Sam: Well greetings greetings programs any bad thing thing what.
Ivan: Hang on hang on i'm i'm working on putting these things where they belong hold on.
Sam: Okay yeah headphones.
Ivan: Buttons let's see.
Sam: Gain mostly down yeah hello oh jesus my ears and and you like i think.
Ivan: You could i think you can hear me.
Sam: And you like it on the circle one the omni-directional one uh-huh very exciting
Sam: so shall we just jump right in then as usual sure okay one place get my thingy
Sam: and do the blah and here here we go intro intro coming coming soon,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, July 20th, 2024.
Sam: It is just a few seconds before 2 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter.
Sam: Yvonne Bowe is here too. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hi.
Sam: So our plan, as per usual for the last couple months, is that we have no real plan.
Sam: We're going to do our first segment with a couple of less newsy things to start
Sam: with, and then we'll have a segment where Yvonne picks newsy things,
Sam: and then we'll have a segment where I pick newsy things, and then we'll be done.
Sam: And I hope we need to get back into the swing of being shorter again, Yvonne.
Sam: Like, we've been tending to— Well.
Ivan: First of all, last week we had to add— I know!
Sam: Last week we were already at, like, nearly two and a half hours.
Sam: And then we added nearly an additional half hour on the assassination attempt.
Ivan: Well, but that's not my fault that, you know— It would be real news if it wasn't your fault.
Sam: Fault.
Ivan: Yes that would be well that would be i mean that might make the podcast a lot more popular but.
Sam: It wasn't me i do not recommend that plus.
Ivan: And plus you know i may be dead.
Sam: Yes true true you know but we we've been we've been routinely over two hours
Sam: again our target is 90 minutes to two hours and we and we we've been once again
Sam: like just yammering on incessantly and never stopping.
Ivan: It's apparently an innate quality that we have.
Sam: It is.
Ivan: As curmudgeons or yammers, you know, kind of a thing.
Sam: Yammerer's Corner could be one of our competitors.
Ivan: Yeah, yammers, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Indeed, yes, yes.
Sam: So, do you have a non-newsy thing you'd like to start with?
Sam: Or, you know, another way we could do it this time, because there is a non-politics
Sam: news story like we could do that and then do other newsy stuff i don't know like whatever.
Ivan: You want i mean i was gonna mention that on a happy note lou dobbs died oh.
Sam: On a happy note lou.
Ivan: Dobbs died yes okay one less prick on this fucking planet,
Ivan: you know i i had i i mentioned on the slack that i really hate i hate this entire,
Ivan: fucking generation of right-wing assholes okay
Ivan: because they have made me i i
Ivan: was not like this i was not one that even with somebody as such a prick like
Ivan: this would die would i feel like this
Ivan: But these guys have made me now just basically be, oh, Lou Dobbs died?
Ivan: Oh, great. You're going to fucking hell if there is one. Beautiful.
Ivan: Say hi to Stalin for me, will ya? You sack of shit.
Sam: Okay. Yes.
Ivan: So, yeah, I hate these people for that.
Sam: I get that.
Ivan: And I'm not one that likes hating people.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I don't feel good about myself feeling like this.
Ivan: This is not something I'm proud of. But I am.
Ivan: I'm putting it out there simply because I don't want to lie about my feelings about it.
Sam: I get that.
Ivan: You know? But I don't feel good that this is what these people have made me become.
Sam: Well, you know, I mean, along those lines,
Sam: I mean, we all went, last week,
Sam: we all went through the expected conversation about how it was good that the
Sam: assassination attempt did not succeed because of all the bad things that could have occurred.
Sam: Like, but I will fully admit, I've seen a lot of people online being like,
Sam: how can you be that bad a shot?
Sam: How did he miss? Why couldn't he, couldn't he have hit?
Sam: And I admit it's a little bit tempting.
Ivan: Yes, it is. It is.
Ivan: So yeah, I don't like this about myself, Sam. I don't like what these people have done to us.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: No, I don't like it. So aside from the fact how these people have impaired my
Ivan: ability to empathize with people. Okay. This is.
Ivan: Yeah, we had a major IT outage. And then I happened to have this evening a major
Ivan: IT outage by one of my biggest customers as well.
Ivan: I don't think it was related to this from CrowdStrike.
Ivan: I'm not sure yet. They haven't like root cause analysis, analyzed it.
Ivan: But the outage happened where all of a sudden user access started being blocked
Ivan: for everybody for some reason.
Ivan: Nobody can explain to me why that happened. It's like really weird.
Ivan: People are able to restore it pretty quickly, but it was very confusing as to why.
Ivan: I've never seen anything like what the hell happened tonight.
Ivan: and i'm and i'm and i'm saying it may not
Ivan: be related to this but we haven't really root cause to analyze
Ivan: it and i i don't know i don't know
Ivan: what the hell the cause of it was i just don't know but but
Ivan: speak i mean what a fucking cock up of a damn are we going to talk about yeah
Ivan: yeah yeah i mean what the what a fucking cock up of a software update man i
Ivan: mean i you know So, I mean,
Ivan: I've seen bad software updates cause problems,
Ivan: but the level of this stupidity is many levels above.
Ivan: And the one thing I saw was apparently they're saying that CrowdStrike did this
Ivan: to Linux in April as well.
Ivan: Well, so something with their process is just not working very well when they
Ivan: are testing these product updates.
Ivan: And, you know, we are in an era right now where many applications are moving from a...
Ivan: From a system where, hey, we issue a patch, and then the IT organization or
Ivan: end user is responsible for applying that in some way.
Ivan: Sometimes he used to be with very complex instructions. Sometimes he had to
Ivan: bring down systems. But now we do a lot of hot patching.
Ivan: So basically, things are in production, and we issue these updates.
Ivan: and well i mean when you've got a system like this it brought i mean it's just
Ivan: such a massive outage this is crazy now so.
Sam: So back up a little bit describe what happened since we're talking about this.
Ivan: Well my understanding is that okay so crowd
Ivan: strike is in many computers is
Ivan: deployed as an agent it's not like an antivirus
Ivan: in the in the traditional sense but it's something that monitors what
Ivan: is going on activity for anomalous activity in
Ivan: order to be able to block it on on endpoint devices okay okay so they issued
Ivan: some kind of fucking update for microsoft for for windows users like last night
Ivan: which basically blocked them
Ivan: blocked all these machines it now i i do I do think that you had to have,
Ivan: the machines had to be shut down. It was during boot up.
Sam: But presumably lots of places just have a standard procedure where everything
Sam: reboots overnight or something, right?
Ivan: No, they don't.
Sam: I mean, well, but if it has to reboot, then why does that?
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: It's a monthly endpoint. Well, the thing is that the issue wouldn't crop up
Ivan: until you were rebooting, is what I'm saying.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: They applied the patch, and then if the machine had to reboot,
Ivan: then all of a sudden you're fucked.
Ivan: Because it would block all access to, I mean, it just bricked the damn thing.
Ivan: Now, I saw that the method of unbricking it was, you could start up the computer
Ivan: in safe mode and delete this one specific file.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: That was deployed, and then restart the computer, and it would start up.
Ivan: So that was the solution that I saw that many shared.
Ivan: But the thing is that I was talking to people or places where this was,
Ivan: and in fact, my understanding was, I guess if you hadn't rebooted,
Ivan: then you weren't impacted immediately.
Ivan: And so you could get an update because they issued another update,
Ivan: which fixed the problem. right but but you know so.
Sam: But but if you had the problem in the first place my understanding was to even
Sam: get it to boot to the point that anything was functional you had to reboot into
Sam: safe mode first yeah yes so like you had to go to say so like you couldn't automatically
Sam: push a fix because it was too busy rebooting itself.
Ivan: Well, right!
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, now I just think that not being not being you know an expert in this
Ivan: endpoint protection myself.
Ivan: I know of it because I know that my computer for work does have it deployed but but.
Ivan: I just, it just shows the risks that we have with this kind of stuff.
Ivan: Then we have the solar winds outage that we had where there was this massive,
Ivan: or we had a hack for solar winds.
Ivan: And with a lot of this distributed batch, you see, I see a lot of people that
Ivan: are resistant to moving to this model because you're forced into updates.
Ivan: And I have seen so many people using applications in this method that especially
Ivan: if they have interdependencies with more legacy systems,
Ivan: because if you built something from the ground up as a SAS model,
Ivan: the cloud, usually this isn't a big deal.
Ivan: It's not as big a deal. But many people, you know, you get a lot of these cloud applications.
Ivan: They have so many integrations with other stuff. One of the problems is with
Ivan: any update in SaaS is that many of the updates, you can't like reject them.
Ivan: It's not like you can take it, test it, check what the problem is, and then roll it out. No.
Ivan: A day rolls around and an update happens and you don't have any control.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And if it breaks something, then you're fucked. And this is kind of like this.
Sam: This is the perfect example. I saw one person posting online that said like,
Sam: Hey, you're an it manager at a company and this screwed you over.
Sam: And you're like, well, it's not my fault. It hit everybody.
Sam: And their response was, well, yeah, but you didn't set up a system that would,
Sam: you know, test updates on a one box before you released it to everybody and all this. You can't.
Ivan: Not with this stuff. You can't. You can't. This bypasses that process.
Ivan: Yes. I mean, that's the thing.
Ivan: I mean, that's the problem. Now, I do, you know, not speaking,
Ivan: I don't want to speak specifics to any companies. of course okay like right
Ivan: now but but you know there there are there are vendors that do provide,
Ivan: certain services in order to say hey this is the planned patch for in 90 days
Ivan: let's say a number okay we have an we have a test environment for you that's
Ivan: even on the on on the cloud for you
Ivan: to test it to see whether it'll work or whether you would have issues with that.
Ivan: So there are some vendors that do provide that. It doesn't seem that CrowdStrike
Ivan: works that way, as far as I can tell.
Ivan: Basically, there's been so much
Ivan: trust, I guess, in their client that it wouldn't do something like this.
Ivan: Now, one of our Slack people mentioned that. One of our Slack people, yes. one of our slackers,
Ivan: Mention that there is a distinct difference between why this is more likely
Ivan: in Windows and Linux versus macOS environments.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: The main reason is that Apple, for better or worse,
Ivan: has far more restrictive access to the base operating system,
Ivan: to the kernel, to the root parts of the OS. You really can't get there.
Sam: Apple has been locking this stuff
Sam: down more and more over the years in terms
Sam: of making things that are you
Sam: know programs are sandboxed ideally right there's very limited access if you
Sam: if a program needs to have permission to do something it asks explicitly and
Sam: the user has to say yes they can do this like you know i set up my new computer
Sam: a few weeks ago and it seemed like for the first few few days,
Sam: everything I was freaking doing was giving some program permission to something or other.
Sam: Like this program can use the camera. This one can use the microphone.
Sam: This one can access your hard drive. This one can access your documents folder, et cetera.
Sam: And, and on and on and on because they are making it so that those choices are explicit.
Ivan: And you can't even at that level.
Sam: I can't accidentally download like some program that's going to screw you over.
Sam: And like you were are about to say, like there are system level stuffs,
Sam: stuffs, their system level of saying stuffs.
Ivan: I like it.
Sam: That are even more locked down
Sam: that require you to like really know what you're the fuck you're doing.
Sam: If you want to enable it to do
Sam: it, you have to like jump through hoops and you know, to even get there.
Ivan: But it's the one thing is that what our slacker was mentioning was Apple's infuriatingly
Ivan: restrictive attitude towards kernel extensions,
Ivan: okay, to be specific, okay?
Ivan: That at the kernel level, they're like, no, you're not doing anything there, okay?
Ivan: You're not doing it. Whereas if you use Linux or any of these other systems,
Ivan: you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.
Ivan: Say with iOS, for example, which is extremely restrictive, is one of the reasons
Ivan: why so many of the EU try to say, hey, you don't let siloed apps,
Ivan: you don't do this, you don't do this.
Ivan: And all of those reasons are precisely to try to avoid this kind of shit from happening.
Ivan: And this kind of shit, listen, this happened from what was supposed to be a
Ivan: benevolent actor, not a malicious actor.
Sam: Okay?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Can you fucking imagine?
Ivan: Yeah. They just screwed up. i mean now do we that's the thing do.
Sam: We know the details of the screw-up they made was it just like somebody missed.
Ivan: A semicolon in.
Sam: A configuration file or something.
Ivan: I i i have no idea i i
Ivan: i haven't seen any further details um i have not but but you know what i was
Ivan: seeing was that and somebody was making a joke that it depended on i think it
Ivan: was people were talking And I'm not familiar with it.
