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Ep 872[Ep 873] Longittivity [1:37:20]
Recorded: Fri, 2024-Mar-01 UTC
Published: Sun, 2024-Mar-03 23:42 UTC
Ep 874

This week on Curmudgeon's Corner Ivan talks AirPods, migrants, and Mitch McConnell while Sam continues to catch up on movies, and of course goes over all the Trump legal cases. Between them, they fill up an exciting and eventful show, that surely you don't want to miss. Hit play now! Before it is too late!

  • (0:01:31-0:32:30) But First
    • Stereotypes
    • AirPods Usage
    • Scapegoating Migrants
    • Movie: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
    • Movie: Low Blow (1986)
  • (0:34:14-1:36:49) The Rest
    • Mitch McConnell Legacy
    • Doomed filibuster
    • Senatorial Replacements
    • Reading Into Primaries
    • Trump Civil Trials
    • Trump State Criminal Trials
    • Trump Federal Criminal Trials

Automated Transcript


Sam:
[0:00]
Hi hi you look different or your background is where are you guatemala oh okay very good i guess let's.

Ivan:
[0:14]
See if guatemalan internet is better than.

Sam:
[0:16]
Indiana indiana yeah Yeah.

Okay.

Ivan:
[0:25]
I also have to. It's 10 o'clock here. Okay.

Sam:
[0:29]
Okay.

Ivan:
[0:30]
I have to have a flight at 7, 10 a.m.

Sam:
[0:36]
So make this as short as possible.

Ivan:
[0:38]
Yes. Okay. Okay.

Sam:
[0:40]
Yeah. Yes. You know, time to whatever. Okay. Here we go.

I'm just getting all my stuff up so far.

Ivan:
[0:50]
The internet in Guatemala seems to be a lot better than.

Sam:
[0:53]
So far but like it didn't start like really flaking out in Indiana it was a little bit flaky but.

Ivan:
[0:59]
It was flaky since the.

Sam:
[1:01]
Beginning yeah well in Indiana you turned off the video to start with because it was flaky yeah right now here we go, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Friday, March 1st, 2024.

It's just after 4 UTC as we're starting. I'm Sam Minter, Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne.

Ivan:
[1:44]
How? wow isn't that you know i think we discussed once before.

Sam:
[1:50]
On the show that that like may be potentially offensive.

Ivan:
[1:53]
You may be right you know that was like so it was like in some shows like some kind of like making like the native americans like say hi in some way yeah it may be offensive i i don't know actually so i'm sorry my apologies i i you know i think i'm gonna research this before i ever say that again you know yes i i have no idea because there's so many things that we you know discuss but anyway all right yes please research um so good so anyway our.

Sam:
[2:29]
Agenda as usual is we're going to talk about lighter less newsy things in this first segment and then we'll take a break and then we'll we'll do let's do one segment where each of us pick one thing of newsy stuff after that because Yvonne's traveling again and needs to make it short because he has an early morning flight.

Ivan:
[2:51]
Yeah, I have a very early morning flight. So I'm reading here.

The word how is a pop culture anglicization of the Lakota word how.

A Lakota language greeting by men to men.

The term how is often found in stereotypical and outdated depictions of Native Americans made by non-Natives in some Hollywood movies and various novels.

But it appears to be... It appears to be...

Non-offensive? It appears to be a correct usage.

It's stereotypical where they say that every Native American is a good, but it is a greeting by a Native American group.

Sam:
[3:33]
So it's just cultural appropriation.

Ivan:
[3:36]
Yeah, maybe just, you know, well, not cultural appropriation, more like stereotypical, because I think it's that group of Native Americans, but not all Native.

It's like it's like sometimes you know you meet a you meet a latino and you know they're from spain or from you know not from spain because by the way that's a that's an issue because because they speak that's one that's great because they speak spanish and say they're latin i'm like i i say look you're people from spain to me are not latin american they're not latins they're from spain spain's in europe i.

Sam:
[4:09]
Was gonna start throwing out like stereotypical Latin American things, but I realized that that would be offensive and I should not do that.

Ivan:
[4:19]
I mean, like, sometimes they all eat rice and beans or something. I don't know.

That's stereotypical. It's not incorrect. Okay? Because in terms of I mean, we eat in Puerto Rico a lot of rice and beans and the Cubans do it, but not the Mexicans, for example.

And not like, you know, not like Argentinians, for example. That's not a staple.

Sam:
[4:42]
Okay.

Ivan:
[4:44]
So, thanks.

Sam:
[4:45]
So...

As usual, my bet first until I'm all caught up is going to be a movie.

Do you want to do something first?

Ivan:
[4:53]
Do I want to do something first? You know, I'll say this. So I'm wearing my AirPods today, okay?

Sam:
[4:59]
Yeah, so if you have audio complaints, that's because of that. Go ahead.

Ivan:
[5:04]
Yeah, well, here's the thing. I recently, I was watching somebody do, what was it?

Well, it's, I don't know, call pot.

Something that was on video. Okay. All right. That was on YouTube.

Okay. Because so many people are.

Sam:
[5:20]
They, they sometimes call them podcasts anyway, even though they don't meet the technical definition of podcast at this, at this point, podcast is basically a synonym for a show.

Ivan:
[5:29]
Yeah. In whatever media it comes, whatever meaning.

Yeah. And so, and, and, and, you know, this, this space is getting so fragmented right now.

You know, there's, there's so many people, old people, new people, there's old media types, new media types doing a whole bunch of the stuff.

Like, it really is just, right now, the space is getting so fragmented.

And so, I noticed that one person that I normally observe all the time, they had their AirPods in. But I did notice this.

They had them, like, I'm going to show Sam the way to do it.

Sam:
[6:02]
Oh, point it in a different direction to get better audio.

Ivan:
[6:05]
Point it like this, okay? Right. Or point it, like, straight ahead like this.

Sam:
[6:10]
I can definitely tell the difference in your audio when you've moved it.

Ivan:
[6:14]
And that's what I was saying I went and I told her on and I said Sarah, I don't know what the heck you're doing with the AirPods, but that's not the right way to wear them.

Sam:
[6:25]
So just to describe what Yvonne did, like the normal way people wear AirPods, and I've seen it all the time, and Yvonne's doing it right now.

The little tip that sticks out is sort of pointing a little bit forward, but mostly down.

Ivan:
[6:38]
It's mostly down. Okay.

Sam:
[6:40]
Mostly down, just a little bit forward. It sort of points towards your earlobes.

Ivan:
[6:44]
And what he had done.

Sam:
[6:46]
Is he had he rotated them so they were pointed basically straight for.

Ivan:
[6:51]
The tips were put in state or straight forward or all those like in some ways like sticking even out and and and the thing is that okay i'm like trying to explain look that you can't that impacts the sound i do realize that you can still hear wearing them like that but it's it it's not It's not the optimal way to be able to hear through them.

Sam:
[7:17]
Maybe her ears are just shaped very differently than yours.

Ivan:
[7:21]
No, I think she...

Sam:
[7:23]
She is an alien.

Ivan:
[7:26]
I think it's just... One of the things sometimes I've noticed is how sometimes we do things in a wrong way because nobody's ever taught us how to do it different until somebody at one point points to you, oh, you've been using it this that way.

How about try this? And you're like, oh, shit.

Fuck, that's much better.

And I think it's one of those things where it's not like these, a lot of these devices, they don't come with an instruction main.

Nothing comes with an instruction main anymore.

Sam:
[8:02]
You're supposed to just figure the shit out.

Ivan:
[8:04]
Right. And so people grab them and then they'll put them on that way.

Maybe it might feel more comfortable the reality is you mentioned itself i do think it also impacts the the the it has to impact the audio quality especially if you're using them as microphones so so yeah so i was just noticing that uh that that was just that was just one thing but uh no i do put them in like this i've been using you know i i realize i'm having an issue right now I'm debating what to do. I got these AirPods not that long ago.

New ones, because unfortunately...

My cleaning lady put accidentally my old airpods in the wash okay.

Sam:
[8:46]
Yeah i believe you even mentioned that on the show unless it's happened i did no.

Ivan:
[8:50]
No no i did i did no it's no of course it doesn't what would happen once okay that's it okay you know freaking you know they wound up in the wash.

Sam:
[8:56]
And and i believe when you mentioned this before i said like if i like right now i'm wearing the airpod max's things the big huge over ear headphones and i've said before if i ever ever owned that kind, the regular little kind that I would lose them or send them through the laundry in the first two weeks I owned them.

Like there's no way, like I just know, cause I, I've done that with, you know, sort of in ear wired headphones in my past over and over again, before I, before I made the switch to the big over ear headphones as my routine headphones, I would go through pairs of, you know, the wired Apple headphones.

I have, I have, I happen to have one right here. Why are you going?

Ivan:
[9:42]
There you go.

Sam:
[9:42]
You know, I would go through these or the cheap generic brand equivalents like once a month, you know, because I'd either lose them or wash something.

Oh, I, I, I threw, I threw the. Yeah, I threw the headphones, and iTunes opened and started playing music.

So I'm going to close that real quick. Yeah, okay, go ahead.

Ivan:
[10:08]
Sorry. So one thing that I bought these, and I believe that when I bought them.

