Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Hey folks, get started in just a second. Let's make this thing go. Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, July 11th, 2026. It is just about 21.30 UTC as we are starting to record.
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Sam:
[0:47]
| Which is a little bit later than usual, because guess what? It's just me. It's just Sam Minter. Did I say all the Curmudgeon's Corner stuff? It's Curmudgeon's Corner, I'm Sam Minter, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Yvonne let me know last night that he couldn't make it. He's got some sort of emergency situation that he unexpectedly had to deal with. He said everything's fine, everything's okay. But it was something he had to deal with. He may or may not want to talk about it next week. Who knows? Who knows? but in any case that was way too late for me to even attempt to find a co-host so it's me again, all by myself and as usual this means i'm not going to record the whole show in one shot, i'm going to record this first segment which as is typical for me i'm going to do a couple movies blah blah blah actually this time a tv show and a movie and, then i'll take a break and i'll go do other stuff in in this case, you know i should be this is saturday and so saturday afternoons i have typically been going out and doing signs for my wife's campaign we'll see i got a really late start today. Cause like, you know, I knew Yvonne wasn't going to be here. So I slept in late.
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Sam:
[2:10]
| Then my wife needed me to give her a ride somewhere. And yeah, it's, it's way later than I would normally want to be starting signs. Because I usually do signs for four hours on Saturday afternoons, but like, you know, I don't know. By the time I get ready to go out, it'll be late, but I still should do it. Maybe I'll do something like two hours today, two hours tomorrow. I don't know. If I don't do it today, I'm doing it tomorrow. I'm doing something. I don't know. And I've got a couple of things I want to do at home too. So we'll see. Anyway.
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Sam:
[2:49]
| That's, that's what's going on. You know, obviously when we, I'll do, I'll do the TV and movies and then we'll talk more serious stuff. Who knows if more events will happen between now and then, if so, I may change. But the current notion is I'm going to, of course, talk about the main Senate race and Graham Planter and all that kind of stuff. And then maybe a little bit about, you know, the NATO summit, Iran, Air Force One, and then maybe close it out with a little bit about Binface in the UK, because that's just hilarious. Anyway, let's get started with some TV shows. I want to get this first segment done and out of the way so I can start figuring out what else I'm doing today. So the first show, which had four seasons and ran from 2014 to 2024, which you can already see, that's like 11 years. It was not continuous. Like, this is, you know, one of these shows that had a season, And then you wait a while Then you have another season And then you wait a while And theoretically There's actually You know plans For a potential season 5 Right.
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Sam:
[4:15]
| They haven't officially declared that they're done forever. There just isn't one yet. So we considered it to be done. So let me, this is True Detective, which was an HBO series. And the basic thing that's different from most tv series today, it is neither your traditional sort of ongoing narrative with all the same characters nor is it a true anthology where every different every episode is like an entirely different story about something else entirely, But instead, it's a season-by-season anthology. So each season is an entirely different story. And I'll give an outline of each of the four seasons.
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Sam:
[5:10]
| But there, I think they made, in some of the later seasons, there were a couple of references to the things in the earlier seasons, but they're not really connected. All of those references are kind of throwaway things that if you got rid of them, it wouldn't matter at all to the show, but it's entirely different characters and entirely different locations. And I'll say right now that, you know, it's, it's like completely different shows. So it's hard to give an overall, you know, here's how the whole series was because, you know, it's, each season really isn't comparable to another and, and the quality goes up and down a little bit. Some are better than others, but okay, here we go. And again, from Wikipedia. And I'll just read their descriptions of the four seasons right away, you know, straight up. Let's see. Did I have a better description?
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Sam:
[6:18]
| Okay, I'm just going to do the one at the top. The first season, starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tori Kittles, aired in 2014, takes place in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana state police detectives and their pursuit of a serial killer with occult links over a 17-year period. And this first season is the one that really blew up. I vaguely remember in 2014 when this was on, sort of everybody talked about it, and there were a few, phrases from it that sort of went into the popular zeitgeist, and I'm talking about time as a flat circle, for anybody who remembers.
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Sam:
[7:06]
| And then I think none of the subsequent seasons got the same level of attention. The second season, starring Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Kelly Riley, and Vince Vaughn, aired in 2015. It is set in California and focuses on three detectives from three cooperating police jurisdictions and a criminal-turned-businessman as they investigate a series of crimes they believe are linked to the murder of a corrupt politician. The third season, starring, I can never pronounce this guy's name, Maharshala Ali, Carmen Ejogo, Stephen Dorff, Scoot McNary, and Ray Fisher, aired in 2019. It takes place in the Ozarks over three time periods as a pair of Arkansas state police detectives investigate a macabre crime scene involving two missing children. Then the fourth season, subtitled Night Country, and starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reese, aired in 2024. It takes place in Alaska and follows the investigation into the sudden disappearance of a team of eight men from a research station. Issa Lopez serves as writer and director, marking Pizzolatto's first time as neither writer nor showrunner. He did the first three seasons.
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Sam:
[8:33]
| And reading a little bit more from Wikipedia. The first season received widespread acclaim and earned high ratings for HBO, received numerous awards, chiefly for its acting, cinematography, writing, and direction. Reception to the second season was more divided, although the show maintained high viewership. The third season received positive reviews but saw a drop in viewership. The fourth season, Night Country, is the most watched of the series and received widespread critical acclaim It earned the highest number of Emmy Award nominations for the series, and I mentioned there talk of a fifth season. A fifth season with Lopez returning as showrunner is in development. Casting and pre-production were set to start in 2025 with a scheduled air date in 2027. In August 2025, it was reported that Nicolas Cage was in talks to star in season five. Obviously, that update is like a year old at this point. I don't know what's going on, whether we'll actually get that next season or not. Anyway, I sort of agree with this, that the first and fourth were the best of the series.
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Sam:
[9:47]
| But the second and third weren't bad either. I liked this whole series. And this is one of these ones where each series... Is is just like eight episodes so this isn't like yo i mean this seems to be the trend as well the last one was only six episodes, but it seems to be the trend now like the days of like seasons with 22 24 episodes seem to be long gone it would be nice to have those again, because it lets i think it lets things breathe a little bit more and lets you have, i don't know it depends on the kind of series. Like, I mean, these eight and six episode things are what back in the day we used to call miniseries, you know? But anyway, it was good. You obviously, from me listing the actors, you have a lot of really well-known actors and actresses in this. Good acting, good stories good writing, a bunch of i don't think it was every season but the first and third especially, really play hard on you are jumping back and forth, between seeing what is happening in different time periods to the same characters as things progress so you sometimes see the same characters you know.
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Sam:
[11:15]
| Fairly young early in their career investigating something and then you jump forward to you know hey now they're, they're retired they're at the end of their past the end of their career and they're revisiting some of this stuff and then sometimes you pop in in between, and sometimes you know sometimes it's a little confusing because you're like oh what's But, for the most part, no, because it was really well done. And you sort of see... Over the course of the season, you start to understand the whole picture of what was going on as you get these revelations from the present, the past, in between. The third and fourth did a little bit less of that.
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Sam:
[12:08]
| I mean, there were still a few flashbacks, I think, but for the most part, they were more linear. But they still had this sort of, over the course of the thing, you are learning and revealing more about the characters. And that's the other thing to just point out. Because, you know, my wife watched some of the first few episodes of season one with me, and was just not into it at all. And the fundamental reason, I think, is that this series is very much not really about, you know, figure out who the killer was. Or, you know, it's not your typical murder mystery where you're the procedural following the cops and it's all about, you know, like, this is not law and order. Where you're following them through their day and you're learning about how at least a fictionalized version.
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Sam:
[13:14]
| Of police work and law enforcement and in the case of law and order, the court parts of it. It's not like that at all. It is about the characters. And sometimes, you know, in advance, you can figure out the clues and you know who's going to be revealed as the whatever from the very beginning and sometimes not. And it doesn't matter, though, because the whole series is really about, getting into the brains of these characters and understanding what's going on in their in their mental state. Because these are all like flawed characters as well in every single one of these seasons.