Ivan: There is this encryption with Microsoft that people use to encrypt their hard drives.
Ivan: I think it is BitLocker.
Sam: Okay, yep, yep.
Ivan: And they were talking that if you use BitLocker, it's a Windows security feature
Ivan: that provides encryption for entire volumes.
Ivan: If you're using BitLocker, you basically have to wipe the damn machine and go
Ivan: back to restore from a backup.
Ivan: That was the one thing that I kept seeing people complaining.
Ivan: CrowdStrike outage. How to fix BSOD on BitLocker-enabled Microsoft Windows PCs and laptops.
Ivan: Apparently, this is... Yeah, it's...
Ivan: These instructions are far more involved. Well, you gotta have your BitLocker key, apparently.
Ivan: So if you don't have the key, then you're fucked. Let's start off with that.
Sam: Beautiful. Always good.
Ivan: So that's an issue. and
Ivan: it is because you need the bitlocker key in order to be able to go
Ivan: delete the and it says here that it's a driver we still have drivers well we
Ivan: have drivers I know but these selfies don't whatever whatnot but yeah but you
Ivan: know it's apparently it says here navigate to the command prompt and you know
Ivan: this will delete the faulty crowd strike driver causing the issue,
Ivan: what a what a shit show but you know,
Ivan: look this week week, we also found out, was it this week or was it last week,
Ivan: that AT&T breach, the one where they were able to get all our information about
Ivan: all the communications, calls, and text messages that we've sent.
Ivan: Now, this is metadata, not the actual text messages.
Ivan: We found out it was another cloud. Okay, so AT&T apparently subscribed to this
Ivan: cloud provider called Snowflake.
Ivan: And apparently the breach happened at Snowflake. And apparently they were able
Ivan: able to get a lot more information, more than just the AT&T stuff from Snowflake, apparently.
Ivan: So, who the hell knows what other information they were able to get.
Ivan: But apparently Snowflake is a provider for this kind of information for the,
Ivan: telecommunications industry and the cloud,
Ivan: They also got breached. Nice. It's great.
Sam: Yes. You know? Beautiful.
Ivan: Well, somebody wouldn't have said, by the way, which I did like the idea was
Ivan: that, hey, if somebody can find in that metadata file Clarence Thomas's phone,
Ivan: and if they could see who he was communicating with,
Ivan: there's a few people that we could look up to see who they were communicating.
Ivan: It'd be interesting to find out who they've been talking to.
Sam: Not that you would advocate anything criminal here.
Ivan: No no no I'm already hey the data's already out it's out there I imagine.
Sam: There's still some rules about using it if you got.
Ivan: Trapped I think.
Sam: Like if stolen data is.
Ivan: Put out there on a public server you know this is the same shit the NSA was
Ivan: getting for years that Snowden was exposing so you know but I mean you know
Ivan: So Monday felt this week like it was Friday already.
Ivan: That's how long this week has been. I went to Puerto Rico on Monday.
Ivan: I came back on Tuesday and then my flight arrived.
Ivan: Somebody noticed this and I just noticed the stat. I've flown from San Juan
Ivan: to Miami seven times this year, which I'm shocked that it's seven times.
Ivan: Okay. All right. So basically like once a month. Okay.
Ivan: Every single flight, every single time my flight home has been delayed from San Juan. All of them.
Sam: Well, at least you weren't trying to fly anywhere today.
Ivan: At least I wasn't trying to fly anywhere. I know.
Sam: I know you started to move on, but did we even talk about all the things that were impacted by?
Ivan: No, no, no, we didn't. Because it was like everything, like all the airlines.
Ivan: there were like 20 some odd thousand canceled flights
Ivan: today okay i mean i heard
Ivan: ehr records you know
Ivan: the epic the emr they were down news organizations tv stations right i mean
Ivan: it was like everybody i mean everything got affected now i must admit whatever
Ivan: the hell i use if i hadn't seen the news i would have struggled to find out that it was down i.
Sam: Think like i my my main effect like our our our email was down at work.
Ivan: Oh really yeah well there was a but but was that related to this because i know
Ivan: that there's an azure outage i.
Sam: I don't know it was outlook it was microsoft it was whatever.
Ivan: Oh well now you're doing the same thing everybody's bitching well this wasn't
Ivan: microsoft well yeah i know it wasn't microsoft but you know it really impact everybody with
Ivan: with with windows but there was okay well no that was because there was a separate
Ivan: outage with azure last night and right around the same fucking time of all things
Ivan: nice so we had that going on you know,
Ivan: You know, somebody was saying that one of the, one of the things that you discover
Ivan: with this stuff is New York subways were all running without a problem.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Now there weren't automated announcements happening and some other stuff or
Ivan: whatever, but all the trains were what?
Ivan: In part because you know what that infrastructure is. So it's,
Ivan: it's for the most part analog.
Ivan: So I don't give a shit about this crap. That didn't impact it.
Ivan: but you know you got you got people
Ivan: who couldn't like check into hotels you can't
Ivan: like you know call a doctor and
Ivan: book an appointment well lots of people had you couldn't check out and such
Ivan: yes because that because the freaking you know massive like electronic health
Ivan: records outage yes i mean yeah it's it's fucked up well you know if you go to
Ivan: a hospital right now yes you go to a
Ivan: hospital right now okay you think about
Ivan: all the technology that they have put in place in
Ivan: order to prevent medical mistakes that that is you know you go and like you're
Ivan: going to get medicines handed to you they usually will go around with a computer
Ivan: with a cart scanning it scanning your wristband to say hey this is your patient
Ivan: a this is the medicine for patient a the computer will tell
Ivan: you yes this is the person that should get it okay that
Ivan: person will get that okay you're gonna go make a
Ivan: surgery everything is in the damn computer so the x-rays documentation notes
Ivan: whatever the hell it is you're gonna do which leg you're gonna operate you know
Ivan: whatever all the instructions that they had placed it's all in there so you
Ivan: can't go and fucking operate on them you don't got any of the damn information right.
Sam: It's it's not like they can go to the backup There's no backup paper file.
Ivan: Right. There's no backup paper file anymore. It's gone.
Sam: You could just be like, which kidney did you need removed again?
Sam: Right, exactly. I'll guess.
Ivan: Yeah, we'll guess. We'll guess. Oh, shit. Oh, well. Well, that was the wrong one.
Sam: So anyway, you also mentioned briefly, like this wasn't even like a cyber warfare
Sam: act or something. It was just somebody screwed something up.
Ivan: Who fucked the fuck up?
Sam: But I think it shows you like how much damage could be done if it was intentional.
Ivan: Oh fuck. Yeah.
Sam: Like imagine.
Ivan: Holy shit.
Sam: I mean, and it tells you, it shows you how easy it would be to like,
Sam: presumably there's like one poor ass employee who fucked up here and accidentally
Sam: like save something. They shut.
Ivan: If I, if I, if I'm that fucking employee, I know I'm, I'm, I'm hiding.
Ivan: I'm fucking like, I'll tell you what, I'm fucking, you know,
Ivan: I mean, I'm finding, I'm like, how do I, how do I get the hell,
Ivan: you know, I'll shred my phone and I'll fucking like go hide somewhere for six months.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I'll claim I was hijacked. I don't know. Whatever. I was kidnapped.
Sam: Yes. Yeah. I could see there being a little bit of discussion there and,
Sam: you know, everybody screws up, but, and there'll be a post-mortem.
Sam: because you know if you have a scenario where
Sam: a single person fucking up can have this
Sam: kind of effect or again like maybe
Sam: if a single person being malicious could have this kind
Sam: of effect then you don't have the right systematic
Sam: protections in place like in
Sam: terms of things needing to be double or triple checked before they
Sam: get released you know or the right testing or
Sam: the whatever you there is a hole in the process that
Sam: needs to be fixed and i'm sure they will work on that but
Sam: again it shows like hey some some some poor employee hit send on something that
Sam: wasn't properly tested and wasn't doing what it was supposed to and i'll be
Sam: fine and this is what happened if it had been somebody intentionally trying
Sam: to inject something malicious,
Sam: it's it's,
Sam: This does remind me.
Ivan: We forget that we've had less incidents of this,
Ivan: but back in the 2000s, we had viruses like the Melissa virus or some others
Ivan: like this that did spread widely and cause significant outages.
Ivan: Now, we are even more dependent on technology, but we are already pretty heavily
Ivan: dependent on this stuff already then and how some of this stuff.
Ivan: And look, I will say this, that I, look, you're asking me, well,
Ivan: what am I going to do with that employee I've fucked up, right?
Ivan: Look, I will admit, listen, I will admit that I had an employee that made a
Ivan: fuck-up like this, a technical fuck-up, that cost the company $60 million, okay?
Ivan: About 20 years ago, all right?
Sam: I think you've actually told this story before.
Ivan: Yes. And I and I will say that I, you know, now the reality is that this guy
Ivan: had a history of fuck ups and.
Sam: That makes a difference.
Ivan: And so and that made a difference because that wouldn't happen.
Ivan: And I found out about it. He was on a business trip and I basically said,
Ivan: listen, dude, pack your bags, go home. You're going to HR.
Ivan: You're getting your termination. You're done.
Ivan: OK, because but that was the last straw of some.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, most generally, if you have somebody make a screw up that causes
Sam: a major production problem, I mean, obviously this one was huge,
Sam: but there are a couple of factors at play, right? One is...
Sam: Did they do something that was actually directly negligent and bad?
Ivan: In the case of my guy, yes.
Sam: Or was it a process failure? Like there was something in place that should have stopped it.
Sam: This guy actually, in my case.
Ivan: Overrode the process. No, no, what I'm saying. But to give you an example,
Ivan: that guy negligent. This guy overrode the process.
Ivan: So if you find out that this guy went and, oh, I'm overriding the process.
Ivan: Fuck this. This update's going out. well then you know what this guy is toast.
Sam: Yeah no there there are several different scenarios here
Sam: one is they were intentionally trying to fuck
Sam: with stuff in that case not only is he fired you're reporting him to authorities
Sam: he's going to fucking jail right oh yeah the second is uh he screwed up but
Sam: was generally following the specified processes and something that should
Sam: have caught the problem failed in which case it's, it's a process problem, not that guy's fault.
Sam: I mean, maybe that guy could have been more careful, but you should have had
Sam: the protections in place.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: And then, and then I guess third is, you know, the guy actively bypassed some
Sam: processes, like you said, that he was supposed to follow.
Sam: And then it's absolutely the guy's fault. And they're out of it. Yeah.
Ivan: Of course, you know, we also got a couple of astronauts stuck in space.
Sam: Oh yeah. That, Well, actually, like you had started about another technical glitch.
Sam: You had started to change topics onto something else. And I veered you right back to CrowdStrike.
Sam: So I don't know if you remember the other thing or whether you just want to jump to astronauts.
Ivan: No, no, no. So I jumped to astronauts. So we still got a couple of astronauts stuck in space, huh?
Sam: Yeah, we do. And and so they've been saying over and over. So this is the the Boeing. What is it?
Sam: Starliner is Starliner. And it's had some problems with its thrusters. Right.
Sam: And so these problems were detected, you know, it, it, it did not get in the
Sam: way of them getting there, but they had to like, they had to take some extra steps.
Sam: They did some testing of it before they docked to the space station.
Sam: They had to do some things manually to compensate for anyway.
Sam: But when they got there, the story that they've been giving for a long time
Sam: is there's absolutely no issue with them getting home.
Sam: But because the part of the spacecraft that is malfunctioning gets jettisoned
Sam: and burned up in the atmosphere on the return trip, their only time to investigate
Sam: the problem is now at the space station.
Ivan: Oh.
Sam: So the astronauts have been actually disassembling and investigating these thrusters
Sam: and reassembling them while they're there,
Sam: trying to figure out and diagnose the problem and deal with it.
Sam: And as I understand it at the moment, but the latest update I heard,
Sam: and maybe there's something more recent.
Sam: But as of a few days ago, Boeing was for the first time admitting that maybe,
Sam: maybe they haven't decided this for sure yet, but maybe they might have to take
Sam: a different spacecraft home.
Ivan: Oh, man. Go Boeing. What is wrong, man? Guys, come on, man. Give me a break.
Ivan: I mean, tell. hell set the set the fucking you know they can't they can't do anything right.
