they do make sense but But right now falls into that.
|
Emily:
[1:37:34]
| I feel bad for him. But also no one should be quitting their job or just resigning is what he's OK. He can do it if he has a plan.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:42]
| OK, so I know that Sam gets gets gets gets crazy when when I when I talk about my condo association. But about a year ago, OK, listen, you know, listen, I you know, you let me tell you something. Listen, a whole bunch of people started making up a whole bunch of accusations about me, about me stealing money from the place that I was like, I took construction funds, that I took bribe, that I, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this was like when I was sick with demarticulitis, my wife was, I just had surgery, and I've got all this work, and I'm like, look, I got to focus on myself. I can't, like, be, like, trying to run this place and, like, with all these people, and I quit. But here's what's happened in the interim. The people that were accusing me of this right now, basically, it's the usual. They have been...
|
Ivan:
[1:38:36]
| They've been doing anything that they said that they're doing. They're the ones that are doing. And like right now, basically, but what it gave me that time to rest gave me the time to figure out how to mount a proper counterattack in order to expose everything that they had been doing. And so I think in terms of having seen how this works and how sometimes you wind up in a situation where, look, I can't, tactically, it's not a good attempt to stay there. I don't think tactically was a good thing to just stay there. And it maybe risks the state, you know, being lost. Okay. It's better for him to say, look, I'll step aside right now. They've got enough time. We can get somebody to run.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:23]
| And we've got enough time to rectify the situation. I think that makes sense. But I think that the one thing is that Tim, they need to get more aggressive. And he just started yesterday than he had been now. Because one thing that I give credit to Pritzker and Newsom, when they were doing this to them, especially Pritzker. Pritzker was very, very vocal and strident against what was being done in Chicago. Tim has been distracted by all these hacky-shades or whatever. He hasn't been strident in defending his state against this. He needs to step up his game in this right now. He is on his back foot right now, and he needs to step up his game.
|
Emily:
[1:40:06]
| Yeah. I think about it. You were talking about the prosecutors, though, like, yes. And as somebody who left public office to do other things, I think that are actually more effective. I guess I can say that. Yes, that's right. And I but it's it's the paramount, you know, executives that left to it's like for for being upset by that. It's it's like, come on, you have the money standing, you know, go and fight. And actually, that's where the real levers of power are those people that are sitting in those executive seats. And if you leave from those positions, you're actually just throwing in the towel for some things.
|
Sam:
[1:40:43]
| There's always a debate in some of these situations where, you know, especially people like prosecutors, things like that, or for that matter, military folks, you are being ordered to do something you think is wrong, illegal, unethical, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:59]
| They're not leaving you a lot of choices.
|
Sam:
[1:41:00]
| Well, the question is, do you do you resign in protest or do you not do it and make them fire you? You know, either way, you're not going to stay there in the end. You know, now they're one of the things that was said over and over by people in the first Trump administration is the reason we're staying. And people would say this privately off the record, et cetera. They said the reason we're staying is we can mitigate the damage by staying. We can stop some of his worst impulses. And we gave him shit.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:36]
| By the way, we said we said shit about them. And now we realize. that, you know what? They were right. They did.
|
Sam:
[1:41:47]
| Yeah. And that's what's different about this Trump second term is none of those folks are allowed here. If you have the slightest whiff of saying no or not just jumping and saying yes, sir, and moving as quick as possible, you're out of there very quickly.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:07]
| Hey, Sam, let me ask you a question. Where's Tulsi? Anybody heard from her?
|
Sam:
[1:42:13]
| Uh she's been very quiet no but there was something she was in the news for a few weeks back let me see if i can find it but but no mostly she's been missing mostly oh the latest news article i see eight days ago from the wall street journal tulsi gabbard sidelined from venezuela planning how there you go there.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:38]
| You go oh yeah there you go perfect beautiful.
|
Sam:
[1:42:40]
| U.s spy chief Gabbard excluded from Maduro plan over past views. Tulsi Gabbard booted from Venezuela plans. Age-joking, DNI stands for do not invite, etc.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:57]
| Good work, Tulsi. There you go.
|
Sam:
[1:42:59]
| That's all the recent news about Tulsi is how she's been.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:02]
| You fucking sold your soul, and this is what it's gotten you. Congratulations. Great job.