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Sam:
[14:00]
| They're, you know, these are not like healthy individuals. No, they're all folks who have something wrong with them. They have skeletons in their closets. They've got troubled histories. And that's what makes it interesting. And you follow through the whole process. And of course, the things that are happening to them are also interesting. Anyway, bottom line, I'm giving it all a thumbs up. True Detective is a lot of fun. The four seasons of it are very different from each other. Some are better than others. Some are more compelling than others. But on a whole, thumbs up for the whole thing. It's worth seeing all four seasons. Each season feels very different because they are also very.
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Sam:
[14:47]
| I mentioned it's character driven. It's also place driven and atmosphere driven. So the one that's in Louisiana feels very different than the one that's in Alaska is very different than the one in California, is pretty different than the one in Arkansas. You know, although Arkansas and Louisiana had some similarities. They both have that sort of southern feel going on to them. And will I want to pick it up and watch it when the fifth season comes out? If this fifth season comes out? Yeah, I would. Definitely worth watching. And so, yeah, thumbs up. True Detective. Good thing. Okay, next up.
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Sam:
[15:29]
| And entirely different in tone. And this one doesn't have a freaking Wikipedia page. It's Love Classified from 2022. And it's a Hallmark Channel movie. That's why it doesn't have a Wikipedia page. It's a made-for-TV Hallmark movie. And I probably don't have to say anything else for you to get a good idea of what, tends to happen. In fact, it's somewhat of a cliche. I'm going to read the one-sentence summary off IMDb, since it doesn't have a Wikipedia page. Amelia, a romance novelist, returns home after a long absence to reconnect with her children, who are also finding their own paths to love. And so, yeah.
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Sam:
[16:22]
| You get somebody coming home to their small town after living in a big city, and there's romances. And there's, in this case, I think that, I'm trying to remember, I watched this back last August. So it's been a while, almost a year. And I think there were three different romance things going on in the town, and they were intermingled, and there's a little drama. and there's conflict between some of the people. And, you know, honestly, look, without a proper summary that I can read on Wikipedia, I don't even remember most of the details. Oh, oh, here's later, I scrolled down further on IMDb, a little bit more of a description. So I'm going to read that to you and remind myself in the process. Hardin portrays romance novelist Amelia, described as a whirlwind who blows back into the lives of her adult children. Taylor, McNamara, and Zach, Lloyd-Jones, under the pretense of a book signing arranged by her hometown's local bookshop. As Amelia tries to reconnect, Taylor and Zach explore new and past relationships through an app that boasts.
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Sam:
[17:38]
| Old-fashioned human connection by way of the classified ad. Zach is given a chance to heal old wounds, while Taylor matches with a woman that changes the way she's always thought about love. This is such a fun story from writer Lynn Sternberger that is ultimately a story of love, family, and commitment in all its forms. With a cast that includes Melora Hardin, Adrian Mandy, Catherine McNamara, and Max Lloyd-Jones, to help bring this movie to life, will no doubt put a smile on the faces of our viewers this spring, said Lisa Hamilton-Dally, EVP programming Crown Media Family Networks. It was produced by Lloyd Dodson, Statesy Arrity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, it's sort of, it's a romantic comedy. And... You know, without reading that description, I have already forgotten most of it, but I remember the feeling of it, and I remember being amused. I remember, you know, going aww at the right parts where the people finally get together at the end and all that kind of stuff. So I'm actually going to give this a thumbs up.
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Sam:
[18:48]
| It's not a serious movie. It's not a deep movie. It's very shallow. So, I mean, it's pretty predictable, but it was a fun little, nice little rom-com, you know? And it was what it was. And so, there you go. That's all there is to that one. So, thumbs up for that one. So, thumbs up for True Detectives. Thumbs up for Love Classified. And, yeah, that's the movies and TV and stuff.
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Sam:
[19:21]
| And I'm going to cut the segment here I'm going to go off and do other things And I'll probably come back and record the newsy stuff Tomorrow, actually So.
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Sam:
[19:34]
| Yeah Because I'm going to go off and have a fun, exciting time Doing signs, doing chores Probably watching some TV with my son On one of the TV shows we're still watching since True Detective is long gone at this point. And yeah, that's it. So let's take a break. For those of you listening on the actual podcast later, we'll be back in right after the break. For those of you who are watching live on the live stream or on YouTube, it'll be a completely different segment later. Okay, back after this.
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Sam:
[20:54]
| And I'm back. As promised, it's been a long time for me and only a little bit of time for you. For me, it's now Sunday, July 12th at 2130 UTC, just a few minutes after. And, you know, I know I said I was going to talk about Graham Plattner next.
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Sam:
[21:11]
| But there was, in fact, big breaking news while you were listening to that break. Namely, Senator Lindsey Graham died on Saturday evening, or sometimes Saturday. I don't know exactly what time it was, but Saturday, the news broke Saturday evening, pretty late even here on Pacific time. But, you know, obviously, I think by the time it broke, most people on the East Coast were long asleep. But the latest update on that, we just had his team give like a, whatchamacallit, a thingy, a do, a blah, blah, blah, an update on the cause. And so it was apparently an aortic dissection due to arthrosclerotic cardiovascular disease. So basically, if I understand that right, that means his aorta ruptured, an aortic dissection causes massive internal bleeding, prevents blood from reaching vital organs, and is often fatal without immediate treatment. It had been reported earlier that, you know, it was, you know, it was cardiac related. But in any case, Lindsey Graham.
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Sam:
[22:38]
| As I posted on the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack and elsewhere, this was not the senator that we were expecting this kind of news about at any moment. Because, of course, we also have the Mitch McConnell situation continuing to go on where, you know, his true condition is unknown, but he's been hospitalized for weeks. I saw just a few minutes ago a post from someone, Rick Wilson, I think it was. Saying, basically, look, look, a whole bunch of reporters know his condition. They're just not reporting it yet. What did Rick say? Now I'm going to have to find it.
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Sam:
[23:19]
| Okay, here we are. It was a quote from Rick Wilson on some thing. I don't know where he was talking. He says, I guarantee you there are 10 reporters in D.C. right now who know exactly what Mitch McConnell's medical status is, maybe more. They're not reporting it. Then he says, and he is not a reporter, so the various reasons reporters might hold back on something is they've heard something but don't have adequate confirmation from it in places, you know, et cetera. But he says, we know from people who are very clear that he's in a certain rehab wing for acute cardiac failure, all this stuff at the hospital. He is alive. Our source is not able to say if he's conscious or cogent.
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Sam:
[24:06]
| And Rick Wilson goes on to say he doesn't think the magical 20-minute conversations that have been reported are real. Anyway, we've been on sort of Mitch McConnell watch, expecting at any time we'll get some sort of update there. Either they'll come clean and say he's in intensive care and here's his condition and he's, not expected to recover or he is expected to recover, but he'll be in rehab for months or that his condition has worsened and he's died or whatever. And, of course, the rumor mills keep talking about maybe he's already dead. I just don't believe that. I think the truth is much simpler, that he's in really, really bad shape in the hospital. Whether or not he's conscious or not is an open question, but he's clearly not like...
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Sam:
[24:57]
| In a position to resume his senatorial duties. I guess I could be proved wrong. Like, the Senate supposedly is coming back into session tomorrow as I record this, and maybe he'll just show up. But I kind of doubt it. But yeah, we weren't expecting Lindsey Graham. And of course, people have speculated. Yeah, there was all kinds of speculations. He just came back from Ukraine. Was this an assassination? was it the russians you know i check his radiation levels you know did he take some polonium tea you know whatever, but it looks like it's just you know heart issues, that's it and you know he was 71 which you know.
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Sam:
[25:47]
| Relatively young still, but yeah. And I won't spend a lot of time on his history. I mean, look, he proved himself to be an opportunist. And I'm going to look up another quote real quick. I'm going to go find this. You know, it would be nice if I had posted these when I saw them so that I could just look at my own posts and find out these things to read. But instead, I'm remembering them right now as I'm recording and therefore can't find them. Like, who was the guy who said this? Okay.
