WEBVTT 00:00:00.645 --> 00:00:01.325 Well, hello. 00:00:01.985 --> 00:00:02.785 Hello, Bruce. 00:00:03.185 --> 00:00:04.145 Okay. Can you hear me? 00:00:04.405 --> 00:00:05.865 Yes, I can hear you just fine. 00:00:06.005 --> 00:00:07.105 Okay, great. I can hear you too. 00:00:07.685 --> 00:00:13.165 Spiffy. I can see you get the microscope and electronic equipment behind you 00:00:13.165 --> 00:00:14.625 and everything. Excellent. Cool. 00:00:14.765 --> 00:00:20.145 Oh yeah. Yeah. This is my, my, my workbench. It doesn't get much use now. 00:00:20.205 --> 00:00:23.585 It's just used for storage and I can talk about that. 00:00:24.145 --> 00:00:29.925 Cool. Okay. Then let's, let's get this thing started. Here we go. 00:00:51.545 --> 00:00:59.765 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Friday, May 31st, 2024. It's just after three 00:00:59.765 --> 00:01:01.405 UTC as we're starting to record. 00:01:01.565 --> 00:01:06.225 I am Sam Minter as announced last week. Yvonne is out this week and he'll be 00:01:06.225 --> 00:01:08.765 out next week as well. This week. 00:01:09.585 --> 00:01:13.485 Bruce has volunteered to join us. Hello again, Bruce. It's been a little while. 00:01:13.765 --> 00:01:21.105 Hello. Yes, it has been a while. I think this is, based on our agenda today, this is very timely. 00:01:23.065 --> 00:01:23.505 Yes. 00:01:23.945 --> 00:01:27.145 The Libertarian talking about the Libertarian Party, so this will be good. 00:01:27.465 --> 00:01:31.985 There we go. Yeah. Let me check. The last time you were on was last July. 00:01:32.305 --> 00:01:32.865 Oh, okay. 00:01:33.285 --> 00:01:36.265 Almost a year. Almost a year, not quite. 00:01:36.445 --> 00:01:41.105 But yeah, so you mentioned the agenda. Look, a few hours ago, 00:01:41.145 --> 00:01:44.465 as we're recording, we got the Donald Trump convictions in New York. 00:01:44.665 --> 00:01:48.685 So obviously, we're going to talk about that. There's not going to be any avoiding that. 00:01:49.085 --> 00:01:54.805 As Bruce alluded to, the Libertarians had their national convention to pick 00:01:54.805 --> 00:01:56.945 a presidential candidate this week as well. 00:01:57.265 --> 00:02:01.885 I was paying some attention to that, but I'm pretty suspect that Bruce was paying 00:02:01.885 --> 00:02:08.005 a lot more attention to it than I was because he associates himself to some 00:02:08.005 --> 00:02:10.665 degree with the libertarians and has paid attention for a long time. 00:02:10.805 --> 00:02:14.185 Yeah, I'm not a member of the libertarian party, but I have been in the past. 00:02:14.265 --> 00:02:16.805 I do identify as a libertarian. 00:02:17.025 --> 00:02:20.805 Right. So we will talk about that. So I think the order we're going to do things 00:02:20.805 --> 00:02:23.005 in, we're going to do our regular but first thing. 00:02:23.345 --> 00:02:27.925 I've got a book, Bruce has something, and then we're going to talk about Donald 00:02:27.925 --> 00:02:33.425 Trump, and then we're going to talk about the libertarian And then that'll be 00:02:33.425 --> 00:02:35.145 a show pretty much. I think that'll be plenty. 00:02:35.465 --> 00:02:40.865 And just as a heads up to folks, Yvonne, as I said, could not make it this week. 00:02:40.925 --> 00:02:45.565 He's actually in Guatemala at the moment, but minutes before we started recording 00:02:45.565 --> 00:02:50.705 the show, he sent me an audio clip of his reaction to the Donald Trump news. 00:02:51.145 --> 00:02:55.025 It's about just, it's between six and seven minutes long, I think. 00:02:55.125 --> 00:02:58.105 So we will, when we get to that segment, we'll play it. 00:02:58.165 --> 00:03:03.285 And then Bruce and I will react to it and then go on our merry way on our conversation. So, 00:03:04.238 --> 00:03:07.678 I guess you can start, Bruce. What's your butt first? 00:03:09.718 --> 00:03:14.298 It's been a while, and I have had a job change since the last time I was on. 00:03:15.658 --> 00:03:22.378 Remind me, first of all, you were on the show for the first time when you were 00:03:22.378 --> 00:03:25.618 working for Ocean Gate, which, of course, had a famous little incident. 00:03:26.198 --> 00:03:32.718 Well, no. That wasn't the first time. My first time on the show was way back in 2012 or something. 00:03:32.758 --> 00:03:36.398 Oh, okay. Okay. I thought the first time you were already in OceanGate, 00:03:36.438 --> 00:03:39.458 but okay, maybe you were before that and then you moved to OceanGate. 00:03:39.498 --> 00:03:41.298 Yeah. Okay. So it's been a while. 00:03:41.458 --> 00:03:41.698 Yeah. 00:03:41.798 --> 00:03:45.118 And then, so you've been in a couple places since then? 00:03:45.418 --> 00:03:49.018 Yeah. Well, after leaving OceanGate about, well, now it's been two and a half 00:03:49.018 --> 00:03:52.958 years ago, I went to this company called BrightAI. It's an AI startup. 00:03:54.018 --> 00:03:59.658 And that was a work-from-home job. And so I had my lab bench here, 00:03:59.858 --> 00:04:01.338 so just in my home office. 00:04:01.418 --> 00:04:04.718 And I loved that. being able to work from home and. 00:04:04.718 --> 00:04:09.058 Just just to lab bench you're an electrical engineer. 00:04:09.058 --> 00:04:11.018 Yes i'm an electrical engineer so. 00:04:11.018 --> 00:04:15.858 It's it's not like some biological like creating super weapons or something you know. 00:04:15.858 --> 00:04:25.958 Okay that's no no i yeah i so i've been able to do testing and development prototyping 00:04:25.958 --> 00:04:27.938 and and designed right here at home. 00:04:28.978 --> 00:04:36.158 But unfortunately, that company started having problems and delays and lack 00:04:36.158 --> 00:04:38.398 of funding because interest rates are higher. 00:04:38.618 --> 00:04:43.438 And so they were struggling. And so I ended up getting laid off last November. 00:04:43.578 --> 00:04:43.998 Oh, wow. 00:04:44.418 --> 00:04:50.838 And that was, I really love that job. I worked harder in that job than I have on any other job. 00:04:51.438 --> 00:04:54.198 Well, maybe except for Ocean Gate. I worked really hard there too, 00:04:54.198 --> 00:04:58.698 but we're nights and weekends and stuff, but I loved it because it's working 00:04:58.698 --> 00:05:01.098 from home and doing actual hands-on design. 00:05:02.382 --> 00:05:07.882 And so it was a really hard layoff. I've had, I've had many layoffs in the past, 00:05:07.902 --> 00:05:08.622 but this was the hardest. 00:05:08.762 --> 00:05:15.202 And so then I, but before long, just a few weeks later, I was able to get another 00:05:15.202 --> 00:05:20.302 job at a large aerospace company here in the area. Hmm. 00:05:20.582 --> 00:05:22.522 I wonder who that might be. 00:05:23.262 --> 00:05:26.482 Yeah. And we're talking like Seattle area. 00:05:26.502 --> 00:05:27.722 By the way, for those who don't know. 00:05:27.982 --> 00:05:32.722 Yeah. And within a couple of weeks of starting to work there, 00:05:32.842 --> 00:05:36.082 boom, tragedy followed me. 00:05:36.142 --> 00:05:39.482 It seems to follow me everywhere in my career. 00:05:40.262 --> 00:05:42.122 It's like one company after another 00:05:42.122 --> 00:05:47.522 crashes and burns. If this company crashes, well, I guess we'll see. 00:05:48.682 --> 00:05:51.622 See but but yeah it's and it's it's 00:05:51.622 --> 00:05:55.322 been a really hard transition going from a company of when 00:05:55.322 --> 00:05:58.302 i was at ocean gate like 15 00:05:58.302 --> 00:06:01.102 people to bright ai which i like about 00:06:01.102 --> 00:06:03.802 50 people and now a company that's got 00:06:03.802 --> 00:06:06.862 like maybe over a hundred thousand people on it it's just like incredibly 00:06:06.862 --> 00:06:10.302 bureaucratic and things are 00:06:10.302 --> 00:06:13.682 highly regulated move very slow and it's 00:06:13.682 --> 00:06:19.022 like it's it's been a hard transition for me i have to say but it pays well 00:06:19.022 --> 00:06:22.522 and it's uh oh well and the other thing is i'm not working for home anymore 00:06:22.522 --> 00:06:29.122 i gotta be on site five days a week so ouch yeah now most tech companies are 00:06:29.122 --> 00:06:33.142 have switched to with you know three days on site two days at home yep. 00:06:33.142 --> 00:06:34.482 That's where i am. 00:06:34.482 --> 00:06:42.862 And that's what i was expecting but that just didn't work out so it's been hard but but you know now Now. 00:06:42.862 --> 00:06:48.042 You don't have a long commute, though, right? 00:06:48.242 --> 00:06:53.682 No. With traffic, it ends up being about a half hour each way. 00:06:54.082 --> 00:06:55.602 Okay. That's not that bad. 00:06:55.762 --> 00:06:56.662 That's not that bad. 00:06:56.842 --> 00:06:58.502 Not nearly as bad as driving to Seattle. 00:06:58.842 --> 00:06:59.582 Yeah, yeah. 00:07:00.102 --> 00:07:08.142 I would not have taken a job down in Seattle. It's like I get queries from Meta 00:07:08.142 --> 00:07:13.202 almost weekly just asking, begging me to work down there. 00:07:13.302 --> 00:07:18.362 And it would be a lot of fun. There's no way I could commute to Kirkland every day. 00:07:18.822 --> 00:07:24.062 Right. We're up near Everett, Washington, for anybody who knows. 00:07:24.102 --> 00:07:28.922 We're in the sort of general Seattle area, but they're different places. 00:07:29.142 --> 00:07:29.902 Yeah, north of Seattle. 00:07:30.442 --> 00:07:36.022 Yeah, north of Seattle. yeah actually i'm near everett bruce is even further north you know so. 00:07:36.022 --> 00:07:41.542 Yeah yeah so uh so yeah that's that's basically what's going on with me and 00:07:41.542 --> 00:07:42.522 there's a lot of other things but, 00:07:43.876 --> 00:07:44.976 but that's i. 00:07:44.976 --> 00:07:48.316 Don't i don't suppose it's been long enough that you can talk about ocean gate yet. 00:07:48.316 --> 00:07:52.936 I i'm more comfortable talking about now it's been almost a year yeah. 00:07:52.936 --> 00:07:58.056 So do you want to add anything to all the discussions that around ocean gate 00:07:58.056 --> 00:08:01.716 for anybody who doesn't remember that's the company that had the sub trying 00:08:01.716 --> 00:08:04.076 to go down to the titanic and uh. 00:08:04.076 --> 00:08:05.136 It imploded. 00:08:05.136 --> 00:08:08.836 Everyone was killed and yeah and. 00:08:08.836 --> 00:08:13.156 Bruce used to work there yes yeah i i was the electrical engineering the company 00:08:13.156 --> 00:08:17.496 i designed all the electronics and built it and tested it and i went on the 00:08:17.496 --> 00:08:22.776 first expedition to the titanic that they did in 2021 and i'm fine but you didn't 00:08:22.776 --> 00:08:27.896 go down you stayed on the boat i i did not go down the titanic i did go on some shallow dives, 00:08:28.516 --> 00:08:31.416 in the sub uh to do some testing but 00:08:31.416 --> 00:08:34.176 nothing deep and uh i was 00:08:34.176 --> 00:08:37.596 on the surface when we reached the titanic so that was that was really exciting 00:08:37.596 --> 00:08:47.716 i i i for myself i feel totally free to talk about it but out of respect for 00:08:47.716 --> 00:08:53.636 my colleagues who who are who do have some legal concerns, 00:08:54.656 --> 00:09:01.136 i'm i've kept quiet because you know just to protect them but but yeah like 00:09:01.136 --> 00:09:02.736 the coast guard hasn't even contacted me. 00:09:02.836 --> 00:09:05.636 And people have said, wow, they were really surprised that the Coast Guard hadn't 00:09:05.636 --> 00:09:07.196 talked to me because they've talked to all my colleagues. 00:09:08.376 --> 00:09:13.216 I figured when it happened, there'd be people on the phone with you right away 00:09:13.216 --> 00:09:18.096 as a witness and somebody that was going to be questioned in terms of all the 00:09:18.096 --> 00:09:19.176 investigations and everything. 00:09:19.256 --> 00:09:26.016 No? Nope, not at all. Because I guess, and I'm sure they know that electronics 00:09:26.016 --> 00:09:28.096 had nothing to do with this whatsoever. 00:09:28.096 --> 00:09:35.756 So, um, but there was electronics that would, that monitored the state of the hall. 00:09:36.676 --> 00:09:41.976 There was a strain sensors and acoustic sensors to monitor the, the, the whole health. 00:09:42.096 --> 00:09:46.556 And when there's a lot, there's been a lot of misinformation out there, 00:09:46.576 --> 00:09:52.056 a lot of confusion out there that this was an untested hall and that it was 00:09:52.056 --> 00:09:53.736 all cobbled together and, 00:09:53.796 --> 00:09:59.756 you You know, there's unprofessional people designing it, which was the case for the first haul, 00:09:59.916 --> 00:10:02.216 but not for the second haul. 00:10:02.296 --> 00:10:05.856 The first haul, it was beginning to fail. 00:10:05.976 --> 00:10:08.936 No one died in it. But then... 00:10:11.104 --> 00:10:16.604 And when they realized that they needed to do a redesign, they fired basically 00:10:16.604 --> 00:10:19.524 all the engineering staff and they hired a whole new set of people. 00:10:19.584 --> 00:10:20.944 And I was among that new set of people. 00:10:23.124 --> 00:10:28.184 And there's some quotes from Stockton Rush saying that he didn't want to hire 00:10:28.184 --> 00:10:32.044 50-year-old white guys to design the hull. 00:10:32.184 --> 00:10:35.424 Well, you know what? It ended up being a bunch of 50-year-old white guys that 00:10:35.424 --> 00:10:41.744 designed the new sub. So, yeah, he hired a bunch of like fresh out of college 00:10:41.744 --> 00:10:44.224 students before and that didn't work out too well. 00:10:45.764 --> 00:10:50.604 But yeah, I could talk a lot more about it. I think once the report comes out, 00:10:50.664 --> 00:10:52.424 then I'll be absolutely free to talk about it. 00:10:52.444 --> 00:10:55.504 And that'll probably be another maybe six months or so. 00:10:55.584 --> 00:11:01.064 Okay. So in the meantime, so I won't ask you about like that kind of detail 00:11:01.064 --> 00:11:04.344 though, but since we haven't talked about it, like when the thing was going 00:11:04.344 --> 00:11:07.084 on, can you tell us a little bit about sort of. 00:11:07.664 --> 00:11:12.304 The emotional rollercoaster you must've been on while that was transpiring and 00:11:12.304 --> 00:11:13.344 people were figuring it out. 00:11:13.704 --> 00:11:18.824 Yeah, it was, it was a real rollercoaster because like the day of, 00:11:18.904 --> 00:11:22.644 I got a, I got a call from one of my colleagues saying, Hey babe, 00:11:22.684 --> 00:11:24.544 the subs lost and they can't find them. 00:11:24.624 --> 00:11:29.504 And so me and the other guys were like brainstorming what's, 00:11:29.504 --> 00:11:33.844 you know, what could have happened, trying to think of what are the different ways to fail. 00:11:34.024 --> 00:11:36.404 And we had multiple layers of safety. 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:42.499 For every system on the sub, except for one, and that's the hall itself. 00:11:42.699 --> 00:11:46.499 There's no backup for the hall, except we do have hall monitoring. 00:11:46.659 --> 00:11:48.359 We have two forms of hall monitoring. 00:11:48.759 --> 00:11:55.039 But yeah, we had so little issue with the hall, actually no issues whatsoever 00:11:55.039 --> 00:11:57.639 with the hall, it was the last thing we would consider. 00:11:58.079 --> 00:12:02.799 We couldn't even imagine that it had been that. 00:12:02.979 --> 00:12:05.859 And so especially Especially when during the week that they were looking for 00:12:05.859 --> 00:12:10.439 them, there was reports that there was a banging that they heard. 00:12:10.619 --> 00:12:14.839 And that is exactly what would happen is if you're in a lost sub, 00:12:14.939 --> 00:12:21.039 if you're entangled, that was my biggest theory was that they were entangled in the wreck. 00:12:21.259 --> 00:12:25.099 Because there's a lot of loose cables down there and they could have gotten 00:12:25.099 --> 00:12:26.139 stuck down there that way. 00:12:26.139 --> 00:12:31.479 And if you're stuck in the bottom on a sub, the way to message back if your 00:12:31.479 --> 00:12:36.939 batteries are dead or even if your sub is completely inoperable, 00:12:37.079 --> 00:12:40.899 you can bang on the hull and sound travels very well underwater. 00:12:42.239 --> 00:12:48.399 And so they were trying to search for that banging, but they couldn't find it, obviously. 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:51.619 Obviously and then so when it actually came out 00:12:51.619 --> 00:12:54.319 that they found debris then then we knew what 00:12:54.319 --> 00:12:56.999 was the cause it was yeah it 00:12:56.999 --> 00:13:00.199 was real shock and i felt most badly for 00:13:00.199 --> 00:13:06.159 that that teenager that or that i guess he was maybe 20 years old going uh down 00:13:06.159 --> 00:13:10.759 there he should not have been on it so the other guys they were elderly they 00:13:10.759 --> 00:13:15.659 knew what they were getting into i i don't really feel much remorse for them 00:13:15.659 --> 00:13:17.079 because they were explorers, 00:13:17.079 --> 00:13:20.639 but the teenager should not have been on them. That was just a real tragedy. 00:13:21.059 --> 00:13:24.399 Yeah, there were reports he didn't even really want to go to, 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:27.919 and he was doing it because his father wanted him to or whatever. 