Sam: Well because i was like presumably like yes they jettison this part of the spacecraft
Sam: but presumably i mean these are the thrusters presumably they need them to make
Sam: sure that the spacecraft is oriented properly for re-entry i would assume so
Sam: like it was kind of important that they work correctly.
Ivan: Yeah i am so i would believe.
Sam: I mean i know they have some redundancy and some this and some that and blah
Sam: blah blah but at the same and all the astronauts were expressing high levels
Sam: of confidence that of course we're going to return on the spaceship and it'll
Sam: all be fine we just have to investigate this before we go i.
Ivan: Mean i guess yeah i wonder how many days were they supposed to be up there eight days.
Sam: Something like that like around a week how long.
Ivan: How long How long have they been there now?
Sam: Nearly a month. I'd have to look it up for the exact number of days, but it's, it's, Oh God.
Ivan: It's, it's, it's, it's getting a lot. It's going to be a long time.
Ivan: Let's see. What was the, let's see. When does it say they went? The.
Ivan: Oh, who knows? I don't know. It's not that important. No, I can't. Yeah.
Ivan: So anyway, well, but we've got more. We've got more people in space.
Ivan: You know, given what's the hell is going on down here. I mean,
Ivan: maybe that's a good option. We could go. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Well, one of the science communicators that I've that I see on TikTok all the
Sam: time is all excited because apparently she's going up in Bezos's spaceship soon.
Sam: So that's nice. That's nice. Yes. I forget her name. I think it's Space Gal
Sam: or something. I don't know.
Ivan: Blue Origin.
Sam: And of course, my immediate reaction is, you know that's not really space, right? It's just, well.
Sam: I guess it's closer than I've been.
Ivan: Right. Well, it's technically space.
Sam: Well, no. It depends on the definition. By most definitions, it's a little short.
Ivan: It's right around. It's close enough.
Sam: You know you know i i figure come on you need at least an orbit not this up
Sam: and well shit you know well.
Ivan: I mean yeah i okay.
Sam: I mean no i understand you go up high enough the sky looks black you get a few
Sam: moments of zero g but you get that you can get the zero g and the vomit comet too,
Sam: right right you can do you know there are all kinds of ways to get zero i would like.
Ivan: To do You know, I would like to do that.
Sam: The Vomit Comet?
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would like to do that.
Sam: That's a lot.
Ivan: That would be cool.
Sam: You can buy tickets on that. It's a lot cheaper than like the Blue Origin or
Sam: the Virgin Galactic and all those things.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would like to try that. I would like to try that. That would be cool to do.
Sam: Okay. Well, if you do that, feel free to bankroll me. We'll do the show live from the Vomit Comet.
Ivan: There you go. There you go. Kermudge's Corner from Zero-G. Yes.
Sam: Exactly. Okay.
Sam: we we've gone on quite a bit already. So I feel like I should skip my movie
Sam: and we should move on in the lines of like keeping the show under two hours this week.
Ivan: Okay. We could skip a movie for this week.
Sam: But I will, I will preview that next week.
Ivan: Next week, next week.
Sam: Next week, you will.
Ivan: Start with a movie and.
Sam: The movie will be the grapes of wrath from 1940.
Ivan: Oh, wow. Really? Yes. You know, I don't think I've, I'm pretty sure I haven't watched it.
Sam: Well, you know, Oh, you could do homework and watch this before next week,
Sam: and then we could both talk about it.
Ivan: I could try that.
Sam: There you go. I could. Okay, let's take a break.
Sam: And when we come back, we will do actual newsy stuff.
Sam: And I know you guys know the kinds of things we might be talking about.
Sam: We had the Trump assassination attempt. I guess we can follow up on that.
Sam: We've learned a lot since last week.
Sam: We've got Cannon dismissed Trump's Florida case.
Sam: We've got Trump picking J.D. Vance as his vice president. We've got the RNC.
Sam: We've got the whole battle about will Joe drop out or not and all the pressure
Sam: being brought on him and what happens if he does drop out and all the alternatives and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: We've got general like, you know, how the polling's going and all that shit.
Sam: it we we got we all we got and i mentioned rnc
Sam: specifically we have trump's incoherent speech there we've got all the other
Sam: stuff you know we got hulk hogan we anyway we got all kinds of stuff but first
Sam: first the break is an apple dream so here we go ah cool this is apple dream 20 okay.
Ivan: Except i had to keep changing my time zone like like alex and i do on wordle,
Ivan: like to be on the same game as him i had to change.
Sam: Where i normally keep things to pacific time and then if we miss a day we have
Sam: to make it the previous day and then go forward again and somehow in.
Ivan: The space battle it was like that too and that's all i remember.
Sam: And that that's it that's it oh nice there you go having to change your uh time
Sam: zone in the space battle you know so that's great you know i i haven't published
Sam: any new ones of those in many months now,
Sam: but I've got a backlog of them recorded on my phone that I haven't published
Sam: in TikTok yet, but anyway,
Sam: so where do you want to start from all that crap I listed or something else entirely?
Sam: If I missed something important.
Ivan: You know, well, you, you were talking a little, look, I'm going to come out
Ivan: flat out and say, I hate all these subjects.
Sam: They all make you mad.
Ivan: God, they all just, I spoke about how these people have changed my mood.
Ivan: All the subjects of discussion just aggravate me at this moment.
Sam: I'll say one thing on that before you continue.
Sam: I got so pissed off this week on all of this pressure on Joe Biden to drop out.
Sam: Whether or not you think that switching at this point would be smart and would
Sam: be the best way to win, which I personally am not sure that it is.
Sam: But regardless, the way this is all playing out is just really,
Sam: really made me angry to the point where I gave Joe Biden more than I've ever
Sam: given any political candidate in my life, other than money where we've self-funded my wife's campaign.
Sam: But other than that, I have not been one to routinely give to political candidates
Sam: or political campaigns or PACs or anything else like that.
Sam: I had a few recurring donations, small dollar recurring donations,
Sam: like 10 or $20 a month to a few things.
Sam: But like, I, I was like, okay, I'll set up a recurring donation from now until
Sam: the election to Joe Biden.
Sam: And with amounts that I'd normally would never have thought of giving to a political candidate.
Sam: Cause I was just so pissed. I'm like, and some of the reports were like how
Sam: Joe Biden's funding had dried up and no one was giving him money anymore.
Sam: And I'm like, okay, okay, fuck it, I'm giving him money.
Sam: At the moment I can afford it, I'm giving him some money.
Ivan: So basically, your mood is sour, my mood is sour, and my mood was sour.
Ivan: Forget about, you know, the thing that really hit me, okay,
Ivan: is I did not watch, I mean, maybe some short second clips with clips for a few
Ivan: seconds of the RNC, but I am not.
Ivan: I did not watch it.
Sam: But I saw some of the- I did not watch almost any of it. I listened to some of Biden, not Biden.
Ivan: Biden.
Sam: Yeah. I listened to some of Trump's, see, like the name thing.
Sam: Like, I can't even keep Biden and Trump apart, you know?
Ivan: Exactly. Anyway, well, I, I.
Sam: You know, so, you know, so I understand Joe confusing Kamala and Trump because
Sam: I just confused Biden with Trump anyway.
Ivan: I mean, because it's the word president in front.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Ivan: It's not, it's, it's not, you know, it's not the most uncommon faux pas.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: All right. That happens.
Sam: Anyway, I listened, I listened to a few minutes of Trump. up i did not.
Ivan: Watch any but i.
Sam: Listened to a little bit but yeah go ahead i.
Ivan: Mean but in between the the
Ivan: rnc gets together and it's it
Ivan: and they have these speakers where
Ivan: it's a whole bunch of like listen drunk
Ivan: people convicts uh uh
Ivan: uh uh uh you know domestic abuser
Ivan: porn domestic abusers porn stars i i'm i'm i'm just like what the hell is this
Ivan: man it's the party of reagan man fuck is this of reagan i mean listen and lincoln
Ivan: and lincoln matt gates's face,
Ivan: what the fuck happened to that guy's face oh and somebody pointed out they.
Sam: They they did a before and after picture of just the day before it happened with.
Ivan: Yeah it happened.
Sam: Within 24 hours It wasn't like he went and had plastic.
Ivan: Surgery. Holy shit.
Sam: They were saying it was Botox, probably.
Ivan: Well, I read that somebody did an analysis. Apparently, the Botox takes a number
Ivan: of days. He must have really gotten a really big ass...
Sam: Like a rush job?
Ivan: Yeah, a number of them, and it just all popped in the same day.
Sam: Beautiful.
Ivan: But holy fucking hell. I mean...
Ivan: It's just, I mean, it's just a fucking degenerates convention, man.
Ivan: And, and then, you know, the video clips of them on the floor acting like,
Ivan: I mean, like high schoolers.
Sam: Well, just to be fair, political conventions, if you look at the people on the
Sam: floor, both democratic and Republican are always a little nutso.
Sam: You have people in the weird hat.
Ivan: No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that.
Ivan: I'm talking about, what's his name, the guy that was Speaker of the House who lost.
Sam: Ryan?
Ivan: Who?
Sam: Onyer? McCarthy?
Ivan: No, not Ryan. No, no, no. McCarthy. McCarthy and Matt Gaetz,
Ivan: like, you know, bombing him like he's some 15-year-old.
Ivan: And then Gaetz, like, screaming these insults and then other people and just, man, come on.
Ivan: The guy before Trump came on was fucking a drunk Hulk Hogan.
Sam: I did not watch it, so I didn't realize he was drunk. I saw he ripped off his shirt or whatever.
Ivan: Yeah, well, of one of the few clips that I listened to is one of him speaking,
Ivan: and he was slurring drunk as all fuck.
Sam: Nice.
Ivan: So i mean what the hell man and then and then all these people i'm sorry but
Ivan: all the people with the little like ear pillows yes.
Sam: Yes out of you know.
Ivan: Who does this shit man well they're.
Sam: They're playing paying homage to donald.
Ivan: Trump's injuries who does this
Ivan: shit you know republicans
Ivan: i don't know yeah you know that mega republicans listen here's the thing about
Ivan: how fucked up this week is yes by today the news that they tried to assassinate
Ivan: trump basically was like who cares well.
Sam: He did live.
Ivan: Right oh and so let's see if i imagine the entire last.
Sam: Week would have played out entirely differently if donald trump had not lived
Sam: or if he was like in the hospital in critical condition or something it would have been absolute.
Ivan: But i do i i do think that if if it was somebody if it if it had been another
Ivan: time right and they had tried to assassinate the president there would
Ivan: have been a lot more intense interest in coverage.
Ivan: In it, like right now. And like right now, it's basically old news. Like by now.
Sam: Well, if you think back, I mean, the only time that I directly remember,
Sam: you know, is the Reagan attempt. But it was different.
Ivan: Yeah, but he was shot.
Sam: Well, yeah.
Ivan: I mean, not just that.
Sam: So was Donald Trump. But Reagan was serious enough that he was in the hospital.
Ivan: No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. But no, exactly. I mean,
Ivan: we didn't know if he was going to make it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: We didn't know if Reagan was going to make it.
Sam: We didn't know if he was going to make it. And even after it was clear he was
Sam: going to make it, it was a long recovery.
Sam: It was months until he was like sort of back in shape.
Sam: And some people argue he never got back to the point he was before the gunshot.
Sam: And so, yeah, I mean, but look here, you know, I mean, some people are still
Sam: trying to say right now that, oh, it wasn't a gunshot wound at all.
Sam: It was just some glass that from the teleprompter. or something.
Sam: The teleprompter looked like it was intact to me on the video,
Sam: but whatever. I don't know.
Sam: One of the things I was going to bring up is all these conspiracy theories surrounding
Sam: the assassination attempt.
Sam: One of them is what I just mentioned. Oh, he wasn't actually shot.
Sam: Trump is obviously lying. He won't release any medical records.
Sam: He won't do anything like that. So he obviously wasn't actually shot.
Sam: It was just a little bit of glass from the teleprompter. And while we're doing
Sam: that, maybe it was all just a setup because he wanted to sympathy.
Sam: I mean, after all, look how he like posed for like the hero shot before he left
Sam: instead of just getting whisked out right away and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: Well, I have said, and I will say that that was like one of the most bizarre
Ivan: reactions I've ever seen by anybody to get shot.
Ivan: And by the way, you know, the reality is that,
Ivan: you know, Trump being so so so empathetic
Ivan: and so kind he quickly quickly went and
Ivan: like tried to deploy his sympathies to the uh family of the person that actually
Ivan: got killed or or no that's right no that wasn't it that was biden that tried
Ivan: to do it they didn't take his call because they were they they were i guess
Ivan: they were they were like really mega people well it seems that the only Specifically.