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Sam:
[26:35]
| I did find this in the meantime. You know, this is William Browder, who is not known as a conspiracy theorist, but he wrote the McGinsky Act, which is the one that sanctioned Russians that were, you know, related to like, it was a response to various assassinations. He says not to be a conspiracy theorist but Lindsey Graham was the leading driver of the devastating sanctions bill against Russia yesterday he announced that President Trump agreed to it he had just returned from Ukraine where it's not unknown for Russian agents to operate, Russians are expert at administration of poisons that look like heart attacks, all tests should be done immediately to rule out foul play I've seen enough Russian related suspicions deaths, to know this is the only course of action and Yeah. So wait until the evidence. I mean, he's, you know, again.
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Sam:
[27:35]
| The more up-to-date thing is his office says, you know, aortic dissection, a tear caused by cardiovascular disease sounds like a pre-existing cardiovascular disease. So that's the simple explanation. And now I'll try to find that other thing. Oh, wait. We've got Mitch McConnell news, too. Just, okay, hold on, hold on. You know, news breaking while I'm here. Let's see, who's this? Make sure it's from a reliable sender, editor at HuffPost. Okay, Mitch McConnell has released a photo and the first statement on his condition. It's got a photo. He looks like Mitch McConnell. He's not got the tubes and everything. Okay.
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Sam:
[28:24]
| Mitch McConnell's statement. To my fellow Kentuckians, when you elected me to a seventh term and made me our Commonwealth's longest serving senator, you did so trusting that I'd keep showing up to fight for you every day. And over the past several weeks, Elaine and I have appreciated both your well wishes and your honest questions about what was keeping me away from the Senate. This was just posted minutes ago. You all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older. Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct. I can't help it. But at the same time, I've had more than my share of experience with physical vulnerabilities. Surviving childhood polio meant spending my entire life with mobility challenges. They haven't exactly gotten easier to manage with age. And last month, I took a fall, which landed me in a hospital. My doctors have confirmed that I didn't break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. I don't have any tumors or hemorrhages, but I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital. While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I've also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia.
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Sam:
[29:36]
| I can assure you that I've been a good patient. At my age, I tend to do what my doctors tell me to do. I've submitted to every test that they can think of to help figure out what caused this incident, and I'm continuing to do everything they ask to speed my recovery. In fact, with signs of continued progress, I've been able to move from hospital care to a rehabilitation center where I'll keep regaining my strength. As much as it frustrates me, this process takes time, and on the advice of my doctors, I won't be able to return to the Senate floor to vote quite yet. But rest assured that in the meantime, I'm not taking a break from the Senate business that matters to you. I've been working closely with my legislative staff on current issues and with my Kentucky team who helped me provide timely constituent services across our Commonwealth. I've also been keeping in touch with my Senate colleagues on the appropriations process, midterm politics, and everything in between. You're right to expect your representatives to work hard for you. And part of my decision to retire at the end of my term this coming January was being honest about the demands of Senate work. But I still have unfinished business to complete on your behalf and I have every intention of finishing the job you elected me to do.
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Sam:
[30:37]
| I'll keep working hard to get back on the Senate floor as soon as possible and I'll keep you posted on the progress of my recovery. Until then, I'm so grateful for your prayers and we're well wishes. So, there you go. Interesting. Okay, now... I've got to go back to looking for that other thing. Okay, here is the quote. This was from Steve Schmidt. And this was said years ago, but I think sort of summarizes what Graham's been like and was made obvious by his turn for Donald Trump. Because the Lindsey Graham and his reputation, when he was sort of like John McCain's best friend and they did stuff together and they were the mavericks And sort of the, they were the Republicans that were willing to work across the aisle with Democrats and all this kind of stuff. I saw something from Cory Booker today talking about some bill he worked with Lindsey Graham on and how, you know, they were friends and it was whatever, you know. But no, this is from Steve Schmidt.
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Sam:
[31:44]
| People try to analyze Lindsay through the prism of the manifest inconsistencies that exist between things that he used to believe and what he's doing now, Schmidt says. The way to understand him is to look at what's consistent. And essentially what he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish. A smaller fish that hovers about a larger predator, like a shark living off its detritus. That's Lindsay. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsay took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsay fish hovering about. And Trump's the newest shark in the sea. Lindsay has a real draw to power. But he's found it unobtainable on his own merits. And you know that's i feel like that's the thing that makes lindsey graham make sense, is exactly that like you know when he saw john mccain as his path to power he imitated john mccain and went along with those things and if you remember in the 2016 race, lindsey graham was one of Trump's greatest critics.
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Sam:
[33:07]
| He's the one who said, if we nominate him, it will destroy us. And honestly, it kind of has. I mean, they've won the presidency twice. They've gained a lot of things. But the Republican Party of today.
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Sam:
[33:23]
| Is nothing but a vessel for Donald Trump at the moment. If that changes after Donald Trump is gone, who knows what form they will take, how strong they will be or not. There's a lot of open questions there. But the destroy us doesn't necessarily mean the Republican Party won't win. Obviously, they did win. They won in 2016. They won again in 2024. They've had amazing, you know, wins in terms of getting things that they'd wanted for years. But the Republican Party of 2026 bears almost no resemblance to the pre-2016 Republican Party. It is not the same thing. It does not have the same values. It does not have the same core issues. It does not have, you know, there are obviously through lines that you can draw. But the Republican Party that Lindsey Graham was talking about in 2016 is, in fact, destroyed and dead and gone. What we have now is entirely different.
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Sam:
[34:44]
| And we shall see. And I've also, you know, seen posts today about people, you know, revealing that they claim they had.
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Sam:
[34:59]
| Relations with Lindsey Graham, in some cases, that he paid for, you know, of a non-straight variety. Which, you know, there have been rumors of this going on before. There have been people who came out saying this before. The one I saw today, there may be no proof whatsoever, but I think that there's also this element of, like, all along was he a closeted gay man that, you know, did a lot of things basically to hide that and to, you know, sort of counter, like, prove he's not gay by doing anti-gay things and things like that. I don't know. I don't know if we'll ever know the truth of that. I mean, those rumors have gone on for forever. And, you know, the shame of all of those kinds of things is not, oh my God, he was gay, if he was, I don't know. But rather, you know, why did he feel he couldn't just be open about it? And why, you know, it seems like there's, I don't know, there's so much damage caused by things like that. And Lindsey Graham may be one of those things, or maybe not, we don't know.
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Sam:
[36:22]
| But yeah, apparently Lindsey Graham is gone, and apparently Mitch McConnell is not. And he is indeed. Like I speculated right before I saw that news alert come through, that he is recovering and is going to go into rehab.
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Sam:
[36:42]
| And yeah, who knows if he's, what, six months? Six months left? A little bit under six months left of his term. Who knows if he'll be back in time for that, but yeah. Ah, yes. Okay. I'm tempted to just leave the segment there, but I had promised Graham Plantner talk. So let me do that for a few minutes before I take my next break. So Graham Plantner's out. credible accusations of sexual assault and rape from an ex-girlfriend said he was drunk, came over to her place and forced himself on her basically after she had told him not to come.
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Sam:
[37:34]
| Look, you know, Yvonne and I talked about him a little bit before the main primary, the Democratic primary that he won. And basically, at that point, we already had all the red flags. We'd had accusations in the New York Times of inappropriate behavior with women. And a lot of it, you know, some of it was being dismissed because one of the women that had the most detailed accusations was a Republican operative. And so people are like, we don't trust her. But that same New York Times article had accusations from like six different women.