00:13:28.259 --> 00:13:32.739 Yeah, I heard that too. And then all my colleagues who were on the surface, 00:13:32.959 --> 00:13:41.759 how uncomfortable and it's just tragic to be on the surface for a week with the families of, 00:13:43.074 --> 00:13:46.674 of the people who were in the sub who had just died. 00:13:47.534 --> 00:13:53.714 And everyone on the ship eats together, and it's hard to avoid people on a ship. 00:13:55.694 --> 00:14:01.334 And the weird thing is, you know, 00:14:02.334 --> 00:14:11.794 having built that sub and designed it with my own hands, i had more of an emotional 00:14:11.794 --> 00:14:15.034 connection to the sub than really to the people, 00:14:16.154 --> 00:14:22.254 and so i felt more emotion i feel more emotion when i think about the tragedy 00:14:22.254 --> 00:14:26.034 of that sub being destroyed than actually the people that probably sounds really 00:14:26.034 --> 00:14:32.794 weird but just a little uh but if If it's hard to explain unless you've like, 00:14:34.994 --> 00:14:42.294 unless you've like put invested so much into an inanimate object and to see it destroyed. Yeah. 00:14:42.374 --> 00:14:45.874 It's kind of like how you feel if your home was getting burned up or something. Yeah. 00:14:46.174 --> 00:14:50.294 Yeah. I mean, definitely like if your home was burned up or if, 00:14:51.054 --> 00:14:55.874 especially like if, if, like you said, if you've ever made anything yourself, 00:14:55.874 --> 00:15:01.314 Like that you've put a lot of time and effort into that's a one of a kind thing 00:15:01.314 --> 00:15:03.814 that you couldn't necessarily make again. 00:15:03.994 --> 00:15:08.554 And, you know, yeah, I, I under, I understand having some emotional attachment 00:15:08.554 --> 00:15:14.914 to that, you know, and, and you, you knew that object, you didn't know the people as well. 00:15:15.094 --> 00:15:15.574 Yeah. 00:15:15.634 --> 00:15:16.774 So I understand. Yeah. 00:15:17.933 --> 00:15:20.773 So yeah that's that's how i 00:15:20.773 --> 00:15:24.853 felt and and we've and my colleagues the other engineers we've we've been keeping 00:15:24.853 --> 00:15:29.953 in touch and and about all of our experiences and about the different contexts 00:15:29.953 --> 00:15:34.433 we've had you know i've had newspapers and tv stations all contacting me trying 00:15:34.433 --> 00:15:37.973 to get me to interview and like you know so right. 00:15:37.973 --> 00:15:40.033 Well thanks for talking to us. 00:15:40.033 --> 00:15:41.773 Yeah absolutely just. 00:15:41.773 --> 00:15:46.473 This last Last week, there were some news reports about a new billionaire going 00:15:46.473 --> 00:15:49.933 down and a new sub in the same place. Do you have any thoughts on that? 00:15:50.293 --> 00:15:55.933 Well, I think that's a good thing. I really support that. 00:15:56.673 --> 00:16:02.753 I don't know. I've never heard of that guy before, but he is going to build 00:16:02.753 --> 00:16:05.333 that sub with Triton Submarines. 00:16:06.033 --> 00:16:11.573 Triton Submarines is the world expert on deep submergence vehicles. 00:16:12.313 --> 00:16:17.113 They built, the head of that company, the founder of that company is Patrick Leahy. 00:16:18.033 --> 00:16:24.673 And he and his company before, they were hired by this other multimillionaire 00:16:24.673 --> 00:16:30.433 who wanted to build a sub that could go repeatedly to the Marriott's Trench. 00:16:30.773 --> 00:16:33.553 And Victor Vescovo is his name. So 00:16:33.553 --> 00:16:38.133 Victor Vescovo is like this Wall Street investor, made a bunch of money. 00:16:38.133 --> 00:16:46.393 And so he hired Triton Subs to build this sub called, it's called, 00:16:46.713 --> 00:16:48.293 I can't remember the name of it. 00:16:48.513 --> 00:16:54.793 I forget the name of the sub. But anyway, it's a titanium sphere. 00:16:55.893 --> 00:17:00.713 It holds two people and went repeatedly down to the Maranis Trench. 00:17:00.853 --> 00:17:04.453 And it's an amazing structure. 00:17:05.013 --> 00:17:11.113 It's an amazing vehicle. And they actually use the same batteries that we used on the Titan. 00:17:12.253 --> 00:17:15.053 But anyway, yeah, this guy, I think that's a good thing to do. 00:17:15.153 --> 00:17:19.513 I think Triton, if they were to build a sub to do that, it probably would take 00:17:19.513 --> 00:17:23.193 them a cost about $15 million, and they would do it right. 00:17:24.953 --> 00:17:30.193 And Triton, they're the ones that make these really cool-looking glass subs 00:17:30.193 --> 00:17:33.293 where you're in like this plexiglass sphere. 00:17:33.973 --> 00:17:35.853 And you can see in all directions. 00:17:36.913 --> 00:17:42.553 I remember reading that they could theoretically build a glass sphere that could 00:17:42.553 --> 00:17:45.093 breach 4,000 meters, which is the depth of Titan. 00:17:45.893 --> 00:17:48.893 And so, of course, it would be very thick. 00:17:50.377 --> 00:17:56.157 But it would be optically clear. And can you imagine being there at the Titanic, 00:17:56.377 --> 00:18:01.517 being able to look at it, not through a little portal, but all around in all directions. 00:18:01.897 --> 00:18:07.097 And that's, that is what Triton sumps could possibly try to do. 00:18:07.537 --> 00:18:09.957 And if they were to do that, it would be pretty amazing. 00:18:10.517 --> 00:18:13.317 Well, and just in general with this kind of thing, 00:18:13.497 --> 00:18:22.817 I know the rap on this was like, oh, huge act of hubris and reckless person 00:18:22.817 --> 00:18:26.537 who wasn't paying attention to all of the safety things he should. 00:18:26.537 --> 00:18:31.377 But at the same time, when something like this happens, you hope that you learn 00:18:31.377 --> 00:18:35.917 from it and use the learnings to do something better the next time around, 00:18:36.057 --> 00:18:40.797 as opposed to like, you wouldn't want the outcome from this to be like, 00:18:40.897 --> 00:18:43.757 oh, well, we'll never do that again. You know? 00:18:43.817 --> 00:18:49.217 Yeah. And I think that may be the case when it comes to carbon fiber holes. 00:18:49.757 --> 00:18:56.497 Right. Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, when you learn, part of it is like, 00:18:56.577 --> 00:19:00.757 hey, this particular technique was flawed. Let's do something else. 00:19:00.817 --> 00:19:01.037 Yeah. 00:19:01.097 --> 00:19:07.877 But the goal, you know, like there are all sorts of reasons to have subs that 00:19:07.877 --> 00:19:10.737 go at depth that are, you know, of this type, you know. 00:19:11.037 --> 00:19:14.557 It's not just, hey, billionaire doing tourism. 00:19:15.137 --> 00:19:19.917 Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, more power to them. 00:19:19.977 --> 00:19:23.097 I think they should definitely do that. I'm glad to hear that somebody is willing 00:19:23.097 --> 00:19:31.757 to actually try to mend the reputation of the deep submergence submarine community. 00:19:32.077 --> 00:19:33.917 So, okay. 00:19:34.457 --> 00:19:37.077 Well, I mentioned I have a book. 00:19:38.252 --> 00:19:44.552 This is one I actually listened to as an audio book. It's a 1956 history book 00:19:44.552 --> 00:19:48.392 called Bible and sword by Barbara Tuckman. 00:19:48.892 --> 00:19:50.352 Uh, I get on your list. 00:19:51.052 --> 00:19:55.312 I don't know. Like, you know, the list has thousands of things on it. 00:19:55.372 --> 00:19:56.592 I don't know how they get there. 00:19:56.712 --> 00:20:01.712 I ever, I used to, when I first started the list, make a point of always noting 00:20:01.712 --> 00:20:08.112 what, where I heard about it or why, what made me like add it to the list. 00:20:08.252 --> 00:20:11.392 I stopped that years ago. So like, they're just things on the list. 00:20:11.432 --> 00:20:12.432 I don't know how they got there. 00:20:12.492 --> 00:20:17.812 At some point in the last 10 years, I heard about it and it was like, 00:20:17.892 --> 00:20:19.232 oh, that sounds like it might be cool. 00:20:20.192 --> 00:20:30.092 So this is a, it is specifically a history of the relationships between England 00:20:30.332 --> 00:20:39.172 and Palestine going from the Bronze Age through to the Balfour Declaration in 1917. 00:20:39.992 --> 00:20:40.712 Oh, wow. 00:20:41.792 --> 00:20:50.032 So it's sort of history of Israel before modern Israel was created after World War II. 00:20:50.252 --> 00:20:56.472 Yeah, and that Balfour Declaration is the whole reason why we have the situation we have right now. 00:20:56.472 --> 00:21:02.532 Well, it's like the whole situation in the Middle East, right? 00:21:02.692 --> 00:21:03.232 Yeah. 00:21:04.452 --> 00:21:09.072 Just to, since I mentioned it, bring up what that is. 00:21:09.752 --> 00:21:17.972 Well, there are a whole bunch of post-World War I things that led to everything we've got. 00:21:18.732 --> 00:21:24.052 Balfour Declaration specifically was the British government in 1917, 00:21:24.432 --> 00:21:30.272 while the First World War was still going on, announcing that it supported the 00:21:30.272 --> 00:21:34.012 establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, 00:21:34.312 --> 00:21:37.112 which was still ruled by the Ottomans at that point. 00:21:38.092 --> 00:21:40.072 So anyway, he. 00:21:41.414 --> 00:21:48.334 Bottom line, I'm actually going to give it a thumbs down, but I don't have like, 00:21:48.394 --> 00:21:52.434 it really is personal reasons for it. 00:21:52.534 --> 00:21:55.494 Like, I feel like there's two things here. 00:21:55.534 --> 00:22:00.414 Like, I feel like this topic feels like it should have been super, 00:22:00.494 --> 00:22:02.274 super interesting to me. 00:22:02.354 --> 00:22:05.014 Like it's, it's history. I like history. 00:22:05.574 --> 00:22:12.094 It's the history of a region of the world that is in the news these days. 00:22:12.154 --> 00:22:14.074 So having the background is useful. 00:22:14.274 --> 00:22:20.154 It has an interesting twist that it's not just a history of Israel slash Palestine. 00:22:20.334 --> 00:22:26.154 It's a history specifically of how that related to England, you know, 00:22:26.154 --> 00:22:33.054 going back through the Crusades and all of this kind of stuff and how England thought about, 00:22:33.634 --> 00:22:39.254 that region and how England thought about Jews and how like all of these things came together. 00:22:39.314 --> 00:22:44.934 And all of that seems like it would be right up my alley, but just that I think there are two things. 00:22:45.014 --> 00:22:48.794 One, just the style of writing. 00:22:49.174 --> 00:22:51.734 Like, I mean, I mentioned this was written in 1956. 00:22:52.254 --> 00:22:58.034 It was just a little stilted and the way that it was talking about just had 00:22:58.034 --> 00:23:04.254 trouble holding my attention and that was amplified by I listened to this as 00:23:04.254 --> 00:23:10.014 an audio book and the actual person who was reading it. 00:23:11.148 --> 00:23:18.288 Just between their way of speaking and their accent, which was a British accent, 00:23:18.448 --> 00:23:20.168 I don't know what variety of British accent, 00:23:20.408 --> 00:23:29.028 but I kept having trouble sort of getting locked in and really paying attention. 00:23:29.908 --> 00:23:36.348 Between those things, I would put it on, and then after a couple minutes, 00:23:36.468 --> 00:23:39.948 I would realize that I hadn't absorbed anything in the last few minutes. 00:23:39.948 --> 00:23:42.688 You know and again part of it is sort 00:23:42.688 --> 00:23:45.388 of the style of the talking some of it was the 00:23:45.388 --> 00:23:48.448 voice i don't know and maybe i would 00:23:48.448 --> 00:23:51.908 have felt different if i was actually reading this sort of words 00:23:51.908 --> 00:23:57.748 on a screen or words on paper i'm not sure but the audiobook experience of it 00:23:57.748 --> 00:24:04.868 it really was almost a chore to me to sort of force myself to like okay i want 00:24:04.868 --> 00:24:09.588 to pay attention to this i want to learn because there's interesting things going on here, 00:24:09.688 --> 00:24:12.288 but it never really clicked with me. 00:24:12.368 --> 00:24:15.668 And as I sort of got towards the second half of the book, I was like, 00:24:15.728 --> 00:24:17.948 it's never going to click for me. 00:24:17.988 --> 00:24:20.568 I'm just going to let it wash over me as I listened to it. 00:24:20.828 --> 00:24:25.688 I don't know. But like, I mean, there's clearly some interesting history there. 00:24:25.768 --> 00:24:29.928 And, and she pointed out a whole lot of things in terms of, you know, 00:24:29.928 --> 00:24:34.488 it wasn't just sort of a snap thing in 1917. 00:24:35.068 --> 00:24:39.908 And most things aren't, right? Like there was a whole buildup to the relationship 00:24:39.908 --> 00:24:47.768 between like how the Anglican church in England really had a lot of how they 00:24:47.768 --> 00:24:51.188 thought about themselves based on their relationship 00:24:51.608 --> 00:24:55.228 to the plight of the Jews in Palestine. 00:24:55.768 --> 00:25:01.428 And there was a whole lot of stuff there in terms of how there were a lot of 00:25:01.428 --> 00:25:09.668 interconnections between how England thought of itself and how... 00:25:10.572 --> 00:25:14.432 It thought about what was happening in the Holy Land. 00:25:14.812 --> 00:25:19.372 And part of this goes, you know, I mentioned the Crusades. Part of this relates to the Crusades. 00:25:19.392 --> 00:25:25.852 There was a whole, you know, several centuries where England and a variety of 00:25:25.852 --> 00:25:30.792 parts of Europe centered a lot of what they were thinking about in terms of 00:25:30.792 --> 00:25:33.652 we have to reclaim the Holy Land from the Muslims. 00:25:34.312 --> 00:25:37.992 And and so it how these 00:25:37.992 --> 00:25:44.372 things interacted you know was did have a bunch of fascinating stuff and there 00:25:44.372 --> 00:25:48.832 was a whole segment getting towards the end of that period before balfour there 00:25:48.832 --> 00:25:53.932 was a lot of talk about like yes the jews need a homeland but why don't we buy 00:25:53.932 --> 00:25:56.352 them some land somewhere else yeah. 00:25:56.352 --> 00:25:57.032 I've heard that. 00:25:57.032 --> 00:26:02.452 There was talk of like buying them some land in south america or in africa or i. 00:26:02.452 --> 00:26:03.792 I was just going to say that. Yeah. 00:26:03.952 --> 00:26:07.512 Yeah. There were a variety of locations that were actually scouted out, 00:26:07.552 --> 00:26:11.552 but like the Zionist community at a certain point, there was apparently one 00:26:11.552 --> 00:26:17.132 big conference where they seriously considered it and almost went for the idea 00:26:17.132 --> 00:26:19.892 of one of these Jewish homelands on some other continent. 00:26:20.192 --> 00:26:25.092 But the, the faction that was like, no, no, it's Palestine or nothing. One out. 00:26:25.532 --> 00:26:29.832 Um, you know, so there's a lot of, you know, what ifs there as well. 00:26:30.072 --> 00:26:33.912 Only there's one little problem there. There's people already there. 00:26:34.392 --> 00:26:37.652 Yes. Pretty much anywhere you go, there's people already there. 00:26:38.032 --> 00:26:42.132 Not only Palestine, but these alternative locations they were thinking about 00:26:42.132 --> 00:26:44.492 too, also already had populations. 00:26:44.652 --> 00:26:47.512 It's just a question of who you would displace. 00:26:47.952 --> 00:26:52.072 I mean, there are very few places that are completely unpopulated on the planet, 00:26:52.132 --> 00:26:54.232 and they're generally unpopulated for a reason. 00:26:56.292 --> 00:27:00.432 But there's still a lot of interesting sort of what-if scenarios. 00:27:00.432 --> 00:27:06.112 Like if you go back to the late 1800s and say, what if they had established 00:27:06.112 --> 00:27:11.152 a Jewish homeland somewhere in South America? How would that change everything? 00:27:13.397 --> 00:27:16.177 Yeah, it's kind of hard to even imagine. 00:27:16.637 --> 00:27:17.197 Right. 00:27:17.457 --> 00:27:25.477 Yeah. But yeah, was there anything about how they drew the lines in the Balfour Declaration? 00:27:25.597 --> 00:27:28.917 Like at the end of World War I, they kind of cut up the Ottoman Empire. 00:27:29.297 --> 00:27:35.237 Yeah, that's actually different than Balfour. Like Balfour was just the UK saying 00:27:35.237 --> 00:27:37.837 they were in favor of a Jewish homeland. 00:27:38.257 --> 00:27:40.737 The actual, what was it called? 00:27:43.197 --> 00:27:50.137 I should look it up, but the actual treaty that divided up the Ottoman Empire was different. 00:27:50.457 --> 00:27:53.017 Like, okay, now you're going to make me look it up. 00:27:54.677 --> 00:28:02.917 Yeah, because they purposely drew those lines to divide tribal populations so 00:28:02.917 --> 00:28:07.457 that no one ethnicity was in control of each country. 00:28:07.457 --> 00:28:16.037 Because Iraq has both Sunni and Shia Muslims, and same thing with Jordan and Syria. 00:28:16.397 --> 00:28:19.737 They're all kind of like they're cobbled together, these ethnicities, 00:28:19.917 --> 00:28:21.337 and so they fight among themselves. 00:28:21.757 --> 00:28:24.537 And that was the standard playbook all over the world. 00:28:24.837 --> 00:28:29.977 Oh, yeah, because the British were experts at that. They had been the global 00:28:29.977 --> 00:28:35.017 empire for hundreds of years, and so they knew they were at the peak of their expertise, 00:28:35.317 --> 00:28:41.717 but little did they know that would be, it would continue to be a problem. 00:28:43.157 --> 00:28:44.657 And well, they probably thought their 00:28:44.657 --> 00:28:49.257 empire would continue and the empire basically ended after one war too. 00:28:51.363 --> 00:28:57.083 Yeah, I'm looking, it looks like there, I thought that was like one name that 00:28:57.083 --> 00:29:02.103 they put to all of it, but there, there are a whole series of treaties and mandates and. 00:29:02.283 --> 00:29:04.183 Treaty of Versailles was what ended the. 00:29:05.163 --> 00:29:07.003 Well, that, that was the end of the war. 00:29:07.143 --> 00:29:07.423 Yeah. 00:29:07.423 --> 00:29:11.143 But apparently, in terms of how they divided up the land and everything, 00:29:11.363 --> 00:29:17.123 not just in the former Ottoman Empire, but in all of the areas that were affected 00:29:17.123 --> 00:29:21.683 by World War I, there was apparently a whole bunch of them. 00:29:22.103 --> 00:29:26.463 Sykes-Picot, that's the main one, I think, that people talk about. out. 00:29:26.503 --> 00:29:32.703 The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the UK and France 00:29:32.703 --> 00:29:37.143 with the ascent of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy to define their 00:29:37.143 --> 00:29:41.263 mutually agreed spheres of influence and eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire. 00:29:41.763 --> 00:29:45.843 So there was that secret agreement, and then there were a whole bunch of treaties 00:29:45.843 --> 00:29:50.903 and other agreements and blah, blah, blah to implement that after the war actually ended. 