Sam: The wife said that she thought her husband would not appreciate her taking that
Sam: call because he was so MAGA and so anti-Democrat.
Sam: It sounded like on her own she might have, but she was trying to respect her husband. Whatever.
Sam: Donald Trump did eventually get in contact with him, apparently.
Ivan: Yeah, but come on. The only reason
Ivan: why he wound up calling is because he wound up being shamed into it.
Sam: No, I think it was because he wanted to talk about it at his convention speech.
Sam: He called all the families like the day before the speech.
Ivan: Okay, here, okay, I, you did not read Mary Trump's book.
Sam: You're right. I have heard your summary of Mary Trump's book. Go ahead.
Ivan: Yeah, well, there is one thing that Mary Trump talked about is that,
Ivan: and that's in that family, and Trump specifically, is that anything related
Ivan: to death, he avoided like the plague.
Ivan: There is no way that he volunteered, he really wanted to call these people.
Ivan: The only reason that he wound up calling them is because he was shamed into
Ivan: it because Biden went and made a sympathy call to that. Otherwise, there's no way he would.
Sam: Also, I think the having the it's also operational.
Sam: Like, yes, he was shamed into it, but also it's operational.
Sam: He knew it would be useful politically to have made the call and be able to
Sam: talk about the call in his speech.
Sam: I think that has part part of it as well.
Ivan: Well, but that's what I'm saying. If the RNC wasn't this week,
Ivan: you wouldn't have called.
Sam: Probably not. I mean, even so, he said he was going to attend the funeral and he didn't.
Ivan: Oh, what? Well, that's the that's another part, dude. They know,
Ivan: you know, attending to funerals either.
Ivan: I mean, yeah, that's also a trait.
Sam: So let's talk a little bit since since our first your topic is apparently whether
Sam: you intended it or not. it's the rnc so.
Ivan: Yes i i did intend it to be the rnc and
Ivan: i i'm just like i i don't know look i
Ivan: i mean it's a it's it's it's an it's a a meeting of degenerates and sociopaths
Ivan: man and and liars you know this whole the whole grinder thing too that happened
Ivan: during the week so explain
Ivan: well apparently like grinder was like overloaded in milwaukee grinder which
Ivan: is a a gay hookup a gay hookup you know it's it's.
Sam: Basically the equivalent of like you know you know they're all.
Ivan: I don't think there is an equivalent because in part like because because the
Ivan: thing is that yeah data has shown that homosexual hookups are far more frequent
Ivan: and casual than say lesbian or cisgender hookups i mean there's a whole spectrum.
Sam: Of dating apps some of which are more about dating and.
Ivan: Some of which are more like but even like no no yeah no so you've got oh what
Ivan: the hell is it man the other tinder well the thing is that you know it so tinder
Ivan: is more like you know uh uh,
Ivan: whatchamacallit heterosexual relationship as far as I remember but it's just this thing.
Sam: Where you're not on it all the time no.
Ivan: I probably listen I will admit that if I was single probably I would.
Sam: Yeah okay I'm.
Ivan: Sure that I would.
Sam: I'm pretty.
Ivan: Sure if I were single now.
Sam: At this point but at this point
Sam: online dating apps of various sorts are the
Sam: normal most common way for people to
Sam: meet each other these days 89 i was like
Sam: way way over everything yeah way bigger like back in the day when we were younger
Sam: it was things like you were introduced by friends you met at school you met
Sam: at work maybe you met at a like a bar or something but like it was all those
Sam: kinds of now it's it's like you said 80 90 online apps and stuff so.
Ivan: Yeah i'm sure that i most probably would be on tinder i mean for sure but But
Ivan: I'm like, what the, but the thing is that this is a party of anti,
Ivan: it is, it is the, this is the party of anti-LGBT,
Ivan: anti-whatever, the family values.
Ivan: We need to go back to the core family values.
Ivan: And basically they, so many of them logged on to Grindr that they basically
Ivan: like, you know, grounded to a halt.
Sam: And apparently this is an every four years thing, every Republican convention,
Sam: this happens and they run the numbers and they do geolocation and everything.
Sam: And like the majority of their all kinds of new accounts that are set up,
Sam: new anonymous accounts set up that week that get geolocated within the arena
Sam: where they're having the RNC.
Sam: And when you run the numbers, it's like nearly 10% of the attendees at the RNC
Sam: are apparently spending their time on Grindr as well.
Ivan: It's just the hypocrisy of it.
Sam: Right. I'm like, no problem with Grindr. Have fun. No, you know, fun.
Ivan: But it's just the whole hypocrisy. They go and they vilify transgender people,
Ivan: gay people, you know, every fucking chance they get.
Ivan: and you know these these fuckers like are just all like i don't know i guess
Ivan: is their way of dealing with how they're repressing their sexuality i guess
Ivan: that they do it like by displaying outward hate.
Sam: Yeah i it's like
Sam: look it's despicable it's disgusting well just
Sam: in general like you got to remember like people
Sam: calling these folks out for hypocrisy for various
Sam: things that it's not about being consistent
Sam: with some set of moral views it's about
Sam: power and control right you know and
Sam: it's about like you being in charge and
Sam: you telling what other people are allowed to
Sam: do or not do but you especially
Sam: if you're an apex white male should be able to do whatever the fuck you want
Sam: right you know so anyway how about donald trump's speech i know you didn't watch
Sam: it and i i mentioned i listened to parts of it but i didn't watch it well i.
Ivan: Think that the epitome of the of the stupidity of the news coverage of today.
Sam: Uh-huh is.
Ivan: Summarized by a series of tweets by nate silk.
Sam: Where you.
Ivan: Know like like a dumb fucking moron that he is he starts off by saying oh look
Ivan: he's looking presidential and i'm like thinking how could Could you be so dumb?
Ivan: And then he cries, well, this doesn't sound that good.
Ivan: This is kind of dark. Then at the end, well, I completely retracted.
Ivan: This thing is a shit show.
Ivan: And I'm like, you dumb motherfucker.
Ivan: What the hell did he expect?
Ivan: How could any of these clowns go and say, oh, he's going to be a unifier.
Ivan: He's going to be presidential, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Which we were hearing all week long.
Sam: All week long, we were hearing from people, oh, the near-death experience has changed him.
Sam: He's mellowed. He's torn up his speech. He wants to be a unifier.
Sam: He wants to reach out to everybody, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And of course not. Of course not. No! You know, and look...
Sam: One, look, the speech did have a few.
Ivan: Here's the best line. Here's the best line I just see about this.
Ivan: Donald Trump promised a softer image.
Ivan: He delivered Hulkamania.
Sam: Well, look, the speech itself, like there were a few phases of it.
Sam: And I listened to some of these directly and some of them I'm basing on commentary.
Sam: But here's the thing. The first part of his speech was him relating what happened
Sam: in the assassination attempt. And for that, he was mostly going from a prepared speech.
Sam: He talked some of the unified language.
Sam: Although even there, he said some words about the whole country unifying,
Sam: but really what they were talking about was unifying the Republicans in their
Sam: fealty to him. but whatever.
Sam: But that part of the speech was really mellow, really slow. He did sound a little
Sam: melancholy, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And he was going from the prepared speech. Then he seemed to somewhat get bored of that.
Sam: And he started going off script.
Sam: Another bunch of people pointed out, but I specifically, I'll point out Joy
Sam: Ann Reed from MSNBC, but her commentary on threads was really good as this was going on.
Sam: Because basically, they had provided a prepared speech.
Sam: After the recounting of the assassination attempt was over, he sort of started
Sam: ignoring most of the prepared speech.
Sam: Like, well, I shouldn't say ignoring. He would get to a point at the prepared
Sam: speech and then he would go off on a tangent for several minutes and then he'd
Sam: go back to it for a little while so you know basically more than half of the
Sam: words he actually said were not part of the prepared speech in the end and so which.
Ivan: Is why i guess it went uh i think they said uh.
Sam: It was the longest half it was the longest convention acceptance speech since
Sam: convention speeches speeches have been televised.
Ivan: No shit. Really? It was, you know, wow.
Sam: Now I don't know if it beat Bill Clinton cause that wasn't an acceptance.
Sam: I'm wondering. He was introducing the guy.
Sam: Because that wasn't when Bill Clinton was running. It was the cycle.
Ivan: No, no, no. That was like, right. That was like Bill Clinton doing this speech.
Ivan: I guess it was. Was it right? It was.
Sam: It was like four years before the year that he was. So it would have been 88.
Ivan: So was that the speech? Yeah, no. I know it was in 88. But the question is,
Ivan: is that the speech was presenting?
Sam: No, no. He was the keynote.
Ivan: I don't think so.
Sam: He was the keynote speech like the day before or something.
Ivan: Yeah, it was the day before. yeah this was you know and
Ivan: and look i i that's a moment i never forget because the the thing the funniest
Ivan: thing is i remember how the speech was so long-winded i mean it's never ending
Ivan: and i still remember that when he went to and saying in conclusion i'm finishing
Ivan: everybody started going well and i was waiting when when donald.
Sam: Trump said in conclusion i was like wait is there going to be applause there
Sam: wasn't at least not that i could hear but like i expected And the reports from
Sam: the people in the place were, okay, I sort of, let me back up.
Sam: We'll get to the end of the speech.
Sam: He started doing his normal sort of campaign rally stuff.
Sam: He started doing his, you know, rants against Joe Biden.
Sam: He started doing all of his usual sort of divisive stuff.
Sam: He started ranting about the last election.
Ivan: And I was stolen from him.
Sam: All that. And it certainly was not unifying rhetoric.
Sam: But one thing it was, was it wasn't really that energetic.
Sam: It was all very sort of...
Sam: And it was sort of much more monotone than he has been sometimes in the past and sort of...
Sam: to use Donald Trump's own words, low energy.
Sam: And so there were a lot of reports from the place that, you know,
Sam: the people in the front rows were like checking their phones.
Sam: There were some that were nodding off. There were some that were like.
Ivan: Is this done yet? Well, I mean, Donald Trump seemed to have been nodding off
Ivan: on his kids. I mean, you put those clowns, his kids that give speeches,
Ivan: nodding off at those guys.
Sam: Well, yes. But the point is, Donald Trump, first of all, it was low energy.
Sam: Second of all, there was his sort of usual stuff that we mentioned,
Sam: but also just the rambling incoherence,
Sam: which has also been normal at his rallies lately, to be clear.
Sam: I mean, he did the whole Hannibal Lecter rant, you know, as part of his speech,
Sam: you know, he and and like he would just go on meandering stream of consciousness, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so one of the things Joanne Reed was saying was like, look,
Sam: the one thing this shows us is, look, Joe Biden might be old,
Sam: but God damn it. but so is Trump.
Sam: And he's clearly not in the same place in terms of his mental capacity as he was even four years ago,
Sam: let alone eight, you know, it is, he is declining and maybe it's not,
Sam: you know, technically like, you know, clinical at this point,
Sam: but it's definitely a decline is visible and obvious.
Sam: And it's like, yeah, this is, this is your ranting old uncle.
Sam: who's just like, you know, he's finished his Turkey at the Thanksgiving table
Sam: and he's kicking his feet back and he's giving his little racist rants.
Sam: You know, that's, that's Donald Trump.
Ivan: You know, a little racist rants. Oh.
Sam: Wait, doesn't your uncle do that? You know, I always hear that it's uncles that do that.
Ivan: Like, yeah, the, the uncles. Well, unfortunately, you know, my uncle's all passed away.
Sam: I, I, I have, I have, I have one uncle left, but I don't think he does racist rants.
Ivan: Well, my, I have like my, my aunts, you know, uncles, like, like,
Ivan: you know, blood uncles. I have one that is alive, but they're by marriage.
Ivan: But my blood... Oh, wait, what am I talking about? Oh, Jesus Christ.
Ivan: My dad's brother's alive.
Sam: So you do have an uncle.
Ivan: Yeah, sorry, I forgot.
Sam: You killed him off early.
Ivan: Yes, that's... Sorry, that's the alarm that I... Okay, that's what I got.
Ivan: Yeah, no, I killed off my uncle early, but,
Ivan: you know i have you know he'll make off-color jokes
Ivan: but not go actually he's no he's not racist he may
Ivan: have a lot of other defects but but not not that i that i can tell that racism
Ivan: is not one thank god okay okay so yeah so anyway he's actually actually as a
Ivan: matter of fact i'll give a compliment he's actually very how do i say uh more
Ivan: inclusive than anything else that he's not So anyway.