|
Emily:
[1:43:09]
| Speaking of Venezuela, when somebody mentioned, you know, just because someone gives you a peace prize doesn't mean that you got a Nobel Peace Prize.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:19]
| Oh, my God. Jesus fucking Christ. I mean, you know.
|
Emily:
[1:43:22]
| Can we just talk about, like, how dumb.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:25]
| Sam, Sam, look. Look, I got an award over here.
|
Emily:
[1:43:28]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:29]
| You want the award? I have. Look, it's a medal. I got this medal. There. Here we go. Let me get the medal. Check it out. Look. Here. Look, I got this medal.
|
Sam:
[1:43:43]
| Mail it over. I'll put it on my resume immediately.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:45]
| Hewlett Packard, 2003, most valuable player. Okay? I mean, Sam, you could be the Hewlett Packard. 2003 Most Valuable Player. Look at that.
|
Sam:
[1:43:59]
| It's a metal. Mail it over. I'm going to put it on my resume immediately. I will claim it.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:06]
| Old blue HP color. It's made us some metal, Kind of thing. I don't think it's gold.
|
Emily:
[1:44:15]
| Do you think that Maria Karina Machado is an idiot? Sorry, I keep just being like, why did you think Trump would treat you any differently throughout this process at the end?
|
Ivan:
[1:44:25]
| No, I think that she, no, no, no. I think what she did today was basically what she decided is, look, I got to play the book, okay? Which the book is, look, the Swiss arrived with a Rolex watch. Apple showed up with a gold orb. okay and i'm like well fuck here by the way she had it framed with this thing that said presented the trump and this old thing inside this case and the thing and the metal i mean so she said look this is the playbook apparently where everybody gets what they want so i i gotta step up my game well.
|
Emily:
[1:45:04]
| Look here here's the thing she's a woman and he's not gonna do that like he's not going to give or this awful.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:11]
| She's a woman and she's no she doesn't mean she has to not pass the double D test, for Trump. Okay.
|
Emily:
[1:45:19]
| And she just continued to like metaphorically suck his dick more. So I'm like.
|
Sam:
[1:45:25]
| But the fundamental problem here though, is not that like she played pretty much the only place she had left, but the thing was, and the reporting on this is basically when there were conversations with her earlier in the year with the administration, her responses were things about democracy and human rights and doing better for the Venezuelans. And we need to respect the results of the election and all that kind of stuff. And the question is there.
|
Ivan:
[1:45:59]
| Where's my money? Where's my goal? Where's my money? Where's my medal?
|
Sam:
[1:46:03]
| Well, exactly. But here's, and Donald Trump apparently right off the bat, like was upset that she got the NOBA Peace Prize and not him. And he almost wrote her off at that point anyway. But also, very importantly here, he is 100% transactional. When they had back channel conversations with the VP, with Maduro's VP, she apparently was very open to, we will talk to you about oil. We will talk to you about this we will we will be open to doing what you want and oh by the way democracy.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:37]
| Bullshit i don't give a shit about that it's probably well.
|
Sam:
[1:46:40]
| And also wait.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:41]
| Elections democracy fuck you i don't even want an election here the hell.
|
Sam:
[1:46:46]
| Do i want election over there also apparently not to leave this out one of the points of contention when when the trump administration, was talking to her as the nobel peace prize winner earlier in the year and saying what they wanted her to do. They wanted her to enter into negotiations with the Maduro government to come to an end, you know, whatever. And basically, she stood on principle and said, he's illegitimate, he's a dictator, we're not going to negotiate with him. And the Trump folks said, well, then you're just an obstruction and we don't need to deal with you.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:21]
| Great beautiful well i don't know look he gave her he gave him the medal and i don't know look i know that the did you see the transaction where apparently they gave us 500 million dollars of oil but apparently the money instead of going to the u.s treasury went to a bank account in qatar, yes well which is normally where of course the u.s government always wants their money.
|
Sam:
[1:47:46]
| People have pointed out this pattern with all kinds of things venezuela is just the latest example, the ballroom is another. There's another, there's several others. Basically, Donald Trump is making these side deals all over the place that involve money coming into accounts that he controls independent of what Congress has authority over. Which, by the way, of course, is illegal under the Constitution, but who the hell cares about that anymore? Like, you know, like.