00:29:51.163 --> 00:29:53.783 But this is the one people talk about, Sykes-Picot. 00:29:53.783 --> 00:29:58.543 So what's kind of crazy, I think, is that some people consider the Ottoman Empire 00:29:58.543 --> 00:30:05.703 to be the actual last remnants of the Roman Empire. 00:30:06.103 --> 00:30:10.843 Well, most people say the Byzantine Empire that the Ottomans eventually conquered 00:30:10.843 --> 00:30:13.543 was the last true Roman one. 00:30:13.663 --> 00:30:18.383 Because the Byzantines considered themselves the Roman Empire. 00:30:19.183 --> 00:30:26.783 They actually called themselves the Roman Empire. And I read once quite clearly, 00:30:27.899 --> 00:30:33.019 you know, a few decades ago now, a big, long history of the Byzantine empire. 00:30:33.639 --> 00:30:39.699 And, you know, a, a, a through line of it is to the very end. 00:30:40.239 --> 00:30:43.839 They claimed they were the Roman empire. 00:30:44.019 --> 00:30:49.339 They, you know, they were the legitimate Roman empire up until the day that 00:30:49.339 --> 00:30:51.819 the Ottomans took over Constantinople. 00:30:51.919 --> 00:30:55.179 Yeah. You know, it was a really good series on Netflix about that. 00:30:55.279 --> 00:30:57.159 And that's, I highly recommend. 00:30:57.899 --> 00:31:02.059 Yeah. And, you know, people, cause people think of the Roman empire as dying 00:31:02.059 --> 00:31:07.299 a lot earlier, but I mean, culturally the Roman empire didn't really end until 00:31:07.299 --> 00:31:08.519 the end of the Byzantines. 00:31:08.639 --> 00:31:13.579 Although of course, you know, if you compare the beginning of the Roman empire 00:31:13.579 --> 00:31:16.099 to the end, there's huge cultural shifts anyway. 00:31:16.319 --> 00:31:19.439 Yeah. As any, any country would be anyway. 00:31:19.439 --> 00:31:22.219 Way anything that lasts thousands of years i mean even 00:31:22.219 --> 00:31:25.219 if you look at it a hundred years apart it's not really the same thing 00:31:25.219 --> 00:31:28.059 but there's a continuous evolution and you certainly 00:31:28.059 --> 00:31:31.239 got that here but yeah no it's 00:31:31.239 --> 00:31:40.699 again like i feel like for this book in particular and again the title is bible 00:31:40.699 --> 00:31:47.479 and sword by barbara tuchman i feel like the topic should have been really interesting 00:31:47.479 --> 00:31:50.339 to me it's the kind of stuff I get interested in, 00:31:50.479 --> 00:31:55.679 but the actual presentation of it just had a hard time keeping my attention. 00:31:55.999 --> 00:32:00.839 You know, Sam, I was just planning on reading that book and thank you for keeping me from reading that. 00:32:02.119 --> 00:32:07.479 Well, again, maybe I would have had a better time if I was really doing the 00:32:07.479 --> 00:32:09.459 print version rather than the audio book. 00:32:09.639 --> 00:32:12.299 I don't know. Or if there was a different voice. Well. 00:32:12.439 --> 00:32:14.819 Maybe be able to give it a try either. 00:32:14.819 --> 00:32:17.699 Way it was tough for me like and 00:32:17.699 --> 00:32:21.219 yeah i kept yeah it just i 00:32:21.219 --> 00:32:25.139 kept trying at first and then eventually i sort of gave up and just let it roll 00:32:25.139 --> 00:32:30.019 over me i still think i got most of the high level themes but none of the details 00:32:30.019 --> 00:32:34.199 were sinking in at all it was just sort of like yeah blah blah blah more stuff 00:32:34.199 --> 00:32:38.019 happened blah blah blah more stuff happened blah blah blah you, 00:32:38.599 --> 00:32:44.379 know so i can't i can't even give it a thumb sideways i mean it won the puller 00:32:44.379 --> 00:32:47.479 surprise at the time in 1956 okay. 00:32:47.479 --> 00:32:49.459 Well that's probably the list that you pulled it from. 00:32:49.459 --> 00:32:56.819 Yeah maybe i don't know i i feel like i don't know i have no idea where it came 00:32:56.819 --> 00:33:03.839 from but anyway i i think that's enough for this segment we will take a quick 00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:07.599 break and when we get back we'll start talking about donald Trump. 00:33:07.679 --> 00:33:13.339 And we'll kick that off with whatever Yvonne had to say, which I have not listened to yet. 00:33:13.439 --> 00:33:17.199 So it'll be brand new for all of us back after this. 00:33:20.502 --> 00:33:25.002 Do you want to understand what is really going on with the presidential election cycle? 00:33:25.522 --> 00:33:29.342 Then go to electiongraphs.com right away. 00:33:30.222 --> 00:33:34.462 There you'll find charts and graphs covering the nomination processes in both 00:33:34.462 --> 00:33:38.182 parties and the general election race for electoral college votes. 00:33:38.782 --> 00:33:43.722 For the delegate races, we track not just delegate totals, but also the ever-important 00:33:43.722 --> 00:33:48.822 analysis of how each candidate has to do with the remaining delegates in order to actually win. 00:33:49.102 --> 00:33:53.582 For the Electoral College, we track state-by-state poll averages to categorize 00:33:53.582 --> 00:33:57.862 which states are actually in play and which are not in order to show you the 00:33:57.862 --> 00:34:02.062 range of likely electoral results and how that changes over time. 00:34:02.902 --> 00:34:07.202 Sure, you can get some of this stuff elsewhere, but not in exactly the same way. 00:34:07.362 --> 00:34:12.902 And not from me, Sam, your prime curmudgeon. I think my election trackers are 00:34:12.902 --> 00:34:15.282 better than the rest, so come look at mine. 00:34:16.562 --> 00:34:17.562 ElectionGraphs.com. 00:34:20.462 --> 00:34:21.522 There we go. 00:34:21.982 --> 00:34:24.402 That sounds so much weirder at 1x. 00:34:27.462 --> 00:34:29.602 I'm so used to hearing that at 1.5. 00:34:32.882 --> 00:34:38.622 Yeah, yeah. All of this does. Whenever I'm listening to anything at 1x, 00:34:38.662 --> 00:34:40.262 I'm like, what's wrong with them? 00:34:41.022 --> 00:34:45.342 And especially like music and breaks and stuff. Like if you're used to it at 00:34:45.342 --> 00:34:49.322 the fast speed, listening to it at normal speed is just weird. 00:34:50.702 --> 00:34:56.302 Anyway, so here, like Yvonne sent me this literally right before we started recording. 00:34:56.542 --> 00:35:00.122 I am pretty sure he just recorded it as a voice memo on his phone. 00:35:00.482 --> 00:35:07.022 So here we go. We'll listen to Yvonne's thoughts on the Donald Trump situation. 00:35:07.702 --> 00:35:11.422 And then Bruce and I will react to what Yvonne said. and then just talk about 00:35:11.422 --> 00:35:13.902 the issue in general. So here we go. Here's Yvonne. 00:35:15.391 --> 00:35:21.891 Well, hello, Cormacians. Sorry I'm not there, especially at this elated time 00:35:21.891 --> 00:35:29.131 where we get Donald Trump to be finally be called, what is he now? Convicted felon. 00:35:30.371 --> 00:35:37.351 Ex-president Donald Trump. It's such a great day for me personally. 00:35:37.551 --> 00:35:40.111 I would say I was nervous. 00:35:41.151 --> 00:35:47.551 I saw that all of a sudden I thought that they were going to adjourn for today, 00:35:48.571 --> 00:35:54.111 and I was working because I knew that this stuff was going on. 00:35:54.171 --> 00:35:58.271 I was keeping tabs on it to see what was going on. 00:35:59.071 --> 00:36:03.671 And all of a sudden they said they had a verdict and I was nervous. 00:36:04.491 --> 00:36:11.091 I will say I was like, but I also So, my first instinct was that it was guilty. 00:36:12.051 --> 00:36:17.051 I mean, because if they took this long and there was no, obviously, 00:36:17.151 --> 00:36:20.851 there was no hung jury because they had a verdict, then it had to be guilty. 00:36:21.051 --> 00:36:23.391 There was just no other option. 00:36:23.951 --> 00:36:27.671 Now, the one thing I thought is that, and because somebody else mentioned this, 00:36:27.791 --> 00:36:32.311 that because they were taking a substantial amount of time to fill out the forms 00:36:32.311 --> 00:36:36.611 and do it, that maybe there were some counts that they could say he's not guilty. Okay? 00:36:36.851 --> 00:36:39.931 And so I thought that that was a possibility at that moment. 00:36:40.051 --> 00:36:43.411 I figured it was most of them was going to be guilty, but maybe they figured 00:36:43.411 --> 00:36:44.931 out something that it wasn't. 00:36:44.931 --> 00:36:53.571 But no, they came back and we have convicted felon ex-president Donald Trump 00:36:53.571 --> 00:36:57.071 because I'm not going to give him the credit of getting served, 00:36:57.251 --> 00:36:58.951 getting called president. 00:37:00.251 --> 00:37:06.971 So I will say that it's a great day for our democracy. 00:37:07.931 --> 00:37:13.371 I know that it doesn't really change a lot in terms of practical terms right 00:37:13.371 --> 00:37:19.211 now because he will appeal and it will take a while for the appeals to go through. 00:37:19.611 --> 00:37:25.451 But the reality is that given what the conviction was based on, 00:37:25.511 --> 00:37:30.911 that unless there was some kind of egregious error on the part of the jurors, 00:37:31.471 --> 00:37:36.011 it's very difficult to, not the jurors, in terms of the egregious error, 00:37:36.131 --> 00:37:38.451 in terms of part on the trial itself, 00:37:39.151 --> 00:37:43.351 it's very difficult to get such a verdict overturned. 00:37:43.811 --> 00:37:48.631 A lot of discussion about what, you know, what the sentencing is going to be. 00:37:50.611 --> 00:37:55.651 Because the maximum jail term is four years for this. It could be zero to four years later. 00:37:57.443 --> 00:38:00.083 I mean, they're not going to make it. This is not a capital crime. 00:38:00.183 --> 00:38:01.223 They're not going to make them consecutive. 00:38:02.383 --> 00:38:09.023 It will be concurrent for sure. I mean, if I'm the district attorney, I'm asking for jail. 00:38:09.203 --> 00:38:15.003 Because it really shows, as we know, that this isn't just some mistake or something, whatever. 00:38:15.203 --> 00:38:19.143 This is conduct that he knew was illegal. 00:38:19.443 --> 00:38:27.223 He did it. And I don't think that a defendant in any case learns anything if 00:38:27.223 --> 00:38:30.343 you just go and just give him a slap on the wrist in probation, 00:38:30.723 --> 00:38:35.523 which he could have gotten if he had plea bargained on this because of what 00:38:35.523 --> 00:38:39.063 the potential penalties were. 00:38:39.063 --> 00:38:45.243 But he decided not to do it, and he wanted to vociferously claim to everybody 00:38:45.243 --> 00:38:49.383 that he is a victim, and he isn't. 00:38:49.903 --> 00:38:53.623 He's a crook, and now he is a convicted one. 00:38:53.623 --> 00:39:02.183 And I really wish that all the other legal processes around all the crimes that 00:39:02.183 --> 00:39:08.523 Donald has committed over time had been moving more quickly, 00:39:08.643 --> 00:39:13.023 and we would get a lot more of these guilty verdicts. 00:39:13.023 --> 00:39:20.423 The reality is that my hope is that I think that the prosecutors will request 00:39:20.423 --> 00:39:25.823 and will get jail time for him That even if he wins the damn re-election That 00:39:25.823 --> 00:39:31.783 this bastard will go to jail afterwards The only way that he'll freaking avoid jail is if he dies. 00:39:32.803 --> 00:39:34.183 So, you know. 00:39:35.323 --> 00:39:42.323 That's the reality we are in right now I think it's a great day. 00:39:43.763 --> 00:39:50.083 Where justice has finally been served to this guy and i the one thing that i really, 00:39:51.023 --> 00:39:56.143 loved is the fact that he had this such a defeated look on his face and it's 00:39:56.143 --> 00:40:02.403 just so great because this guy has been a cancer on this country he has been 00:40:02.403 --> 00:40:04.203 a cancer for a very long time, 00:40:05.123 --> 00:40:07.903 he's been a liar his entire life. 00:40:09.283 --> 00:40:12.823 Everything that he purports to be is all a fraud, 00:40:13.723 --> 00:40:19.903 he builds on that fraud it's a whole his life is a damn ponzi scheme his entire 00:40:19.903 --> 00:40:29.003 damn life and then you know he he has had this ambitions of being president, 00:40:29.783 --> 00:40:32.943 and and he does it by vilifying, 00:40:34.043 --> 00:40:40.043 and lying and vilifying people that really have contributed a lot to this country 00:40:40.043 --> 00:40:42.743 over the history of time. 00:40:43.303 --> 00:40:50.903 And he's a racist and just a hateful person. And I really hope that. 00:40:52.211 --> 00:40:57.131 He gets the worst of anything because he doesn't deserve anything good. 00:40:57.971 --> 00:41:00.931 And so he has really hurt a lot of people. 00:41:01.931 --> 00:41:08.231 And so I'm happy today. I celebrated a little bit. I must admit, quite happy. 00:41:08.991 --> 00:41:13.451 And I know that this doesn't decide the election itself, 00:41:14.351 --> 00:41:19.891 but I do think that it's a hell of a lot easier to run against him when he is 00:41:19.891 --> 00:41:24.191 convicted felon ex-president, Donald Trump. 00:41:24.731 --> 00:41:26.571 So guys, I'll leave you to Sam 00:41:26.571 --> 00:41:29.751 and Bruce, which I know are covering the show. I'm sorry I'm not there. 00:41:29.831 --> 00:41:34.751 I'm in Guatemala, and lately connectivity from these places has not been very good. 00:41:34.871 --> 00:41:37.591 So I'm just recording this message and sending it out. But thanks, 00:41:37.651 --> 00:41:41.671 everybody, and hopefully I'll be back online soon. Thanks, everybody. Bye. 00:41:42.991 --> 00:41:46.451 Okay. So that's what Yvonne had to say. I'll let you react first, Bruce. 00:41:47.591 --> 00:41:54.591 Well, for someone who's been And he's so happy to have Trump convicted. 00:41:54.711 --> 00:41:58.111 He didn't seem too happy listening to him. 00:41:58.731 --> 00:42:04.151 I've heard him be a lot happier, but I think I don't think I'm sure. 00:42:04.151 --> 00:42:05.331 He's tired to every. 00:42:05.331 --> 00:42:06.351 Time he's been in Guatemala. 00:42:06.451 --> 00:42:09.631 He's been talking about how he's exhausted at the end of the day, et cetera. 00:42:09.951 --> 00:42:15.571 And he's like more time zones over than he usually is as well, 00:42:15.651 --> 00:42:18.211 I think so, or whatever. He's in a different time zone than that. 00:42:18.371 --> 00:42:20.571 I think it's just central time zone over there. 00:42:23.751 --> 00:42:29.991 But I'm sure he would probably not feel that he said that justice has been served, 00:42:30.051 --> 00:42:33.171 but I don't think justice is going to be served until he actually pays a price 00:42:33.171 --> 00:42:35.711 or loses the presidency because of this. 00:42:35.991 --> 00:42:38.751 So that remains to be seen. 00:42:39.191 --> 00:42:43.011 Yeah, and he was like sentencing, it's going to be jail. 00:42:43.131 --> 00:42:47.891 I'm not confident. I think he's right that the prosecutors will ask for jail. 00:42:47.891 --> 00:42:50.531 Jail i don't know that the judge is going to 00:42:50.531 --> 00:42:53.791 give him jail because like this is a class 00:42:53.791 --> 00:42:56.971 e felony that apparently very rarely gets 00:42:56.971 --> 00:42:59.811 jail as part of the sentence and he's 00:42:59.811 --> 00:43:03.511 a first-time offender as much as all this other stuff is going on this is the 00:43:03.511 --> 00:43:09.391 first time he's been convicted of anything and between those two things and 00:43:09.391 --> 00:43:14.591 the fact that he's an ex-president he's got secret service protection he is 00:43:14.591 --> 00:43:17.631 a candidate currently for the presidency what. 00:43:17.631 --> 00:43:23.051 Does secret service protection mean in jail would they be like standing outside his jail cell. 00:43:23.051 --> 00:43:24.331 Probably yeah while. 00:43:24.331 --> 00:43:28.331 He's walking around the yard walking right beside him or what. 00:43:28.331 --> 00:43:32.931 Yeah it would probably be exactly that but like no but with all of this kind 00:43:32.931 --> 00:43:38.751 of stuff it's like it's hard to imagine the judge actually saying okay, 00:43:38.951 --> 00:43:42.591 the sentence is X number of months in jail or whatever. 00:43:43.891 --> 00:43:45.331 Maybe, I mean... 00:43:46.408 --> 00:43:48.328 Maybe he will. I mean, the things 00:43:48.328 --> 00:43:53.008 that people have said are reasons why it might get bumped up to jail. 00:43:53.208 --> 00:43:56.608 Like despite the, okay, class E felonies usually don't get this, 00:43:56.628 --> 00:44:00.268 et cetera, are A, there were 34 counts. 00:44:00.468 --> 00:44:06.368 That's a lot of counts. B, he's shown absolutely no remorse or admission of 00:44:06.368 --> 00:44:11.308 guilt or even acknowledgement that he's done anything wrong ever. 00:44:11.308 --> 00:44:17.608 However, two, he had the 12 counts of contempt of court during the trial and 00:44:17.608 --> 00:44:20.408 just generally his behavior around that. 00:44:20.448 --> 00:44:27.708 And also the judge is allowed to consider the fact that he is on trial for other 00:44:27.708 --> 00:44:30.948 things or has been indicted for other things. 00:44:31.028 --> 00:44:34.528 Obviously, he hasn't been convicted of those other things. But the fact that 00:44:34.528 --> 00:44:39.468 he's indicted for them, the judge is allowed to take that into account as he 00:44:39.468 --> 00:44:40.448 looks at the bigger picture. 00:44:40.448 --> 00:44:43.748 And so people argue that when you add all of those things in, 00:44:43.868 --> 00:44:46.088 maybe the jail time really is a possibility. 00:44:47.048 --> 00:44:51.528 As Yvonne said, though, even if the judge sentenced him to jail, 00:44:51.768 --> 00:44:56.968 it's going to be in appeals for years and years and years, assuming he doesn't 00:44:56.968 --> 00:44:57.928 even win the presidency. 