Sam: A lot of people are pointing out the double standard of like,
Sam: if Joe Biden had come out and given the same speech,
Sam: everybody would be doubling down on the, oh my God, how can you possibly be
Sam: thinking about this old incompetent guy for anything?
Sam: anything and of course like the democrats have
Sam: a multi-week shit fit about joe biden and like
Sam: on the republican side nobody's gonna say a damn thing
Sam: and the media like yeah might be a few comments
Sam: about it i mean hey i'm quoting somebody from msnbc who is talking about it
Sam: but for the most part you're not gonna get pages and pages and days and days
Sam: of analysis of how donald trump Trump failed at his speech and how it indicates
Sam: that he should drop out, whatever, whatever, you know?
Sam: I mean, of course he is now the official nominee, which Joe Biden is not yet, but.
Ivan: Well, it appears I I'm looking at this information. So this speech was 90 minutes.
Sam: Yes. Correct. About plus or minus.
Ivan: I mean, we kept talking about how long that Clinton speech is and we remember it.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: As far as I can tell from the information I'm looking at here, it was only 36 minutes.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: OK, and that seemed like an eternity. So shit.
Ivan: I mean, it's literally double more. I mean, more than double the time that Clinton spoke.
Ivan: And we were like dying. But, you know, how long that damn Clinton speech lasted.
Sam: Well, and Clinton's speech was probably actually coherent as well, and not full of lies.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah. It was just a little boring. But, you know, and apparently he wasn't
Ivan: using a teleprompter, which that was like the one thing about him.
Ivan: And I am remembering this, that apparently they had to resort to like hand signs
Ivan: to him to say, hey, you know, going like this, like cutting,
Ivan: you know, the slicing like a neck. You're done.
Sam: You're done yes you.
Ivan: Know that kind of stuff for him to finish so yeah yeah so.
Sam: Okay and yeah i guess like
Sam: the other you mentioned the cast of characters they had
Sam: up i mean i mean and just as one example
Sam: i mean you mentioned like a bunch of random
Sam: types but navarro come
Sam: got out of jail got on a
Sam: plane and then got off the plane and
Sam: spoke at the convention you know it's like
Sam: and there were so many people like completely unaware
Sam: of any ironies talking about how they're the law and order party and order and
Sam: it's so important like to respect the police and put criminals in jail and all
Sam: this kind of stuff and what like look who you're nominating right you know of course,
Sam: that's just a witch hunt and it's it's all bullshit and blah blah blah and you know.
Ivan: Look this i was reading a little bit about because i haven't read this idiotic book by jd vance.
Sam: Yeah i haven't um but.
Ivan: I was but i was reading a little bit about what it talked about in the book.
Sam: Did you read the bit about what he did with the glove and the couch no.
Ivan: No i that no but.
Sam: But i was I was reading the one bit about.
Ivan: No, I have no idea. What are you referring to?
Sam: Our Republican candidate for vice president includes an anecdote in his book
Sam: about his life, how when he was younger, and I mean, which of us haven't?
Sam: Well, let's put it in an extremely delicate way.
Sam: He stuck an inside out glove into the crease between couch cushions and fucked it.
Ivan: Okay. Which I mean, put that in a book.
Sam: Well, he wrote about it in a book, you know, I mean, okay.
Ivan: We've all done. Yeah. Exactly. At that age. Okay. But that wasn't a book. Yeah.
Sam: He put that in his book. It's in hillbilly ology when he's talking about his
Sam: youth. I mean, it's not quite killing a dog.
Ivan: No, it's not. It's not even remotely close. It's just too much information, JD. Okay.
Sam: It's just too much information. I really, and, and again, again goes with the
Sam: squeaky clean image right and like all of the puritanical right wing stuff like you know.
Ivan: In a.
Sam: Properly sex positive culture you could be like well of course every kid should do that you know but.
Ivan: Well yeah i mean it's like i you know we were i was having those discussions
Ivan: with a friend of mine or whatever about about just making sure that any conversation we have
Ivan: with our child or her child is about you know about that kind of stuff it's
Ivan: not to make him look look it's it's fine whatever you're doing it's fine don't
Ivan: worry about it we're not as long as you're not you don't want to shame them
Ivan: exactly certainly you're hurting anybody you know you know you whatever the.
Sam: Was it blair with the pig the british prime minister or was it.
Ivan: Cameron i think it was cameron.
Sam: Who has a like.
Ivan: Okay you're paying a lot more attention to this What did they do?
Sam: It was a fraternity initiation ritual or something where he had to have oral
Sam: sex with the severed head of a dead pig.
Ivan: Okay.
Ivan: This is the reason why I never joined any fraternities.
Sam: Okay. Sorry. As you said, I've apparently paid way too much attention to these types of stories.
Ivan: Going back to the J.D. Vance book.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: And the one thing that he, and it goes with this whole thing about also crime.
Ivan: It's this whole thing where he was talking about how he's getting really,
Ivan: really angry when he was working as a cashier.
Ivan: And he saw people paying with food stamps or food assistance or whatever that had cell phones.
Ivan: And how that made him angry for some reason.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And it's this whole thing where it's, you know, any benefit,
Ivan: it's this whole thing that you see regularly in many of these red states where
Ivan: they are all like, well, the benefits, as long as they're mine,
Ivan: I'm entitled to them, but not those people.
Ivan: You know, not them, but I earned those. Okay.
Ivan: And it's the same thing with crime and law enforcement.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, they're the criminals, but now those laws,
Ivan: none of that applies to us, you know?
Ivan: And it's just this entire bankrupt morality where, you know,
Ivan: you believe that everybody...
Ivan: I've seen this with other people where, uh, what the people that are really
Ivan: the worst crooks are the first ones that say that everybody else is crooked.
Sam: Right. Well, it's, it's all projection, right? It's like the,
Sam: it's all the people who, whose morals are corrupted in the way, like, for instance,
Sam: Donald Trump's clearly are, can't imagine that anybody would operate different.
Sam: Like the idea, for instance, that somebody might actually do something motivated
Sam: by helping someone else rather than for their own aggrandizement is completely
Sam: alien. That's that's somebody being stupid.
Sam: Why would you do that, for instance? And so, of course, everything anybody else
Sam: possibly does has to be motivated by the same things that would motivate them.
Sam: and there can't possibly be another
Sam: reason for people's actions and of course if somebody has an opportunity to
Sam: screw you they will there's no way that they would not take that opportunity
Sam: if given it because you would take that opportunity wouldn't you like etc so.
Ivan: Now so back to vance.
Sam: Sorry i tangented again tangent no.
Ivan: So it's this whole thing about vance where you know
Ivan: he goes and that's just
Ivan: a bit what what he wrote in the book really epitomizes this entire attitude
Ivan: from all these people that are in in part of maga and and this entire attitude
Ivan: towards law enforcement it's everybody else is a criminal but but i'm you know
Ivan: against me it's a witch hunt,
Ivan: you know it's that entire modality but the other thing that i saw today and
Ivan: how this entire thing is like making, you know,
Ivan: I spoke a little bit about the behavior that Matt Gaetz was showing against
Ivan: McCarthy and some other stuff or whatever and sniping in between all of these people.
Ivan: But one thing that I that I saw was there was this quote that this clown, J.D.
Ivan: Vance, had written about about Trump, where basically he said that I'll never
Ivan: vote for this guy, that he's he's just, you know, he talked about he was he
Ivan: was a Hitler. Right. Okay.
Sam: He referred, well, he, he, he said he wasn't sure if Donald Trump was X,
Sam: Y, Z, or if Donald Trump was America's Hitler was the full quote.
Ivan: And so, but, but then, you know, Tucker Carlson also spoke at this convention.
Ivan: Okay. All right. Praising Trump. Right.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And I will quote Tucker Carlson by text. Okay.
Ivan: From, from the trial against Fox news by dominion, where he goes and is praising
Ivan: him. and he sent a text on January 4th, 2021.
Ivan: We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can't wait.
Ivan: I hate him passionately. I can't handle much more of this.
Ivan: And how it's this entire, you know, bunch of suck ups, man, that have publicly,
Ivan: you know, said that this guy is evil.
Ivan: Right. But now are all just under his thumb.
Sam: I mean, we're basically talking like, I mean, at this point,
Sam: the people who are left in the Republican Party, the elected levels anyway,
Sam: reserve judgment for the moment for the general voters, but divide into two
Sam: categories at this point.
Sam: One is true MAGA believers who actually believe all this bullshit.
Sam: I guess there are three. There's true MAGA believers who actually believe all this bullshit.
Sam: it. Then there are people who don't really believe it, but are going to pretend
Sam: for the purposes of manipulating and getting ahead.
Sam: And I guess a subset of that category, my third category is really a subset
Sam: of that, are people who used to say exactly like you were.
Sam: They're sort of the old traditional Republicans who had all the sort of traditional
Sam: Republican beliefs and were anti-Trump at some point and at some point,
Sam: and then just decided, well,
Sam: I can't do that and still have my career and my career matters more.
Sam: And so now I'm all on board wherever it takes me.
Sam: And i i actually you know all three of these categories suck but like i i feel
Sam: like i almost have the least respect for that last category,
Sam: Cause you know, they know better cause they've said so out loud in public and
Sam: then completely reverse themselves because of that's what it takes to maintain power.
Ivan: And then, and then you have all these other tech bros that have come out all in favor of it.
Ivan: And I'm the, the, all these guys are interested.
Ivan: This is all about grift and money.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I mean, it's these guys all want fucking oligarchy.
Ivan: They really, really, really want an oligarchy.
Ivan: I mean, that is what they want.
Sam: I mean, as if they're already close enough to that already. I mean,
Sam: like if you're if you're if you're already a billionaire, you've got so much
Sam: influence and you can do whatever the fuck you want. And I want more.
Ivan: Listen, they want more. That's I mean, that's it.
Ivan: I mean, that's it. Listen, they do. They do want more. They want a lot more.
Ivan: They want this to be more like Russia. Let's be clear about this.
Ivan: That is the model that they want, where Putin picks the winners and losers,
Ivan: Putin picks who makes the money, and those people get supremely awarded,
Ivan: and the other people get punished.
Ivan: That is what they want. They would love that model.
Sam: As long as whoever's making those decisions have them in their favor. Exactly.
Ivan: Correct. Yes. That is the model that they want.
Ivan: You know, one of the data points that came out this year is that over the last, just recently,
Ivan: we've had better statistics under Biden at increasing middle to low earners' wages.
Ivan: And one of the biggest narrowings of income inequality that we've had in like 30 plus years.
Ivan: Right. Okay. And we've had an economy that is really booming,
Ivan: that the rich people are making a lot of money. Right.
Ivan: And these fuckers still don't think that's enough.
Sam: Well, and also they don't like that the lower income people are also getting stuff.
Ivan: That's right. They want, they want serfdom. They want them to get nothing.
Sam: Right.
Sam: Like, God forbid the person at the fast food restaurant makes a little bit more money.
Ivan: Oh, that fucker loser. I mean, you know, they're all losers.
Ivan: You know, they really think that all these people are losers,
Ivan: you know, and and by the way, that was part of fucking J.D. Vance's book bullshit thing.
Sam: Yeah, apparently, like from reviews, I've heard of it in the last week.
Sam: Like, I mean, the reputation it had at the time, and I'm sure it's on my list
Sam: of books to read someday.
Sam: was that it was sort of an explainer for what were Trump supporters thinking?
Sam: Get into the mind of the white working class.
Sam: And it sort of was one of these things that people were reading after Donald
Sam: Trump won to try to understand what the appeal was and stuff.
Sam: But apparently, like from what I've heard in the last week, a lot of the book
Sam: is him dumping on the people who grew up that way. that like he grew.
Ivan: He grew up in that background and.
Sam: Then escaped it and became like a wall street financier and then was involved
Sam: in all kinds of tech companies and blah blah blah.
Ivan: He went to yale i mean he went to fucking yale he he has an he has a he has
Ivan: a his wife is that a is an attorney and she's of indian descent right and and
Ivan: and well i i by the way this is something that i Well, that I saw today,
Ivan: one of these things that, by the way, there.
Sam: Were people at the convention talking about what kind of guy is this really?
Sam: Because, look, he has brown children with Indian names.
Ivan: Listen, Nick Fuentes, who, if I remember correctly, he's some kind of like one of these psychopath.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, something. Yeah.