|
Emily:
[1:48:16]
| You cannot be okay with, I mean, that's what I'm saying. somebody have some fucking balls.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:27]
| Actually, wait, I'm sorry. You just explained to me the balls are weak, okay? They need to have a fucking real pussy and show up over there instead of balls. This is the fucking problem that we've got right now.
|
Emily:
[1:48:40]
| Have some fucking pussy. Have some fucking...
|
Ivan:
[1:48:43]
| Yes! Damn it! That's what we need!
|
Emily:
[1:48:46]
| You still want the ball now.
|
Sam:
[1:48:47]
| I don't think I think I can get away with making that the title of the episode.
|
Emily:
[1:48:51]
| Let's be clear. The ball sacks are not great. The balls are good. And the pussy.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:59]
| But the balls are weak. You hit the balls and we fall over in two seconds.
|
Emily:
[1:49:07]
| Where are your ovaries? Where are your balls?
|
Ivan:
[1:49:09]
| Exactly.
|
Emily:
[1:49:11]
| But isn't you know and i think it's also crazy that they're letting the former vice president lead and she's basically in with maduro was not doing anything differently so like well no the the key the key thing no she is doing something very crucially different okay she.
|
Sam:
[1:49:31]
| Is willing to talk to donald trump and make the deals with him.
|
Emily:
[1:49:35]
| Oh yeah she's.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:36]
| Willing to deal She's been willing.
|
Emily:
[1:49:38]
| To deal.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:38]
| She's been willing and dealing. She actually did free some political prisoners. Okay. All right. But other than that, not much change. One thing that I had, you know, I have a lot of friends. Look, my boss is Venezuelan. Okay. They're Venezuela and diaspora. Okay. And that's just my boss. I have a lot of friends out here that are Venezuela and diaspora. And I spoke to them about this. Look, the one problem right now, the situation is even with Maduro gone, the reality is that nothing really has changed in terms of the political situation nothing really has changed because they did not come in with a plan, this whole thing is honestly as far as I can tell this whole thing has been so far a distraction from the Epstein files that's it nothing else.
|
Sam:
[1:50:26]
| I will add to that you mentioned the 500 million or whatever it is I think the reality here is that well maybe Rubio wanted something more. But as far as Trump is concerned, mission accomplished. As long as he can get some random money coming into accounts that he controls, he's done what he wants to. He doesn't care about in one little tiny bit what the situation on the ground is in Venezuela.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:53]
| Well, there was one other thing that they wanted. They did want to be able to more easily deport, because they ended in temporary protected status, they wanted to more easily deport the $150,000 people with TPS that we had over here. Okay, so you want it to be able to do that as well. And the other thing is, like I told you before, transactional again, the $500 million that came in.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:17]
| The Venezuelan diaspora, a lot of them talk to Trump regularly because they are the biggest contingent of theirs is in Doral, Florida. Doral is where he has that country club that's just a little bit south, like here, Bob Marlano being a little bit north, that he spends a lot of time at, okay? Where he's had the G7 and whatever and all this shit. Those people are members. They have money. And they have been talking to him about this, about getting rid of Maduro. And a lot of them were pissed because he was in a temporary protected status. So this whole thing about they all hated Maduro was a lot to appease these guys, okay, that give him money. And they promised him money. Somehow, he's already gotten $500 million. They keep promising all this other oil riches. and he figures he can get money somehow out of this. And, You know, this is all, again, like you said, transactional. Boom. They wanted him out. I get him out. I'm going to get money somehow. I already got $500 million. I'm going to get a few more billions somehow out of it.
|
Sam:
[1:52:26]
| Yeah, exactly. And like Rubio wants more stuff. Rubio cares about coming off Cuba.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:30]
| Rubio wanted democracy. Seriously. I don't believe it.
|
Sam:
[1:52:34]
| Or, you know, as with everything else and everybody else who works with Trump, you know, So Rubio is not going to get the things he wants. He's going to get stabbed in the back and get screwed in the end. He may get a little bit of things here or there, but he isn't. All of these people delude themselves into thinking that they can manipulate the situation. Take advantage of poor, delusional, senile Trump and get what you want out of it. Some of them are better at it than others. I think Miller is better at it than Rubio, as an example.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:17]
| Miller is definitely, I mean, well, I mean, Jesus Christ. The guy's a vampire, for God's sakes. I'm sure he's, like, fucking, like, sucking his blood every other day, which is part of, like, why the hell he gets the shit that he wants.