00:44:57.928 --> 00:45:00.928 Presidency like if he wins the presidency this 00:45:00.928 --> 00:45:03.868 is a state court so certain things can proceed 00:45:03.868 --> 00:45:07.108 but a lot of talking heads 00:45:07.108 --> 00:45:12.068 i've heard talk about this say basically what would likely happen if he won 00:45:12.068 --> 00:45:17.168 the presidency and there were still ongoing things in state court is that they 00:45:17.168 --> 00:45:25.628 would basically pause those state court activities until he left the presidency again you know yeah. 00:45:25.628 --> 00:45:30.308 That's that's That's what I would think too. Yeah. For me, I'm, I'm surprised. 00:45:30.428 --> 00:45:34.228 I thought that it would be a hung jury because all it takes is one person. 00:45:34.568 --> 00:45:38.408 Yeah. I, I, you know, as I mentioned on the show a couple of times ago, 00:45:38.448 --> 00:45:43.808 I didn't, I wasn't predicting a hung jury, but it was definitely a significant chance of it. 00:45:44.168 --> 00:45:48.428 And like the Trump folks were, we're talking even, uh, 00:45:48.909 --> 00:45:52.309 today this morning before it came out that 00:45:52.309 --> 00:45:55.989 well there were reports that off the record trump 00:45:55.989 --> 00:45:59.029 team people were saying they felt really good about 00:45:59.029 --> 00:46:05.129 the hung jury scenario because there was this one juror juror number two apparently 00:46:05.129 --> 00:46:11.069 who in the jury selection process had said they like get some of their news 00:46:11.069 --> 00:46:17.749 from truth social had also whenever like these conservative luminaries had 00:46:17.789 --> 00:46:22.509 sat in the courtroom next to Donald Trump and sort of smiled and looked happy and like, Ooh, 00:46:22.649 --> 00:46:25.549 there's this person, the Senator, whoever, blah, blah, blah. 00:46:25.629 --> 00:46:30.189 And so like, apparently there was some contingent among the Trump folks who 00:46:30.189 --> 00:46:33.409 were like that one, that one's going to hang the jury for us. 00:46:33.789 --> 00:46:37.489 Yeah. Well, you know, it takes someone with extraordinarily thick skin. 00:46:37.789 --> 00:46:45.029 If it's a single juror, it's not like the, you know, 12 angry men where one person can. 00:46:45.089 --> 00:46:46.729 Can swing the whole jury i. 00:46:46.729 --> 00:46:52.589 Recently served on a jury it was for a civil trial and we were bumping up against 00:46:52.589 --> 00:46:58.629 a deadline where we would have to come back it was like a friday and we would 00:46:58.629 --> 00:47:00.089 have to come back on monday. 00:47:00.089 --> 00:47:00.829 Right and. 00:47:00.829 --> 00:47:05.329 Nobody wanted to have to do that so we were like all right let's get this decided 00:47:05.329 --> 00:47:09.509 and i could and it was the same situation here right i think they were gonna 00:47:09.509 --> 00:47:12.349 have to if they didn't decide today they were gonna have to be. 00:47:12.349 --> 00:47:15.529 Well no they could they would have been able to continue tomorrow 00:47:15.529 --> 00:47:18.269 but and that's why everybody sort of thought one 00:47:18.269 --> 00:47:21.029 way or another they'll make a decision by friday because they don't want to stay 00:47:21.029 --> 00:47:24.089 the weekend yeah but but thursday but and 00:47:24.089 --> 00:47:27.189 and a lot of the punditry was like if if 00:47:27.189 --> 00:47:32.529 they you know if they decide something thursday it's definitely a conviction 00:47:32.529 --> 00:47:38.009 if it goes till friday then we've got a serious consideration of a hung jury 00:47:38.009 --> 00:47:43.929 now if if they had been hung like the way it typically works is the judge makes 00:47:43.929 --> 00:47:45.689 them keep trying for a while. 00:47:46.639 --> 00:47:50.999 Like, they're not going to say on Friday, oh, sorry, we can't come to a decision, 00:47:51.139 --> 00:47:52.019 and the judge says, okay. 00:47:52.399 --> 00:47:55.519 No, the judge would be like, you're coming back Monday, and you're going to 00:47:55.519 --> 00:47:59.859 keep trying for at least another week. You know, so like –. 00:47:59.859 --> 00:48:01.299 It's kind of like punishing him. 00:48:02.019 --> 00:48:07.359 Yeah. But, I mean, and we did have in one of the previous civil cases, 00:48:07.659 --> 00:48:12.039 I can't remember if it was an E. Jean Carroll or one of the monetary ones. 00:48:12.139 --> 00:48:15.279 I think it might have been E. Jean Carroll. Carol, there, there was, 00:48:15.279 --> 00:48:18.979 there was a person on the jury who is an out and out Trump supporter. 00:48:19.299 --> 00:48:25.319 Like they were a Trump fan, like they, you know, and they voted to convict anyway. 00:48:25.459 --> 00:48:29.819 And they were interviewed afterwards as saying like, I'm a Trump supporter. 00:48:30.099 --> 00:48:35.819 I like the guy, but I was on the jury and I had to do my duty and the charges 00:48:35.819 --> 00:48:38.059 against him were true, you know? 00:48:38.839 --> 00:48:45.939 So, so yeah, I mean, I mean, I would not have been surprised by a hung jury, 00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:50.019 but this is not a surprising outcome either. 00:48:50.359 --> 00:48:55.339 Yeah. So, but in the end, how will this affect the election? 00:48:55.519 --> 00:48:57.319 That's the real question that everyone's asking. 00:48:57.519 --> 00:49:04.659 Will this, as you were saying, there be no, he won't be going to jail. 00:49:04.779 --> 00:49:09.879 He won't be actually having to pay any price. He's going to appeal and that 00:49:09.879 --> 00:49:14.939 will at least push this out until after his second term, if he wins. 00:49:15.099 --> 00:49:15.779 If he wins. 00:49:15.899 --> 00:49:21.559 Will he win? Is this enough to sway that, you know, the middle voters to say, 00:49:21.659 --> 00:49:24.699 oh, wow, this guy is a convicted felon. Are we going to vote? 00:49:25.079 --> 00:49:30.199 Right. Well, and this is, you know, I hate to do the thing I always say, 00:49:30.259 --> 00:49:31.759 which is we'll have to wait and see. 00:49:31.759 --> 00:49:37.079 Like because there have been all kinds of questions about this asked of people 00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:44.859 like for months and months and months people have been polling republicans and trump supporters, 00:49:45.919 --> 00:49:51.119 asking if he's convicted would it change your mind and there's a significant 00:49:51.119 --> 00:49:56.759 chunk who have said yes it would like five to ten percent fifteen on the upside 00:49:56.759 --> 00:50:00.219 and you know you'd say Okay, that's a small percentage. 00:50:00.439 --> 00:50:06.999 But if 15% defect and either don't vote or vote for Biden or even vote for Kennedy 00:50:06.999 --> 00:50:10.699 or somebody, then that's enough to swing the election. 00:50:10.999 --> 00:50:16.019 I mean, it's a, the race is a few percentage points at this point in the critical states. 00:50:16.239 --> 00:50:19.759 But here's the thing, like, I... 00:50:20.711 --> 00:50:28.971 If you look at this there, I can fully imagine that the reaction at this point is yes. Okay, fine. 00:50:29.351 --> 00:50:33.391 But when you said, would you change your mind if he was convicted? 00:50:33.751 --> 00:50:36.551 I was thinking of like murder or something. 00:50:36.831 --> 00:50:41.731 This is some paperwork crime. He did like, you know, okay. 00:50:41.851 --> 00:50:47.051 So he lied. And I mean, like the details of this crime are actually kind of hard to follow. 00:50:47.211 --> 00:50:52.171 It's a several step thing. And it's in the end, it's about, you know, you, 00:50:52.351 --> 00:50:57.671 you wrote things down as if this was a legal expense where actually you were 00:50:57.671 --> 00:51:02.411 reimbursing somebody for paying off the porn star and the paying off the porn 00:51:02.411 --> 00:51:03.531 star. Isn't the problem. 00:51:03.591 --> 00:51:08.091 The problem is that you declared it as something it wasn't, and it was really 00:51:08.091 --> 00:51:10.571 a campaign expense and you should have declared it that way. 00:51:10.571 --> 00:51:15.651 It gets messy and complicated and you can easily have people dismiss that and 00:51:15.651 --> 00:51:19.631 say, yeah, okay, that's a crime, but it's not really a crime. 00:51:20.251 --> 00:51:24.491 And then also you have, oh, it's still under appeal. 00:51:24.491 --> 00:51:30.831 You have Donald Trump and a chorus of surrounding Republicans saying, 00:51:30.951 --> 00:51:32.691 witch hunt, it's political, 00:51:32.991 --> 00:51:36.851 it's Joe Biden going after him, it's completely bullshit, there wasn't anything 00:51:36.851 --> 00:51:43.711 here, and this is a huge miscarriage of justice, et cetera, et cetera. 00:51:43.711 --> 00:51:48.471 And for certainly any of the true believers are going to buy all of that hook, 00:51:48.491 --> 00:51:51.031 line, and sinker, and they're not going to change their minds. 00:51:51.231 --> 00:51:55.791 And so the difference, again, is like on the margins. Do you have a few percent 00:51:55.791 --> 00:51:58.711 defect because of this? And... 00:51:59.945 --> 00:52:07.025 Do not have that compensated for by outraged MAGA people who become more likely 00:52:07.025 --> 00:52:08.605 to vote because this has happened. 00:52:09.325 --> 00:52:13.845 Yeah. And if this was happening at the end of October rather than the end of May. 00:52:14.205 --> 00:52:16.025 Yeah. There's also lots of time to recover. 00:52:16.165 --> 00:52:21.185 Yes. There's just five months, five months from now, people will be barely remembering 00:52:21.185 --> 00:52:23.845 this. It's, it's gotta be ancient history. 00:52:24.045 --> 00:52:27.485 Well, there are a few things like we're going to, the sentencing isn't until 00:52:27.485 --> 00:52:32.065 the middle of July. So we'll have a little boost there when sentencing happens. 00:52:34.365 --> 00:52:38.425 And then, of course, that will be immediately followed by the Republican convention, 00:52:38.625 --> 00:52:40.245 which will probably undo anything. 00:52:40.445 --> 00:52:45.365 They're like so close together, there won't even be any polling that can distinguish those two events. 00:52:45.365 --> 00:52:48.725 And then we might, 00:52:48.865 --> 00:52:55.745 we probably won't have actual trials for anything else, but also very likely 00:52:55.745 --> 00:53:00.925 in the beginning of July will be the Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity, 00:53:01.305 --> 00:53:05.585 which after that decision, regardless of what happens to it, 00:53:05.665 --> 00:53:09.125 there will be developments in the DC trial. 00:53:09.125 --> 00:53:15.525 Like the trial won't start most likely, but there will be developments and things 00:53:15.525 --> 00:53:18.045 happening and things in the news about that trial. 00:53:18.145 --> 00:53:22.125 Now, whether any of those will break through to public consciousness, who knows? 00:53:22.785 --> 00:53:25.925 And I think, you know, I mentioned sentencing in July. 00:53:25.945 --> 00:53:30.865 I think a lot dependence depends on that too. Like if the judge does say, 00:53:30.865 --> 00:53:38.265 you know, probation, a fine and probation, then everybody's going to be like, 00:53:38.385 --> 00:53:39.565 well, that was a whole lot of nothing. 00:53:40.205 --> 00:53:44.725 Maybe he is a felon, but you know, he got a fine and probation, big fucking deal. 00:53:45.205 --> 00:53:53.005 Like, and you know, and I think anything short of, okay, he's actually in jail. 00:53:53.945 --> 00:53:59.465 Yeah, exactly. may have problems making a huge difference. 00:53:59.605 --> 00:54:03.185 Yeah. But again, you don't need a huge difference. You need a small difference 00:54:03.185 --> 00:54:06.125 to make, you know, like right now, 00:54:06.971 --> 00:54:10.491 I did an update on election graphs this last week. 00:54:10.491 --> 00:54:13.331 I noticed that. I just saw that you finally got another block. 00:54:13.371 --> 00:54:16.071 Yeah, I've been running every couple months or so. 00:54:16.131 --> 00:54:21.571 I really need to get more frequent now that we're less than six months away from the election. 00:54:21.811 --> 00:54:29.111 But just to give the reference, on electiongraphs.com, on the 28th, 00:54:29.111 --> 00:54:33.431 on May 28th, I posted 162 days out as summer starts. 00:54:33.431 --> 00:54:41.531 And the bottom line on that is there has been a recent, just in the last week 00:54:41.531 --> 00:54:44.511 or two, movement towards Biden. 00:54:44.731 --> 00:54:47.851 But I don't know if it's a lasting movement. 00:54:48.031 --> 00:54:53.111 There were a couple of false starts, both in January and in March, 00:54:53.331 --> 00:54:57.091 where it looked like things were moving towards Biden and they went a couple 00:54:57.091 --> 00:55:01.451 percentage and then it reversed. So it's probably those might have just been noise. 00:55:01.591 --> 00:55:06.071 Now, this is so far a bigger move than that. But I still don't know. 00:55:06.131 --> 00:55:08.491 Is it like long lasting? Is it real? 00:55:08.711 --> 00:55:12.531 Or is it just like a blip and it's going to go back where it was? 00:55:12.771 --> 00:55:16.951 I just added right after the verdict today, like on election graphs, 00:55:17.091 --> 00:55:21.471 I do these little vertical lines on all my graphs of where sort of news events happen. 00:55:21.471 --> 00:55:26.631 And so I just added one for the verdict and in terms of will, 00:55:26.671 --> 00:55:28.331 do we see a movement in the polls? 00:55:29.311 --> 00:55:35.611 There's, first of all, I would not be surprised if there are snap national polls 00:55:35.611 --> 00:55:39.511 released as early as Friday of this week, tomorrow, 00:55:39.771 --> 00:55:46.171 as we're recording this of like an initial impression based on what happened with the verdict. 00:55:46.171 --> 00:55:50.291 But and there and you'll start getting some national polls right away because 00:55:50.291 --> 00:55:54.011 their new national report their new national polls released pretty much every 00:55:54.011 --> 00:55:59.671 day we'll probably get the first state polls that include the time frame after 00:55:59.671 --> 00:56:04.211 the verdict middle to end of next week but like, 00:56:04.899 --> 00:56:11.499 You won't have enough for the poll averages in all of the swing states to reflect 00:56:11.499 --> 00:56:14.359 post-verdict for probably a month. 00:56:14.579 --> 00:56:17.539 Because you do averages of five, right? 00:56:17.679 --> 00:56:22.059 Yeah, I do last five poll averages. And in all the swing states right now, 00:56:22.279 --> 00:56:28.359 that generally has ranged anywhere from the last three weeks to get five polls 00:56:28.359 --> 00:56:31.179 to the last month and a half, depending on the state. 00:56:31.959 --> 00:56:34.999 But in another month we'll have an idea did 00:56:34.999 --> 00:56:42.239 this move poles at all but honestly at this point like i don't know i i want 00:56:42.239 --> 00:56:47.259 to feel like this has to hurt i mean how can it help but at the same time there 00:56:47.259 --> 00:56:52.259 are a lot of weird dynamics here he's being persecuted he's being persecuted exactly, 00:56:52.819 --> 00:57:00.199 there uh now and and him being persecuted is the kind of thing that gets you 00:57:00.199 --> 00:57:05.339 know there's a lot of analysis that's been posted over the last couple of months as well, 00:57:05.459 --> 00:57:15.899 related to a lot of the Donald Trump support is among people who did not vote in 2020. 00:57:17.299 --> 00:57:22.959 And so there's the question of, do you have a lot of people who are riled up, 00:57:22.999 --> 00:57:25.239 but actually won't turn up at the end? 00:57:25.419 --> 00:57:28.139 Or do you have actual people will turn up again because one of 00:57:28.139 --> 00:57:32.459 the things that happened in 2016 is donald trump got a whole bunch of people 00:57:32.459 --> 00:57:38.039 to vote who had not voted previously and who were not regular voters but they 00:57:38.039 --> 00:57:42.579 were excited by donald trump and so they were undercounted i don't know i i 00:57:42.579 --> 00:57:46.899 just don't know like so i don't know so yeah well. 00:57:46.899 --> 00:57:56.659 Just just uh for listeners the the tldr is a couple weeks ago your uniform swing odds were. 00:57:56.659 --> 00:57:58.779 96.6%. 00:57:58.779 --> 00:58:07.339 Chance for Trump to win and today it's 87 or 81.7% chance of Trump winning. 00:58:07.799 --> 00:58:12.799 The one important thing about those odds that you just gave as well that I pointed 00:58:12.799 --> 00:58:19.099 out in my blog post and elsewhere is that these are all if the election was today. 00:58:19.619 --> 00:58:21.599 You know, if the polls... 00:58:22.999 --> 00:58:30.259 Are like they are now on election day, then those are the odds because what 00:58:30.259 --> 00:58:34.919 I have on the site right now does not take into account at all how much things 00:58:34.919 --> 00:58:37.439 tend to change over time. 00:58:37.719 --> 00:58:41.679 And like right now, as of today, as of when we're recording, 00:58:42.019 --> 00:58:50.959 we are 158.9 days away from when polls start to close on election night. 00:58:51.279 --> 00:58:56.919 A lot can happen on that timeframe, including, hey, he just got convicted of a bunch of crap. 00:58:57.399 --> 00:59:05.179 So things may change. I have started and have begun work on the models necessary 00:59:05.179 --> 00:59:09.559 that actually take into account how much the polls usually shift when there 00:59:09.559 --> 00:59:10.999 are X number of days left. 00:59:11.319 --> 00:59:17.919 But honestly, in order to finish that, I need to have two or three days straight 00:59:17.919 --> 00:59:19.979 where I just work on that. 00:59:20.019 --> 00:59:24.579 And it's really hard to get time to do it. I I'm actually considering taking 00:59:24.579 --> 00:59:27.579 some actual time off later this month to finish that up. 00:59:27.679 --> 00:59:34.339 I have some data cleaning to do. Cause like, uh, right now I have all of my, 00:59:34.439 --> 00:59:39.639 I I've written all the scripts to do the calculations based on 2020 and 2016 data, 00:59:39.779 --> 00:59:46.359 but I really want to include 2012 and 20 and 2008 and 2008 data as well. 00:59:46.599 --> 00:59:53.259 But in 2016 and 2020, I had the election graphs website up and basically its current form. 00:59:53.379 --> 00:59:59.619 And I had all the data in easily digestible forms that I could run scripts on in 2008. 