So when I bought them is when I was replacing my phone also, because it happened to be that I was getting a new phone at the same time. So I got these.

Now, I've not gotten the noise reduction ones, the pros. Right, okay. in large part because, i had the big ones too big.

Sam:
[10:33]
Over ear ones for noise no.

Ivan:
[10:34]
I know i i have these uh pioneer rays earbuds that are noise they're still earbuds okay they're still earbuds and the one thing is that i that i had these were wired because the reason i i had these that were wired and i had them for a long time was because usually i would be using these on my very long trips when i traveled all the time i usually wanted the noise reduction ones when i was on an airplane because because they do reduce the noise from engines. They actually help me sleep.

And the earbuds, the one thing is, and I found that the bigger earphones, like the ones that you have, sometimes the airlines would provide those.

I found it very difficult to sleep with those on.

Okay, you know, so I like the earbuds.

They were small, they were comfortable, and sometimes I would not be playing anything just to reduce the noise, because that would help me actually get better sleep on a flight, especially you know i'm trying to traveling 9 10 12 14 hours okay on a plane i wanted to get some sleep and so it but the thing is why didn't i buy airpods because of the battery life because the problem is that battery life on an airpod five six hours not enough for a 14 hour long haul okay so that didn't really work for me and so but guess what 2020 happened and i stopped traveling like that and so when i use these i mostly use these for like exercise or casual stuff whatever like right now and well i you know i bought non-noise reduction airpods and when i I got the new phone.

I realized that these have a USB-C port.

Well, my old headphones were a lightning port. I was going to say firewire accidentally.

I'm like, no, it's not firewire. What am I...

No, that's much older. Lightning, okay? And so, hating myself, of course.

And so, I'm not... And so, So, well, I guess there's got to be a lightning to USB-C adapter, I'm sure. Okay, but I don't have one.

So I found myself that now I'm on a plane.

I'm not doing eight hours. I'm doing two to three hours.

And I'm wearing these non-noise reduction AirPods. And honestly, it's a little bit annoying.

But at the same time, I'm like, you know what? I only bought them a few months ago.

And I'm like, nah, I'm not going to buy a new set of AirPods right now.

I'm dealing with it right now. I wound up this year, I did not expect to be traveling this much right now.

Sam:
[13:27]
Right.

Ivan:
[13:28]
I have so far this year to the end of two months slept about 23 nights in a hotel in 60 days. That's a lot.

Sam:
[13:40]
That's a lot. That is a lot.

Ivan:
[13:42]
Okay. So I didn't expect it. I don't know if it's going to keep up like right now.

A couple of things did come in that there was some personal stuff as well.

Well, that happened at the same time.

I had a couple of weddings or whatever, and then a number of things just all piled up and just made it that I wound up.

But it might. Now, the one thing is that I'm like, okay, but even if I'm traveling, the one thing is that my flights are not that long.

Right. Coming to Guatemala City is barely two and a half hours in the year.

So, yeah, that's not... I can live with...

Regular air pod but i guess these are all just first world problems i don't know so but i'm using air pods i'm using them correctly they're positioned properly in my ear and so and we have internet that works much better than indiana much better than indiana so.

Sam:
[14:44]
Far so far.

Ivan:
[14:45]
And as i mentioned before guatemala city is lovely okay all right and so i will say that quite a lot of The tourists from the U.S.

Here have noticed that whatever – they noticed – I mean, I've been shocked by the number of American tourists that I've bumped into.

There's quite a lot of U.S. visitors. I didn't expect that many.

Well, it's good, and prices are cheap.

It's good. So that was one thing. But one thing that I found out today – and I noticed this before the pandemic. I mean, we talk all these things about the border and immigration one.

And Guatemala has been a hot topic related to, you know, immigration, okay, itself.

And, but one of the things that when we're talking about people coming into the U S a lot of them in Venezuelans crossing through Guatemala, Mexico, and into the U S well, I found out today, I didn't realize that it's very tough for right now for Venezuelans to get a visa to come to Guatemala itself.

Itself i was like whoa what i'm like yeah so i found out that we have an employee that is not into us has a venezuelan passport lives in another a third country and somebody told me well i'm gonna have to travel for them over there because they can't they can't get a visa to go to guatemala, i was like what so so this is one of these twists that u.s immigration and border policy has caused even some countries here in Central America to tighten their requirements for people coming in because they've been trying to appease the U.S.

Over the whole border dispute and stuff.

So, yeah, so check it out. I mean, Venezuelans cannot get visas basically like right now to come to Guatemala.

That one I did not have on my book or something. You know, I've been to other countries where the exodus of Venezuelans has caused a lot of friction in places.

I heard a lot about it in Colombia.

A lot of people were getting upset about it. Also in Ecuador and in Argentina, where many were.

And, you know, it's amazing how some of the same tropes and shit get used in other places.

You know in argentina i heard them blaming the venezuelan migrants for crime and bad whatever like man just i don't know everybody loves to escape with immigrants and i don't know if you saw last week but for some whatever fucking reason the president of argentina right now that in the local news down there he is supposedly like the guy that everybody's praising is trump what came in and like went to CPAC to go hug Trump for some reason okay okay one thing that is happening right now is that everybody has concluded in Argentina no matter where in the political spectrum this guy's a lunatic the new president and he's basically and he's basically pissed off everybody, any allies that he had people whatever he's basically right now all the bridges torched.

He's basically made an enemy of every governor.

There's like, nobody promised, I think 15, 17, all the provincial governors basically have said to him, F you.

And all the bills that he said were going to change the country or whatever, basically are right now all dead in the water because nobody wants to, Deal with his insanity.

Okay. And it didn't tell the U.S. to hug Trump?

Sam:
[18:38]
Of course he did.

Ivan:
[18:41]
Like, they were all like, why? What? Anyway. But that's our report.

Sam:
[18:48]
You know, and I've noticed, like, because you've been traveling so much, for the majority of episodes so far this year, your but firsts have always been in some way travel related.

Ivan:
[19:01]
Well because i've been traveling way too fucking much now.

Sam:
[19:06]
Of course all of almost all of mine have been movies so we're in a bit of a rut okay next.

Ivan:
[19:13]
Week we gotta we gotta come up with something else okay all right fair enough.

Sam:
[19:16]
All right okay how many more.

Ivan:
[19:18]
Movies do you got left anyway.

Sam:
[19:19]
Oh uh a lot still and and like i haven't you know i i've only added up on my list here up through mid-january at this point and one two I got 15 of these through mid-January and then there are a handful of more I watched in end of January and February.

I don't watch one a week. So if I do one a week, I will eventually catch up, but it will take a while.

Ivan:
[19:55]
Movie.

Sam:
[19:57]
Movie. movie this is from back in july howard the duck no but i will now have to add that to my list because you mentioned it i'm sorry it's probably on there already but you know whatever you.

Ivan:
[20:13]
Know you'll wind up watching it twice god.

Sam:
[20:17]
I'm sorry would you recommend howard the duck no, it's such a bad movie.

Ivan:
[20:26]
Who the hell came up with the idea of making that movie it's just.

Sam:
[20:30]
Okay well the one I have for today did win a bunch of awards so it's from 2020, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Ivan:
[20:42]
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom yes, never heard.

Sam:
[20:49]
Of it I've never heard of it. Well, it was, so it, let's see, let's go for awards first.

Five nomination, five Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Chadwick Boseman. It was his last movie.

Best Actress, Makeup, Hairstyling, Costume Design.

And then a bunch of other things. So reading from the Wikipedia description, as I do, it's a 2020 American drama film directed by George Wolfe, written by Ruben Santiago Hudson, based on a 1982 play of the same name by August Wilson.

Film stars Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glenn Turman, Coleman Domingo, and Michael Potts.

It's inspired by the career of Ma Rainey, who was an influential blues singer in the 1920s.

Ivan:
[21:46]
Okay.

Sam:
[21:48]
And so anyway, it basically dramatizes a single recording session in 1920s Chicago where she comes into town and there's the record producer and they want to get her in there, record some songs, get her out of there.

And she's making all these demands about how she wants to do and the producers want her to do one song and she doesn't want to do that song.

She wants to do a different song.

And there are characters around them having various drama and things happen.

Okay. And at one point there's violence, there's people arguing about various things, there's people having affairs.

All of this happening during a two-hour recording session or whatever.

Anyway, like I said, it got lots and lots of critical acclaim.

It was okay. I'm giving it a thumb sideways, not because it wasn't good.

I could tell throughout the whole thing, it was a high-quality production.

You could tell there was good acting. You could tell that the, the, the way they did the drama and everything else, like it was stylized in a way that was interesting and all of that kind of stuff, you know?

And so like, if, if you're, if you're looking for like, high art cinema, this, this clearly hits a bunch of the right notes.

Um, and that's why it's got a bunch of good reviews and won a bunch of awards and all that kind of stuff.

But I personally found it a little slow and just not quite my style.

Like it was, it was definitely interesting.

I'm I'm not giving it a thumbs down by any means. It was a good movie, but it wasn't one that I like was really excited about while watching it.

It was sort of like, okay, you know, I, I can see that this has some things going for it.