|
Emily:
[1:53:28]
| Good Lord. It looks like an anal polyp. That's what we know.
|
Sam:
[1:53:35]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:36]
| I can't.
|
Emily:
[1:53:36]
| Okay. Not being able to say it, we have to talk about it all the time.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:39]
| Cannot disagree.
|
Emily:
[1:53:41]
| We are waiting for South Park to do an episode where he is an anal polyp.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:46]
| That sounds wonderful.
|
Emily:
[1:53:48]
| We are suggesting that South Park, if they ever hear this, please.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:52]
| Well, given that our first question went eight minutes, and now we have gone one hour. Okay. All right. almost on the second one. Are we going to take a short break and we're going to try to end this pretty soon.
|
Sam:
[1:54:04]
| I guess? I was wondering if we should just wrap it up.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:08]
| Maybe we should just wrap it up.
|
Sam:
[1:54:10]
| If you have anything else to talk about other than wrapping it up, I will take a break and then we will come back and we can do that.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:19]
| Do you have anything else? No, no, no, no. We can wrap it up.
|
Emily:
[1:54:22]
| If anything, we can just talk about... I'm bummed out because I feel like I don't get to know Yvonne enough you know I mean I get to see Sam a little bit more often so I feel like, What should we talk about now that I'm not just talking to you over?
|
Ivan:
[1:54:41]
| No, no, no. Listen, you'll get the right. I said I'm going to pop up to one of the meetups. I just got to figure out my schedule, okay? Like, next month is bad. I'm going to have to be in Puerto Rico again. I'm going next week, and I'm going to have to be that week. But I'm going to come up to one of the meetups.
|
Emily:
[1:54:57]
| Okay?
|
Ivan:
[1:54:57]
| So I'll play out.
|
Emily:
[1:54:58]
| It's a summer one, like, in our hottest month of the year. Let's try to get you in July.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:04]
| I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'll look at the calendar whenever it pops up. It's got to be, you know, whatever I got to, I got an opening on the calendar right now. I thought about maybe February and sucking up the cold.
|
Sam:
[1:55:16]
| Yvonne is talking about the meetups for the Snohomish Podcast Network, which both this podcast and Emily's Umsur are members of.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:25]
| Okay, well, by the way, my wife doesn't want to go to Seattle.
|
Sam:
[1:55:27]
| Check out the home network and all the other podcasts.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:29]
| She is part of a group that meets regularly that is in Seattle. She's actually been to Seattle a couple of times. Well, not Seattle. She's been nearby. No, she did fly to Seattle. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:55:43]
| It's closer to us than Seattle.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:45]
| Yeah. No, but the thing is that they went through this retreat and banged down in... Near Oregon, basically, on the coast.
|
Emily:
[1:55:56]
| Vancouver? Oh, okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:58]
| Yeah, so, well, we were supposed to be there last summer to go to Vancouver, but my son freaked out on the plane and he couldn't get on the plane. That's another story. Okay. But, I don't know, at some point we'll figure it out. By summer, I'm sure we'll be there because my wife is talking about, at least not that I come up by July.
|
Sam:
[1:56:18]
| Okay.
|
Emily:
[1:56:19]
| I'm excited.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:20]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:56:22]
| Okay. So this time around, just to, we hit Venezuela. We didn't talk about the January 6th anniversary. We didn't talk about Jack Smith. We talked about Minnesota. We have not talked about Greenland. We have not talked about Iran. We have not, I meant, we mentioned in passing the investigation of Powell.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:43]
| The longest, the longest podcast in history.
|
Sam:
[1:56:46]
| I'm just listing the things that we didn't get to, but just to show how busy this last week was. we didn't talk about like interest rates and ai and blah blah blah we we we kind of talked about pardons a little bit but you know look there's just the the rate at which things are happening is once again seeming to accelerate and it feels like you know who who was it what what's the famous quote about like that there there are some weeks that nothing happens and there's some i don't know, There's a stupid quote that's very good about like how sometimes you have very slow periods of times.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:28]
| When we did this in the Obama administration, when we did this podcast during the Obama administration, you could find some episodes that are pretty short. You could find we were like, ah, it's a boring week. Nothing happened. You know, I mean.