00:59:59.819 --> 01:00:03.719 And in 2012, I just had hand done Excel spreadsheets. 01:00:03.959 --> 01:00:09.999 So I have to go find that data, convert it into the right format, run my new scripts on it. 01:00:10.039 --> 01:00:15.199 And then after I've done all that, I have to, that gets me sort of the math 01:00:15.199 --> 01:00:20.819 that tells me like, uh, if it's X number of days until the election and the 01:00:20.819 --> 01:00:23.799 poll says this in a particular state, 01:00:23.959 --> 01:00:26.599 what are the chances of the Republican and Democrat winning? 01:00:26.839 --> 01:00:31.879 And then I have to run simulations on that. And then I have to make new graphs and charts. 01:00:31.979 --> 01:00:36.459 So there's, there's, there's a number, there's, there's a significant chunk 01:00:36.459 --> 01:00:38.279 of work I have to do to get that done. 01:00:38.419 --> 01:00:42.499 So like, I don't know when it's going to be done, But like, I feel like it's 01:00:42.499 --> 01:00:47.959 important because like, you know, people, people get hung up on those numbers and the whole thing. 01:00:48.941 --> 01:00:52.301 Well, the election's not today, so is this useless? 01:00:52.901 --> 01:00:59.101 And the answer, it's not useless. It tells you who's ahead or behind right now 01:00:59.101 --> 01:01:02.681 and how much work they have to do in order to change that. 01:01:04.221 --> 01:01:07.301 But it would be helpful to have something that says, you know, 01:01:07.481 --> 01:01:12.541 how much is it likely to actually change between now and election day? 01:01:12.641 --> 01:01:16.201 How accurate do things tend to be this far out? 01:01:16.521 --> 01:01:21.221 And the answer is there's a lot of wiggle room. 01:01:21.421 --> 01:01:29.161 If you've got states that are under 5%, 6% margin, there's a non-trivial chance 01:01:29.161 --> 01:01:33.001 they flip before Election Day in either direction this far out. 01:01:33.141 --> 01:01:39.381 Once you get to the last few weeks, it's a lot tougher to change the picture. 01:01:39.741 --> 01:01:41.501 Unless there's an October surprise. 01:01:42.021 --> 01:01:49.521 Unless there's an October surprise. prize. Like in, in, in both 2016 and 2020, 01:01:49.801 --> 01:01:54.261 there were things that showed up just in the last week or two in the polls, 01:01:54.401 --> 01:02:01.141 you know, in both cases, the polls moved in the Republican direction in the last two or three weeks. 01:02:01.741 --> 01:02:05.901 And so we'll see, we'll see. I have to put all this stuff in and do all this 01:02:05.901 --> 01:02:09.581 stuff. But yeah, anyway, I, I didn't mean to do an election graphs rant. 01:02:09.701 --> 01:02:11.481 You, you, you led me to it. 01:02:11.741 --> 01:02:15.181 Well, you needed to because you need to let everyone know about the, 01:02:15.281 --> 01:02:19.441 that's why I brought up the you got to later, you got a blog post up. 01:02:19.661 --> 01:02:25.841 Yeah, no, read the blog post for more, but I'm really interested to see what 01:02:25.841 --> 01:02:27.181 happens in the next couple of years. 01:02:27.977 --> 01:02:32.617 Two, three, four weeks of polls and whether we actually see a movement or not. 01:02:32.817 --> 01:02:37.397 Cause I think depending on what happens there, like if, if we see a movement 01:02:37.397 --> 01:02:42.877 towards Biden in the next month, I'll be like, okay, that, that finally makes some sense. 01:02:42.977 --> 01:02:47.817 I understand that if we actually see things move towards Trump in the next few 01:02:47.817 --> 01:02:51.377 weeks, I'll just throw my hands up in there and say, okay, he's winning. I don't know. 01:02:52.277 --> 01:02:56.777 Yeah. Cause if, if this doesn't take them, then it's going to take something really big then. 01:02:56.777 --> 01:02:58.217 What will what you know. 01:02:58.217 --> 01:03:07.337 Well yeah i well my my hope would be that biden will actually do something i 01:03:07.337 --> 01:03:12.917 mean i don't like either one of them and you know that the listeners should know that too uh but well. 01:03:12.917 --> 01:03:17.317 And and it's not just you like this is repeatedly in the polls like one of the 01:03:17.317 --> 01:03:25.317 problems in this whole election cycle is that almost everybody in both I shouldn't say almost everybody, 01:03:25.357 --> 01:03:30.597 but a significant group of people in both parties just wish, 01:03:30.617 --> 01:03:34.957 could we have two different people? Just not these two. 01:03:35.117 --> 01:03:39.317 Please. Well, we're going to talk about one of them in just a few minutes. 01:03:40.677 --> 01:03:46.497 But my point was that if Biden could do something really significant before 01:03:46.497 --> 01:03:53.177 his election, like maybe end the Ukraine war or end the Israel-Hamas war. 01:03:53.397 --> 01:03:54.897 I don't think either of those are happening. 01:03:55.057 --> 01:03:58.937 Yeah, I doubt he'd be able to. I mean, you'd think that he has the power. 01:03:59.097 --> 01:04:04.977 He's the leader of the most powerful country in the world, and he's been dumping 01:04:04.977 --> 01:04:06.317 all kinds of weapons in both those. 01:04:07.237 --> 01:04:11.777 You'd think that he could do something to end those. I think that would be significant 01:04:11.777 --> 01:04:16.257 enough to really shift the polls because people are not happy about either one of those wars. 01:04:16.357 --> 01:04:20.477 Well, yeah. I mean, honestly, it doesn't line up exactly, 01:04:21.457 --> 01:04:29.677 but Biden's big fall, the big move towards Trump, aligns pretty closely with 01:04:29.677 --> 01:04:33.077 the October incident in Israel. 01:04:33.077 --> 01:04:38.677 Like it like i said it doesn't line up exactly it looks like but it's it's close 01:04:38.677 --> 01:04:41.857 like there's definitely an effect there where. 01:04:41.857 --> 01:04:44.897 Because because if you look at the plot there's a big shift 01:04:44.897 --> 01:04:53.417 in late what's this yeah you're right yeah it's like right at october early 01:04:53.417 --> 01:05:00.757 october it before then it was trump's chances were hovering around 65 percent 01:05:00.757 --> 01:05:04.737 and then it jumped up to 90 per. 01:05:05.357 --> 01:05:08.477 Yeah. You can, you can see the line. If you're looking at my charts, 01:05:08.537 --> 01:05:09.957 you can see there's a line for 01:05:09.957 --> 01:05:15.077 the Israeli Hamas war begins and it's right there where that movement is. 01:05:15.177 --> 01:05:15.657 Yeah. Yeah. 01:05:16.976 --> 01:05:20.156 Wow. That's a good point. Interesting. 01:05:20.796 --> 01:05:25.656 And so, and you know, is that, is, is it really related to. 01:05:25.756 --> 01:05:28.916 Oh, wait. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. You're right. That one. 01:05:29.136 --> 01:05:33.296 I mean, is it really like, cause when you look at like polls, 01:05:33.416 --> 01:05:35.876 like, yeah, there's a bunch of people who care about this issue, 01:05:35.936 --> 01:05:40.196 but it's not the number one issue for most people, but is it really, 01:05:40.236 --> 01:05:46.796 and usually international events aren't like a big deal in American elections really. 01:05:46.876 --> 01:05:50.716 It's all about the economy or social issues. 01:05:51.256 --> 01:05:56.216 In this case, we got abortion as a major issue. I guess that's a social issue. 01:05:56.736 --> 01:06:01.936 But it's usually domestic stuff that drives the agenda in presidential elections. 01:06:02.256 --> 01:06:07.316 So do you really have a big freaking move based on an international incident 01:06:07.316 --> 01:06:10.496 that only indirectly even involves us? 01:06:11.056 --> 01:06:15.176 Maybe. I mean, if people are blaming Biden for it, 01:06:16.216 --> 01:06:27.936 And also, the fact that this is aligned with when the Hamas attack happened makes me wonder, 01:06:28.076 --> 01:06:32.076 because Biden hadn't even had a chance to react to it yet at that point. 01:06:32.196 --> 01:06:38.676 So all the complaints about how Biden has handled it really are at least a little 01:06:38.676 --> 01:06:41.096 bit after that. You know, I don't know. 01:06:41.136 --> 01:06:44.356 But yeah, so I agree. 01:06:44.576 --> 01:06:49.456 If you ended one of the big international conflicts and Biden got credit for 01:06:49.456 --> 01:06:51.176 it, does that make a big difference? 01:06:51.336 --> 01:06:55.876 Maybe it does. But I really don't see either one of those conflicts ending before November. 01:06:56.976 --> 01:06:59.556 Probably not even in 2025, to be honest. 01:07:00.567 --> 01:07:03.727 It's going to go on a long time in both cases. 01:07:03.947 --> 01:07:05.007 Yeah, yeah. 01:07:05.327 --> 01:07:08.287 And what else are the factors that could happen? 01:07:08.447 --> 01:07:14.327 I mean, you talk about the economy, and people all like poll after poll after 01:07:14.327 --> 01:07:19.227 poll say people think the economy sucks, whereas all the actual numbers say 01:07:19.227 --> 01:07:20.667 it's actually doing really well. 01:07:20.907 --> 01:07:21.347 Yeah. 01:07:21.407 --> 01:07:27.247 So you can't say like what if happens if Biden, if something good happens in 01:07:27.247 --> 01:07:31.627 the economy, right? If something good already happened in the economy, he gets no credit. 01:07:31.927 --> 01:07:35.367 Well, the thing that would be good in the economy would be for inflation to 01:07:35.367 --> 01:07:38.407 go back down below 2% that I think people would be. 01:07:38.567 --> 01:07:43.547 If he was able to get inflation down below 2% without their- Below. 01:07:43.547 --> 01:07:48.907 2% is actually really rare. But yeah, it could go down a little bit more. 01:07:48.907 --> 01:07:54.127 But the problem with this, and a number of surveys have also supported this, 01:07:54.327 --> 01:07:58.727 is that as much as you talk about what the inflation rate is, 01:07:58.867 --> 01:08:03.787 what gets mentally stuck in people's heads is not the inflation rate, it's prices. 01:08:04.167 --> 01:08:10.207 And people don't mentally start thinking like things are better as long as the 01:08:10.207 --> 01:08:14.227 price is still higher than it was. And you need negative inflation for that. 01:08:14.567 --> 01:08:17.687 Yeah. And prices are not going to go back to what they were. 01:08:17.787 --> 01:08:19.367 There's no way. Yeah. Exactly. 01:08:19.847 --> 01:08:26.007 So, yeah, it's just because if inflation, people are having them in the back 01:08:26.007 --> 01:08:27.767 of their minds, unless they are, 01:08:29.212 --> 01:08:34.512 are smart, which most people aren't, when they think that inflation is going 01:08:34.512 --> 01:08:40.112 back down to zero, doesn't mean that prices go back down to what they were before. No. 01:08:40.212 --> 01:08:47.352 Now, prices have gone down in some specific areas, but that's not... 01:08:47.352 --> 01:08:50.532 And also certain prices, people don't like when they go down. 01:08:50.652 --> 01:08:54.292 If the price of your home goes down and you're already a homeowner, 01:08:54.412 --> 01:08:55.512 you're actually upset by that. 01:08:55.852 --> 01:09:00.532 Now, if you're in the market to buy one, you might be happy but like you know 01:09:00.532 --> 01:09:05.112 it anyway like yes certain prices have gone down but on the whole, 01:09:06.072 --> 01:09:09.052 it's actually a bad thing if prices overall 01:09:09.052 --> 01:09:12.132 go down you know people have 01:09:12.132 --> 01:09:15.332 also pointed out that if you know 01:09:15.332 --> 01:09:18.252 wage inflation is part of this too but like 01:09:18.252 --> 01:09:21.772 if if you get a raise at work you 01:09:21.772 --> 01:09:24.872 say oh it's because i'm awesome i deserve 01:09:24.872 --> 01:09:32.412 that rate whereas if the price of eggs goes up you're like god damn the economy 01:09:32.412 --> 01:09:37.772 is horrible whereas often cases your own like whether you get a raise or not 01:09:37.772 --> 01:09:43.552 is also very dependent on the economy but you know i mean not to say that you're You're not great, 01:09:43.672 --> 01:09:46.492 but you know, yeah. 01:09:47.072 --> 01:09:51.532 So I don't know. I mean, on the other hand, if, if something bad happened to 01:09:51.532 --> 01:09:56.792 the economy, Biden would get blamed instantly for that, you know, et cetera. 01:09:57.032 --> 01:10:00.312 Um, but that has been holding it together for him. That's, um, 01:10:00.312 --> 01:10:06.652 I'm, I'm, I'm just amazed that we can have interest rates this high for this 01:10:06.652 --> 01:10:09.272 long and it not affect the economy. 01:10:09.392 --> 01:10:12.912 And it's just, just shows how resilient this, this economy is. 01:10:13.052 --> 01:10:19.752 Well, and they've, you know, it feels like they've actually learned a bunch 01:10:19.752 --> 01:10:25.092 on that, quote unquote, how to do this from the last few cycles where they've done stuff. 01:10:25.172 --> 01:10:29.892 And basically they're threading the needle to get the sort of mythical soft 01:10:29.892 --> 01:10:35.512 landing for where you bring inflation back down without having a recession, 01:10:35.872 --> 01:10:37.492 you know, et cetera, et cetera. 01:10:38.232 --> 01:10:41.732 It could still fall apart, but it's looking good so far. And, 01:10:41.892 --> 01:10:44.812 and I don't know if they'll be able to replicate it next time around, 01:10:44.952 --> 01:10:49.332 but I don't know. They've, they've learned some techniques. They're doing some things differently. 01:10:49.612 --> 01:10:53.792 There's, you know, and I don't know. They're doing a good job, 01:10:53.792 --> 01:10:55.372 I guess. Or they're lucky. 01:10:55.952 --> 01:11:04.392 They did it very gradually. And so, yeah, all it takes is a black swan event and then. 01:11:05.430 --> 01:11:09.210 Then there's a crisis. But at least right now, 01:11:09.390 --> 01:11:17.370 they have now like bullets in the chamber, you could say, that if a crisis were 01:11:17.370 --> 01:11:22.670 to happen, they have a lot of runway to reduce interest rates down to zero if 01:11:22.670 --> 01:11:23.450 something were to happen. 01:11:23.710 --> 01:11:28.350 Right. And that would be a hugely stimulus for whatever could happen. 01:11:28.350 --> 01:11:32.510 And you mentioned if they solved the wars. 01:11:32.690 --> 01:11:37.830 There's also, of course, the possibility that either or both of those could escalate and get worse. 01:11:38.530 --> 01:11:45.630 Several countries in Europe have now said, and the US, it was reported today, 01:11:45.910 --> 01:11:52.770 has secretly given Ukraine the okay to use American weapons attacking the Russian homeland. 01:11:53.310 --> 01:11:55.330 That's extremely dangerous. 01:11:55.330 --> 01:11:58.410 Dangerous in in areas right near the border not 01:11:58.410 --> 01:12:01.450 to attack moscow or something but the the u.s 01:12:01.450 --> 01:12:07.270 has said okay fine you can you can respond using american weapons to attacks 01:12:07.270 --> 01:12:13.550 on kharkiv and so yeah there's possibility of escalation now of course one of 01:12:13.550 --> 01:12:20.750 the ways to potentially end the war as you said would be a massive escalation just nato goes all in oh. 01:12:20.750 --> 01:12:25.530 My gosh no that's that's the the end of humanity so don't even talk about that. 01:12:25.530 --> 01:12:34.910 Maybe maybe it'd be a risk you know uh too much yeah um so anyway just to wrap 01:12:34.910 --> 01:12:37.790 up trump and then we'll take a break and we'll do libertarians, 01:12:40.630 --> 01:12:46.430 we have the verdict like we probably will not get any of the other three trials 01:12:46.650 --> 01:12:49.470 at best one of the 01:12:49.470 --> 01:12:52.510 other three trials might start before the end 01:12:52.510 --> 01:12:55.210 of the year i think the possibilities of any of them 01:12:55.210 --> 01:12:58.870 ending before the end of year are gone and probably any 01:12:58.870 --> 01:13:02.530 of them starting before the certainly before the election probably before the 01:13:02.530 --> 01:13:07.350 end of the year you know as as yvonne said we don't really know what scotus 01:13:07.350 --> 01:13:12.870 is going to do on the immunity thing but my i suspect expect that they will 01:13:12.870 --> 01:13:18.750 do something that will guarantee that this doesn't happen before the election. 01:13:19.130 --> 01:13:21.890 That's my gut. That's what most people's gut is. 01:13:22.650 --> 01:13:26.130 Yvonne's the outlier on that one. So I think this is the one we've got. 01:13:26.490 --> 01:13:30.350 The rest may or may not happen in 2025. And I'm, 01:13:31.282 --> 01:13:35.802 Yeah. So we'll see what impact this one has and all of the other factors we were talking about. 01:13:35.902 --> 01:13:38.502 And all eyes on the polls. 01:13:38.822 --> 01:13:43.922 All right. Well, you know, although like, you know, we talked about polls before, 01:13:43.982 --> 01:13:49.082 just the all eyes on the polls, except nobody has a lot of confidence in them 01:13:49.082 --> 01:13:51.862 right now, because, you know, in, 01:13:52.022 --> 01:13:54.862 in both 2016 and in 2020, 01:13:55.042 --> 01:13:57.842 they significantly underestimated the Republican Republican, 01:13:57.842 --> 01:14:04.342 this year, the last two times, it was the Republicans who were going, 01:14:04.402 --> 01:14:06.062 we're going to unskew the polls, 01:14:06.282 --> 01:14:09.422 and this is all the reasons they're wrong, and blah, blah, blah. 01:14:09.782 --> 01:14:12.922 This year, it's the Democrats talking like that, who are like, 01:14:13.042 --> 01:14:16.282 here are all the reasons that the polls are probably wrong. 01:14:16.502 --> 01:14:20.382 And I could rattle off a list of five or six reasons to doubt them or to think 01:14:20.382 --> 01:14:22.882 that they might be underestimating the Democrats this time. 01:14:23.022 --> 01:14:27.842 I talked about one of them already where like, hey, it looks like unlikely voters 01:14:27.842 --> 01:14:31.562 are overrepresented in a lot of these polls. 