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Sam:
[38:18]
| Including someone who had worked on his campaign and left, and apparently also including the woman who just came out again now, and just without the level of detail. And she said the reason she felt like she had to come out now was in part because the New York Times article didn't get people not to vote for him. And she was upset about the way they dismissed the Republican with accusations. And, you know, it's also come out in a reporting this week that, one of the consultants who was sort of responsible for finding and hyping up this guy as a candidate also has a history of sexual abuse allegations, which might be one of the reasons why when these started to come up, he's like, oh, those are no big deal.
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Sam:
[39:15]
| Look, what Ivan and I said in the weeks before the primary was like, look, I don't understand why he wasn't gone after the Nazi tattoos or certainly after the first New York Times article or, you know, even the thing about sexting people. Although that seemed fully consensual and his wife had made peace with it, whatever. Cause, but all of these are just like, this isn't a great guy. Why are you putting everything behind him? And the reason was, I've heard interviews this week with people who were former supporters of his who feel betrayed by all this and are like, look, He, attitude-wise—and Ivan and I both talked about how the mood right now is, for people who will fight. And he had that.
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Sam:
[40:16]
| He was someone who gave the vibes of he would fight for you. He was pushing a lot of the right issues. And even ones that are theoretically the ones that Democrats tend to run away from, he was still pushing them. But doing so in a way that was fighting and honest. And, you know, I've said on the show lots of times, you know, people can sense the people who are triangulating their views.
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Sam:
[40:48]
| To try to get, you know, the median voter. And, you know, you might have better luck with someone who's not trying to do that, but who believes a certain set of things and pushes them hard. And he gave those vibes. And people were really excited about him. And apparently he's very charismatic in person.
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Sam:
[41:13]
| And so lots of folks in Maine really, really liked him and really liked his attitude and liked that he was going to fight for them and was going to do this and was going to do that. And awesome. And, you know, what Yvonne and I also said at that point is like, look, it looks like he's going to win the primary. And if so, you know, hey, it's what we got still better than Susan Collins. I wish this was not who they were picking, but it apparently is who the people of Maine are picking.
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Sam:
[41:49]
| And so you got to go with what you got to go. All his opponents in the primary were pulling way, way below him. He was pulling well against Collins as well before all this started to hit. Then that started to deteriorate. And, you know, I'd said a few times, I want to win. You know, I want to win that Senate race. And if it looks like he's the best chance of winning, great. But with the caveat that, you know, and when Yvonne and I were talking about this a few weeks ago, we were like, he's clearly lying, right? Like when he denies these things, he's clearly lying. He knew about this stuff. There's plenty of evidence that maybe he didn't know the Nazi tattoo at the time he got it. But he certainly did shortly thereafter. And he kept denying that he knew what it was. And he didn't move to get it removed, until it became a big deal. And blew up in the press. And then his denials about the New York Times article and that first set of allegations just didn't really seem credible.
|
Sam:
[43:04]
| And so the worry was always, what else is there? Now, apparently, the Republicans also had an oppo book on him and were planning on dumping a bunch of additional stuff after they passed the deadline so it was too late to replace him.
|
Sam:
[43:22]
| So this preemptive strike to get him out while there was still time to replace him is better than that, probably. I still, you know, it would have been nice if the Democrats, you know, the Democratic primary voters in Maine hadn't picked him in the first place, had realized some of these red flags and gone with somebody else, anybody else. But that's not the world we're in. Now he's officially out. He dragged his feet a bit. His statement about doing so was full of bitterness and spite and additional denials. And, you know, I just, I don't believe the denials. Now, even the woman who accused him said he was like blackout drunk. He may not actually even remember the event in question. That's possible. But, you know, you'd still hope that if he was thinking about, you know, the good of the party, the good of the country, the good of Maine, that whatever bitterness he had, he would put it aside and just say, for the good of everybody, I'm out. You know, I still deny everything, but I'm out. Instead, 11-minute long video, basically ranting and blaming everybody but himself, not apologizing for anything.
|
Sam:
[44:50]
| The guy's scum. So now Maine has to pick a replacement. Given the timing, they have just a few weeks to get a replacement.
|
Sam:
[45:02]
| I had seen one suggestion, and I don't know if it was even possible or not, that since Maine has ranked choice voting, whether they could have just gone back to those votes and figured out if he had been eliminated, where would all of the second choice votes have gone? I think that would have been very interesting. and to see where that was.
|
Sam:
[45:25]
| But that is not what's happening. I don't even know if it would be logistically possible. Would they release all those second and third and fourth choice votes above and beyond if he already won? I don't know. Anyway, instead, the Democratic Party of Maine is having a convention with a little over 600 people, somewhere between one and 200 of them i believe are you know the the the members of the whatever, committee it's the the the equivalent of like the the superdelegates in the national democratic conventions, and then the rest are going to be chosen by county parties, And the big question at this point is, you know, who are they going to pick and what are their chances going to be? And specifically, is it going to be a centrist-type person who the establishment Democrats like, or is it going to be another, progressive-style, person that shares some of Plantner's views and that Sanders and those folks like?
|
Sam:
[46:47]
| And I've seen, and look, I'm not sure how it's going to work out because the whole process of, choosing delegates that are going to go to this convention and having them vote on this actually like favors sort of party activists and people who have been involved in the party a long time. And disfavors sort of the upstart-type candidates who were liked by the general population but don't necessarily have that history and.
|
Sam:
[47:24]
| Involvement in the party apparatus. So it could go either way. Now, there's a controversial video that Joanne Reid, who used to be on MSNBC back in the day and now does independent stuff.
|
Sam:
[47:40]
| Put out a thing that basically said, look, they really need to nominate another progressive because that's what all the voters were excited about. And that's, you know, if they go and nominate a centrist, then they are risking losing because a lot of the people who were excited won't be and just won't show up and vote. Now, I agree with part of that, but Joanne Reid went on to say, and if you're one of those people who is excited about him, I wouldn't blame you at all if you sat out the election under those circumstances. Screw them. That's the part I disagree with. I think her analysis might be right, though.
|
Sam:
[48:28]
| That as much as those people, because she was all like, you know vote blue no matter who is bullshit if they put in somebody who does not, represent sort of that wing of the party after he won handily in the primaries, then you know somebody i think her words were somebody needs to show the democrats they can't just assume you know, i think that's wrong, because the analysis you still have to make is, you know, purity test aside, if you end up with a binary choice between some Democrat that you don't particularly like or excited about and the Republican.
|
Sam:
[49:12]
| You pick the one that's closer to your views, even if they don't match exactly, even if the process made you upset to get there. At least that's how you should do it. But where I think she's right is that's not how the real world often works. There were a lot of people that were really excited about Plattner. Plattner, Plattner, whatever. There were a lot of people who were really excited about him, who will not necessarily be excited about whoever replaces him. And there have been a lot of comparisons to Biden endorsing Kamala as soon as he dropped out in that while, yes, there were people who were excited about Kamala Harris, there were other people who resented the fact that she essentially just got the spot without a real competition. Now, I want to be clear, the process was clearly laid out there. There were delegates that were assigned throughout a whole primary process that, you know, had to vote on this. And they all flocked to her very quickly. She had enough delegates to lock up the nomination.
|
Sam:
[50:38]
| I think it was less than a week. I forget exactly how long it took her, but it was really fast. Now, those were all Biden delegates, because Biden didn't have any serious competition in the primaries? For obvious reasons. Incumbent presidents rarely do. Every once in a while, there's a serious competition. He had no serious competition. There were like one or two candidates who even bothered, you know, trying, and they got nowhere. They got absolutely nowhere. They were no names that nobody had ever heard of, and they had no money, no attention, and, you know, got nowhere. But this is slightly different. The delegates to this convention are not picked yet, and there's going to be a process to pick those delegates. Hopefully, they will do this in a way that makes the Plantner voters feel like they're part of the process.
|
Sam:
[51:43]
| I could definitely see a scenario where they don't, and these people feel betrayed. And if that happens, then a lot of them probably will stay home and Collins will win. You know, if they manage to pick somebody who's able to excite these people, then Collins may still win. You know, who knows? Like, it depends on who they pick. And there are a number of candidates. There's one of them who was more sort of a plant or site names. There was one that was more aligned in viewpoint than the others. Who knows how he'll do.