But you know, let's, let's get to the end and move on, you know, sort of, I mean, you know, it's not like it was long or something.

It's only 94 minutes. It's actually a kind of short movie.

And, and, and again, like lots of high quality stuff here.

There was good stuff going on. It just didn't, it, it just didn't resonate with me.

Ivan:
[24:25]
Okay.

Sam:
[24:26]
Wasn't my kind of movie, but it was clearly a good movie.

So it, you know, it's, if you know the difference, it's like, I can tell that this is a high quality, good movie that deserved the accolades that it got without me personally being like oh my god i loved it.

Ivan:
[24:45]
Do you.

Sam:
[24:47]
Know what i mean you know what i mean.

Ivan:
[24:48]
No no no i i get what you're saying i mean you i think like i still remember for example this academy award-winning movie sometime in the 80s chariots of fire and i've never seen it i'll.

Sam:
[25:03]
Add it to my list too.

Ivan:
[25:04]
God damn it is that.

Sam:
[25:05]
The one with the runners right the runners on.

Ivan:
[25:07]
The beach yes yes and and I remember what I know.

Sam:
[25:11]
The music I know the music.

Ivan:
[25:12]
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I remember watching the movie and I thought the same thing about that movie is what you think about this movie obviously a very well late Udi whatever, You know, it's good, but it's just not for me.

Sam:
[25:31]
Right.

Ivan:
[25:32]
That's it. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad.

There is no objectively. I can't say it's a bad.

But I just, you know, stop the kind of movie I enjoy. And so I could watch and it's OK.

You know, I'm not going to, you know, go, you know, do like I remember some really bad movies. I remember being at a really, really bad movie once where people walked out of the theater after the first 30 minutes.

Sam:
[26:00]
Right.

Ivan:
[26:02]
I can tell you that. Actually, I'll tell you. It's actually one of the, I found out now.

It's one of the lowest ranked movies in IMDb history.

Okay. There's a movie called Low Blow. It's called Low Blow.

Sam:
[26:16]
Oh, I reviewed that. I watched it because you must have mentioned it.

Ivan:
[26:20]
I must have mentioned it.

Sam:
[26:21]
Bit okay you must must have mentioned it before i watched it last year yes it was oh it was horrid it was it was like the worst it was like it was low low budget crap in a way that like sometimes low budget stuff ends up being interesting or amusing just because like it's funny that it's so bad no this was just so bad it was so bad yeah.

Ivan:
[26:46]
Yeah no no but this was not no no this is just is just crap. It was just bad and bad.

Sam:
[26:53]
I reviewed it on one of the shows that you missed. I reviewed this movie.

Ivan:
[26:56]
Damn it. I cannot believe I missed that one. But look, listen, I went to the theater.

Sam:
[27:02]
You saw it in the theater. Oh my God.

Ivan:
[27:05]
And people, unless people were walking out.

Sam:
[27:08]
I think he did walk out. I think he wound up walking out. I watched the whole damn thing.

One thing that like, I'm going to repeat myself for anybody who did hear the show where I reviewed this, but like, I can't even remember like the name of the streaming service I found it on.

It's like not like one of the normal ones. It was like Tubi or Pluto TV or some crap like that.

Whatever it was, it had commercials. It had commercials in it.

And you know how I hate commercials.

But not only did it have commercials, it technically did not know how to play the commercials properly.

So what happened is the commercial would start, but the audio from the movie would continue while the commercial was playing.

And then when the commercial ended you had to rewind to see what was playing underneath the commercial and and the commercials themselves were for like local like you know clean your septic tank bullshit or something you know so like so anyway you should take it out here.

Ivan:
[28:26]
We go Look, look, I'm over it, all your shit.

Literally yes.

Sam:
[28:32]
It was yes i agree that was a horrible horrible movie that really.

Ivan:
[28:37]
Was horrible walked out of the theater i mean i'm pretty sure we did not state it was just i mean we were not the first to walk out of the theater, but it was just so bad people just got up and left and it takes and it takes an intensely bad movie for people yeah when i when i reviewed it.

Sam:
[29:03]
I was like some it must have been yvonne mentioning this jackass.

Ivan:
[29:07]
Movie on the show and.

Sam:
[29:09]
Now i'm watching it and.

Ivan:
[29:11]
And and it is and and and the the bad reputation is 100 deserved it is not you know yeah it's it's not, some people are talking about recently how maybe like the movie ishtar was you know now in retrospect is not as bad as it looked and i actually you know that there's yeah i'll.

Sam:
[29:35]
Add that to my list too.

Ivan:
[29:36]
But but yeah on imdb low blow it has a rating of 4.0 out of 10 okay and uh oh it does.

Sam:
[29:46]
Not even deserve a four.

Ivan:
[29:48]
It does not even deserve a four i don't understand how it's a four I know it's one of the lowest rated movies in IMDb and critic reviews let me see there's one over here the reviews on this are just hilarious let me see well this one's in German so I can't read that one let me see Jesus, I mean where are the where do people reviews, see all user reviews okay here we go well well the the, I wouldn't be surprised if this movie was made on a $500 budget with its bad acting and poor and ultra poor sound quality. I bought the DVD for $3.

After watching it, I felt like I paid $2.95 too much.

And these are the, you know, this is the kind of reviews of the movie. Okay. All right. Okay.

Sam:
[30:49]
One last thing on Ma Rainey, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom that I remember that is part of is is I, it, and I just read this part of the top of the Wikipedia that I said before, it's based on a play and that's actually like, it feels like a play.

I realized part of what it is. Like if, when you're watching the movie, it definitely feels like a play.

They're only like a handful of sets and it's characters standing there talking to each other and that kind of thing.

And so, and you know, and they, they, they it's just it feels like it's not that far off from what you would get if you just had people record the play i mean it's not quite because but it it has that feel to it it does feel like a play they didn't make big changes here yeah no like there's all all kinds of people involved in this that are you know famous people that do good work and it has a 97.

Ivan:
[31:58]
Approval rating on rotten tomatoes so there you go.

Sam:
[32:01]
It's a it's a good it's not for me it's a.

Ivan:
[32:04]
Good movie just not for you yeah okay all right fair enough.

Sam:
[32:07]
Okay i think we uh can wrap that up and get to the real stuff now well not that that's not real but you know, So, here comes our first break, and then we'll be back, and, you know, Yvonne will pick one topic, then I'll pick one topic, and then we'll be done. There you go.

Here's the thingy.

Break:
[32:34]
You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No!

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Sam:
[34:14]
And we are back, so Yvonne!

Ivan:
[34:17]
We are back.

Sam:
[34:18]
What's our first newsie topic going to be?

Ivan:
[34:21]
Ah, first newsie. Man, I'm a little bit...

Okay, so I am in between the uncommitted vote in Michigan or McConnell leaving.

Those are my two.

Let's talk about McConnell, okay?

Sam:
[34:42]
Okay, let's do it.

Ivan:
[34:45]
So McConnell finally decided that this is his... He's leaving. Okay.

Sam:
[34:52]
And specifically, he is leaving leadership at the end of this congressional term, but he will remain in the Senate till he finishes out his Senate term, which is a couple more years after that. But he won't be in leadership.

So same kind of thing that, what's her name, Pelosi did in the House, where she's no longer Speaker, but she's going to continue to be in the House.

Ivan:
[35:17]
Yeah.

Sam:
[35:18]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[35:19]
You know, the crazy thing that I said about this is that if this were, say...

If I heard this in 2012, I would be really jumping for joy.

Sam:
[35:38]
Because McConnell is evil. He's done all this bad stuff. Blah, blah, blah. Good to see him gone. Good riddance.

Ivan:
[35:46]
But right now, his party has turned into such a shithole.

Sam:
[35:54]
That he's the act of what's of reason.

Ivan:
[35:57]
Yes.

Sam:
[35:59]
That's the crazy thing. yeah as as as as as horrible as mcconnell has been all of the things you i mean i i've heard commentary since he announced that he's stepping down and all this about now he was the one who broke the senate he was the one who started filibustering absolutely everything to obstruct obama yeah uh you know where the only purpose of the senate was to prevent an obama second term which didn't work.

But in the meantime, he stopped like all kinds of things from happening.

And then of course, all the shenanigans with the Supreme Court and all that kind of stuff.

And so there, there are lots of like things that you can say about McConnell in terms of how bad he was and how, even on January 6th, like there was the, he came out and was like, yes, this is 100% Trump's responsibility, but no, I'm not going to vote to convict him because you know, the courts will take care of him and I don't want to deal with that.

And then like seconds later, like it seemed like all that had disappeared. Right.

So yeah, all of that. But at the same time, At this point, he is one of the most sane people on the Republican side in the Senate.

Ivan:
[37:17]
Exactly.

Sam:
[37:18]
And all of the people who are potential replacements to him are worse.

Ivan:
[37:25]
They're all lunatics.

Sam:
[37:27]
Like right now, at this very moment, we're talking about various things where the House is crazy, but at least the Senate is still trying to get things done.

Like they tried to do that immigration deal they failed because donald trump scuttled it in the house but they they actually came up with an immigration compromise that like they were all on board with right yeah it it it was able to overcome the filibuster numbers in the senate which like yeah you can hardly say that about anything more controversial than a post office Any legislation.