|
Emily:
[1:57:43]
| Boring weeks.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:44]
| Yes. So do I.
|
Sam:
[1:57:48]
| Anyway, things are being crazy right now. And there are a lot of places that could blow up. You know, is Trump about to attack Iran? Is he about to attack Minnesota more greatly? Is he going to do more crazy stuff in Venezuela? Or Cuba. Yes. Or, you know, he mentioned like a half dozen countries in the last two weeks. So, you know, whatever.
|
Emily:
[1:58:18]
| You know what, with what you were just saying, I was about to ask this question, like, during the Obama administration, was less happening or were we just not talking about some of the things? because one thing I'm getting frustrated with is Democrats and people that were Obama supporters starting to... call out trump especially about regarding venezuela and say well obama did this and obama did that like this idea that we're justifying donald trump or trying to find some reason and i just i need to say that out loud like i mean one these are not the same people and stop trying to wrap your head around donald trump or make justifications there are none so if you are you know comparing comparing a president that.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:05]
| Was trying to do something where his considerations were national security, the security of people providing food. These were not selfish considerations versus a guy with presidents.
|
Sam:
[1:59:17]
| There was lots of things that we criticized Obama on at the time, but the nature of those things was entirely different. It was even when he did something we disagreed with, you could feel like okay he's he may be doing something we disagree with and we think is wrong but his he has a good motivation he's trying to get a good result and he's doing it wrong or but and at least he's thinking about it he's thinking about it he was a deep thinker you could tell all this kind of stuff they're.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:52]
| Not selfish considerations is my.
|
Sam:
[1:59:55]
| Point everything.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:56]
| That trump does is only about him.
|
Sam:
[2:00:00]
| Right that's.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:01]
| It there is nobody else he doesn't care about the world about america about his family doesn't care.
|
Emily:
[2:00:08]
| About him.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:08]
| He doesn't care about his kids son of a bitch.
|
Emily:
[2:00:11]
| Anybody and and and we as democrats have never been shy about dragging somebody democrat or whatever that we just don't agree with we're like yeah that's a bad move and we're like immune to it and that's why i just cannot understand why there are people that are trying to like because.
|
Sam:
[2:00:30]
| Well this is this is the same thing as we.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:34]
| Live in a world where we don't value listen people like obama, And I fall into this category where we just do the hard work. We're not out there just trying to get credit for doing the hard work of keeping things together. The hard work that it took to get the Affordable Care Act passed.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:59]
| People criticize it, shit on it. It's not national health care. It's not a one. Listen, so many people, tens of millions of people benefited from that. And everybody, so many shit on it Because, well, it's not universal health, instead of seeing how hard it was to get that and how many people's lives improved, okay? Because it's not the perfect solution. It sucks. He's a fucking, you know, neoliberal asshole, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not sick of those people because it's so many, because they, and then they don't go and are taking this president that basically couldn't give a flying fuck about the lives of anybody. You weren't just posting, Sam, about this fucking measles outbreak now in your fucking county, for God's sake. This motherfucker is bringing back diseases we had eradicated. He's making people hungry. He has killed millions of kids in Africa. He doesn't give a fuck about anybody. And you know what? These people are all, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, motherfucker. Fuck you.
|
Emily:
[2:02:13]
| No, the purity politics only applies to Democrats, but it can do no wrong on the other side. Or maybe, no, it's bullshit.
|
Ivan:
[2:02:22]
| Hey, by the way, tell me where the fuck Jill Stein is. Can you fucking, hey, can you tell me where the fuck Jill Stein is?
|
Emily:
[2:02:28]
| I'm sorry. You know what the fuck Jill Stein is?
|
Ivan:
[2:02:30]
| The alarm is going to be a warm honor and what's going to destroy the world? Where the fuck is that bitch?
|
Emily:
[2:02:35]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:02:36]
| Well, look, this is a fundamental cultural difference, too. The right thing This fundamentally is about authority and lines of authority and respecting authority and blah, blah, blah. The left is about diversity of opinion and all of this kind of stuff. And so this is very much aligned with all the folks on the right saying, well, what if Clinton's in the Epstein files? What if Clinton did this? And people on the left are like, well, then fuck him.
|
Emily:
[2:03:08]
| Jail yeah he probably is go put him in jail let him die there let him rot yeah whereas they.