|
Sam:
[52:27]
| And also, who knows, there's the whole charisma issue, too. Like, that was a big part of Plant Nerd's appeal, was people got really excited about him. People like listening to him. People, you know, all this kind of stuff. And who knows whether the replacement will have that same appeal.
|
Sam:
[52:50]
| Maine was, you know, of the race for the Senate, Maine is a critical part of the path to any hopeful Democrats retaking the Senate. And, you know, we've said before, look, the Senate is in play now, but the Republicans are still favored. Let's be absolutely clear about that. The Democrats have to essentially win all of the competitive races and don't lose any of the non-competitive races and surprises.
|
Sam:
[53:28]
| They have to run the table. And Maine is part of that. And they have to stretch it. They have to win someplace like Texas or Montana or something. And Maine was a critical part of that path, again, is a critical part of that path. And Plantner, before all his scandals, was winning in most polls against Collins. By the time he dropped out, it was neck and neck and his support was falling. I've seen a handful of polls with some of the potential replacements for him and they're mixed. Some of them do better than Collins, some of them are tied with her, some of them do worse. And it's unclear. Honestly, if I was in Maine, I would want to see more of those polls and I'd want to pick the one who was doing best in those polls against Collins, but with the caveat...
|
Sam:
[54:30]
| That, as has just been pointed out, in stunning fashion by Plantner himself, he was doing, he was beating Collins handily in the polls. He was doing better than any of his competitors against Collins in the polls. But when you vetted him, he had big issues. So it's going to be important, and I don't, they've got limited amount of time. But somebody should be digging deeply into the pasts of all of these candidates, to see if they've got either similar kinds of problems or entirely different kinds of problems.
|
Sam:
[55:10]
| You don't want to find out. You don't want to pick one of these guys and then find out in October that, you know, they're secretly a crack dealer or something. You know? So, you got to figure that stuff out. And we've got a short timeline to figure out what's happening there. And speaking of which, we didn't talk about replacing Lindsey Graham. So, let's do that briefly as well. So, in the case of Lindsey Graham, the situation is that he was up for re-election this year anyway. He had already won his primary. So this is all different state by state. Like we were talking, you know, apparently McConnell's going to make it, but we were talking a couple of weeks ago about all the, or last week, whatever it was, about the laws in Kentucky and how you replace a senator and special elections and all this kind of stuff. Those differ state by state. In South Carolina, the situation is that the governor gets to appoint a replacement to serve out the rest of Lindsey Graham's term right away. And that replacement would only serve until the beginning of January. So they get to pick someone and get them in place, get them sworn in, get them in.
|
Sam:
[56:32]
| Meanwhile, because there's still time to do so, there's a deadline after which this wouldn't be the case anymore. But South Carolina is going to have a really quick primary, like a spot primary, Like, like within weeks, like to replace him on the Republican ticket. So just within the next, really, I mean, we're, we're, we're talking timelines of days. We need to hear like, who's running for that spot. And then there's going to be a primary in like two weeks. And then we'll have a new Republican candidate for, for Senator in South Carolina. Now, in South Carolina, this had not been particularly on the list where Democrats thought they had a chance to pick it up. But I just saw that there had been some recent polls against.
|
Sam:
[57:33]
| The Democrat who is running against, who had already won her primary. Some doctor, I should look up the name. Da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da. I mean... You know, there's been a lot of looking up. You know, usually when Yvonne is here, one of us can look things up while the other one continues to talk. But I'm here by myself! So here we go. Well, not by myself. Alex is here. Okay. Her name is Anne Andrews.
|
Alex:
[58:12]
| Hello, and we're using this phone. And my iPad just stopped. But we're doing number, let's open! And...
|
Sam:
[58:23]
| Yes, yes, Alex is here. But Alex doesn't talk anymore, so he was playing a highlight from his YouTube channel, episode 655, Let's Open 10, Hot Wheels. Anyway, the Democratic candidate is Anne Andrews. And apparently there had been some recent polls showing her at like 3% behind, which, okay, it's not ahead or anything of Lindsey Graham, but it's a lot closer than you'd expect in South Carolina. Now, importantly, that was like one or two polls. There were others showing her further behind. But in this case, it's unclear whether this helps her or not. It depends on who they pick to replace Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham wasn't particularly liked all that much in South Carolina anymore. He was kind of tolerated because, you know, he had flipped and he was sort of with Donald Trump now. And, you know, the old Lindsey Graham that liked John McCain probably would have lost in a primary in South Carolina years ago. But because he...
|
Sam:
[59:41]
| Became Trump adjacent. He survived a little bit longer politically. I mean, obviously, he's dead now, but it's unclear. And I've started to hear a few names of possibilities of people who could run, but we don't really know yet. It's way too soon. At the moment, it's been less than 24 hours since the news of Lindsey Graham's death hit. So we'll need to see who the possible candidates are and how they might do. I still don't, South Carolina would still not be on my list for a Democratic pickup for the Senate. I mean, look, if we're in a world where the Democrats pick up South Carolina, that means they've already got all the other states. They've already got Texas. They've already, you know, all of these other states they're winning in, maybe they win in Kentucky too, with whatever, you know, like that is, you know, the scenario here, like, look again, for the Democrats to win, they have to run the table on the competitive races of which South Carolina was not really considered one of them, which, and that gets them to a just bare minority, like a 51-49 Senate or something like that. Because remember, 50-50, Vance still is the tiebreaker. So that's still Republican. So they need to get to 51-49.
|
Sam:
[1:01:10]
| In a world where South Carolina actually gets picked up too, we're talking more than 51. And that.
|
Sam:
[1:01:21]
| Is already like Democrats getting to 51 is in play, but a long shot. They have to get everything going perfectly for them. Getting beyond that seems like crazy talk. So Mrs. Andrews here, Ms. Andrews, is probably still not going to win in South Carolina. But, you know, whenever something like this happens, you know, it scrambles everything. So we have to wait to see who the real candidate is and then get some polling and then see what that looks like. But apparently the whole process is going to be really damn fast. So we'll know in just a few weeks. And yeah, so with that, I'm going to take a break. I think, I forget if I mentioned or not, after the last segment, I was going to go out and do signs and stuff like that. I did some other stuff first and then I did signs, but it was already late. I got such a late start yesterday.
|
Sam:
[1:02:33]
| My target is doing four hours of signs every weekend and I did two hours yesterday. Day. So I'm going to do another two hours of signs before I come back and do a last segment here. And going to do a couple other things I need to do too. But it's, you know, anyway, I'll be back. I'll finish this up later and then we'll continue to there. Maybe there'll be more breaking news or maybe not. If there's no breaking news, we still have the NATO summit, Iran, Air Force One, and bin face on my list. If there is breaking news, who knows?
|
Sam:
[1:03:10]
| Anyway, that's it for now. I'll be back after this break, like a minute or so for, actually less than a minute for, for those of you listening on the proper podcast. There's nobody watching live right now, but if you're watching the, like, the live stream after the fact, Just so you can see the video of me with Alex making faces behind me, then, you know, it'll be at least hours before I come back. Maybe more. We'll see. Anyway, here's the break.
|
Sam:
[1:04:28]
| Oh, look, we're back. Yes? Are you trying to play something?
|
Alex:
[1:04:40]
| Testing, testing, one, two, three. Testing, testing, one, one, one. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Testing, testing, one, two, three. Okay, stop recording. Testing. One, two, eight.
|
Sam:
[1:05:00]
| Very nice. That was episode 659, test 128 from alexemzla.com. Anyway, we are back, and it is now Monday, July 13th, just before 7 UTC, as I am here to finish this off. And of course, time has once again gotten away from me, and it is late, and I am tired. And I have to not just record, but like put this thing together and all that kind of stuff. And I don't know exactly when I'm going to put out the episode. Probably sometime in the next 12 hours, maybe. But we'll see. Anyway, I had promised a little bit of talk about the NATO summit. I ran Air Force One and Binface. So let me run through those lickety-split. Lickety-split. Because we don't want to take too long. Let's start out with the NATO summit. Once again.