Ivan:
[38:02]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam:
[38:04]
You know, and so the Senate was still doing stuff.

But we're looking at a scenario where, you know, one of these yahoos is going to replace him and the Senate's going to be just as dysfunctional as the House.

And because of filibuster rules, that's going to be true, even if the Democrats keep the majority, let alone if the Republicans take it.

Ivan:
[38:28]
I mean I think at that point is when the dam breaks on the stupid filibuster I mean I just don't see how the hell you know if the Democrats keep the Senate, and they've got majority whack job whatever they come up with because it's going to be Mr.

Sam:
[38:48]
Majority Lunatic Minority Leader Minority Leader I mean.

Ivan:
[38:55]
It's like yeah I mean look would you be surprised if it's Tuberville.

Sam:
[39:01]
No easy no the only one to put their name officially in the ring so far is corn corny corny how do you say his name corny corny the one the one from texas who's not ted cruz yeah.

Ivan:
[39:12]
The one from texas is not ted cruz basically the.

Sam:
[39:14]
One by the way just as an aside apparently ted cruz is in trouble in texas like because no no he's not polling well for his re-election, like you know now it is texas so he'll probably pull it out and win but it's apparently much closer than anybody expected so because everyone hates ted cruz and.

Ivan:
[39:40]
That's and that's his problem i mean.

Sam:
[39:42]
That's his problem.

Ivan:
[39:43]
Everybody hates ted okay and you know i've heard that from people that i know republicans straight up just saying how much they hate him.

Sam:
[39:52]
Right and.

Ivan:
[39:53]
So that's his prop. Yeah. Is this, he everybody hates ted cruz he said he's an asshole i mean great up what.

Sam:
[40:05]
What wasn't that a tv show everyone hates ted no that was chris never mind but.

Ivan:
[40:10]
You know everyone hates chris but it could be everyone hates ted cruz.

Sam:
[40:15]
Might as well be.

Ivan:
[40:16]
I mean we could make that into a tv show, make it into a podcast there you go i mean everybody's got a podcast so what the hell that should.

Sam:
[40:27]
Be ted cruz's podcast if it isn't.

Ivan:
[40:29]
Everybody hates ted cruz that should be a podcast that sounds that sounds great okay.

Sam:
[40:35]
I i got you distracted from mcconnell.

Ivan:
[40:39]
More well it's just look i mean i it's just the whole thing it's just the fact that, when we all look the health issues he's not getting younger no i mean he clearly he's.

Sam:
[40:55]
At had issues over the last year you know he's he's he's the same age as biden right just about.

Ivan:
[41:01]
Right 82 um i think but he but unlike biden he's.

Sam:
[41:07]
Had really obvious health issues over the last year he had the he he had the the places where he froze up he had a concussion after a.

Ivan:
[41:17]
Fall yeah at the fault yeah he's 82 yeah but mitch is 82 and.

Sam:
[41:22]
You know not not that people can't be in good shape at 82 but mcconnell does not seem to be.

Ivan:
[41:29]
Mcconnell does not seem to be i mean and it's been recent issues and so i mean i get it okay you know it makes perfect sense like it makes perfect sense yeah i mean and so honestly.

Sam:
[41:43]
He hasn't seemed up to the job in since those health issues last year.

Ivan:
[41:49]
And so i completely understand um but it's just the whole thing about his replacement man i'm sorry i i have not i've saw all these people jumping for joy, Gleeful about you know Getting rid of this asshole And I'm just like We're getting rid of him for I mean it is It is guaranteed, That whatever we're getting Makes Mitch Look like a teddy bear Right, Now the one thing is on the flip Side on the flip side I will say, Look the one Thing that Mitch had Was that he was a prick With a lot of policies that we hated But he was smart And he knew How to get The shit that he wanted Okay He was effective To get their shit done The problem that they've got is that they bring in One of these morons And.

OK, who is a shithead that we you know, then and this is a guy that also, you know, that is not as we were saying this about some of these things, you know, Mitch McConnell is he may want his policies, but he wants a democracy in place.

He just he's just you know he was just very adept at working it okay you get a moron, yeah it might be a lot more extremist in line with them whatever but then you wind up with the dumb ass votes and the shit that's happening in the house like right now where they they have the majority and they can't do shit yeah.

Sam:
[43:28]
And this this is i think the senate you unless one side or or the other, gets rid of the filibuster.

I think the reality in the Senate is no matter who has the majority, it's going to be paralyzed regardless.

You know, you know, you can't get 60 votes for shit except things that like are relatively uncontroversial and great on them when they can get that done.

I mean, you know, we did get the infrastructure bill done. We did get some We didn't get the infrastructure.

Now, that was like we used reconciliation or whatever, so you didn't have to have 60 votes on that one, if I remember correctly.

Ivan:
[44:07]
No, but we did get – but there was a smaller infrastructure bill that we did get that did go through without that.

Sam:
[44:15]
Okay. Yeah. I mean, so there are a few things that get done.

But for the most part, right now, in our political environment, the filibuster means no matter who has the majority, you basically can't get anything done except approve judges, you know, and name post offices.

Ivan:
[44:35]
Do we have the Samuel Minter Memorial Post Office already?

Sam:
[44:39]
I hope there's not a memorial post office.

Ivan:
[44:42]
Or maybe, don't write this. You know, yeah.

Try to kill me off early okay, over there it's like what the fuck what am i dead already okay so let's get the memorial post office okay that would be and.

Sam:
[45:03]
What you were trying to save on is abels may nor bat no it romney.

Ivan:
[45:07]
No i bought no it romney yeah i was gonna say yeah we're gonna make it the abels may know about no it romney post office yeah we'll make sure yeah exactly Exactly.

Now, make sure to get that.

Sam:
[45:17]
And I've said before, I think the filibuster is doomed.

It's only a question of when does the right confluence of events happen to make them kill it?

And it could be either side. It could be either the Democrats or Republicans who actually pull the trigger on that.

You just need a situation where the party with the majority, but less than votes has something they really, really, really care deeply about.

And that's the only way to get it done. And you have enough of a buffer to like override the people like mansion and cinema who are like, you know, I, I support this thing, but I don't support getting rid of the filibuster because I'm really queasy about how the other side will use it once they have it, you know?

So you probably need not just, you know, it needs to be a really big thing that overcomes that kind of resistance because you know mansion and cinema were the ones that were sort of vocally against it when people were talking about it a couple years back but there were others, yeah but there there are others who don't really want to get rid of the filibuster too it's not just two so you you need something important but it's only a matter of time it's only a matter of time it will the the filibuster will be gone as soon as the right set of issues comes together at the right time for something that has between 50 and 60 votes I agree, anyway anything.

Else on Mitch, I'm not I mean.

He'll still be there on the back bench for a little while yet the other thing, I wanted to mention on Mitch is he is also orchestrated Kentucky right now has a Democratic governor.

So Mitch made sure that the Kentucky legislature pushed through changes to the process for appointing replacement senators if a vacancy becomes open.

So it's not just the governor appoints them, because you don't want the governor appointing a Democratic replacement.

So it's now a system similar to what Washington has for state legislatures, which is how my wife got appointed, where when a vacancy becomes open, the party submits three names and the governor has to select from them.

So like in this case, if Mitch McConnell did resign, he's not resigning right now, or health issues got worse, whatever, the Kentucky Republicans would nominate three names and the governor would have to pick from them. The governor could not pick a Democrat to replace him.

Which was not the law a few years back. They changed that recently.

Ivan:
[48:14]
I don't like that. In response. I don't like that method. I mean, I don't like the appointment method.

Okay? I think it should be.

Sam:
[48:25]
You think they should just have a special election? Yeah. Right away.

I mean, even when they appoint them, they only appoint them until the next November election. So it's like.

Ivan:
[48:34]
No, but still. I think that it should be a special election as soon as possible.

It's a very important it's a very important.

Sam:
[48:42]
Position and i think that it should be elected as.

Ivan:
[48:44]
Soon as possible maybe they can make an interim.

Sam:
[48:45]
That's what happens in a lot of house positions too and look at what santos they get to they get to fill out they do get to fill out the term don't they right just like maybe it depends i don't know anyway i i think you're right a special election would be great i guess the appointment method is the theory is it's It's important enough.

You don't want to have the vacancy open very long, so you fill it as quickly as possible.

But yeah, I think each state does this differently.

Ivan:
[49:15]
You know, but then you got...

Sam:
[49:17]
I think this is actually different by state.

Ivan:
[49:19]
I'm pretty sure. You know, the one thing is, look at the back of the... I could be full of shit.

For example, with fucking Governor Blagojevic trying to basically...

Sam:
[49:28]
Blagojevic.

Ivan:
[49:29]
Fuck him, whatever his name is. You know, I don't... I'm not going to pronounce...

Exactly. That guy doesn't deserve to have his name properly pronounced however the fuck I want.

I mean, like, bloggo bullshit, whatever his name is.

Dickhead. Boy.

Sam:
[49:51]
Is he out of jail yet?

Ivan:
[49:52]
He is out of jail. He was on Survivor, I think, on that TV show, I think.