Ivan: Right wing lunatics. OK, his take was, I'm not leaving my house to vote.
Ivan: Vote for what? But for J.D. Vance and Usha, I'm not voting for this.
Ivan: I'm not lending my credibility to this. And you understand what this means.
Ivan: You know, I mean, this guy married a non-white woman. I mean, what the fuck?
Sam: Anyway.
Sam: Yeah, big surprise. Welcome to R2024.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So anything else to say about the RNC before we take a break and then we'll do Biden?
Ivan: Yeah, absolutely. Fuck the RNC. Fuck the GOP. Fuck everybody that was there.
Ivan: Fuck them all. I hate them all. They can all go fuck themselves in hell.
Sam: Okay. Hey, I have no idea what you really think because you're very subdued and not descriptive.
Ivan: Yeah, I really keep my feelings.
Sam: Yeah, you do. So let's take a break. And then we come back. When we come back,
Sam: we'll do the whole Joe Biden thing.
Sam: Yeah, because that's the other big news of the week. It has not gone away.
Sam: Back after this.
Sam: What? No,
Sam: Bye.
Sam: Okay. We are back.
Ivan: Was I clear on my feelings?
Sam: No, not at all. I was confused. I think you're advocating to vote for Donald Trump, right?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Okay. So Joe Biden, when we last left this a week ago,
Sam: it seemed like things were kind of dying down.
Sam: And, you know, there was an expected sort of dam breaking last week that didn't happen.
Sam: And Donald, see, I did it again.
Sam: Donald Trump, no, no. Joe Biden, they look the same. They sound the same.
Sam: They're nearly identical twins.
Sam: How am I supposed to tell them apart? part. Anyway, Joe Biden and his team were
Sam: doubling down on saying he's not going anywhere.
Sam: There were reports that there were a bunch of congressional Democrats who were
Sam: sad about this, but were starting to resign themselves to it.
Sam: And then another wave of this stuff happened over the weekend,
Sam: eclipsed by the Donald Trump assassination attempt.
Sam: Schumer and Jeffries apparently came to Donald Trump.
Sam: Gabe to Joe Biden.
Sam: what you know listen.
Ivan: I gotta talk to your employer because we gotta put you on disability for you
Ivan: know this mental acuity that has declined completely where you cannot.
Sam: Man woman camera names like pencil
Sam: pencil yeah pen whatever i
Sam: i yeah i can i may or
Sam: may not be able to properly identify the elephant in a
Sam: lineup you know uh anyway oh
Sam: god forbid if they ask me who's currently president you
Sam: know no i'm screwed you know yeah um anyway they went to joe biden and apparently
Sam: like laid it out for him they showed him a bunch of polls they're like look
Sam: joe this isn't working you got to get out essentially i mean that and there's
Sam: been no denial from their teams that they went and said that.
Sam: Also, apparently, there were reports about Obama saying similar things.
Sam: There were reports about, and
Sam: there were a whole bunch of additional congressional people have come out.
Sam: Even in the 24 hours before we're recording this, there were like another 10,
Sam: including several senators, several representatives saying Biden should leave.
Sam: there were reports over the course of the week that Biden is softening and starting
Sam: to consider it and starting to realize that maybe he doesn't have a path.
Sam: And then his team denies that over and over and over again and says,
Sam: don't believe who you're listening to.
Sam: There were reports that said Joe Biden may step out of the race as early as this coming weekend.
Sam: Now, obviously, if that happens, I'll say something at the beginning of the
Sam: show, know if it happens before I put this out.
Ivan: But like here is, I'm going to say that here's the one weird thing that I have
Ivan: noticed this week. Okay.
Ivan: I, all of a sudden, you know, I had been getting quite a lot of like posts and I, well,
Ivan: here's the one thing I was, I was going to say that I've noticed that I've seen
Ivan: a decrease in the posts that I've been seeing by Joe Biden for the campaign.
Ivan: And I've been seeing a big surge in Kamala Harris posts, but, but,
Ivan: but I do recall that over the weekend after the assassination attempt on Trump,
Ivan: they had said that they were suspending a whole bunch of their posts and then
Ivan: they didn't also got covid yes oh yeah they did for a couple of days we.
Sam: Hadn't mentioned that yet.
Ivan: And then biden got covid and so i i am now realizing that they may have been
Ivan: part of why the hell i'm seeing far more camilla she's doing all the duties.
Sam: While he is holed up in delaware recuperating.
Ivan: Exactly um.
Sam: But like all of these reports like here's the the thing.
Sam: It is really, really hard at this point to tell sort of what's really going
Sam: on versus how various people are trying to spin it.
Sam: Like everything seems to be
Sam: part of the pressure campaign to get Joe Biden to say he's dropping out.
Sam: I mean, you know, everything going back to like,
Sam: Pelosi saying he's still got time to make his decision after he'd already said
Sam: he'd made his damn decision.
Sam: So it's clearly like all of these people saying he has time to make his decision
Sam: are really saying he has time to say he's going to drop out.
Sam: Like they don't want him to, they don't want to accept his answer that he's
Sam: already given over and over and over again.
Ivan: And I, you know what the person today that, because I, I think I had been like
Ivan: a little bit on the point of, look, Joe Biden's my guy.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Right. But I'm like, well, I mean, it doesn't matter.
Ivan: Even before this, say even if like Biden had died last month.
Ivan: Look, I'm voting for, listen, if Biden's corpse was on the top of the ballot
Ivan: in December, on November, I was voting for that.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So it's not like this really changes my stance on who the hell I'm fucking voting for.
Ivan: but i had been like well look if biden
Ivan: decides what i had thought look if biden looks at this and he thinks that the
Ivan: best path forward is that kamala is that is that head of the ticket because
Ivan: by the way people talking about an open convention because i see this this post
Ivan: like pelosi talking about an open convention there's a whole bunch of problems
Ivan: with this they're all kinds of.
Sam: Problems and here's one of the things one of the.
Ivan: One of them is money let me.
Sam: Just say one of the reasons I was really pissed off and gave Biden money this month and,
Sam: and recurring monthly until the election was specifically because most of these
Sam: people calling for Biden's head are not just saying, and therefore it should
Sam: be Kamala. They don't want her.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And they are looking for some scenario where they can get rid of both of them.
Sam: And so the latest, there was a report since we've been recording here from the
Sam: New York Times, I think, I haven't read the whole article, I just saw the headline,
Sam: where Pelosi is now also saying that assuming Joe Biden drops out,
Sam: she would be in favor of an open convention.
Sam: And look, I recognize that maybe you don't want a pure coronation of Harris,
Sam: like it looks better if you have some sort of process. But at the same time,
Sam: it's got to be fucking Harris.
Sam: If you go with anybody else, you will rip.
Sam: I mean, you're already ripping the goddamn Democratic Party apart and demoralizing
Sam: everybody through this whole thing.
Sam: If you push Joe Biden out against his will and then put anybody in this spot
Sam: other than Harris, you're going to have open warfare inside the Democratic Party,
Sam: and you're almost guaranteeing a loss in November.
Sam: I'm sorry, you know, because I mean, you're right.
Sam: Like lots of people are like Yvonne and I will basically vote for any Democrat
Sam: on the fucking ticket because, of course, they're going to be better than Trump.
Sam: But at the same time, you know, you need to excite people and you need to get them out there.
Sam: And if you do something like push Joe Biden out when there are lots of people
Sam: who still want him there, and then you push Harris out, who seems like the natural
Sam: successor and lots of people would want her.
Sam: and you go with some other random jackass, then yeah, there are going to be
Sam: lots of demoralized people and motivating them to vote is not necessarily going to be easy.
Sam: And you're going to have a lot of people who are pissed off.
Sam: And I would hope that most of them would vote D anyway in the end,
Sam: but you're ripping everything to shreds.
Sam: I mean, one of the things I saw, people are talking about potentially a Whitman
Sam: Shapiro, not Whitman, Whitmer. Whitman's different.
Ivan: Whitmer. I'm like, Whitman, Jesus Christ, not that woman.
Sam: Whitmer Shapiro.
Ivan: She's a Republican. That's why I'm saying.
Sam: But Whitmer Shapiro, because then you get Whitmer's Michigan,
Sam: I believe, and Shapiro's Pennsylvania. They're the governors of those two states.
Ivan: That's insanity.
Sam: Yeah, but those are two critical states that you need to win.
Sam: If you get those two governors on a ticket together, then maybe you win those
Sam: two states and it changes those dynamics, right? There are a bunch of things
Sam: that people have said along those kinds of lines.
Sam: I've been watching on election graphs, obviously, I've been tracking all the
Sam: state polls, and there had been very sparse Harris versus Trump polling.
Sam: But of course, over the last couple of weeks, there's been a lot more of it.
Sam: And practically with every new poll that comes out, the Biden situation,
Sam: I mean, the Harris situation starts converging with the existing Biden situation.
Ivan: It's no different.
Sam: It starts getting closer and closer. It's like at the moment on election graphs,
Sam: I still show Harris as being slightly better off than Biden,
Sam: but that's only because the polls haven't fully fleshed out yet with like good new data, right?
Sam: I am almost convinced that if you did that immediate swap,
Sam: there wouldn't be, it's not the miraculous, oh my God, now she's ahead by 10
Sam: points, you know, that's not, and that's, I mean, I guess the argument,
Sam: the argument is maybe she does start out behind.
Sam: Maybe she does start out behind by just as much as Joe, but she's got more energy
Sam: to catch up than Joe Biden does.
Sam: But again, like you hear more and more,
Sam: there was this hour long live stream AOC did on all the reasons she's for Joe
Sam: Biden and thinks it would be a bad idea to change candidates at this point and
Sam: look she wasn't the biggest joe biden fan in the world no no but no but you.
Ivan: Know what i mean damn it she made one of the best damn arguments in there for
Ivan: the reason why this is idiotic and it's the same argument you and i have been making.
Sam: Go for it how no.
Ivan: Well no what i'm saying it.
Sam: Make the argument i mean what did What was the argument that you liked?
Ivan: Well, I did not see the whole live stream, but the whole thing is what you were mentioning right now.
Sam: I did not have an extra hour.
Ivan: It's this entire thing that it's no simple solution right now.
Ivan: You don't have anybody that you can fucking put in there that's going to replace it.
Ivan: That's going to just, like you mentioned, they're not getting a magic lead.
Ivan: This isn't like some magic bullet solution that we've got somebody out there
Ivan: that is just going to go in there and just take the lead now that Biden is in
Ivan: there. I mean, it's just, that's all sheer nonsense.
Ivan: And by the way, and the other thing that I know that AOC has said repeatedly
Ivan: right now is that, you know what?
Ivan: Man, this guy has done a lot of the shit that she wanted to,
Ivan: you know, and made a lot of progress on things that those groups have been wanting.
Ivan: He has been a big champion of their things.
Ivan: We're talking about income inequality, Equality, rights, student debt, all this shit.
Sam: And Bernie Sanders said the same thing, by the way, in a couple interviews this week.
Sam: You know, like, and so the sort of progressive side of the party,
Sam: like the elected advocates for the progressive side of the party recognized this.
Sam: That maybe he doesn't agree with them on anything, on everything.
Sam: But he has accomplished more for their goals than anybody else has.
Ivan: Than anybody else!
Sam: But the other things that she mentioned, and I've heard a lot of people say,
Sam: is all of these people who are talking about a change who are not willing to
Sam: just say, okay, well, then obviously it's Harris,
Sam: are not...
Sam: Like, if you ask them what their plan is, who are they going to put up?
Sam: What's the process going to be? they have nothing it's just like who the magical
Sam: substitute like we're gonna we're gonna put pick the magical democrat off the
Sam: shelf who's gonna be strong and we want an open process to do it because well
Sam: obviously it's not kamala harris you know i.
Ivan: Mean fuck i mean pelosi herself has said it and by the way we you and i talked
Ivan: about this this week on the on you know with the rest of the slackers.
Sam: On the curmudgeon's car lock which they'll they'll be instructions at the end
Sam: you should join anybody listening who's not on there you should join okay go ahead yeah.
Ivan: You know that this whole thing with adam schiff going out and saying what the
Ivan: fuck he said was a fucking shiv job.
Sam: Yes it.
Ivan: Was just a fuck i mean this was shit this was shit.
Sam: This whole this whole thing by the way and i've said this on the show before
Sam: and i'm going to reiterate it now yes the debate was damaging.
Sam: But all of this stuff since the debate has been way more damaging.