|
Sam:
[1:06:13]
| Trump at these things is always a disaster. He once again is showing his, whatever it is in terms of his abilities to keep track of things and know what's going on around him declining. I mean he he he said the islamic republic of japan one time when he was talking about iran he on a whim apparently said we're going to cut off all trade with spain which of course is not happening.
|
Sam:
[1:06:50]
| They later said oh well spain agreed to something and so that's all whatever right, And just generally veering from thing to thing. One thing that did happen is he appears to be trying to adjust his position with regard to Ukraine again, now that it seems Ukraine has the upper hand on some things. Because, look, here's a fundamental thing about Donald Trump. He has no steady positions about most things, but he wants to be on the winning side. So now he's starting to hedge his bets more. Whereas like a year ago, it seemed pretty clear. He was like, Ukraine, you have no cards. You know, you just need to let this thing be over and accept whatever terms Russia gives you, essentially. Now he's hedging his bets more. Look, my fundamental impression of the whole thing was just there goes Donald Trump once again, making a fool of himself and of the country in front of the whole world. And it's just ridiculousness.
|
Sam:
[1:08:03]
| But at this point, that's so normal because that's what he does all the time, that, I don't know, is there really a lot to say about it? He's behaving the way you expect him to behave. The, you know, as usual, these folks have to do a certain amount of sucking up to him because that's the way you get him to do what you want. I mean, on the one hand, he's like an insufferable idiot. On the other hand, he has shown himself to be easily manipulatable, manipulatable, manipulatable.
|
Sam:
[1:08:47]
| You flatter him in the right way and he'll go along with what you want. Even if only temporarily, because as always, it's like, who's the last person who talked to him? You know, you can flatter him, get what you want this minute. And then 10 minutes later, somebody else is, you know, talking him up and flattering him. And then, oh, well, he's just dumped you because the other person now says the opposite. And.
|
Sam:
[1:09:16]
| It's ridiculous. Is that enough about NATO? Meanwhile, I ran. We're apparently now fully at war again, although not really fully the you know the u.s and iran, have been trading blows back and forth i i you know the u.s has said the straits are open iran has said no they're not and like attacks a ship and then the u.s attacks back and then iran throws some missiles at some of the Gulf states. And then, you know, if you look at one of these graphs that actually shows crossings of the Strait of Hormuz, after the so-called ceasefire, transits were increasing. They were noticeably up again. Like, you look at the graph as how it used to be, and then drops to essentially zero and stays there. And then, you know, a few weeks ago, it starts going up again, nowhere near where it was. Like, I think it maxed out at like maybe 15, 20% of where it was originally, but then it's going back down again and it's close to zero again. And we'll see what it is next week because, you know, fundamentally, like if you're.
|
Sam:
[1:10:37]
| If you own one of these ships, you know, do you gamble on it or not? And right now, the situation is you probably don't want to gamble because things have been getting worse over the last week.
|
Sam:
[1:10:51]
| So you hang tight. And look, we're not, we're still not at the same levels of violence as the beginning of this thing. And but you know donald trump declared the ceasefire over but they're still negotiating, and look i figure you know i'd said a few shows ago that my prediction was we basically maintain the status quo, from now at least until after midterms because both donald trump and the The Iranians know this is, potentially important to the midterms because it affects the price of gas, and the price of gas affects how people are thinking about things, and that in turn affects the election. Now we are at the time i said that the status quo was basically a ceasefire with occasional violations of the ceasefire on both sides, i guess we're a little bit more than that right now but we're we're not in an all-out situation yet what could it escalate more still yeah of course it could.
|
Sam:
[1:12:08]
| But I feel like this is still in the sort of stalemate kind of situation where, there's a few attacks in each direction, but nothing that goes all out, that is most likely to remain in the situation for the next few months. I guess with some ups and some downs. But, you know, and you never know when Donald could just decide we're going all out. But I think he knows that's dangerous to his own domestic needs. Because other than an all-out victory, which would take a lot more than just dropping a few more bombs on Iran, But the continuation of this is not good for him. But yet he can't do nothing if Iran attacks a freighter. And so you get this sort of these tit-for-tat attacks. The other Iran-related situation ties into the next thing I was going to mention, which is Air Force One.
|
Sam:
[1:13:25]
| So Donald Trump took the new Air Force One from the U.S. to Turkey for the NATO summit. But then at the last minute, he did not take the new Air Force One, leaving Turkey. He took the old Air Force One from Turkey to England and then transferred back to the new Air Force One in England and went across the Atlantic that way. And the New York Times reported in detail about this and the administration is now suing the New York Times, for revealing things that they say should not have been revealed and is not suing. They're subpoenaing a whole bunch of people. And we'll see how that goes, because it's their major freedom of the press issues there. But reporting, and for those of you who aren't on the curmudgeon's corner slack, Yvonne has been saying, I told you so, up and down on the slack. But basically, the bottom line is the new Air Force One was not equipped with a lot of the features of the old ones. Specifically talked about are two things. One, anti-missile defense systems. And.
|
Sam:
[1:14:52]
| While Donald Trump was in Turkey for the NATO summit is when he escalated the situation with Iran and started attacking them again. So they were worried that Iran would retaliate by trying to hit Air Force One, because Turkey's right next to Iran, within range, potentially, of some of their missiles. So, and apparently there was some intelligence, and has been for a while, that Iran's been wanting to assassinate Donald Trump. And so they wanted him on a plane with some defenses, which had never been, you know, retrofitted onto this new plane. But also, and according to some of the reports, actually more directly and immediately relevant, was simply that the new plane doesn't have secure communications in the same way as the old one did either. Basically, they wanted, you know, Donald Trump was in the midst of ordering attacks on Iran. They wanted to have a flying situation room where he could have secure conversations with the military and make the decisions that needed to be made and all of this kind of stuff in a way that, you know, couldn't be intercepted. And the new plane doesn't have the same level of facilities for that as the old one. Because what Donald Trump really cared about are the new paint job.
|
Sam:
[1:16:21]
| It's a little bit bigger. And, according to reports, it has leather seats. And the old one did not. These are the things Donald Trump cares about. Okay. And not the fact that the old Air Force One was essentially built as a flying fortress, that could handle all presidential needs, even in the midst of, like, a nuclear war. And so it's it's missing a bunch of stuff and so, you know the because that's not what was prioritized for this now they're building some new air force ones legitimately that donald trump didn't want to wait for, that also made compromises and by the way these these compromises were agreed upon way back like in the obama administration these things take a while But like apparently the new ones they're building won't have in-flight refueling. The old ones do. And it's hardly ever been used, but it's a capability the old ones had that the new ones don't. And certainly this Qatari one doesn't.
|
Sam:
[1:17:35]
| But those were deliberate decisions based on trade-offs and all of this. It seems like the Qatari jet was based on just make sure it's ready for July 4th. Whatever you need to do. Just make sure it's ready for July 4th. I want to fly on it. I want my new, bigger plane with my color scheme and my leather seats and screw everything else. But the Secret Service was like, no, you're not flying out of Turkey on this thing. It's too dangerous. Priorities, man.
|
Sam:
[1:18:09]
| Also, I made this comment on the Curmudgeons Corps Slack and also on some social media, but Donald Trump also posted on Truth Soul—Truth Soldier—on Truth Social.
|
Sam:
[1:18:25]
| This rant basically saying to the Iranians, like, if you assassinate me, then I've left orders that you will have a full year of the most massive attacks you've ever seen without let up. And we will take massive retribution on you. So a number of people, you know, because, you know, assassinating him would be out of the realm of what's appropriate for a war like this.