Sam:
[49:59]
I don't know. Or was it The Masked singer or one of those things.

Ivan:
[50:04]
I think it was Survivor. I think it was on Survivor. I mean, yeah.

Sam:
[50:11]
You're going to have to check it right now.

Ivan:
[50:13]
Now that you've mentioned it. Hold on.

Sam:
[50:17]
Maybe he was in Low Blow.

Ivan:
[50:19]
I mean, makes sense. Let's see. Da-da-da-da.

Trial. Post-tribal conviction.

Oh, Donald Trump commuted a sentence. Pardon him. That's right. After having...

Sam:
[50:37]
He was on Celebrity Apprentice speaking.

Ivan:
[50:39]
President Donald Trump, hours after having pardoned commentator Dinesh D'Souza.

Yeah, you know, a couple of criminals. He commuted a sentence.

So, yeah. That's how he got out of there.

And I guess he was on Celebrity Apprentice as well. Yeah, I think I remember that he was in.

Sam:
[50:59]
But earlier in 2010.

Ivan:
[51:02]
Yeah. Well, that but that was after he tried to sell the seat.

Sam:
[51:07]
But before jail before jail.

Ivan:
[51:09]
Right.

Sam:
[51:11]
Interesting.

Ivan:
[51:12]
Yeah.

Sam:
[51:14]
Okay. Anyway. My turn.

Ivan:
[51:18]
It says here that in May 2020 20. Look, you'll love this.

Blackwell, fuck him, launched a politics themed podcast titled The Lightning Rod on WLS AM 890.

The podcast ran through September 2021.

Sam:
[51:38]
You know, his longevity is like nothing compared to this show.

Ivan:
[51:44]
Longevity? Longevity. Longevity?

Sam:
[51:48]
Okay.

Ivan:
[51:49]
Okay i don't know you could put together a lot like longitude yeah it was a longitude with like, longevity that should be the name of this episode longevity yes absolutely absolutely that's the name it's logic longevity there you go all right that's technical term okay my turn.

Sam:
[52:14]
Okay. Now your, your topic of like the Michigan uncommitted is also tempting, but I'm not going to go there because we did have Donald Trump trial news this week. That was fairly, I feel like trial news.

I feel like I have to go there. So the only thing I'm going to say about primary results is people are trying to read all kinds of things.

Because everyone knows it's Trump versus Biden, people are trying to read in all kinds of things to the primary results to try to make inferences about the general election.

And I think some of them may be valid, but I'm not really sure.

Sure. So like I, you have to be really careful about that because primary electorates are different than general election.

But you know, when you have candidates that are having problems getting, you know, the full percentages, maybe you can read something into that.

But if you do, Trump has a much worse problem than Biden does.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan:
[53:25]
I mean, if that's what you're reading Yeah, I mean, that would be the only read that you have.

But look, I mean, it's like you said, it's tough to read a lot out of it.

I mean, you can tease out, what can you tease out? Well, that's going to be Trump versus Biden.

That's a one salient point. Anything else is pulling hairs out of it.

Sam:
[53:58]
There's a lot here that is just about, oh my God, we've got a boring primary season.

How can we make some drama out of it?

So let's talk about Haley and let's talk about Uncommitted.

We need to fill the airtime somehow. somehow whereas this yeah.

Ivan:
[54:19]
I mean my only listen my only maybe there's something on the democratic side you can't conclude anything as one thing is people talking about the uncommitteds is that the numbers are very similar to shit that's happened before and like similar yeah yeah primaries that there's no statistical significant change on that one on the on the on the trump on the on the republican side yeah it's you can say well okay trump's numbers are low okay for somebody that is supposed to be a fail complete candidate the numbers are low but what can i say about those other votes are they just it's just gonna hold their nose and vote for trump are they not i don't know how many of them yeah then there's some anecdotal.

Sam:
[55:06]
Evidence that like haley voters are are more likely to not vote for Trump in the end, which doesn't necessarily mean going to Biden.

It might be staying home, but I think it's very fuzzy right now.

I think people trying to read into it are, are stretching like there might be something there.

There may be something there. I hope there's something there, but yeah.

And on the democratic side, I think they were intending, they were intending to send a message and perhaps they sent the message like Biden has some work to do to, convince, specifically in Michigan, it was voters who were really concerned about how Biden is handling Israel-Gaza.

And there's definite weakness there.

He has to figure out something to have a better story there before we get to November, I think, because there's a significant number of Democrats who are upset about his handling there.

Now, I hope those Democrats Democrats don't tank it for him because Donald Trump would be so much worse on the issues they care about.

On the issues they care about, if you really want to improve things, your best bet is keep Biden and convince him to do better.

Ivan:
[56:32]
If you dump Biden and get Trump- It's the whole thing that, like I've said before, at least Biden is heading in the direction that you want to go maybe it's not exactly in the right direction but the other putting the other guy is going the opposite direction diametrically well.

Sam:
[56:49]
I mean some some of these people would argue biden's not going in the direction they want to go and he's going.

Ivan:
[56:55]
The wrong way no no no but he's not going no no even.

Sam:
[56:58]
If even if he's going the wrong way he's not going in the wrong way anywhere near as fast as trump would.

Ivan:
[57:04]
Well what i'm saying so i listen well there there he is they say that But the reality is that if I take direction as, like, say, I'm going to split a direction as north or south, okay?

Maybe you want to head straight north. But I'm tacking a little bit like, I'm tacking like northwest.

So I may not be going in the straight direction to where you're going, but I'm not going in the fucking opposite direction.

Sam:
[57:30]
Right.

But what I'm saying is, even if they believed that he was going Southwest, he's still not going due South.

Right. You know, so anyway.

Okay. I said we wouldn't talk about that. So we did that really quick.

Trump legal stuff.

Ivan:
[57:52]
Trump legal stuff.

Sam:
[57:53]
We've got developments on so many cases.

Ivan:
[57:56]
So Trump is a genius.

Sam:
[57:59]
Tell me more.

Ivan:
[58:00]
He figured out that you can negotiate How much you pay.

Sam:
[58:10]
So this is in reference specifically to the 430 and counting 150 million dollars is it 450 now apparently and i think it was on last week's episode that i mentioned people had estimated 87 000 a day the most recent estimate i saw was actually more like 111 000 yeah well Well.

Ivan:
[58:32]
Fannie Willis is trolling him by tweeting the number every day.

Sam:
[58:36]
Yes. And there are a number of websites that track it in real time.

Ivan:
[58:40]
Is it Fannie Willis? No. Am I confusing? No. I'm confusing.

Sam:
[58:43]
You're confusing him. It's. Yeah.

Ivan:
[58:44]
Yeah. It's not Fannie Willis.

Sam:
[58:47]
What's her name? Yeah.

Ivan:
[58:48]
New York prosecutors. Like, that's not. Yeah. Not Fannie Willis. Sorry. But. Go.

Sam:
[58:54]
Go find out.

Ivan:
[58:54]
God. Yeah.

Sam:
[58:57]
Get it right.

Ivan:
[58:58]
I know.

Sam:
[58:59]
And of course, as soon as you can't remember, I blank on the name of course uh Letitia because that's how Letitia James Letitia James there we go of course so we're anyway 460 and counting whatever the hell it is and he submitted a petition to the court saying would 100 do 150 like something like that can I just submit that would that be fine and uh they within in in like 12 hours or something they came back and was like Like, no, no, sorry, sorry.

Ivan:
[59:31]
And he's saying that he has to liquidate things in order to pay for that.

Now, somebody today, there was an interesting thing, and I'm not totally sure.

I went and I did pull the official records to to check.

OK, they were saying that Mar-a-Lago, the club was incorporated in New York. Yeah.

As well okay now they had changed the incorporation address at some point to florida, but i do believe that at the time that the crimes were committed it was incorporated in new york as well which i found i think so i i don't know if that i mean if that makes any damn difference or or not at this point in terms of him yeah assets but but his listen his issue right now is very simple i i wish i okay he needs to post a bond or he needs to post a month and one of the things that i that i had that i had mentioned when he.

Sam:
[1:00:41]
When he asked about the 100 by the way the the the appeals court did say they did drop the restriction on him using new york banks.

Ivan:
[1:00:51]
For loans. Okay. Well, but here's the thing.

Sam:
[1:00:55]
If he can find one.

Ivan:
[1:00:56]
Well, it's not about a loaner. Yeah, but I mean, I don't mean somebody loaning him $450 million. It's kind of nutty.

His, the one thing that I, that I'd said about him being able to post this is because he talks about how much he has in assets.

But, you know, I always question is, okay, What are the debts? What are the liens?

How encumbered are they?

Because it's always a big thing, right? You can have somebody that has millions in assets, right?

You have 10 million assets. But hey, if you've got $9.5 million in loans against them, that means that your net worth is only $500,000. Oh!

So he may claim that he's got $10 billion in assets, But the question is, of course, how mortgaged are they, the assets?

And so, because if he had any of these properties free and clear, say if Trump Tower is free and clear, Trump Tower could probably fetch $400 million.

You'd set it up as collateral, but very obviously it's not.

And so apparently it's none of his other properties that he could put up.