Sam: And I understand, I'm not asking anybody to sort of pretend that he had a good night.
Sam: But at the same time, all of this weeks now, we're more than three weeks past
Sam: the debate at this point.
Sam: And there has been nothing but shitting on Joe Biden.
Sam: This does not help the Democratic democratic cause at all.
Ivan: And, and not just, you know, that, but those three weeks, oh,
Ivan: all you guys said, Hey, he needs to go and speak in public.
Ivan: Hey, he needs to be, and then he did do this and that he did.
Ivan: And he didn't, they didn't do just fine. He did very well.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And, and one thing that's a little bit upsetting me is that his,
Ivan: his team should not have Adam.
Ivan: as i know why they were keeping them
Ivan: close to the vest but they should have had them out but the reality is they
Ivan: they should have had them out there all along even
Ivan: with the flubs yes whatever yeah he does the flubs fuck the whatever fucking
Ivan: own them whatever he did great like when he flubs all the job they were like
Ivan: they were like laugh they were like laughing it up it's like perfect whatever
Ivan: you know it's like you know yeah it's fine own it you know own it own it whatever you You know.
Sam: But here's the only justification.
Ivan: But my whole point is that their whole thing was, well, that's the way he is.
Ivan: He's senile. He's done. He's dead. He's whatever.
Ivan: And then he goes and he shows you very clearly where he had a fucking entire
Ivan: press conference, unscripted, talking in depth about very complex subjects. Did so very well.
Ivan: And you guys are still like, ah, well, well, now he's behind the polls.
Ivan: Well, OK, great. He's behind the polls. Maybe you wouldn't be so fucking far
Ivan: behind the polls if you motherfuckers were all just standing there shoulder
Ivan: to shoulder with him showing support instead of fucking shitting on him.
Sam: Yes. Instead of stabbing him in the back, basically.
Sam: Yeah. I'm not all about loyalty. Like, I would throw out loyalty in a second
Sam: if there was a good reason.
Sam: And so the only justification for all this that I could see is if personally
Sam: they have direct knowledge that for reasons that make sense that they will not speak of publicly,
Sam: where in their one-to-one experiences with Joe Biden, they in fact do see the confused,
Sam: addled Joe Biden who isn't capable of doing things.
Ivan: And by the way, none of these people have said it.
Sam: Well, no, and I understand why they wouldn't say it out loud, even if they had.
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But listen, bullshit.
Ivan: At this point, with the shit that they have said, they would have.
Ivan: Yeah, come on. They would have said so.
Sam: And, you know, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe not.
Sam: But like, if that's what's going on behind the scenes, like if they end up pushing
Sam: him out through this process, I want to see that because I don't think the public
Sam: evidence is enough to justify what we've seen here.
Sam: Like, I know people are nervous about him being behind in the polls,
Sam: but like he was is behind, not in an unrecoverable position.
Sam: And I know that there, I know the fear is like, if what happened at debate happens
Sam: again and again, and his situation gets worse and worse over the next few months,
Sam: then we're done. So we have to cut the cord now.
Sam: But again, like, Like, I feel like absent the true evidence of that,
Sam: like, this is hurting more than it helps.
Sam: Like, you know, and I know there are all kinds of polls,
Sam: like one of the issues that has all these Congress people and governors and
Sam: even like that are in tough districts for reelection is that there are a bunch
Sam: of polls that came out, the private polls,
Sam: apparently, that said specifically that if you as a senatorial candidate continue to defend Joe Biden,
Sam: it will make people think you are a liar and untrustworthy.
Sam: and make them less likely to vote for you as well.
Ivan: Yeah, well, I think that's a bunch of bullshit because especially I've seen
Ivan: how these polls are being posed with the questions that they are making that aren't exactly that.
Ivan: But here's another thing. You're saying, well, you're endangering the House and the Senate.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Fuck, man. I just saw all the generic polls right now for the generic ballot. Have the Ds still ahead?
Sam: Well, and one of the arguments people are making about Joe Biden being bad is
Sam: that he's running behind the senatorial candidates.
Sam: Which means they're still doing better than him.
Ivan: Exactly. So what the fuck? So he's not dragging them down either.
Ivan: And I don't none of the none of the facts that they keep bringing,
Ivan: bringing up are add up, you know, in any way, because if you showed me, OK, great.
Ivan: The Democrats are seven points behind in the generic ballot for the for the House.
Ivan: Then you're like, oh, fuck, let's that's bad.
Ivan: OK, but the last time around, this is around where they were.
Ivan: Actually, there was a saw there was slightly they're better than they were.
Ivan: and you guys are trying to argue to me that we're going to have a completely different effect.
Ivan: And you're saying that this is based on facts. Well, the facts don't support
Ivan: what the fuck you're selling me.
Ivan: So I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get these arguments.
Ivan: These are all emotional. I'm freaked out that Trump might win.
Ivan: That's all. All I see in this is a complete freak out that, you know, that Trump might win.
Sam: And look, AOC in her hour-long video apparently gave a bunch of concerns and
Sam: reasons and things to think about, one of which is that has been reported elsewhere.
Sam: Republicans are already preparing legal challenges all over the place if the
Sam: Democrats nominate someone other than Biden.
Ivan: Which that is an issue.
Sam: And basically, I mean, technically speaking, the Democrats haven't chosen a
Sam: candidate yet, and all of the states are in place to expect the candidates to
Sam: be chosen at the conventions.
Sam: So that shouldn't be an issue. you. However, they're prepping all kinds of like
Sam: sympathetic Republican secretaries of state who are receptive to challenges that say,
Sam: hey, people voted for this guy in the primary, but that's not who you're putting
Sam: up. So that's not right there.
Sam: And you've got judges all through the system that are now potentially receptive.
Sam: So you just don't know what's going to happen in those challenges.
Sam: is at the very least there's going to be mischief made like at the very even
Sam: if they fail you know there's gonna.
Ivan: Sam you know what can you imagine if all this fucking energy that is spent in
Ivan: this circular firing squad had spent in battling trump.
Sam: Yeah what.
Ivan: That what the results would.
Sam: Be huge because i'm sorry ridiculous and not not just a missed opportunity a
Sam: missed opportunity where where instead of doing something helpful,
Sam: you are harming the cause.
Sam: And again, the only way I can mentally justify it is that if they have private
Sam: knowledge that Joe Biden is much worse off than anything we have seen in public so far.
Sam: That's the only possible justification that I could see for this.
Sam: Because otherwise, even if, like in any scenario, whether you end up keeping
Sam: Joe Biden, whether you replace him with Kamala Harris,
Sam: or whether you replace him with someone else, the process of doing this change has hurt the cause.
Ivan: Now, here's one thing I will say that has hurt like right now.
Ivan: Look, this is, we're in July.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Okay? It's not November, all right? It's not October.
Ivan: It's not September. It's not like anything that has happened right now is irreparable.
Sam: No, but that is absolutely true. Although lots of people have pointed out,
Sam: by the way, early vote ballots start going out in mid-September.
Sam: So it's not as far away as we think.
Ivan: But now, well, yeah, but that's still, the ballots that go out that early is a very tiny I know.
Sam: I know. But they build dramatically starting in September, and it's not like
Sam: the old days where like 90% of the vote is on election day. There's a lot of early ballots.
Ivan: Well, not a lot of September voting.
Sam: Absolutely.
Ivan: Not a lot of September voting. But what I'm saying is we're still in fucking July.
Ivan: It's not it's July 19th still as you know, July 20th UTC as we're recording this.
Ivan: It's not exactly like we're still, you know, in a place where all of this is
Ivan: irreparable. But it's just silly.
Ivan: Right now, at this point, it's silly. These guys, if they really wanted to have
Ivan: replaced Biden, I'm sorry, but the moment was you wanted to mount a primary challenge.
Ivan: Nobody went to mount a primary challenge. OK, and to be clear.
Sam: The entire party apparatus discouraged it. That one that one congressman did
Sam: run in the primaries, did miserably.
Sam: But like what they did miserably. But at that point.
Ivan: If there was but but but but any of the I'm talking about any of these fucking senior clowns.
Sam: No, I know. At that point, a year ago, they were all against it. They were all...
Ivan: Exactly. Exactly. So don't give me this shit. That was the fucking moment for this horse shit.
Sam: Well, of course, they would say we have new information now.
Sam: Joe Biden has deteriorated since then, et cetera, et cetera.
Ivan: Bullshit. That's not even what the fuck they're arguing.
Ivan: Let's be clear about this. None of these people are arguing now.
Ivan: They're just saying, hey, Joe, look at the polls you're going to lose.
Ivan: We need to replace you. That's what they're saying.
Sam: Well, and even there, it seems...
Ivan: Without any viable plan.
Sam: Without a viable plan, without just jumping on and saying, okay, we want Kamala.
Sam: And honestly, and going back to your description of it as a political shiv job,
Sam: it honestly, a good deal of this looks like people positioning themselves for
Sam: the future who don't want the,
Sam: Don't want a future where Kamala is the heir apparent. Whether it's now or in 2028.
Ivan: Because think about it. Well, because think about it. For these guys,
Ivan: say it's Kamala, and maybe she wins re-election. You know what the fuck that means?
Ivan: That means that all of a sudden you're throwing a window out.
Ivan: You know, these fuckers are thinking eight years from now then.
Ivan: You're talking about a window of 20, Jesus Christ, what the fuck? 2032?
Sam: 12 years, yeah. Yeah. Like because you would have potentially the rest of Biden's second term.
Ivan: Then two terms of exactly 12 years. Yeah.
Sam: And so, yeah, they're and they're thinking like, hey, I'm complete speculation here,
Sam: but it's just, you know, they're looking at, hey, if we get both of these two
Sam: guys out of the way, then one of us can be president sooner.
Sam: her right and whether and whether it's just.
Ivan: As fucking craven.
Sam: Whether and one of them fucking whether it's one of them being the candidate
Sam: now or whether it's one of them being the candidate in 2028 and.
Ivan: I'm like pelosi's behavior and all this i i'm just like what is i said and i'm
Ivan: gonna tell you right now she's still better because look she didn't really leave she got pushed out.
Sam: It was.
Ivan: A nice push out but she got pushed out.
Sam: Well at the same time like what's her what's his name uh jeffries is like her
Sam: protege she works with him all the time like she's been mentoring him so i don't
Sam: think i mean maybe she's a little upset by that but at the same time also by
Sam: the way this whole exercise has shown that she retains a massive amount of power anyway oh.
Ivan: Fuck yeah for sure.
Sam: But yeah, like this, I'm so I again, I just have been so angry this whole week
Sam: about this, how this has all been playing out.
Ivan: You know, I will say this, that these people need to fucking get together in
Ivan: a fucking meeting and fucking just enough of this shit.
Ivan: Hash it out, get it over with, come out unified and end this,
Ivan: which I thought was going to last time they had a meeting.
Sam: Well, except, yeah, except the way it's happening apparently is like all of
Sam: these congressional leaders have determined that they will not accept I am staying
Sam: as an answer from Joe Biden. And so they're going to continue this.
Ivan: And Joe Biden has gone, and Joe Biden, I understand why, pissed off and said,
Ivan: listen, you all go fuck yourselves. themselves.
Sam: Now, again, there are reports that he may be dropping out as early as this weekend.
Sam: So it's, it's very possible that by the time I even put out this episode,
Sam: Joe Biden's out, you know.
Ivan: He, I, I, I, I hear it. And I I'm like.
Sam: Cause the reports are he's softening, he's considering it. It's now not a question
Sam: of if, but a question of when and how.
Sam: And so they're negotiating the timing of him dropping out and what the process
Sam: will be to pick the replacement as opposed now here that kind of stuff is going
Sam: on now according to those here.
Ivan: Is what listen my scenarios are into this either you circle the wagon so you
Ivan: stay with a guy or you have a plan you have a you have a properly solid plan b whatever the fuck that.
Sam: And the plan should not right now let's go have a contentious fight at the convention
Sam: that leaves everybody pissed off yeah and and look yeah i've heard people argue that no no no a robust,
Sam: debate at the convention and will leave everybody excited.
Ivan: Well, look, listen, there is an argument to be made for that.
Ivan: I don't discount that, okay? Look, I went and I shared weeks ago the story about
Ivan: what the hell happened with Truman at the convention.
Sam: Last week's show, you talked extensively about the Truman convention.
Ivan: Yeah, and it was like that. It was a complete shitshow, but yet You know,
Ivan: Truman wound up winning.