01:14:31.722 --> 01:14:38.122 But frankly, it's almost impossible to avoid sort of motivated reasoning in 01:14:38.122 --> 01:14:44.222 those situations where you don't like what they're saying, 01:14:44.362 --> 01:14:47.582 so you come up with reasons to not believe them. 01:14:48.142 --> 01:14:53.042 And maybe those reasons will turn out to be right. Maybe they won't. 01:14:53.042 --> 01:14:55.862 We won't know until the election's actually over. 01:14:56.082 --> 01:15:02.022 In the meantime, it's like, okay, well, you know, so yeah, I'm going to watch 01:15:02.022 --> 01:15:05.602 the polls because I do this election graph things and I find it fascinating. 01:15:06.042 --> 01:15:09.102 But a lot of folks are at the mindset now of like. 01:15:10.113 --> 01:15:16.013 The polls have been wrong so much that it's useless to pay attention to them. 01:15:16.193 --> 01:15:21.393 So I don't know. I think it's still useful to pay attention to them. But anyway. 01:15:22.613 --> 01:15:27.313 Okay, let's take a break. And then we will talk about the libertarians, 01:15:27.313 --> 01:15:28.353 the Libertarian Convention, 01:15:28.813 --> 01:15:33.633 Donald Trump at the Libertarian Convention, RFK at the Libertarian Convention, 01:15:33.813 --> 01:15:38.653 the internal divisions between, how do you say it, the Mises Institute? 01:15:40.113 --> 01:15:41.353 Yeah, I'll get into it. 01:15:41.473 --> 01:15:46.353 And the other libertarians and who won, who lost, all this kind of stuff. 01:15:46.413 --> 01:15:52.153 We'll be into all of that right after this. 01:15:55.473 --> 01:16:03.253 You're listening to this podcast. Do you like it? No! Do you want to support the show? No! 01:16:04.393 --> 01:16:08.833 Well, after you have subscribed to the show, followed us on Facebook, 01:16:08.933 --> 01:16:15.533 and told all your friends they should be listening to, what else can you do? I won't subscribe! 01:16:16.713 --> 01:16:22.953 You can help fund our Patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner. 01:16:23.293 --> 01:16:28.433 Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show. 01:16:28.433 --> 01:16:33.433 You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the 01:16:33.433 --> 01:16:38.433 show, and maybe every once in a while some much-needed sedatives for Yvonne. 01:16:39.133 --> 01:16:42.773 At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show, 01:16:42.953 --> 01:16:47.313 our Curmudgeon's Corner postcard, or even a Curmudgeon's Corner mug. 01:16:47.593 --> 01:16:49.733 Fun stuff. Not fun! 01:16:50.373 --> 01:16:55.213 In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the 01:16:55.213 --> 01:16:58.593 show. I really, really hate Curmudgeon's Corner. 01:16:59.173 --> 01:17:01.173 Are we worth a buck a month? No! 01:17:02.013 --> 01:17:07.653 Five bucks a month? No! Or if you are nuts about us, maybe even more. 01:17:08.313 --> 01:17:10.233 One hundred billion! 01:17:10.913 --> 01:17:15.633 Billion dollars! Even though you don't have anywhere near a billion dollars. 01:17:16.313 --> 01:17:22.793 If we're worth anything to you at all, send it our way at patreon.com slash curmudgeon's corner. 01:17:23.153 --> 01:17:29.973 Alex hates. really really hate curmudgeon's corner that's really mean isn't 01:17:29.973 --> 01:17:32.893 it I hate curmudgeon's corner but I really do. 01:17:36.098 --> 01:17:37.318 Okay, there we are. 01:17:37.578 --> 01:17:39.038 That's one of my favorites, actually. 01:17:41.438 --> 01:17:46.358 I really do need more breaks. It's just another one of those things that just takes time to do. 01:17:46.438 --> 01:17:49.918 So we've had the same 10 in rotation for a couple years now. 01:17:50.218 --> 01:17:58.138 For years, I've been thinking, I need to come up with an ad for the Libertarian 01:17:58.138 --> 01:18:02.958 candidate and have you put it on the show or something. 01:18:03.558 --> 01:18:06.598 Thing yeah like uh you know we're looking if 01:18:06.598 --> 01:18:09.838 somebody out there has some spots that would be interesting and 01:18:09.838 --> 01:18:13.178 like you know are like there are 01:18:13.178 --> 01:18:16.118 a couple times i've put on things that are only good for a couple weeks but 01:18:16.118 --> 01:18:19.818 usually i like to have things that like once i put it in rotation let me leave 01:18:19.818 --> 01:18:24.778 it there for a decade right you know but i don't know anyway uh someday i'll 01:18:24.778 --> 01:18:29.198 have time there's at least one that i have in mind right now that wouldn't take 01:18:29.198 --> 01:18:32.778 me that much work but But even things that don't take that much work, 01:18:32.798 --> 01:18:39.098 it still requires like you to sit down and have time and like do whatever, you know? 01:18:39.118 --> 01:18:44.818 So anyway, so Bruce, what's going on with the libertarians? 01:18:45.078 --> 01:18:50.618 Okay. The Libertarian Party is the nation's third largest party, 01:18:50.758 --> 01:18:52.998 has been for a very long time. 01:18:53.258 --> 01:18:58.738 And as you mentioned, Donald Trump spoke at the Libertarian Party. 01:18:58.738 --> 01:19:04.998 This is the first time that a leading party candidate has spoken at the LP convention. 01:19:05.638 --> 01:19:10.658 And I'm not sure it might even be the first time that the leading party candidate 01:19:10.658 --> 01:19:14.058 has spoke at any third party convention. 01:19:14.778 --> 01:19:15.698 I would imagine so. 01:19:15.698 --> 01:19:24.978 So, but this, one thing that everyone should understand about the Libertarian 01:19:24.978 --> 01:19:33.318 Party is that it is a party based on a set of ideologies versus the other two major parties, 01:19:33.358 --> 01:19:41.018 which are just basically dividing the people on an arbitrary set of standards 01:19:41.018 --> 01:19:44.758 that people tend to congregate into. 01:19:44.758 --> 01:19:47.798 Well, they're ideological things. 01:19:47.798 --> 01:19:47.978 Too. 01:19:48.158 --> 01:19:53.518 But they're complex coalitions of different interests to make them that big as well. 01:19:53.718 --> 01:19:57.038 So there's no purity on either side, really. 01:19:57.038 --> 01:20:04.578 Oh, exactly. So what happens is you end up with libertarians are their own worst 01:20:04.578 --> 01:20:08.178 enemy when it comes to ideological purity. 01:20:08.918 --> 01:20:19.078 And so you have basically people are constantly conducting litmus tests on others 01:20:19.078 --> 01:20:22.058 and on candidates that they like or don't like. 01:20:22.058 --> 01:20:25.358 Like, oh, he's not really libertarian. That's not libertarian. 01:20:25.578 --> 01:20:28.098 And so you end up with degrees. 01:20:28.998 --> 01:20:31.838 Of course, libertarian philosophy is basically... 01:20:35.775 --> 01:20:40.515 It boils down to sides of government and how much freedoms do we have versus 01:20:40.515 --> 01:20:42.435 how much power does the government have. 01:20:42.995 --> 01:20:48.535 If you have – so there's a degree. There's some libertarians who are just small 01:20:48.535 --> 01:20:52.195 government people who would be happy if we were just abiding by the Constitution 01:20:52.195 --> 01:20:54.755 all the way to anarchists. 01:20:54.995 --> 01:21:00.135 Right. And the anarchist side is basically no government at all. 01:21:00.295 --> 01:21:07.535 Exactly. And so that's one dimension of differentiation between libertarians. 01:21:07.635 --> 01:21:13.135 There's also the left libertarians and the paleo libertarians. 01:21:13.955 --> 01:21:19.535 And that is also called the Mises caucus, as in Ludwig von Mises, 01:21:19.715 --> 01:21:21.495 which is an Austrian economist. 01:21:21.495 --> 01:21:28.555 Which is also – to compare them, I mean we're talking left libertarian versus 01:21:28.555 --> 01:21:29.895 right libertarian essentially. 01:21:30.535 --> 01:21:31.215 Yes, exactly. 01:21:31.215 --> 01:21:39.895 And a big part of that is also – there's these old political quizzes that try 01:21:39.895 --> 01:21:41.675 to put – instead of a left-right spectrum, 01:21:41.995 --> 01:21:49.315 you have one spectrum that's an economic scale and it's a social scale in terms 01:21:49.315 --> 01:21:51.435 of how much government intervention should be in each. 01:21:51.435 --> 01:21:57.955 And with the notion that the libertarians are in the corner with less intervention on both axes, 01:21:58.255 --> 01:22:04.415 whereas like, you know, traditionally, Republicans have been less intervention 01:22:04.415 --> 01:22:07.075 on economics, but more intervention on social, 01:22:07.275 --> 01:22:11.715 whereas Democrats have been more intervention on social, less on, 01:22:11.775 --> 01:22:16.735 wait, more, other way around, more economic, less social for the Democrats. 01:22:16.735 --> 01:22:24.395 But even within the libertarians, there are divisions in terms of like how much 01:22:24.395 --> 01:22:28.535 you really care about the social side versus it being a pure economic exercise. 01:22:28.855 --> 01:22:32.875 Yeah. So there are two, having been a libertarian a long time, 01:22:32.935 --> 01:22:39.035 I've noticed that there are actually two issues that really divide that the 01:22:39.035 --> 01:22:42.835 left versus the right and within the libertarian party. 01:22:42.835 --> 01:22:43.695 Within the libertarians, yeah. Yeah. 01:22:43.715 --> 01:22:47.235 And that is immigration and abortion. 01:22:47.535 --> 01:22:48.195 Right. 01:22:48.255 --> 01:22:56.235 The left libertarians tend to be in favor of abortion rights and in favor of open borders. 01:22:57.135 --> 01:22:57.175 Right. 01:22:57.215 --> 01:23:00.455 And just the opposite for the paleo libertarians. 01:23:00.775 --> 01:23:08.615 They are for anti-abortion and they want closed borders by really highly controlled. old. 01:23:08.895 --> 01:23:12.015 And it's now, which one am I? 01:23:12.135 --> 01:23:20.575 Well, I'm in between. I am, I am, I'm anti-abortion, but I'm also for open borders. 01:23:20.695 --> 01:23:23.995 So I don't feel like I fall in, in either one of these camps. 01:23:24.455 --> 01:23:26.995 So it's, so I'm, 01:23:28.386 --> 01:23:29.186 I'm fine with. 01:23:29.286 --> 01:23:33.746 You are a political orphan within a group of political orphans. 01:23:34.566 --> 01:23:40.686 Yes, you could say that. You could say that. So getting to the LP convention, 01:23:40.986 --> 01:23:44.906 and what's interesting to note is that two years ago, the Mises Caucus, 01:23:45.046 --> 01:23:49.386 the paleo-libertarians, the more conservative libertarians, the more of the 01:23:49.386 --> 01:23:51.806 anarchists, they took over the party two years ago. 01:23:52.086 --> 01:23:57.966 Right. And the expectation was that they were going to get in their candidate. 01:23:58.106 --> 01:24:02.946 It was going to be Dave Smith, who is a podcaster, comedian, 01:24:03.306 --> 01:24:05.086 who's very well-spoken. 01:24:05.326 --> 01:24:11.206 He has a really, what would you call it, a laser tongue or whatever he is. 01:24:11.886 --> 01:24:14.866 Okay. He can speak very well. 01:24:15.286 --> 01:24:18.966 But he decided for some reason to not run. 01:24:18.966 --> 01:24:24.046 And there was another paleo libertarian, his professor, 01:24:24.366 --> 01:24:28.986 Michael Rechtenwald, who had taken on that mantle and he was expected to win 01:24:28.986 --> 01:24:36.306 because libertarians are controlled by the paleos and he solved that. 01:24:36.566 --> 01:24:44.686 But it turned out that the LP convention is not like the major party conventions 01:24:44.686 --> 01:24:50.326 engines where the candidate is known ahead of time. They don't even have- Well. 01:24:50.326 --> 01:24:53.506 Theoretically, the major parties could end up in this situation. 01:24:53.706 --> 01:24:56.226 It just hasn't happened in like 50 plus years. 01:24:56.526 --> 01:25:02.346 Yeah. And they don't have primaries. So basically the delegates are- There are some actually. 01:25:02.526 --> 01:25:03.306 But yeah. 01:25:03.746 --> 01:25:09.126 Yeah, at least not here. But yeah, so delegates are sent to the convention and 01:25:09.126 --> 01:25:11.466 they are, most of them, I believe, are uncommitted. 01:25:11.546 --> 01:25:17.946 They can vote forever they want. lot. And this is the type of party convention that you would love. 01:25:18.826 --> 01:25:20.446 Because it's complete chaos. 01:25:20.726 --> 01:25:25.206 Because it's complete chaos and the outcome is not known and it's the delegates who are in control. 01:25:26.286 --> 01:25:32.646 And they did not select the candidate until the seventh ballot. 01:25:32.946 --> 01:25:33.366 Right. 01:25:34.186 --> 01:25:37.986 And it turned out to be someone by the name of Chase Oliver. 01:25:38.646 --> 01:25:46.426 Now, Chase Oliver is actually a left libertarian. fame. He's a white 38-year-old gay guy from Atlanta. 01:25:46.886 --> 01:25:56.786 And his claim to fame was that he forced... He ran for Senate in the Georgia Senate race in 2022. 01:25:57.026 --> 01:26:04.566 And since he only got 2% of the vote, but that was enough to force a runoff in Georgia. 01:26:04.706 --> 01:26:07.546 And that was a big deal, 01:26:08.546 --> 01:26:13.886 So, uh, because I think, was it the, the guy who was the football player ended 01:26:13.886 --> 01:26:16.766 up losing Herschel Walker, Herschel Walker. Yeah. 01:26:17.546 --> 01:26:23.146 Yeah. I don't, I don't think too much about him, but, uh, so that's, 01:26:23.146 --> 01:26:24.706 so it's, so it's interesting. 01:26:24.726 --> 01:26:28.906 That was Warnock was the Democrat who actually ended up winning due to that. 01:26:29.126 --> 01:26:34.146 I I'm looking at the results of that right now in, in the, before the runoff 01:26:34.146 --> 01:26:41.546 Warnock Buck 49.44%, Walker 48.49%, Oliver 2.07. 01:26:42.266 --> 01:26:47.066 Yeah. So he's running, and he's the one I will be voting for. 01:26:47.446 --> 01:26:52.046 I don't agree with everything he's for, but he's more libertarian than anybody 01:26:52.046 --> 01:26:54.646 else in the ballot, and so I'll be voting for him. 01:26:54.986 --> 01:26:58.946 So a lot of people may wonder, well, why would you vote for a third party? 01:26:58.946 --> 01:27:05.986 This is such a really close election, and you've got to vote for the lesser of two evils. 01:27:06.246 --> 01:27:08.726 And I've talked about this before. I actually looked it up. 01:27:10.306 --> 01:27:17.166 The first time I was on your show was episode 280, and we talked about the – 01:27:17.166 --> 01:27:19.146 it was in 2012, October 2012. 01:27:19.946 --> 01:27:24.426 And I talked about the strategic logic of voting third party, 01:27:24.486 --> 01:27:25.186 and I'll mention it again. 01:27:25.646 --> 01:27:29.566 Especially in a state that is not competitive. like Washington State. 01:27:30.266 --> 01:27:35.506 Yeah, yeah. So I feel extra free to do it. But I voted Libertarian even in Florida 01:27:35.506 --> 01:27:39.106 in 2000 with the butterfly ballot. 01:27:39.486 --> 01:27:46.686 And that race was decided by just a few hundred votes in a state with like, 01:27:46.746 --> 01:27:47.846 what, 20 million people? 01:27:48.526 --> 01:27:56.786 And so the logic, the reason why I feel like it's important to vote for third party is that, 01:27:57.986 --> 01:28:02.486 And for the loser of that election, 01:28:02.706 --> 01:28:09.626 if the libertarians can be the difference between the winner and loser and split 01:28:09.626 --> 01:28:13.546 the vote, kind of like what Chase Oliver did in Georgia and what will likely 01:28:13.546 --> 01:28:14.666 happen in this election, 01:28:14.986 --> 01:28:21.406 is that the loser will look and say, dang it, I want those votes. 01:28:21.406 --> 01:28:26.546 I'm going to try to get those votes, and that will try to move that candidate 01:28:26.546 --> 01:28:28.206 in a more of a libertarian direction. 01:28:29.106 --> 01:28:31.226 Do you think that happened in Georgia? 01:28:32.846 --> 01:28:37.066 No, but I want to give an example of where it is happening. 01:28:37.326 --> 01:28:37.746 Okay. 01:28:38.546 --> 01:28:42.266 Donald Trump spoke to libertarians. Right. 01:28:43.106 --> 01:28:49.266 And he asked for their vote because he knows that the Libertarians typically 01:28:49.266 --> 01:28:55.646 get 3% of the vote and that if he were able to get some of that 3%, he would win. 01:28:56.646 --> 01:29:02.326 And so that was enough of incentive for him to go and speak. And he gave a speech. 01:29:03.673 --> 01:29:07.233 That was very good speech, actually. From a libertarian perspective, 01:29:07.793 --> 01:29:11.773 he gave point after point. He said all the things you wanted to hear? 01:29:12.073 --> 01:29:14.273 Yeah. Not all the things I wanted 01:29:14.273 --> 01:29:19.093 to hear. I wanted to hear about slashing government and slashing taxes. 01:29:19.393 --> 01:29:23.233 Well, he did talk about slashing taxes, but shrinking the size of government, but no. 01:29:23.893 --> 01:29:31.373 And about medical freedom, and he's Mr. Lockdown, and he created the vaccine and all that stuff. 01:29:32.253 --> 01:29:34.533 The one good thing he did, but go ahead. 01:29:38.413 --> 01:29:44.733 He listed off a whole bunch of libertarian-ish things that he has accomplished. 01:29:45.153 --> 01:29:51.073 He even promised to free Ross Ulbricht, who is the creator of Silk Road, 01:29:51.313 --> 01:29:55.053 who was, in me and many libertarians' views, 01:29:55.253 --> 01:30:03.273 unjustly imprisoned for, I think he's in there for life, for basically creating 01:30:03.273 --> 01:30:08.953 a cryptocurrency marketplace where people could buy and sell things using Bitcoin. 01:30:09.853 --> 01:30:16.433 And so Trump said that he would free Ross Ulbricht on day one and that he would 01:30:16.433 --> 01:30:17.613 put a libertarian on the cabinet. 