You know, sometime back, it talked about him having $400 million in cash. Okay?

Sam:
[1:02:25]
That's what he claimed in like a month or two.

Ivan:
[1:02:27]
That's what he claimed. Now, but here's the one thing, right?

If I cleared out, okay, it might have happened. That may have been the total. Total.

Well, OK, if I told you, hey, Sam, you've got four hundred thousand in your accounts, all of them, give it to me, all of it.

Sam:
[1:02:49]
Right.

Ivan:
[1:02:49]
And by the way, give it to me, all of it. So just so we can go and argue about it in court, how painful would that be?

Sam:
[1:03:01]
Yeah yeah i.

Ivan:
[1:03:02]
Mean it's like it's leaving you in an incredibly difficult position, so right now he he has been tipping his hand but well what we all said is that you know like how bloomberg said at one time is like you know you know whoever the hell's the real billionaire here because michael bloomberg speculated his net worth was less than 1 billion right and i I have believed that his net worth is less than $1 billion after you subtract all his debt.

Okay? That was my belief.

And it may come to right now that we'll find out for real how much it is.

The other option that he's got, and some people have thrown that around.

Still, anyway, we'll find out how much it's worth if he uses that option.

It's to file for bankruptcy.

Sam:
[1:03:50]
Right.

Ivan:
[1:03:51]
Still, the problem is that filing for bankruptcy...

Look, all it does is stay the collection. It doesn't erase the collection of the debt.

You can't discharge it, okay?

That has to go. That money has to be paid first.

Sam:
[1:04:13]
So, yeah. So, okay. I want to get to all the other cases because we talked about this one quite a bit last week as well.

Just to mention E.G. and Carol for like a couple seconds. he also submitted a thing to try to get out of paying that one.

But in that case, instead of offering a lower amount of money, because again, for that one, you have to either put up the money in order to appeal as well.

He just said, I shouldn't have to put up anything because I'm rich and I'm good for it.

Ivan:
[1:04:45]
Basically.

Sam:
[1:04:46]
And they also told him to go to hell. I don't think the the judge has officially weighed in on that one yet.

Ivan:
[1:04:52]
But well, he's got, he's got about 12 more days on aging.

So I'm looking at for him to, yeah, I need you and Carol to, to, to cough up the money.

Look, we, I know that we had lost a case with a civil judgment, you know, way back sometime in the 1980s. I remember.

Sam:
[1:05:17]
And, and by we, you mean your family business?

Ivan:
[1:05:19]
Yeah the family business we we had lost a case with a man i don't know we that was just the details don't matter the details don't matter but we lost there's a judgment i think it was like about twenty thirty thousand dollars and i think we were waiting we were trying to figure out the appeal we're trying to negotiate but what wound up happening is that the guy decided to collect the judgment and they had come to our business and started, well we're grabbing this car, we're grabbing this we're grabbing this, We had the money, okay? So we went to the fucking bank, thankfully.

It was like dirt banking hours across the street. We went, we fucking got a cashier's check, gave them the fucking money.

But they had started just seizing shit.

Sam:
[1:06:09]
Okay?

Ivan:
[1:06:10]
Right?

And that's the reality at some point, okay?

The company I worked for many years ago had to hit with a judgment in a lawsuit.

It was a very big lawsuit, and the award was close to $3 billion, okay?

And our company put up the $3 billion in cash in a bond, in an escrow account, to appeal, okay?

And it was there for several years. Eventually, they lost the appeals and the money was paid, okay, to the other company.

I mean, this was Oracle versus HP.

They had a lawsuit ongoing several years related to termination of developing Oracle database for HP products, okay?

HP sued. The suit dragged on for years. Oracle appealed. They posted a $3 billion bond about two years ago.

Final appeal went through.

Oracle lost and they they the three billion dollars was given given to them but they had that oracle has to post the three billion dollars for appeal and so it's not unprecedented this is not an unprecedented thing that this has had to happen and people just don't get away with them we had oracle at the post it in cash right.

Sam:
[1:07:38]
And so you know we're going to talk about the four criminal trials in just a second but like just to wrap up the civil stuff especially the way it looks like these various criminal trials are going where quick summary, New York is the only one that we have a really high level of confidence is actually going to happen this year at all.

Ivan:
[1:07:58]
Yes.

Sam:
[1:07:59]
Um, and even assuming Donald Trump is convicted that there will be appeals and there will be all that.

So it's not like we'll get to, you know, Donald Trump in jail this year or Or anything like that.

But, but, but, I do think. Wait, wait, wait. I just want to say, let me wrap up the civil thing.

The whole point is, though, between the New York civil trial and E.

Gene Carroll, this is probably, these two are the things that are going to cause Donald Trump the most pain this year.

Ivan:
[1:08:31]
Oh, yeah.

Sam:
[1:08:32]
As you said, the timelines are closing in on him.

Totally. He is going to have to pay this money. Yeah. And a huge part of his image of himself is around being this rich guy.

Ivan:
[1:08:46]
Right.

Sam:
[1:08:46]
And he is going to suffer here one way or another.

Like whether it's federal, or I guess not federal, whether it's New York marshals confiscating stuff, or whether it's him having to sell stuff and give money or whatever, you know this is killing him. oh.

Ivan:
[1:09:09]
Yeah it's killing him he's having to pay i have to pay he is a guy that loves to not pay.

Sam:
[1:09:18]
And and he this probably hurts him more than the sort of abstract possibility of maybe some year in the distant future if it even happens before i die i might have to go to jail because he in In his head, he doesn't believe that, probably.

But right now, the money, he's going to have to pay.

Like, in the next 30 days, he is going to have a significant chunk of his empire taken away from him. In one way or another.

Ivan:
[1:09:50]
And the one thing is, you know, we've talked about all these, like, Saudi option or whatever.

Bah, bah, bah, I can sell this. Look, I was just looking today.

Day somebody was like showing all the money that Kushner has gotten from Middle East to invest in his ship okay so saw the totals like Jesus 3.1 billion dollars okay the thing is that as much as, The one difference between that money and, say, the Trump situation is that there's a difference between investing and giving him away the damn money, okay?

Because whatever, you know, yeah, okay, Jared is a crooked son of a bitch, but whatever these people invested is probably worth those $3.1 billion that is invested in there.

There is a value in those investments in some way. way jared.

Sam:
[1:10:40]
Is like jared it's not like it's his money he's managing money for them or something.

Ivan:
[1:10:45]
Right yeah exactly and so like.

Sam:
[1:10:47]
He he'll make money off fees or whatever.

Ivan:
[1:10:50]
He's making but they're not going and buying something that's worth fifty dollars and paying five hundred is what i'm saying right okay whatever they're buying they believe is worth that money and they'll get it back so the issue well they may.

Sam:
[1:11:05]
Be inflating it for influence in some ways but.

Ivan:
[1:11:08]
In some way but but But it's not 10 times, okay?

Sam:
[1:11:13]
That's for sure, okay?

Ivan:
[1:11:15]
It's pretty close to what the value is, okay?

And so the problem that Trump has right now is that nobody's just going to go and take a half a billion dollar hit for it.

Sam:
[1:11:28]
Right.

Ivan:
[1:11:29]
I mean, I highly doubt that anybody's just going to go and take a half a billion dollar hit for it.

Sam:
[1:11:35]
Now one thing and we we speculated about this last week but i think i've seen confirmation over the course of the last week that there does not have to be transparency necessarily on where he gets the funds like now obviously if if he has to sell something that's going to be visible but if he just shows up at the courthouse with a check, or someone else shows up at a courtyard at the courthouse with a check they they don't that It is not a process where he has to disclose where he got the money.

Ivan:
[1:12:06]
Okay. Well, but there are implications. Okay. All right. So let's say, okay, here's the other thing, right?

Okay. So he gets somebody to gift them $600 million.

Sam:
[1:12:17]
Yeah, that would be taxable.

Ivan:
[1:12:19]
That's right. Very taxable. Okay.

So he has to come up with another couple of hundred million dollars to pay for the taxes.

Sam:
[1:12:28]
Sense and by the way that that applies even that applies even if they don't give him a check that he then even if they go but no that is if they give him the benefit it is still taxable so that's some random person goes and pays the five hundred thousand five hundred five hundred million million they all you know come.

Ivan:
[1:12:47]
Up with 40 by the way 40 percent in taxes okay all right.

Sam:
[1:12:50]
Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:12:52]
We just sell. It's another $200 million plus. It's close to $700 million now that we're talking.

Sam:
[1:13:00]
Right. So anyway, Trump has screwed on the money.

And I think at least in the short term, he cares more about this money stuff than anything else.

Because I don't think he thinks the other stuff will really happen.

But the money stuff is happening. And it is happening very soon.

Ivan:
[1:13:18]
Very soon.

Sam:
[1:13:19]
So I, you know. we'll talk on a different show about like how that may be mentally impacting him.

Cause there's more and more stuff of Trump being incoherent, but we'll save that.

I want to do the four, four trials, the four criminal trials in this order.

Ivan:
[1:13:37]
The four, four enforcement of the a couple of apocalypse. Yes.

Sam:
[1:13:40]
A couple lips. That's almost as good. Yes.