|
Sam:
[2:03:16]
| And they can't imagine this because they're like well you defend your guy no.
|
Emily:
[2:03:21]
| Matter what fucking idiots i can't.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:24]
| I can't i can't anyway all right we were supposedly trying to wrap up.
|
Emily:
[2:03:30]
| Yeah sorry i did that I need that. I did it. Sorry, it was me. No, no, no.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:36]
| But we do it. No, no, no. Sorry, we do. No, no, no. We do this. Fuck. You know, yeah, we're going for a wrap up. And all of a sudden, it's like, what happened? Oh, yeah. Okay.
|
Sam:
[2:03:46]
| And I heard you going for the Taylor Swift lyric. And then Yvonne interrupted you. But, you know. Anyway.
|
Emily:
[2:03:54]
| Does anyone have any plans this weekend? Good plans. Fun plans.
|
Ivan:
[2:03:58]
| I think we're done bowling tomorrow.
|
Sam:
[2:04:01]
| I'm going to exercise.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:03]
| I'm going to go bowling, and I'm flying to Puerto Rico on Monday.
|
Emily:
[2:04:06]
| Wow.
|
Sam:
[2:04:07]
| I'm going to work on stuff around home and watch TV.
|
Emily:
[2:04:11]
| Same. Same.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:13]
| There you go.
|
Sam:
[2:04:14]
| Okay, so.
|
Emily:
[2:04:15]
| It's so beautiful in Washington right now. Hopefully it'll be nice this weekend, too.
|
Sam:
[2:04:19]
| Yeah, it's in the 50s. Awesome. Go out, walk. Yeah, we probably will go to a park and walk the dog with my mom and my son.
|
Ivan:
[2:04:29]
| I will say, look, one of the issues with what it gets cold here is that my house is made to stay cool. And what happens is that when you've got more floors, they get so damn cold. And so it's just during the day, it's just really uncomfortable. And I And since I Since I don't live like in I have a friend in Mexico City that did the thing Where under the marble They ram these lines To heat the floor Since I don't live in a place that's that cold I don't have that shit here Okay We have.
|
Emily:
[2:05:10]
| A upstairs bathroom And it's way too hot up there Like it's like Sammy cleans my bathroom.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:16]
| She hates it You need more controls.
|
Emily:
[2:05:22]
| It's so easy to do those, though, because you just have to lay it down before you... Sorry.
|
Sam:
[2:05:30]
| As I try to wrap it up for like the eight millionth time... Are you trying to get...
|
Ivan:
[2:05:36]
| As I have my medal here that I will present to you the next time I see you.
|
Sam:
[2:05:40]
| Yes, my medal.
|
Ivan:
[2:05:42]
| For the 2003 Most Valuable Player.
|
Sam:
[2:05:47]
| Curmudgeons-corner.com. Go to the website. You'll find all the ways to contact us. Yvonne and I, anyway. Emily, what's the best way to get in touch with you and or plug your podcast?
|
Emily:
[2:05:57]
| Oh, sure. So you can find us at theumsurpodcast at gmail.com. You can follow the ums or follow umsir podcast, know thee on Instagram. And you can also follow me, Emily and Everett, and I will connect you with Sammy and everyone else. So both places are really fun, but we're definitely on Instagram. And then you can find us, Samly Blicks on TikTok, because that's where the kids are these days. And you guys are too. The kids.
|
Sam:
[2:06:25]
| Yeah, the kids. We're the kids. so anyway on the website all the ways to contact us our archive of episodes transcripts all that kind of stuff and a link to our patreon so you can give us money we like money money is fun, and at various levels we'll send you a postcard we'll send you a mug we'll mention you on the show we'll do all this kind of stuff importantly at two dollars a month or more or if you just ask us we will invite you to our conventions corner slack where yvonne and i and emily and And all sorts of other folks are sharing links and chatting throughout the week. So do either of you have something from the Slack that you would like to highlight?