|
Sam:
[1:18:59]
| A number of people have pointed out that, you know, if they actually succeeded in assassinating him, this wouldn't be up to him. Whatever orders he left, the new president could do whatever they wanted. Now, to be completely frank, whether it was Vance or some Democrat or somebody else, there is no American president that could not respond forcefully, extremely forcefully, to a foreign power assassinating a U.S. president. But, you know, it doesn't matter. Like, whether it would be the smart thing to do or not, whether or not in some cases it might be better to de-escalate the situation at that point, no American president would not react strongly to that. So a number of people have pointed that out. I don't think that's that relevant. The thing that I pointed out is, excuse me, you're saying it's illegitimate in the course of a war to go after, the other side's, the enemy's leadership?
|
Sam:
[1:20:09]
| How did this war start? What was practically the first shots of this war? It was an obliteration of the Iranian leadership. And not just, the number one guy, but huge swaths of the leadership. It would be the equivalent of somebody coming in and assassinating not just the U.S. president, but the vice president, the cabinet, significant portions of the leadership of Congress, parts of the Supreme Court, the whole thing.
|
Sam:
[1:20:48]
| And so people were saying, if the Iranians actually attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, that would be an escalation of the situation. Now, I'm not saying, that it would be the right thing for the Iranians to do it, but it would not be an escalation. It would simply be tit for tat. It would be doing to us exactly what we did to them.
|
Sam:
[1:21:11]
| And that's part of the problem with a lot of what we have been doing, is you lose any moral high ground whatsoever if you are in a situation where you try to say, like, oh, that would be wrong if you tried to assassinate our leaders. Well, you just assassinated ours. You know, oh, it would be wrong if you attacked us with a missile and blew up a school full of children. Oh, well, you just did that to us. You know, now there's a difference between doing that on purpose and doing it accidentally when you were trying to hit something else. But, you know, and that is important. But the point is, you know, you lose any moral high ground you may have had on those issues. And, of course, the Trump administration's view on all of this, of course, is it's not—I said this a few weeks ago—it's all about might makes right. There is no overall sort of moral principle that guides what is right or wrong, in warfare or in life in general. There's no like, you know, just war theory coming out of the Catholic Church.
|
Sam:
[1:22:39]
| Or, you know, the Hague conventions for...
|
Sam:
[1:22:45]
| You know, or the Geneva Conventions, sorry, the Geneva Conventions for the proper conduct of war, the law of war. None of this is relevant at all. It's just what can you get away with? And what are you strong enough to impose upon your enemy? And the reason why it's okay for us to kill their leaders, but it's not okay for them to kill our leaders is because we can. And because if they tried to do it to us, we would beat them down even more. It has nothing to do with any overall sort of moral conception of how this stuff should work or should not work or anything like that. It is simply, we're stronger, so we can do whatever the hell we want. Now, of course, this whole war has shown us the limitations of our power, actually. But nevertheless, I found that just, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:23:47]
| There's no sense of looking at yourself in any of these comments at all. You know.
|
Sam:
[1:23:58]
| I bet the thought never even entered Donald Trump's mind once that, hey, if it's legitimate for us to kill you, it's legitimate for you to kill us. You know, now, of course, my view, being much more pacifist about all these kinds of things, is none of it was legitimate. Like, none of this was necessary at all. You know, there was no need for any of this. There was no crisis situation that actually required a preemptive attack. It was stupid from the get-go. It was immoral from the get-go, etc. et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And there are, I struggle with, you know, the ideas of just war and when can you say that a war is actually justified and necessary and the violence involved in that, serves some sort of greater good because yes, you're killing people, but you're saving more people or whatever. I struggle with that. And, you know, Trump and folks don't struggle with that at all. But even if there are wars that can be properly justified, I mean, people give World War II as a sort of prototypical example of like, you had to do whatever it took to stop the Nazis. Period. End of story.
|
Sam:
[1:25:26]
| But even if there are wars that meet that criteria, this one certainly doesn't. There was nothing there that required this. You know.
|
Sam:
[1:25:38]
| The Iranians were in the process of negotiating with the U.S. And were in the process of offering something that was around the same, level of goodness as the Obama-Iran deal from way back when, which honestly was a pretty damn good deal at the time. And, you know, Donald Trump could have slapped his name on it and said, you know, it's better than Obama. I did great, blah, blah, blah, Obama's crap. But this is actually better, even if it was almost exactly the same thing. But no, that's not the direction he went. Okay. Finally, let's talk about Farage versus Binface. So Nigel Farage, am I saying his name wrong? Whatever. You know who I'm talking about.
|
Sam:
[1:26:32]
| He is the leader of one of the primary right-wing party in the UK at this point. He was the big Brexit pusher, one of the big Brexit pushers, and since then has gone on sort of this nationalistic, anti-immigrant, etc., etc. And his party in general has been making gains. He decided to sort of strengthen his position by resigning his position as member of parliament, which would mean they would have to have a by-election right away to replace him, but that he was going to run in that by-election to try to immediately get his seat back and basically sort of show his strength in that position. But all of the other major parties declined to run anybody. Basically said, this is a farce. He's running in a constituency where his party is likely to win anyway. He won by a significant margin in the last election. This is ridiculous. We're not going to participate. So they all bowed out. Leaving Nigel Farage.
|
Sam:
[1:27:55]
| Running against Count Benface. Count Benface, I think we've talked about him on the show a couple times before, is someone who for years now has been running regularly in various British elections. He is one of the joke candidates, and Britain has a bunch of these. I mean, we do too. We've got that guy with the boot on his head that always runs, forget the guy's name, but he always runs in like the New Hampshire primary and other things. Anyway, Count Binface wears a trash can on his head, and plays a character from outer space who, between intergalactic contests and conquests, comes to the UK and runs for things.
|
Sam:
[1:28:47]
| And then he picks his various issues, things that are somewhat trivial and not super serious or not the main issues of the day. Like, for instance, this time around, one of the things is apparently there is a pub in this constituency where the hand dryer is located in an inconvenient place between the urinal and the sink. It's one of these air hand dryers that senses your presence and goes off when you're nearby, and apparently it goes off whenever anybody's at the urinal and one of his positions is, it needs to be moved to a different location. Yeah. Things like that. Anyway, the only folks left contesting this with Nigel Farage are a handful of this kind of candidate.
|
Sam:
[1:29:46]
| Well, I don't know if the others are wearing costumes and masks. I think some of them were real people, but real people who were not serious candidates associated with major parties. Count Benface is by far the best known of these. He's really somebody who is a comedian, who does this as a bit, essentially. And I was interested in some of the coverage of this has noted that some of these joke candidates have won minor elections in the UK before. There was one that won a mayorality and became a mayor of some town and actually not only became mayor, served as mayor and was re-elected as mayor of this town. So it would not be unprecedented. But Count Binface is the most well-known of these. And at this point, you have essentially a one-on-one race between Farange and Binface. And Binface has been asked, been interviewed in the press. Why are you running? Why should people elect you? I'm not Nigel Farage.
|
Sam:
[1:30:56]
| In addition to all the other stuff, he says, I'm not Nigel Farage. And that apparently is good enough for a lot of people. And the situation in this, by the way, because the UK has a system with a bunch of parties, Nigel Farage won this constituency by a significant margin over whichever party was second and third, fourth, fifth, but he didn't get over 50%, which theoretically leaves the possibility that.
|
Sam:
[1:31:29]
| That if everybody who would have voted for one of the other parties just votes for Benface, Benface could win. And there's been some limited polling so far. The one polling I saw was like national polling that showed Benface actually ahead of Farage slightly. And then I don't know very, very high as well. I don't know that I've seen polling specifically in that constituency. Only but apparently, nigel farange is running scared a little bit they they have reallocated resources from other races in the uk for like a mayor's race that's going on to this one, because people are actually getting excited about bin face, and and just frankly wanting to stick it to for ranch. And what better way? Yvonne and I talked a few weeks ago, the last time Benface came up, because in the elections in the UK, everybody stands up on a little stage together when they report the results.