01:30:18.453 --> 01:30:23.253 And so there were a lot of people who booed him, and I think it was good for 01:30:23.253 --> 01:30:28.673 people to see on the news that libertarians were booing Donald Trump because we could see. 01:30:28.673 --> 01:30:34.253 Well, because there was actually some talk, which turned out to be completely unfounded, 01:30:34.393 --> 01:30:38.353 that there might actually be some support for him there, that the libertarians 01:30:38.353 --> 01:30:44.833 had moved enough to that side of things that they'd be swayed by Donald Trump 01:30:44.833 --> 01:30:48.213 and would do something. And no, not at all. 01:30:48.513 --> 01:30:53.673 No. Well, you can imagine the type of libertarian who would actually go to the 01:30:53.673 --> 01:30:57.513 convention is not your typical libertarian, but yes. 01:30:59.072 --> 01:31:03.112 They are, they boot him. They, they saw right through his BS. 01:31:04.092 --> 01:31:06.792 And cause I was going to say like, he may have given that speech, 01:31:06.812 --> 01:31:10.032 but how much of it do you actually believe? Like in terms of his promises? 01:31:10.672 --> 01:31:14.752 Oh yeah. I mean, if, if it hadn't been anybody else giving that speech, 01:31:14.772 --> 01:31:18.792 if it had been just some unknown guy, I'd be like, all right, 01:31:18.832 --> 01:31:20.892 I'm booked for this guy. All right. Heck yeah. 01:31:21.452 --> 01:31:27.252 And I mean, but still to have someone who is the front runner in this election, 01:31:27.452 --> 01:31:30.612 sorry Sorry to say it, but he is right now. 01:31:30.792 --> 01:31:36.172 To be speaking to libertarians and promising things, 01:31:36.372 --> 01:31:45.532 that is a result of libertarians using this strategy of voting for their candidates 01:31:45.532 --> 01:31:53.652 and being that pool of voters standing for a set of issues and swaying those politicians. 01:31:54.192 --> 01:31:58.932 Maybe if it's just for a few things in our direction, it's the least that we 01:31:58.932 --> 01:32:02.832 can do to get it. Otherwise, we'd get nothing. 01:32:04.372 --> 01:32:07.452 You're going to get nothing anyway, Bruce, just to be clear. 01:32:08.652 --> 01:32:12.792 Hey, if Ross Ulbricht gets set free, it'll be worth it. 01:32:13.792 --> 01:32:17.452 Even if Donald Trump gets elected, he will have forgotten that promise. 01:32:17.452 --> 01:32:23.892 And oh, not only that, like since he was booed, he'll do the opposite just out of spite. 01:32:25.232 --> 01:32:27.592 Yeah, maybe right. Maybe right. We'll see. 01:32:28.643 --> 01:32:34.443 But, but yeah, that's, that was, you know, he was, Biden was abided too, 01:32:34.583 --> 01:32:35.983 but Biden didn't come to speak. 01:32:36.043 --> 01:32:42.283 Kennedy, he was actually nominated and he got 2% of the delegates, 01:32:42.503 --> 01:32:44.083 but he lost in the first round. 01:32:44.083 --> 01:32:48.303 Yeah, he got 19 votes out of 919. 01:32:49.163 --> 01:32:54.803 Trump, I believe, he did not submit the necessary paperwork for it to count, 01:32:54.983 --> 01:33:00.203 but he did get like one or two votes or something stupid like that. But anyway. 01:33:01.123 --> 01:33:07.443 And Vivek Ramaswamy also spoke. I didn't see his speech, but I heard that he 01:33:07.443 --> 01:33:08.463 gave a good speech there. 01:33:08.463 --> 01:33:11.903 And also, just one additional story. 01:33:12.063 --> 01:33:19.583 Apparently, Kennedy gave out squeaky rubber chickens for people to use during 01:33:19.583 --> 01:33:24.443 the Trump speech, but the Secret Service confiscated them before Trump came on. 01:33:27.503 --> 01:33:33.203 Well good for kennedy that was good good idea yeah you know well if it wasn't 01:33:33.203 --> 01:33:37.443 you know if it wasn't if i wasn't a libertarian on the ballot i'd probably vote 01:33:37.443 --> 01:33:43.883 for kennedy because at least i think that he'd be more anti-war he's. 01:33:43.883 --> 01:33:45.403 Such a quack but okay yeah. 01:33:45.403 --> 01:33:50.303 Yeah i'm sure yeah but yeah Yeah, when it comes to, like I said, 01:33:50.383 --> 01:33:53.623 I don't like either Biden or Trump. 01:33:54.523 --> 01:33:57.923 If you put a gun to my head and say, who do you prefer? 01:33:58.503 --> 01:33:59.983 I really would have a hard time 01:33:59.983 --> 01:34:08.263 because on one hand, I'd love to see Trump stick it to the lips and see... 01:34:11.001 --> 01:34:16.241 The meltdown on the left. And I also think that there would be a better chance 01:34:16.241 --> 01:34:21.261 of Trump negotiating an end to the Ukraine war, which is the most dangerous 01:34:21.261 --> 01:34:22.561 thing to humanity right now. 01:34:23.561 --> 01:34:28.041 On the other hand, strategically- Just to be clear. 01:34:28.121 --> 01:34:32.701 His negotiated end would be basically Ukraine give up all the territory Russia 01:34:32.701 --> 01:34:36.621 has already taken and just freeze the lines and make that official. 01:34:36.961 --> 01:34:42.301 He's pretty much explicitly said that and it's been rejected. by both sides but yeah. 01:34:42.301 --> 01:34:47.501 Well not by the russians well no the russians. 01:34:47.501 --> 01:34:48.921 Want more than that but yes yes. 01:34:48.921 --> 01:34:52.321 But that would be fine with me but anyway 01:34:52.321 --> 01:34:55.761 if on the other hand i would i biden 01:34:55.761 --> 01:35:03.061 would be good to win because the best hope for liberty in my perspective is 01:35:03.061 --> 01:35:07.221 for there to be a divided government because it looks like the republicans are 01:35:07.221 --> 01:35:13.121 going to take over the or continue control of the House and take over the Senate. If that's the case. 01:35:13.121 --> 01:35:15.861 The last thing we want. I don't know about the House. I think it's almost certain 01:35:15.861 --> 01:35:18.781 that they take the Senate. I think they probably lose the House. 01:35:18.961 --> 01:35:22.081 Oh, really? But either way, you get your division. 01:35:22.481 --> 01:35:27.841 Yeah, yeah. So a gridlock is best in my mind. 01:35:29.321 --> 01:35:33.721 Because when you end up with one party in power, if Trump wins and has control 01:35:33.721 --> 01:35:38.381 of the House and Senate, it, it's going to be bad news for a lot of things. 01:35:38.521 --> 01:35:42.001 I don't think the Republicans, I don't think, I think a lot of people, 01:35:42.081 --> 01:35:44.861 it's always happened in the past where, oh, great. 01:35:45.321 --> 01:35:49.681 The, you know, one party, you know, the Republicans are finally in control or 01:35:49.681 --> 01:35:52.721 the Democrats are finally in control or finally going to be able to pass our agenda. 01:35:52.981 --> 01:35:58.601 And no, because then the priority, instead of passing the agenda, 01:35:58.741 --> 01:36:03.721 becoming the priority, the priority is to maintain the power. 01:36:03.861 --> 01:36:06.641 Once they get the power. They want to maintain the power. 01:36:07.301 --> 01:36:14.901 Well, as a lover of the status quo, I mean, the, the, our system is specifically 01:36:14.901 --> 01:36:20.141 set up to make it hard to move forward fast, no matter what. 01:36:20.241 --> 01:36:25.441 And the biggest factor in that right now is the filibuster, which basically 01:36:25.441 --> 01:36:32.281 says you, you don't in, and again, they could get rid of the filibuster or with 01:36:32.281 --> 01:36:35.081 a simple majority if there was the willpower to do that. 01:36:35.161 --> 01:36:37.541 But there are a lot of reasons that people are hesitant to that. 01:36:37.741 --> 01:36:41.441 But with it in place, you don't just need a majority. 01:36:41.621 --> 01:36:46.441 You need to control the presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, 01:36:46.561 --> 01:36:52.841 and have a super majority in the Senate to actually be able to just run with 01:36:52.841 --> 01:36:54.081 an agenda the way you said. 01:36:54.481 --> 01:36:59.421 In the absence of that, there's compromise at every level that has to happen. 01:37:00.668 --> 01:37:06.468 Well, thank goodness for the filibuster in my mind. 01:37:06.588 --> 01:37:09.828 I like slowing things down. It's good for me. 01:37:10.888 --> 01:37:17.208 But yeah, that's how I'm going to vote for Chase Oliver. Chase Oliver for president. 01:37:18.248 --> 01:37:25.468 So just real quick, backing up. Oliver versus Rechtenwald, who were the final two. 01:37:25.528 --> 01:37:29.548 Although Raiden was actually the final one that Oliver was up against. 01:37:29.568 --> 01:37:30.288 None of the above. 01:37:30.668 --> 01:37:33.468 Yeah, sorry. None of the above was the last one he was up against. 01:37:33.708 --> 01:37:38.988 Because if none of the above had won, the libertarians would officially have run nobody. 01:37:40.108 --> 01:37:48.428 And none of the above ended up with 37% of the vote at the convention in the 01:37:48.428 --> 01:37:49.708 final ballot, by the way. 01:37:49.728 --> 01:37:56.268 That just shows you the split between the left libertarians and the paleos. 01:37:56.268 --> 01:38:03.408 So, but what's like, this division is likely to continue. 01:38:03.988 --> 01:38:11.328 And you said you were sort of homeless and neither one of them was where you sit. 01:38:11.588 --> 01:38:17.788 But just within the libertarians between sort of the Oliver types and the Mises 01:38:17.788 --> 01:38:22.728 Institute folks, are you happier that Oliver won? 01:38:22.928 --> 01:38:25.248 Or did you feel neutral about that? 01:38:25.248 --> 01:38:32.108 You know, I really have not studied the positions of Rechtenwald or Oliver, so I really didn't know. 01:38:33.228 --> 01:38:36.068 I'm not sure. 01:38:36.168 --> 01:38:42.568 It really depends on what Rechtenwald's position is on immigration. 01:38:43.348 --> 01:38:47.428 If he was open borders, then yeah, I definitely would be in favor of him. 01:38:47.768 --> 01:38:51.488 Well, just from how you defined these two groups, he's not, right? Right? 01:38:52.628 --> 01:38:55.968 Yeah, but there are definitely overlaps. 01:38:57.628 --> 01:39:01.108 Yeah, there's some people who associate with the Mises caucus, 01:39:01.448 --> 01:39:04.088 but are for open borders. 01:39:04.308 --> 01:39:11.588 So it's hard to know. But I don't really care. 01:39:11.788 --> 01:39:14.748 It's like I don't have a dog in this fight. I just want whoever is going to 01:39:14.748 --> 01:39:17.188 be the best communicator. 01:39:17.308 --> 01:39:24.128 And from what little I've seen of Chase Oliver, I think he is more of an effective communicator. 01:39:24.128 --> 01:39:34.908 So well and also i'll tell you like from a non-libertarian point of view he seems less insane. 01:39:37.508 --> 01:39:40.408 Good good well then he's probably the better choice. 01:39:40.408 --> 01:39:48.388 You know and the fact that you know oh okay he's a gay guy he's he prioritizes 01:39:48.388 --> 01:39:53.408 the liberty on some of the social issues are important to him To me, 01:39:53.488 --> 01:39:58.928 I used to identify more with the libertarians and the libertarian philosophy, 01:39:59.248 --> 01:40:06.188 but what turned me all the way off of it was the emphasis on the economic stuff 01:40:06.188 --> 01:40:11.768 and people that seemed to actually not really care about the social stuff. 01:40:11.928 --> 01:40:17.468 They just gave it lip service, whereas the social stuff was what actually mattered to me. 01:40:17.528 --> 01:40:20.468 That's what I care the government stays out of my business. I couldn't care 01:40:20.468 --> 01:40:26.168 less about the economic side, which is why I'm more on the liberal side now than a libertarian. 01:40:26.448 --> 01:40:29.808 But between the left libertarians and the right libertarians, 01:40:29.868 --> 01:40:32.748 the left libertarians, I'm like, okay, that makes sense to me. 01:40:32.808 --> 01:40:36.728 The right libertarians, I'm like, you guys are a bunch of assholes. Yeah. 01:40:36.808 --> 01:40:39.068 But yeah. 01:40:39.488 --> 01:40:47.008 But honestly, though, in the current scenario, I suspect the libertarians are 01:40:47.008 --> 01:40:51.188 not going to have a great performance even compared to their usual performance. 01:40:51.708 --> 01:40:55.968 No, probably not. I think the real problem is it's a problem. 01:40:57.070 --> 01:41:00.610 They need to elect a candidate much earlier. 01:41:00.890 --> 01:41:05.890 In previous elections, there has been a presumptive candidate. 01:41:06.290 --> 01:41:15.310 Harry Brown, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, who were people who had a name and a reputation 01:41:15.310 --> 01:41:17.850 outside of the Libertarian Party. 01:41:17.990 --> 01:41:23.690 When they ran, then they could actually be running for president for the whole year. 01:41:23.890 --> 01:41:27.330 What the Libertarian Party needs to do is they need to move their convention 01:41:27.330 --> 01:41:34.170 to November, one year before the actual general election. 01:41:34.410 --> 01:41:44.170 That way they can have a already selected candidate who is out there running for an entire year. 01:41:45.410 --> 01:41:53.950 It would be yeah outside of that there are some big names libertarians who could 01:41:53.950 --> 01:41:58.810 actually be a presumptive candidate but they didn't decide to run this year. 01:41:58.810 --> 01:42:02.130 Well well you know i'm 01:42:02.130 --> 01:42:06.290 not sure the timing is the big issue i think and just look i'm looking at a 01:42:06.290 --> 01:42:11.230 graph right now of libertarian performance since they were founded in 1972 yeah 01:42:11.230 --> 01:42:19.150 their peak performance was in 2016 with gary johnson yeah and five percent three 01:42:19.150 --> 01:42:21.930 and a quarter it looks like i thought. 01:42:21.930 --> 01:42:22.730 It was five okay. 01:42:22.730 --> 01:42:29.330 In a quarter um but and with a little bit more than four million votes and i'll 01:42:29.330 --> 01:42:34.230 tell you what the thing with gary johnson is he was a well-known established 01:42:34.230 --> 01:42:39.630 politician who had actually held office and been well liked in those offices before. 01:42:40.968 --> 01:42:42.228 He was governor of New Mexico. 01:42:42.648 --> 01:42:51.648 He was governor of New Mexico. And he, you know, he was a little quirky, but he was well known. 01:42:51.768 --> 01:42:55.628 He seemed like not that far from the mainstream. 01:42:56.608 --> 01:43:00.128 And, you know, people could look at him and say, he's got a track record. 01:43:00.248 --> 01:43:01.788 I understand where he's coming from. 01:43:02.008 --> 01:43:06.408 And he also specifically, he was like, yeah, I'm libertarian. 01:43:06.408 --> 01:43:11.108 And I believe in these things, but I don't agree with all the crazies behind me in the party. 01:43:11.208 --> 01:43:16.048 They're off the wall and they're, and you can get more support that way. 01:43:16.408 --> 01:43:23.548 What doesn't work is nominating complete unknowns with no track record who have never held office. 01:43:23.888 --> 01:43:28.328 And I know like, and one of the things that's been said before is like, 01:43:28.368 --> 01:43:32.428 if you really want to run for president, you, you build up your bench first, 01:43:32.528 --> 01:43:34.988 you get some people who've run one locally, 01:43:35.368 --> 01:43:38.248 and then you get some people in Congress, and then you get some senators, 01:43:38.368 --> 01:43:42.188 and then maybe some governors, and then you work your way up, 01:43:42.208 --> 01:43:43.628 and then you get that track record. 01:43:44.248 --> 01:43:51.408 And I feel like in the absence of a complete party collapse from one of the 01:43:51.408 --> 01:43:55.168 major parties where you have to have one replaced because that's the way our system works, 01:43:55.728 --> 01:43:59.308 you have to sort of build things up in that way. 01:43:59.448 --> 01:44:04.708 Like every time you get just these nobodies and, and before like Ron, 01:44:04.728 --> 01:44:06.728 Ron Paul was the biggest one before that. 01:44:06.808 --> 01:44:10.728 And he also had a record as a Congressman, as a Republican Congressman. 01:44:11.448 --> 01:44:17.888 And so I think that kind of history where you can point to, I'm not just a random 01:44:17.888 --> 01:44:21.748 crank, but I actually know how to do stuff. 01:44:21.968 --> 01:44:24.348 I've done it before. I've got a record. 01:44:24.768 --> 01:44:27.308 That's when you get a little bit more traction. 01:44:27.948 --> 01:44:31.168 I think that makes a lot more difference than the timing issues. 01:44:31.368 --> 01:44:36.968 Of course, the problem with that is that doesn't jive with the people who are 01:44:36.968 --> 01:44:39.068 really, truly ideologically pure. 01:44:40.380 --> 01:44:41.160 Yeah. 01:44:42.560 --> 01:44:51.860 And that's what the problem I said, where you have the ideological test that 01:44:51.860 --> 01:44:55.260 everyone has and not calling them truly libertarian. 01:44:55.560 --> 01:45:01.800 And yeah, a lot of people on the paleo side didn't like Gary Johnson and especially 01:45:01.800 --> 01:45:05.480 did not like his VP candidate, Bill Weld, who was also a former governor. 01:45:06.540 --> 01:45:14.420 But you got to say, he's got a track record. 01:45:14.840 --> 01:45:18.140 The important thing, it's this... 01:45:20.820 --> 01:45:24.400 Let me tell you a secret, the libertarian's never going to win. 01:45:25.900 --> 01:45:29.180 Okay? I know that. Everybody knows that. 01:45:30.280 --> 01:45:30.980 Shocker. 01:45:30.980 --> 01:45:36.220 The purpose of the Libertarian Party running a candidate is not to get someone elected. 01:45:36.440 --> 01:45:42.420 It's so that they can have someone who will get on the media, 01:45:42.660 --> 01:45:50.580 get interviewed by 60 Minutes, or get on the news channels, and so that people can hear those ideas. 01:45:50.580 --> 01:45:54.840 Well, you know, the thing is, though, if you actually wanted to advance that 01:45:54.840 --> 01:45:59.420 agenda, the way to do it is not any of that. 01:45:59.560 --> 01:46:04.680 It's to elect people who aren't even close to ideologically pure, 01:46:04.800 --> 01:46:11.820 but agree with you in some key issues and get them in office and promoting those 01:46:11.820 --> 01:46:13.620 particular issues that you care about. 01:46:13.620 --> 01:46:18.480 They may not be ideologically pure across the board, but maybe they agree with 01:46:18.480 --> 01:46:23.580 you on issue X and actually in office, they can push that in, 01:46:23.620 --> 01:46:24.940 push things in that direction. 