Ivan:
[1:13:44]
At the light. What was he? I don't know.

Sam:
[1:13:48]
Longitudinal.

Yeah lungs okay okay all four trials have had development so we're going to talk about them in this order new york then georgia then dc then florida so the two state ones first then dc and then two federal ones all right um number one new york the date was already set last time but But just to be clear, we are now in March, UTC, and we're only a few weeks away from the start of that trial.

So this is the one trial that is happening, absent some incredible thing that stops it.

Donald Trump will be going on criminal trial in less than a month in New York.

You know people have said yeah that maybe this is the weakest of the cases that he's most likely to like not be convicted on but at the same time he has not had good luck in new york so far no.

Ivan:
[1:14:56]
He has not.

Sam:
[1:14:57]
Now this one will be a jury trial but so is the eugene carroll trial and they were like, yeah, no, he's, he's, he's guilty as fuck.

You know, like Donald Trump's main hope in all of these trials, frankly, is to get somebody on the jury who's willing to hang the jury for him.

And so far, no luck there.

Uh, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens in New York is doing a unique theory of why this is a felony.

And there's, there's going to be some stuff there, but on the other hand, And it's also weird because it conflates a few things like everyone talks about it.

Well, first of all, as you pay off a porn star, right?

But then it's also being spun as election interference because why was he paying off the porn star?

He was paying off the porn star to avoid having a negative hit in the week before the election in 2016 that so it's being spun as election interference.

But the actual crime is improperly recording the transaction and pretending it was lawyer fees to Cohen when that's not what it was at all and not reporting it properly.

So it's like the actual crime is like a paperwork crime of like misrepresenting your business records.

Ivan:
[1:16:26]
Well well well let's okay look it it's fraud because in one instance it's it's it's it's, listen you're you're you're committing business fraud it's like it it's like what fucking al capone went to jail yeah yeah yeah look it's the same shit look you can't just go and put and pay you know i'm sorry but paying off fucking porn stars is not a tax deductible business expense i'm.

Sam:
[1:16:55]
Not sure he deducted it they're not charging a month with tax fraud specifically.

Ivan:
[1:16:58]
Not no but it's well listen it it does it does wind up in the chain because if you put it as that kind of expense it winds up being an expense into the taxes so therefore they're not charging with the thing is that the actual act of putting it as a business expense winds up later on in in that cycle so you're committing the fraud there where you're misrepresenting And the.

Sam:
[1:17:18]
Way they ramp it into a felony is say that it was because normally the misrepresentation of business records would have been a misdemeanor in New York, but it can be jacked up to a felony if it was done as part of the commission of another crime.

And the other crime that they're using the theory to bump it to a felony is campaign finance.

Ivan:
[1:17:43]
Campaign finance fraud. Yeah.

Sam:
[1:17:44]
Either federal or New York campaign finance laws may be implicated that basically says, hey, if you were doing this for purposes of helping your campaign, then this needed to be reported as a campaign finance expense.

Right. Like the actual paying off the porn star is not illegal.

Ivan:
[1:18:05]
I mean, if he just paid off the porn star.

The problem is this whole thing with him not wanting to lose money at anything.

Okay, and wanting it all.

And so, look, his niece is Mary Trump, right? Or his niece.

In the book, the main crux of what they found in his tax record was them funneling personal expenses as expenses in order to misrepresent their books.

It was just this same fucking fraud. And so over here is the same shit.

Oh, I paid off a porn star. No, I can't just whatever. It's got to be a business expense. Okay.

So that's, that's the whole damn, that's the damn scheme. Okay. Right. You know?

Okay. So anyway.

Sam:
[1:19:03]
Yeah. Yeah. Let's move on. We got a lot. You want to get out of this relatively early and we got three more cases.

Okay. So we got Georgia. Georgia. Now we talk, we got damn Fannie Willis and Wade and all these folks.

Look here, here's, here's where we are right now.

Fannie Willis testified, did a really good job.

People were like, okay, they haven't made their case. And she's kind of convincing that the relationship didn't start until later and any, and all this kind of stuff.

And even by the way, even if the the relationship did start.

The theory that you have to do is that Fonny Willis hired him specifically for the purpose of getting personal financial benefit from the fact that she hired him.

That's the theory that theoretically has to be there to disqualify her.

But what they've brought in at this point as well is the defense who's brought up this whole thing about her to to try to get her disqualified is also now saying they're just lying.

They're lying about when the relationship started.

And so this week we've had more in here with the guy's divorce lawyer, who apparently for some reason was texting back and forth with the defense lawyers for like months.

And he's the one who implied that they started this relationship way earlier.

They subpoenaed some records from AT&T to locate his phone that show like he was near her house on many occasions before the thing.

So there's all sorts of sort of factual questions.

And this is just like stretching out before the judge makes the final decision on whether to disqualify her or not.

There hasn't been the smoking gun yet that proves that they were lying about when the relationship started.

But again, many people have pointed out over and over again, even if they had a relationship the whole freaking time.

That's not a disqualifying event unless you can prove the financial conflict of interest.

And they haven't proven that as far as I can tell, but you kind of don't know what this judge would, will do.

I mean, in the end, it's going to be the judge's call based on everything they they've heard here.

So, and all of this, you know, Yvonne and I have both said it before.

It's like, oh, my God, why the fuck did you let yourself get into this goddamn mess?

And I know like people are horny. I'm sorry.

Yes, I know that. But at the same time, you had to know every little tiny bit of everything that was going on would be scrutinized to the end of the earth about this case.

You needed to make sure you did everything perfectly.

Ivan:
[1:22:04]
Yeah. Yeah.

Sam:
[1:22:05]
And so, but I mean, so this is definitely the, because of the, this has already delayed the Georgia case like a month just because of this.

We didn't, you know, they had proposed some date in the fall or something, but like nobody really believed the Georgia case would happen until 2025 anyway.

But like this pushes it out further. And if they do disqualify Fannie Willis, it's basically done.

Like, you know, it's not going to happen.

So not going to happen this year.

Ivan:
[1:22:35]
Yeah. No, no.

Sam:
[1:22:36]
Like might not happen at all because like her whole office would be disqualified.

Not just her. They would have to assign it to a new prosecutor.

Ivan:
[1:22:44]
No, no, no. I might not want to take up the prosecution. God. Okay. All right.

Sam:
[1:22:49]
Exactly.

Ivan:
[1:22:50]
Okay. So next. What next?

Sam:
[1:22:53]
DC. The Supreme Court decided to actually look at the immunity case.

There'd been lots and lots of speculation that they would just say, let's stand the lower court ruling.

It was a good ruling. We don't want to have anything to do with this. Let it go.

But no, they decided to take the case and they set a schedule that was not as slow as it could be, but not particularly in a hurry either with oral arguments in April.

So another month and a half from now. Now, a couple of things they did do that people pointed out, they are only taking the appeal on the presidential immunity bit.

They had nothing to say about Trump's arguments about double jeopardy because of the impeachment.

Apparently, that was just so ridiculous, they don't even want to look at it.

Um, but, but they are going to look at this in April, which probably means they, they could do it faster, but it quite possibly means they don't come up with their response on this until June.

If we do get to June, judge Chunkin has said that they have the, uh, the defense will have They have the same amount of time to prepare that they would have had before all of these appeals, according to the original date, which means they have an 83 day counter after it goes back to Chunkin, assuming the Supreme Court doesn't say, oh, yeah, he does have immunity, in which case, like the whole case could be dead. Or they could also do.

Ivan:
[1:24:31]
But like I said, that would be great news.

Sam:
[1:24:35]
Well, he, well, not if they just chuck the case out in time.

Oh, because Biden could. Yeah. Yeah.

Ivan:
[1:24:41]
Yeah.

Sam:
[1:24:43]
Yes. There's all sorts. There's all sorts of things Biden could do if, if he has no immunity.

Ivan:
[1:24:50]
Hey, um, Joe, Hey, let's take care of this. Do tweet.

Sam:
[1:24:57]
Yeah. I saw someone suggest today that Joe Biden could also take care of that.

Not by going after Trump, but, but going after SCOTUS, you know, saying, Oh, okay.

There's, there's no immunity here. I'm going to do this to you guys.

And there's nothing you can do about it because I'm immune.

I'm immune. And, and see how fast SCOTUS reverses themselves in that scenario.

But, but anyway, like there, there are things that SCOTUS could do to make it even slower. They could send it.

They could say that there is some immunity and here are the guidelines for how you determine it.

So I'm sending it back to Judge Shunkin to determine that again based on our new guidelines.

There's all kinds of stuff they could do to slow it down even more.

Ivan:
[1:25:45]
But assuming I I really my my take right now is that because of how.

Because look, we just looked at how all the ridiculous options that come out of this are, is that look, they're going to look at it, they're going to affirm it, but they, I guess they want to say it.

Sam:
[1:26:03]
They want to say it. They want to be the ones that give the final determination of it.

And again, they're not doing it as slowly as they could do it, but they're not rushing it either.

Like they could have said, we're having oral arguments next week, you know, or in two weeks or something like that. Yeah, but they pushed out, I believe, it's seven weeks.