|
Ivan:
[2:07:04]
| I have it already because I had mentioned something earlier and I realized that I did save it. Okay for this? Okay. Sam has these weird methods of organizing his work and algorithms. Like, he's got these lists sometimes. Now he's working on this list thing where he randomly assigns his tasks and stuff. So he's got these methods, you know, he's got his methods, okay? So I found this guy online that apparently is kin to Sam in this way. For he wrote, I write C++ every day for two hours. And find this a day. I add two hours to the next day This has truly been a game changer Tomorrow I'm supposed to code For three years And this totally sounds like something Sam would do Based on his schedule Absolutely, You know, so yeah, so this guy, this guy is your kind of guy, Sam.
|
Sam:
[2:08:00]
| Excellent. Emily, do you have one?
|
Emily:
[2:08:02]
| What is this? What are we doing?
|
Ivan:
[2:08:07]
| Some random tidbit that's funny.
|
Sam:
[2:08:10]
| Is there some article or something from the Curmudgeon's Chorus Slack that you wanted to highlight that we have not talked about on the show? Or for that matter, if you have a funny article.
|
Emily:
[2:08:18]
| You know, I want to just read this because as you were saying that, I was like, oh, am I supposed to find something in the Slack? And this is what I immediately came to, and I will read it out loud. What did we get stuck in our rectums last year?
|
Ivan:
[2:08:31]
| Oh!
|
Sam:
[2:08:33]
| Yeah, I think we mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but go ahead, go ahead.
|
Emily:
[2:08:36]
| No, I'm just clicking in there, and I'm like, this is what came up. So this is what I'm choosing. This is the time of year to be grateful for not having things stuck in our asses and to think of those less fortunate than us. So spare thought for those Americans who misjudged the capacity of their own orifices. All reports are taken from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's database of emergency room visits. So, yeah, those are things that got stuck in people's asses and were reported.
|
Sam:
[2:09:07]
| And they have, like.
|
Ivan:
[2:09:09]
| They file reports with details on every single one, yes.
|
Emily:
[2:09:13]
| And people are very creative. I do not want to look at it. but I appreciated that. Also, I had like a random, the Slack bot did a custom response for me. Have you seen those? And in response to someone, it wanted me to put a little poop, you know, like a little poop emoji. And I'm like, I don't understand.
|
Sam:
[2:09:38]
| No, there are some auto responses that were actually set up by someone who was on the Slack years ago who isn't anymore that if if people say certain things it will auto respond not just you saw it but other people saw it too so like for instance you're you're one you saw is basically if anyone says shit or poop or anything like that it just automatically responds with the emoji yes.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:02]
| Well and the thing is that whenever i you know whenever the word fuck is used on the slack it assumes it's me.
|
Emily:
[2:10:09]
| Oh.
|
Ivan:
[2:10:10]
| Which is probably correct.
|
Sam:
[2:10:11]
| There goes Yvonne again.
|
Emily:
[2:10:13]
| Well, I guess I'll use my colorful language going forward. Okay. And it can guess who it is.
|
Sam:
[2:10:21]
| Okay. Well, thanks everybody. Thank you, Emily, for joining us once again. Thanks for being here. It's been a blast as usual.
|
Emily:
[2:10:28]
| So fun to be here.
|
Sam:
[2:10:29]
| And everybody, listen to us, but also tune in to UMSUR.
|
Emily:
[2:10:33]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[2:10:35]
| They also publish most weeks and it's good stuff. Okay. And with that, I think we are done. Thanks everybody for listening. Have a great week. Stay safe. Stay fun. Sorry, because these last two weeks we recorded at the beginning of the week two weeks ago and the end of the week this time. So it's one of the longest gaps between episodes we've ever had. So hopefully you didn't get out of the habit and you're back here. I guess if you're still listening here at the end of the episode, you are. So whatever.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:06]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[2:11:07]
| Anyway, have a great week, everybody. We'll see you next time. Everybody say goodbye.
|
Emily:
[2:11:12]
| Goodbye.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:13]
| Bye.
|
Sam:
[2:11:15]
| Goodbye. Okay. Yvonne, next time we lose your audio in the middle, we'll take the time to fix it, because it did sound, like, noticeably worse ever since that happened.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:54]
| I don't fucking understand.
|
Sam:
[2:11:56]
| It's on the ones in your ears. I can tell.
|
Ivan:
[2:11:59]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[2:12:02]
| Okay. Bye, everyone. Thank you again.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:04]
| Stop. Report.
|
Sam:
[2:12:05]
| Stop. Stop.
|
Ivan:
[2:12:08]
| Stop. Stop.
| |
|