|
Sam:
[1:32:42]
| And Benface was there when, when the, suck at names, when the guy they expect, Burnham, I think it's Burnham, the guy they expect to probably be the next prime minister of the UK. When he won his election a few weeks ago, Benface was there too. You know, it's just one of those things that happens. And you know, they are all on stage together. And this would just be hilarious. That's all I got to say. I don't know that the guy's going to win, but it would be hilarious if he did. It would just be perfect. Now, apparently, Parliament does have some rules. If he did get elected to Parliament, he would not be able to wear his bin in Parliament. Now, he's said, you know, hey, they make exceptions for rules all the time. They should make an exception for me. We'll see how that happens. If that happens, it would be great. Anyway, like, and honestly, like, this is, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:33:46]
| It's not the worst thing in the world when a comedian known for parodying the system actually wins and gets it. Place, and sometimes they do a decent job. A reminder that Zelensky, before he was president of Ukraine, sorry, of Ukraine, the the is a Russian thing, before Zelensky was president of Ukraine, he was a comedian. And one of his biggest roles was playing the president in a parody, in a comedic version of the president of Ukraine. And then he went on to actually be elected the real president of Ukraine. Of course, we had Al Franken here, you know, become a senator before, you know, he left with one of these sex scandals. And, you know, and there's a whole thing about whether or not.
|
Sam:
[1:34:45]
| His issue was serious enough that he should have resigned or whatever, but he did. There was pressure. There was no tolerance at that point, and that's fine. Long gone.
|
Sam:
[1:34:55]
| And, you know, it wouldn't be all that bad. You know, people keep bringing up people like Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, those folks, you know, they don't want to do it, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. You know, I don't know.
|
Sam:
[1:35:16]
| There's a reason folks at this point often trust sort of fake news, The comedians and the ones doing fake news shows like The Daily Show more than regular news shows. I saw a thread on this, I don't know if it was Blue Sky or Threads or wherever, where somebody asked the question, why are these often trusted, especially by younger generations, more than traditional news? And, you know, there were a bunch of answers in the thread. But the ones that resonate are like, they don't pull their punches the way most newscasts do at this point. They're not afraid to talk about certain topics. Like they'll, they'll come out and talk about the, is Mitch, you know, is Mitch McConnell dead or what's the situation? And now that was on a lot of newscasts this time. So maybe it's not a good example. But they'll come right out and say the thing. And they'll couch it in jokes, they'll couch it in whatever, but they'll come straight at an issue where lots of the big media at this point...
|
Sam:
[1:36:32]
| You know, doesn't like to use plain language, likes to sort of very much hedge their bets, talk about, and you understand why, like, if they come out straight out and say, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:36:49]
| In Donald Trump's first term, it was always about why can't they actually say he's lying? You know, they're always like, you know, said something that appears to be untrue, you know, or otherwise softening the language or, you know, same thing with calling things racists, racially tinged, you know, things like that. And it was, that's part of it, is they just come right out and say the thing. And it's like, let's be direct about it. Let's talk about what we're really talking about. And, but, you know, at the same time, you know, they're not journalists. And they can exaggerate and say things. And so it would be nice to have people who actually were real journalists, not comedians. If you talk to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert over and over again, when confronted with this question, why do people trust you more? They're like, they shouldn't. We're not journalists. We're comedians. But people do because they come out, to use Colbert's own term on this, it's truthiness. You know, it's stuff that seems true and compelling and blah, blah, blah. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[1:38:12]
| It would be hilarious if Count Benface won. I suspect in the end he probably won't actually win. It would be awesome if he did. But it's clear that he's going to come closer than would be comfortable. And these snap by-elections are pretty quick. So we'll know in a few weeks. You know, other countries do this in a nice way where these things are fast. Well, hell, I mean, the Lindsey Graham replacement election is going to be really fast. The choice of the new person to replace Plattner is also going to be pretty fast. So sometimes we can do things quickly. But, you know, on the other hand, the 2028 presidential election invisible primary has already started. I feel late in setting up election graphs because it's already going on. But the traditional start point is the midterms, which still leaves you with two years for a presidential election, even if you don't count what's already happening is happening. Because it's really, at this point, it's close to the whole four years. Anyway, we'll see what happens with Count Benface. And I guess with that, it's time to wrap up. So what should I say what should I do how should I wrap up.
|
Sam:
[1:39:40]
| Curmudgeons-corner.com. You knew that was coming. Go there, find our transcripts, find our all the ways to contact us, listen to old shows. We're coming up quick on episode 1000. This is episode 996. So we only have 997, 998, 999, then episode 1000. I keep feeling like I should do something special and prep something special for episode 1000. We'll see. If I get around to it, I will. If I don't, I don't. Whatever. Anyway, you can also, of course, go to our Patreon where you can give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug.
|
Sam:
[1:40:32]
| And at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us and we feel like it. We will invite you to our curmudgeons course Slack where Yvonne and I and others are chatting throughout the week. Now, like I did a couple weeks ago, I'm going to ask Slackbot to give us some highlights. So let me type in the Slack box here. What were the biggest topics of conversation on the Slack over the, last week? Hit return. Let's see.
|
Sam:
[1:41:15]
| What Slackbox says. Okay, here's a rundown of the biggest topics on the Commissions Course Slack over the last week. Roughly July 6th through 13th. Okay. Okay, let's see. Most of these we've talked about. I don't have a way to tell it. Give me things that we have not talked about on the show because it hasn't been listening to the show. But number one, the U.S.-Iran war slash Middle East escalation. Number two, Air Force One and the new presidential plane fiasco. Number three, the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Number four, the Washington Post sports section being shown as a proof of life of Mitch McConnell. Number five, commentary on Mount Rushmore and Trump. Number six, grocery and food prices. And number seven, I often forget about this, but there is a games channel and people have been sharing their wordles. And other games, not just Wordles. Common games on there are the pointed news quiz from Bloomberg as well. Lately, people have been doing Map Tap as well. Map Tap is a game where they give you something that happened in the news and a description of the location, and you have to.
|
Sam:
[1:42:41]
| Place it on an unmarked globe so you can see the continents and the oceans, but there are no labels for countries or cities or anything like that. And you have to place the location of these events and you get scored by how close you got. So those have been the most common games lately. Anyway, that was the excitement under Curbudgeons Corner Slack. We'd love to have more of you join us. And including, by the way, those of you who actually are already members of the Slack but just haven't been in there lately.
|
Sam:
[1:43:15]
| Jump in, chat more. It'd be lovely to have more of you in there on a regular basis. There's some of you who like drop in. There's like a core group that's there like every day. And then there's like some folks who just drop in every once in a while. And in between are just never to be seen. And like there's some folks that pop in maybe once a week. There are other folks that maybe you see them once every couple months. Anyway, more of you should be there more often. And what's my other thing called? Robin Letter. If you're already on Robin Letter, invite more people. Make new Robins. Please, need some growth there. And if you're not already on Robin Letter, go to RobinLetter.com, sign up, and make some Robins. It's really good.
|
Sam:
[1:44:05]
| The use case it's great at is keeping up with extended family. And it's pretty good as well at keeping up with old friend groups, things like that. So give it a try if you haven't already. If you are already trying it, invite more people. Please. I suck at marketing this thing. I've been working the last few weeks on a bunch of invisible improvements that people can't even tell but make it better behind the scenes and I'm frustrated at my level of progress and want to build, a few things that will actually, people will see them immediately. But like I'm doing some things I feel like have to get done first, but it's annoying.
|
Sam:
[1:44:45]
| And I still suck at marketing. So I really, if you know somebody, if you out there know something about marketing and are decent at it and want to help me, drop me a line. I need help on that side of things. Anyway, it is time to say goodbye. So goodbye, everybody. Have a great week. We'll see you next time. Later. You know, I was going to end with later instead of goodbye, but I always say goodbye at the end. Goodbye.
|
Sam:
[1:45:45]
| Okay, and that's it. Goodbye to the live stream, folks, too. Later. See, I actually ended with later there, except I didn't because I kept talking. Bye.
| |
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