Here's it. So let's hit the timelines again. You have them giving out an opinion in June.

You have the 88 days.

You're now in August or September.

Assuming the judge keeps to that timetable. That calendar?

Ivan:
[1:26:41]
Hey, we start a trial in August right after. Hey, let's start a trial in August right after the conventions.

Sam:
[1:26:48]
And it had been estimated that this would be a three month trial.

So August, September, October.

Ivan:
[1:26:56]
So we will be in trial the entire way up until the election.

Sam:
[1:27:00]
Now, there has been some speculation that DOJ themselves would say, oh, that gets into our 90 day before the election timeframe where we're not supposed to interfere with elections.

So DOJ might ask for it to be pushed into 2025 in that scenario.

I don't think they would do that.

I think they would keep to it, but there's a chance that the judge themselves would.

But so far, Chunkin has said, I don't care about your day job as a presidential candidate.

Like the criminal trial takes precedence.

And as you said, having him on trial in the 90 days immediately preceding the election isn't necessarily that bad from that point of view.

However, that brings up our next item, which is Florida.

Now, Florida was originally scheduled to start in May, but nobody believed May was going to happen because of how slow Judge Cannon has been going and how she's been giving every opportunity for delay there.

I think most people have thought that the Florida case on the Mar-a-Lago documents and all would probably be next year.

There was no way that was going to be before the election. But just today, or well, yesterday, in the last 24 hours, depending on your UTC and time zones and all that crap.

Anyway, on the 29th, which by the way was Leap Day.

We didn't talk about Leap Day, but anyway. So anyway, a very exciting leap day. I leapt a lot.

Anyway, they have submitted their suggested timelines, the defense and the prosecution.

Prosecution wants July for the Florida case.

You would expect the Trump people would have come back and asked for 2025.

I mean, previously they asked for 2026 at one point on this.

Ivan:
[1:28:58]
Right.

Sam:
[1:28:59]
You know, but no. Now, Trump's lawyers asked for August only like two or three weeks later than what the DOJ had asked for.

Here is how that potentially works into the delay, delay, delay timelines.

And by the way, everyone always says delay, delay, delay. It's never just delay.

It's never delay, delay.

And certainly it's never delay, delay, delay, delay. It's always three delays.

Ivan:
[1:29:28]
Okay.

Sam:
[1:29:29]
But anyway.

Ivan:
[1:29:32]
More points. I don't know why.

Sam:
[1:29:35]
Anyway, if the judge, let's say Judge Cannon says, okay, July, August, you guys are pretty close.

Let's do the beginning of August.

Fine. Right? So they put that date in the ground.

Now, SCOTUS comes back in June and sends this back to the D.C.

Judge, Judge Chunkin, to schedule.

She can't schedule the D.C. trial to start in August also because the Florida trial will be scheduled for that point.

So she will have to schedule for November, December, January, something like that, because Florida now has that slot.

But then later, closer to the time.

Judge Cannon comes up with some other reason to delay that they can't start.

Ivan:
[1:30:38]
Basically pushes both trials into the next year. Right.

Sam:
[1:30:41]
And pushes Florida back. But at that point, D.C. is already back.

So basically, the gameplay here for the Trump delay crowd is get Florida scheduled in a way that it blocks the D.C. trial.

So D.C. has to schedule for after the election. and then after that moves then you delay florida again and then and then you have only new york this year interesting.

Ivan:
[1:31:11]
Well well new york starts pretty soon so we'll have that.

Sam:
[1:31:15]
We will at least have new york we will have it soon we'll.

Ivan:
[1:31:20]
Have it we'll have new york soon and we'll we will know pretty much soon you know whether donald can come up with half a billion dollars.

Sam:
[1:31:29]
But by the way his his deadline for the paying of the 450 whatever it is today is the same day jury selection is scheduled to start on the new york trial.

Ivan:
[1:31:44]
Is that lovely.

Sam:
[1:31:45]
Perfect timing, anyway without all right we're out yeah we're out so because yvonne's got an early plane i.

Ivan:
[1:31:56]
Gotta get on a fucking super early flight.

Sam:
[1:31:59]
We're we're in our our target zone anyway is between 90 and 120 minutes and often we run over so it's good if we actually get in our target zone and we are in the.

Ivan:
[1:32:10]
Target zone we're in the.

Sam:
[1:32:12]
Crumple well we're right on the edge we're we're fine okay all right once my post-processing takes takes out all of our ums and ahs and silent gaps we might you know yeah we might be slightly under i wouldn't know we'll be in this i don't know we'll be in the zone we're close enough damn it yeah do it live we'll.

Ivan:
[1:32:34]
Do it live.

Sam:
[1:32:36]
I already used that joke a couple weeks ago it was oh.

Ivan:
[1:32:39]
You know the joke is what 40 years old.

Sam:
[1:32:44]
Yeah well you know i was gonna say so are we but we're older than that.

Ivan:
[1:32:49]
No we're older than that.

Sam:
[1:32:52]
Okay. We are done here. Hey, go to our website, curmudgeons-corner.com.

You can look at our archives.

You can look at them. You can read transcripts from the last six months or so.

You can listen to all the old episodes.

I expect everybody is doing that all the time. Look at all those old episodes, listen to them.

I expect somebody to send us a comment on all of the, Also on the website are all the ways to get in touch with us.

Send us a comment on your reaction to one of our shows from 2009.

And see where you see and see how we get that. That'd be fun.

You should listen to one of those shows.

Send us some comments. See how has it held up over the years?

You know? So anyway, also on there is our Patreon where you can give us money at various levels. We'll mention you on the show.

We'll send you a mug. We'll send you a postcard, all of that kind of stuff at $2 a month or more.

Or if you ask, we will invite you to our commercials course Slack where Yvonne and I and And others are chatting and sharing news links throughout the week.

And I will not make Yvonne pick something from there, unless you have something you really want.

Ivan:
[1:34:05]
Well, I got something already.

Sam:
[1:34:07]
Oh, okay. I was going to let you go to sleep.

Ivan:
[1:34:09]
I'm ready.

Sam:
[1:34:09]
I'm ready.

Ivan:
[1:34:10]
No, no, no.

Sam:
[1:34:10]
I'm ready. We'll definitely be in our target zone now.

Ivan:
[1:34:14]
Willy Wonka immersive event leaves children devastated and parents raging.

So apparently, I don't know, there's been these immersive events recently.

Recently i remember that the van gogh the immersive experience or whatever and i realized that i took my wife to one of these and then i realized there were like five or six of these and the quality of them vary like significantly some were good some were not i realized some of them weren't scam this one it happens to fall into the scam mega scam category where they posted some like, cgi generated images of this willie wonka thing that looked like something incredible like out of of Disney World, basically, or even better. And...

Basically, it was just an empty warehouse with some posters plastered on the wall and.

Sam:
[1:35:04]
And a few people in cheap costumes.

Ivan:
[1:35:06]
And a few people in very cheap costumes. Yes.

Sam:
[1:35:09]
And mostly empty warehouse, like cheap cardboard props. It looked horrible.

Ivan:
[1:35:16]
It was horrific. And, you know, I at least when Sam shared it, I expected, you know, the kids and tears. years i kept thinking about the winnie the pooh murdering rage thing so i.

Sam:
[1:35:30]
Thought that.

Ivan:
[1:35:30]
Maybe they got there and it was just like willie wong got just you know.

Sam:
[1:35:34]
With an axe decapitating.

Ivan:
[1:35:36]
You know yeah or something like that but no it wasn't it wasn't that he wasn't the he wasn't decapitating the kids or anything.

Sam:
[1:35:43]
Oh it's such a shame such as i know you sound so sad about it i.

Ivan:
[1:35:50]
Will i mean that was just not what i expected you know so anyway yeah they got they got policed basically unfortunately.

Sam:
[1:35:58]
Fun stuff fun stuff fun stuff okay well with that hey no.

Ivan:
[1:36:04]
Refunds by the way.

Sam:
[1:36:05]
No refunds of course not no.

Ivan:
[1:36:07]
No the guy apologized and said oh sorry no refund.

Sam:
[1:36:10]
I've seen a number of tiktoks from people who were hired as actors for that presentation basically trying to give their side of the story and saying we're sorry to anybody who showed up you know we were we were hired like the day before you know for a hundred bucks come sit in this warehouse and pretend to be willie wonka or whatever and you know so anyway yeah.

Ivan:
[1:36:33]
Pretty bad okay all right.

Sam:
[1:36:35]
Okay with that we are out of here we will let yvonne go to sleep and catch his plane in the morning and hey everybody Everybody else, have a great week and stay safe, have fun, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. Goodbye.

Ivan:
[1:36:49]
Bye.

Sam:
[1:37:15]
And with that, we are done.

Ivan:
[1:37:19]
Bye!

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Credits

The Curmudgeon's Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
Our intro is "The Oh of Pleasure" (Amazon MP3 link)
Our outro is "Celestial Soda Pop" (Amazon MP3 link)
Both are from the album "Deep Breakfast" (iTunes link)
Please buy his music!

These podcasts are produced by Abulsme Productions.
They are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons License

Abulsme Productions also produces the Wiki of the Day family of podcasts.
Check those out too!


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