01:46:25.140 --> 01:46:31.380 And that's how you, if you actually care about like wanting to move policy in 01:46:31.380 --> 01:46:38.800 the direction that you're talking about running third party candidates is not the way to get there. 01:46:38.800 --> 01:46:43.480 It's to try to influence policy from within the existing parties. 01:46:43.860 --> 01:46:48.220 Well, it's a multi-product approach. There are definitely libertarians who are 01:46:48.220 --> 01:46:51.260 working on setting the policy agenda. 01:46:52.280 --> 01:46:57.840 There's the Cato Institute and there's other think tanks out there. 01:46:57.900 --> 01:47:02.080 There's magazines, there's podcasts, there's – All. 01:47:02.080 --> 01:47:07.880 I'm saying is the way you move things, you look at the progressive caucus and the Democrats. 01:47:08.860 --> 01:47:16.620 The AOCs and the Bernie Sanders and all of those folks, they have a very different 01:47:16.620 --> 01:47:19.180 set of positions than the mainstream Democrats, 01:47:19.580 --> 01:47:24.880 but they are moving the Democrats in their direction from within and they're doing it effectively. 01:47:26.000 --> 01:47:30.460 Well, yes. Within the Republican Party, there is a Republican Liberty Caucus. 01:47:31.740 --> 01:47:34.420 And when I was active in the Republican Party, 01:47:36.511 --> 01:47:43.651 I tried to get that to work, but it was just, there's just no way in a local level. 01:47:44.391 --> 01:47:51.991 Well, first of all, the normal everyday Republican party activists locally, 01:47:52.291 --> 01:47:58.131 it made me sick to even interact with them because I just couldn't stand the 01:47:58.131 --> 01:48:00.391 things that they believed in. 01:48:00.811 --> 01:48:05.631 Right. And so, you know, we agree in some things wholeheartedly, 01:48:05.691 --> 01:48:08.951 but the few things that we disagreed with, it was just. 01:48:08.951 --> 01:48:10.771 Things that really mattered to you. 01:48:10.871 --> 01:48:16.331 Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it's, yeah. 01:48:17.151 --> 01:48:20.711 So yeah, it's, it's hard. So yeah, all those things that you're saying, 01:48:20.831 --> 01:48:25.831 libertarians and various stripes are trying to do different things. 01:48:25.891 --> 01:48:30.591 Some, and so it's not, it's not any one strategy. It's everything. 01:48:30.991 --> 01:48:35.131 Right. So my, my guess is they're back under 1% this year. 01:48:37.851 --> 01:48:38.311 We'll see. 01:48:39.411 --> 01:48:45.751 Yeah. Cause if, if, if nothing else, like the people who are just like, I'm pissed off. 01:48:45.791 --> 01:48:48.471 I don't like either of the two major candidates are going for Kennedy. 01:48:48.951 --> 01:48:55.991 Yeah. Well, yeah, that's true. That's the protest vote. And more power to them. 01:48:56.551 --> 01:49:01.571 So what do you think would be, if you were to add up all the third parties together, 01:49:01.671 --> 01:49:03.471 what percentage do you think those will get? 01:49:04.491 --> 01:49:11.031 Well, right now, in most states, if you add up all the third parties, 01:49:11.231 --> 01:49:16.391 including – and the libertarians haven't been in most of the state-level polls, 01:49:16.551 --> 01:49:19.031 and when they are, they get like one – Well. 01:49:19.031 --> 01:49:20.871 It's because we don't have a candidate yet. Well, yeah. 01:49:21.031 --> 01:49:26.011 There were a bunch of polls with Mapstead who got eliminated in the second or 01:49:26.011 --> 01:49:29.391 third ballot, I forget which, in the Libertarian Convention. 01:49:30.311 --> 01:49:35.571 Let me make sure I will get that fact since I had that in front of me. 01:49:38.231 --> 01:49:42.851 Of course, I closed the window. It doesn't matter. Of course, 01:49:42.891 --> 01:49:44.471 now that I've said it, it matters. Damn it. 01:49:45.931 --> 01:49:49.451 Mapstead was eliminated after the fourth round. 01:49:51.051 --> 01:49:55.811 So Mapstead has been in a couple of polls. I found Oliver was in one poll of 01:49:55.811 --> 01:49:59.191 Texas a couple months ago, and he was at like 1% or something. 01:49:59.591 --> 01:50:04.551 But if you add up, typically Kennedy is getting 8% to 10%. 01:50:05.211 --> 01:50:09.191 Sometimes he goes a little bit above 10%. And I've seen as high as 12 or 15. 01:50:09.371 --> 01:50:11.951 It depends on the state. Let's call it 10 for Kennedy. 01:50:13.611 --> 01:50:20.751 Stein and West, between them, depending on the state as well, 01:50:20.851 --> 01:50:23.311 sometimes West gets more, sometimes Stein gets more. 01:50:23.431 --> 01:50:26.871 But if you add up their two votes, it's usually around 4%. 01:50:27.371 --> 01:50:34.451 And then anybody else is one. So we're at about 15% between all the third parties. 01:50:34.451 --> 01:50:39.011 Wow. That's approaching Ross Perot territory. 01:51:04.451 --> 01:51:09.031 Right now. I predict by the time we get to election day, that's down to 10. 01:51:09.591 --> 01:51:13.831 And they probably add up all the third parties, you're probably between 5% and 01:51:13.831 --> 01:51:19.671 10%, which is still a relatively high number and possibly enough to make the 01:51:19.671 --> 01:51:20.771 difference in a bunch of states. 01:51:21.031 --> 01:51:25.191 Once the last time that's been around that territory, it would be, 01:51:25.231 --> 01:51:29.191 you'd have to be like 96 with Ross Perot's second election, right? 01:51:30.371 --> 01:51:36.571 Yeah, I think it's typically been below five, like all in. 01:51:36.971 --> 01:51:40.091 And I think that's indicative because a lot of people are just fed up with having 01:51:40.091 --> 01:51:44.531 these, both Biden and Trump. So it will be the protest vote. 01:51:45.531 --> 01:51:49.611 Yeah, and of course that assumes that all of them are still there by the time 01:51:49.611 --> 01:51:52.471 we get to November. There's always the chance that, you know. 01:51:52.551 --> 01:51:53.091 They could drop out. 01:51:53.471 --> 01:51:58.051 Well, yeah. I mean, I was more thinking any of them could die. 01:51:58.051 --> 01:52:06.271 Why? I mean, Kennedy, Trump, and Biden are all kind of up there and all have their- Well. 01:52:06.391 --> 01:52:12.771 Kennedy is very fit. If Kennedy were to die or if he were killed, oh my gosh. 01:52:13.471 --> 01:52:16.991 Kennedy was on some interview. I forget if it was 60 Minutes or somewhere else. 01:52:17.091 --> 01:52:21.971 I heard him on an interview. No, it was on Ari Melber on MSNBC. 01:52:22.551 --> 01:52:27.091 He sounded horrible. And I'm not talking what he was saying i'm talking about 01:52:27.091 --> 01:52:30.111 like physically how he sounded oh. 01:52:30.111 --> 01:52:33.331 Yeah well that's that's his voice has been like that for years. 01:52:34.700 --> 01:52:38.480 I mean, Biden sounds old, and he is. 01:52:39.160 --> 01:52:42.540 Donald Trump sounds confused, and he sometimes is. 01:52:42.840 --> 01:52:48.060 Kennedy sounded like he could keel over at any instant when I heard that interview. 01:52:48.380 --> 01:52:51.580 I don't know. Maybe it's just the way his voice sounds. 01:52:52.820 --> 01:52:57.460 And there are scenarios where they don't have to die. 01:52:57.600 --> 01:52:58.900 There could be all kinds of issues 01:52:58.900 --> 01:53:02.460 that could cause a last-minute health problem or something like that. 01:53:02.460 --> 01:53:10.320 I did hear some people speculating after Trump's legal issues today that, 01:53:10.420 --> 01:53:13.940 hey, the Republicans still have a chance to dump him. And I'm like, oh, come on. 01:53:14.400 --> 01:53:15.520 No, no way. 01:53:15.820 --> 01:53:24.720 No, no. That's not happening. But, you know, all kinds of oddball events can happen. 01:53:24.760 --> 01:53:30.160 You can never discount something unexpected happening. But I'm pretty sure we'll 01:53:30.160 --> 01:53:34.180 end up with the people we see today are the people we're going to have in November. 01:53:35.060 --> 01:53:40.720 And there's still, though, in polling, there's still a significant chunk of 01:53:40.720 --> 01:53:47.420 people, even now, who don't believe it and who still think it's not going to 01:53:47.420 --> 01:53:49.220 be Biden versus Trump in the end. 01:53:49.720 --> 01:53:54.720 And it's like, I'm sorry, people. That's what it is. 01:53:56.080 --> 01:54:00.400 Yeah yeah wow okay it'll be very interesting any. 01:54:00.400 --> 01:54:04.300 Last thoughts bruce before i go to like all the stuff at the end. 01:54:04.300 --> 01:54:11.060 No that's uh just like i said vote chase oliver he's the best choice for america 01:54:11.060 --> 01:54:20.460 and he will he will be the he's he's a nice young guy 38 years old how awesome would would that be? 01:54:21.420 --> 01:54:22.600 Good luck with that. 01:54:23.120 --> 01:54:26.880 Half the age of both of them. Yes. 01:54:27.700 --> 01:54:28.740 Okay. Well... 01:54:29.599 --> 01:54:34.059 Let's wrap this sucker up then. As usual, the stuff at the end, 01:54:34.099 --> 01:54:36.139 go to curmudgeons-corner.com. 01:54:36.359 --> 01:54:40.619 You can see all our archives the last year or so with transcripts. 01:54:40.819 --> 01:54:47.639 You can find out all the ways to contact myself and Yvonne, Facebook, email, Mastodon. 01:54:48.139 --> 01:54:51.659 Bruce, how would you like to be contacted if somebody wants to get in touch with you? 01:54:52.479 --> 01:54:55.239 You can always say, contact me and I'll relay it. 01:54:55.419 --> 01:54:58.779 No, I am on X under BYU fan. 01:54:59.599 --> 01:55:01.359 Still hanging in there how is that. 01:55:01.359 --> 01:55:01.779 These days. 01:55:01.779 --> 01:55:03.879 By the way is it good again oh. 01:55:03.879 --> 01:55:08.919 It's fine i i look at it every day although i stopped subscribing to it because 01:55:08.919 --> 01:55:11.039 yeah i paid eight dollars a month, 01:55:12.139 --> 01:55:20.119 and i i'm still seeing ads i'm just i don't see any and so i just stopped paying 01:55:20.119 --> 01:55:27.679 the richest man in the world yeah okay so and i see no difference i see no benefit to i'm. 01:55:27.679 --> 01:55:31.199 Obviously not honored at all myself, but from what I've heard second or third 01:55:31.199 --> 01:55:33.299 hand, it's sort of leveled off. 01:55:33.439 --> 01:55:38.959 There were, there, there were a lot of issues and people complained and a lot of people left, 01:55:39.119 --> 01:55:45.059 but then things have sort of stabilized and Elon's back backed off from some 01:55:45.059 --> 01:55:49.479 of the things that just didn't work and has adjusted and things are sort of more stable now. 01:55:49.559 --> 01:55:53.939 But I think it's great. I think you're missing a lot. Uh, come, 01:55:54.079 --> 01:55:56.779 come in at the, the water's nice and comfortable. 01:55:56.779 --> 01:55:59.579 Yeah no i i don't miss 01:55:59.579 --> 01:56:02.399 it i'm not coming back i i'm on 01:56:02.399 --> 01:56:05.579 mastodon and i'm on threads i don't i don't post 01:56:05.579 --> 01:56:08.419 on threads but i check in there 01:56:08.419 --> 01:56:13.099 to people i'm subscribed to that haven't yet shared turned on the setting to 01:56:13.099 --> 01:56:18.159 share with mastodon but because not enough people have clicked that setting 01:56:18.159 --> 01:56:23.839 yet but anyway because it's not complete yet it's only one way it's weird like 01:56:23.839 --> 01:56:26.659 when they finish the feature, maybe more people will. I don't know. 01:56:27.059 --> 01:56:30.999 Anyway, you can find all the ways to contact us. You can contact Bruce as well. 01:56:31.619 --> 01:56:36.419 And importantly, you can go to our Patreon to donate cash money to us because 01:56:36.419 --> 01:56:37.699 that's always fun for us. 01:56:38.059 --> 01:56:41.659 And at various levels, we'll send you a postcard. We'll send you a mug. 01:56:41.699 --> 01:56:44.379 We'll mention you on the show, all that sort of stuff. 01:56:44.859 --> 01:56:47.059 And at $2 a month or more, or... 01:56:48.012 --> 01:56:53.452 If you just ask us nicely. Oh yeah, Bruce is showing, you guys listening can't 01:56:53.452 --> 01:56:55.692 see, but he is showing his Curmudgeon's Corner mug. 01:56:56.032 --> 01:56:58.772 It is a nice mug. You should get one. 01:56:59.552 --> 01:57:03.252 And at $2 a month or more, we will invite you to our Curmudgeon's Corner Slack 01:57:03.252 --> 01:57:08.172 where Yvonne and I and a whole bunch of other people, including sometimes Bruce, 01:57:08.372 --> 01:57:11.012 you've been on there a little bit less lately than you used to be, but. 01:57:11.472 --> 01:57:17.092 Yeah, well, that's because at my last job, I communicated with everybody in 01:57:17.092 --> 01:57:18.592 the company through slack so i. 01:57:18.592 --> 01:57:19.252 Was so. 01:57:19.252 --> 01:57:25.192 The coverage recorder convergence quarter channel was just one click away so i i was i had it open. 01:57:25.192 --> 01:57:27.952 All day long every day but. 01:57:27.952 --> 01:57:32.972 Now at my current company they don't use slack which is like so i know that's 01:57:32.972 --> 01:57:35.792 like back to email oh i can't stand email. 01:57:35.792 --> 01:57:38.632 Yeah we we use 01:57:38.632 --> 01:57:41.232 slack at my company now too so i'm in 01:57:41.232 --> 01:57:44.312 the same scenario i've got one tab for convergence quarter one tab 01:57:44.312 --> 01:57:47.212 for work and i'm flipping back and forth between 01:57:47.212 --> 01:57:50.872 them through the day whenever i see an alert come up that somebody said something 01:57:50.872 --> 01:57:56.112 so but yeah join us on the conventions corner slack it's it's a lot of fun and 01:57:56.112 --> 01:58:01.412 we we share news stories we chat we do all that kind of stuff bruce i don't 01:58:01.412 --> 01:58:05.512 know if you have a highlight from the slack you want to give if not i have one uh no. 01:58:05.512 --> 01:58:09.652 I have not really been catching up but since i've been on the show this week 01:58:09.652 --> 01:58:17.012 i will be checking in more so that i for any feedback that comes in from the show. 01:58:17.192 --> 01:58:21.372 Okay. If anybody is on the Slack and has feedback for Bruce, 01:58:21.552 --> 01:58:24.072 just say so in the Slack. He'll be watching for it. 01:58:24.492 --> 01:58:25.072 Yeah. 01:58:25.312 --> 01:58:33.132 I will highlight one. It was from the random channel that Yvonne posted lately. 01:58:34.252 --> 01:58:37.932 And this is just stupid, funny, whatever. 01:58:38.212 --> 01:58:41.232 And I'd seen things like this before. I 01:58:41.232 --> 01:58:43.992 don't know if this one's come around before for or whether it's an 01:58:43.992 --> 01:58:47.532 actual new one but it was going all around social media and 01:58:47.532 --> 01:58:50.312 i swear i'd seen this before but maybe i just saw a 01:58:50.312 --> 01:58:53.572 similar one anyway it was a it's it's 01:58:53.572 --> 01:59:01.072 a zoom video of a court hearing where you know there's a court hearing for the 01:59:01.072 --> 01:59:06.352 the the suspect or whoever he is has a suspended driver's license and he calls 01:59:06.352 --> 01:59:10.912 into the zoom from his car while driving driving. 01:59:12.832 --> 01:59:16.532 And the judge is just like, excuse me, are you driving? 01:59:18.070 --> 01:59:22.450 You have a suspended license, right? Okay, this hearing is done. 01:59:22.750 --> 01:59:24.050 You're going back to jail. 01:59:26.930 --> 01:59:30.950 And the guy's like, oh, man, I screwed up. 01:59:35.010 --> 01:59:36.210 So dumb. 01:59:36.530 --> 01:59:43.690 People are so stupid. And first of all, you shouldn't be driving on a suspended license anyway, duh. 01:59:43.690 --> 01:59:50.950 But if you are going to do so, you do not zoom call into your hearing with the 01:59:50.950 --> 01:59:54.590 judge about your suspended license while you're driving. 01:59:57.990 --> 02:00:01.190 Yeah, that's kind of dumb. Yeah. 02:00:01.570 --> 02:00:07.490 Okay, that's it. So just, hey, Bruce, thank you for joining us again and picking up in the end. 02:00:07.770 --> 02:00:12.570 Yvonne is out again next week. I will send out another email to our usual group 02:00:12.570 --> 02:00:18.530 of people minus the last three people who have done it to get variety to look for a co-host. 02:00:18.650 --> 02:00:22.870 But if you're listening and you want to be a co-host, contact us. 02:00:23.090 --> 02:00:26.210 If you're brand new and I've never heard from you before in any way, 02:00:26.270 --> 02:00:27.890 shape, or form, I might not say yes. 02:00:28.310 --> 02:00:33.010 But, you know, hey, make contact anyway, you know. And if you are a listener 02:00:33.010 --> 02:00:38.090 who just isn't on those other lists and hasn't been around and you're interested, just let me know. 02:00:38.090 --> 02:00:44.010 No, we will probably record Thursday or Friday night next week, U.S. time. 02:00:44.390 --> 02:00:48.110 Just let us know if you're interested. We would love to have somebody new. 02:00:48.490 --> 02:00:49.230 It's fun. 02:00:49.450 --> 02:00:53.350 As long as you're not crazy. If you're completely crazy, you know, whatever. 02:00:54.070 --> 02:00:56.070 No one crazy would listen to your podcast. 02:00:57.010 --> 02:01:04.250 No, no, no. dog. There, there was, there is one person who co-hosted once who 02:01:04.250 --> 02:01:07.910 is just ended up being like toxic enough. 02:01:07.970 --> 02:01:13.470 I have not invited them back, you know, but not just because of what they said 02:01:13.470 --> 02:01:17.430 on the podcast, but also like I follow them on social media and they're out 02:01:17.430 --> 02:01:19.770 there, they're out there on a whole bunch of things. 02:01:19.790 --> 02:01:22.910 And I'm just like, Nope, no need to encourage that again. 02:01:23.010 --> 02:01:28.470 So anyway, Anyway, with that said, hey, everybody, stay safe. 02:01:28.470 --> 02:01:30.790 Have a great week. Thank you again, Bruce. 02:01:31.350 --> 02:01:31.790 Anytime. 02:01:32.150 --> 02:01:35.150 We will talk to everybody again next week. 02:01:35.290 --> 02:01:38.630 I'm sure there'll be more news. But this trial's out of the way, 02:01:38.690 --> 02:01:41.790 so I don't know what the big news next week will be. 02:01:42.770 --> 02:01:46.870 Anyway, here we go. Bye, everyone. Say bye, Bruce. 02:01:47.250 --> 02:01:48.010 All right, bye.