Ivan: So, I mean, listen, there is a possibility that that scenario could be a winning scenario.
Ivan: But the reality is that my—and the fact that we don't have any real history
Ivan: with this, I don't see how the hell this—I'm having trouble seeing it that way.
Ivan: I really think that it becomes a very corrosive event.
Sam: Yes, I agree. I feel like we've got...
Sam: What's that noise?
Ivan: Now, it could draw a lot more attention, but at the same time,
Ivan: look, reality TV being what it is, what the hell?
Ivan: You know, we talked about how nobody pays attention to the convention.
Sam: Oh, hell, people would pay attention if that was going on.
Ivan: Listen, I haven't watched a convention, any of these fucking conventions in years.
Ivan: Look, if we're going to an open convention, I've got this thing on wall to wall.
Sam: We've dreamed of this scenario for every four years We've talked about maybe
Sam: this year we'll have a broker convention.
Ivan: The broker convention. So we've talked about it. So, I mean, I mean.
Sam: OK, I mean, there's no question it would be exciting television. But here's the I mean.
Ivan: And there is no question that the audience paying attention would be I mean,
Ivan: would be enormous. So, okay.
Ivan: I mean, but man, man, man. I mean, it feels like way riskier than any of the other candidates.
Sam: And I think everybody is underestimating that risk. I mean, if you have a technically open convention,
Sam: but Kamala Harris is the only real candidate and everybody consolidates around
Sam: her almost immediately, okay, that's one scenario.
Sam: But if you really have a contentious process where you've got like five or six
Sam: candidates and multiple ballots and people arguing and people getting really
Sam: passionate about their candidates,
Sam: you're just going to end the process with a lot of bruised feelings and unhappy people, especially,
Sam: and I've heard this over and over again from people in the Congressional Black
Sam: Caucus and from, you know,
Sam: you know, the, the, the black community and black women in particular,
Sam: that if you fuck over Kamala Harris.
Ivan: Oh man, oh man.
Sam: There are so many people who will be so pissed off in a critical,
Sam: absolutely critical Democrat demographic group for the Democrats.
Sam: Absolutely. You know, You cannot, if you go through this process and fuck over
Sam: Kamala Harris, you are screwing over the whole election cycle.
Sam: Is it possible you would still win? Maybe.
Sam: But you are definitely hurting things. And people will not forget.
Ivan: Oh, God, no. Hell no.
Sam: No, like, even if you end up pulling out a win, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: People will not forget that you screwed her over.
Ivan: No, no.
Sam: And it's not like, look, let's be real here too.
Sam: Like the vice president is always in the running for the presidency after the
Sam: end of their president's term, but they're not automatic.
Sam: You don't assume that they will always be the candidate.
Ivan: But not always, but usually, you know, So, like, I mean, Reagan wound up with,
Ivan: you know, with Bush, H.W.
Ivan: Bush, Clinton wound up Gore, President Quayle.
Ivan: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and uh that would have been hilarious yes um who was
Ivan: uh oh oh no darth vader didn't run no cheney.
Sam: Did not run but you know.
Ivan: But but of course he's running on a fucking i mean he was look he was i mean
Ivan: he was literally darth vader so yeah if.
Sam: Joe biden two years ago had said i'm not running there would have been an open
Sam: process and kamala would not have automatically gotten that.
Sam: She might have gotten it. She might have won that process.
Sam: But at that point, you would have expected a whole bunch of people to throw
Sam: their hats into the ring and a competitive process and primary debates and then
Sam: the whole primary process and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: You would have expected all that and she may or may not have won that process.
Sam: But at this point, if Joe Biden leaves, it's got to be her.
Sam: It's got to be her. Yeah. And, and, you know, there's some question about like,
Sam: they're trying to push, you know, Joe Biden to get out, but not to endorse her.
Sam: They're trying to push Joe Biden to get out, but to have this open process at
Sam: the convention where everybody can do things.
Sam: And even those people sort of admit, well, Kamala Harris would be the front
Sam: runner, but they don't want to just come out right out and say,
Sam: Hey, we want Kamala, you know?
Sam: And I am immediately suspicious of any of these jackasses who are pushing for Joe Biden to get out.
Sam: If they don't include in the same damn breath, and we've got Kamala,
Sam: then I question their motives right off the top.
Sam: And also someone posted a little graphic of all of the Congress people who had
Sam: come out asking for Joe Biden to leave as of like a day ago.
Sam: So there've been more since then, but almost all of them were white men.
Sam: You know, there were a few that weren't. And the first member of the Congressional
Sam: Black Caucus to come out to say Joe should leave came out today in the last 24 hours.
Sam: But like, but for the most part, you know, no, it's the, the,
Sam: I don't, anyway, it just pisses me off.
Sam: Now, at this point, just to be clear, if all the rumors are true and Joe Biden
Sam: is coming into the acceptance phase and now they're just trying to figure out
Sam: when and how for him to drop out,
Sam: I am ready to get excited about Kamala Harris. I think she's got.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. I mean, I got I, you know, yes. Yes.
Sam: She's got a lot of good things for her. And especially in the last few weeks,
Sam: she has really been putting on a good performance.
Sam: And for the last year, she's been putting on a good performance.
Sam: There are lots of people who talked about like, oh, how bad she did a job in the vice presidency.
Sam: And she didn't take care of that immigration scenario she was put in charge of and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: She has been doing a damn good job for a vice president.
Sam: And once we've been in campaign mode for the last few months,
Sam: she's been an exceptional advocate.
Sam: She's been giving really rousing speeches to people.
Sam: She has been pushing the abortion argument. She's been the designated person
Sam: in the campaign to really hammer home the abortion stuff, and she's been doing a good job at that.
Sam: I am ready to get excited about Kamala Harris if we do a switch.
Ivan: I'm going to tell you what. Whatever the fuck happens, it needs to be decided this fucking week.
Sam: It needed to be decided. I mean, it needed to be decided already.
Sam: ready. And like, frankly, one of the things that pisses me off is it was decided.
Sam: Joe Biden came out there. He issued a letter. He issued multiple statements
Sam: saying, no, I recognize your concern, but I'm in, I've got this. The decision was made.
Sam: All of the, every single thing. Okay.
Ivan: Let me, let me be clear. Okay. Let me be clear. Not maybe the decision made,
Ivan: but that these jokers had to accept the decision.
Sam: It wasn't the decision they wanted. It wasn't a decision they were willing to accept.
Sam: The only decision they were willing to accept from Joe Biden is, I'm out.
Sam: And that's part of what pissed me off is that, yeah, okay, we've got a limited
Sam: time to make the decision.
Sam: Sorry, the decision was already made by the person who needs to make the decision.
Sam: So like, you may not agree with that decision, but that's the decision.
Ivan: But it is what it is.
Sam: And everything that's been done since that moment that Joe Biden,
Sam: after the debate, put out a statement saying, I understand your concern, but I'm staying.
Sam: saying, everything since then has been hurting the chances of the Democrats
Sam: actually catching up and winning in this election.
Sam: And that pisses me off no end. And like you said, they seem to still not be taking no for an answer.
Sam: And at this point, I'm not sure if they will accept anything else up until the
Sam: very moment that the delegates vote, which, oh, by the way, like I'd mentioned
Sam: on last week's show that they were going to start the virtual balloting on the the 21st.
Sam: That has now been delayed probably till like around August 6th, if it happens at all.
Sam: And that's because Schumer and Jeffries both advocated for it to be delayed
Sam: because they don't want the vote locked in because once it's locked in, it becomes much harder.
Sam: Like the process of Joe dropping out after he's officially the nominee.
Sam: I mean, it's already hard. It becomes even harder after that,
Sam: you know, and more legal implications and more that has to be done and blah,
Sam: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so like the fact that this is stretched out three weeks and they won't drop it.
Sam: And again, I, the, if, if they have private knowledge that is not public,
Sam: that Joe's condition is much worse than anything we've seen publicly.
Sam: Okay. I can understand. But then that needs to come out.
Ivan: But then they need to make that public. Yeah.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: That needs to come out. Like if you're going to do this and I recognize you
Sam: may not want to like, you feel like that's publicly stabbing him in the back,
Sam: but so is everything else you've been fucking.
Ivan: Oh, Jesus Christ. I've been stabbed in the back with everything the fuck else.
Ivan: Yeah. Give me a fucking break.
Sam: Because at least if you, if that kind of information was public and look,
Sam: there were a few news stories with anonymous sources that did in fact say exactly what I just said,
Sam: that it is worse privately and that lots of people have confirmed that Joe is
Sam: more like what he saw in the debate than what we've seen everywhere else.
Sam: But there are these anonymous background sources without- Exactly.
Ivan: None of those were with anybody going on the record saying any of this shit.
Ivan: And most of the stuff that they were saying were saying that he was worse was
Ivan: this kind of shit that was like the generic stuff.
Ivan: Well, you know, he sounded bad.
Ivan: Well, he didn't talk a lot at this meeting.
Ivan: I mean, it was all just shit stories.
Ivan: It wasn't, you know, no, it was just a lot of.
Sam: And again, and no one cares.
Ivan: It was just a lot of shit.
Sam: No one cares, but every single one of these things, Donald Trump is just as bad or worse, you know?
Ivan: Oh, God, he's worse.
Sam: He's worse. He didn't look quite as weak at that one debate where Joe Biden was sick.
Ivan: But other than that, I mean, that fucking speech last night,
Ivan: everybody was saying, oh, my God, what the fuck? Yeah.
Sam: Now, again, though, you're absolutely right that this every day the shit goes on is harmful.
Sam: And I recognize all these congressional Democrats don't want to accept Joe Biden's answer.
Sam: But every day they're pushing it is hurting the situation.
Sam: And and again, they don't have an alternative lined up. They can't articulate
Sam: a plan that is definitively any better.
Sam: Like, yeah, we can flip to Kamala Harris, but I can't say with any level of
Sam: confidence that we'd be in a better spot after that.
Ivan: And I mean, listen, I will tell you this right now.
Ivan: If you told me that the polling showed Kamala was up across the board,
Ivan: like she was kicking it, she was kicking Biden's ass.
Sam: Trump's ass.
Ivan: I mean, she was kicking Trump's ass.
Sam: You did it too. You did it too.
Ivan: Fuck, Jesus Christ.
Sam: We all need to be wheeled off into the old people's home.
Ivan: Oh, fuck me. Yeah. You know, if she was kicking ass, okay, if she was like 10
Ivan: points ahead of where Biden is, okay, that I would be, look,
Ivan: I will say flat out, I would be like.
Sam: Fuck. That's where like, you know what? Like, I've seen people argue that like,
Sam: we're not a cult of personality like Republicans.
Sam: We shouldn't be like all about loyalty. and I'm not all about loyalty.
Sam: If you had the situation that you just outlined where it was absolutely clear
Sam: that Kamala Harris or even somebody else would actually do much better.
Ivan: By the way, okay, well, there's only one that's polled that we know is the possibly
Ivan: better, but she's not going to fucking run for president.
Sam: Michelle Obama.
Ivan: It's Michelle Obama. Now, if you told me that Michelle is coming in and going to take over,
Ivan: And I know what the polling data says that I'd be like, shit.
Ivan: Okay, look, we have to do this.
Sam: I would also argue that even if like, let's say Michelle Obama did agree to
Sam: that and was in, I think as soon as she transitions from being a theoretical
Sam: person to an actual polling.
Ivan: That poll that. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That narrows a whole because all of a sudden she.
Sam: Will get attacked. All of a sudden she will have actual positions.
Ivan: Yes all of a sudden people will.
Sam: Be looking at her actual experience not just hey the charismatic wife of a popular ex-president and.
Ivan: Well look let's let's hey hey let's not be paid but you know she is a fucking harvard graduated oh.
Sam: She she administered a hospital system.
Ivan: Whatever i forget exactly i mean she is she is a very capable woman okay like
Ivan: i'm not saying exactly you know she's not she's not she's got a i will denigrate
Ivan: she's got a she's not melania okay She wasn't just some fucking model on airplanes. No.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: All right.
Sam: She's very capable, but of the traditional things, she hasn't been a senator.
Sam: She hasn't been a governor, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, neither was Donald fucking Trump.
Ivan: Neither was, exactly. She's a bazillion times smarter and more capable than
Ivan: that bastard will ever be. That's for sure.
Sam: Right. So anyway, I guess we should wrap it up. We are once again,
Sam: like- Yes, we need to wrap up. Long.
Sam: We need to wrap up. Like any efforts to keep the show short fail utterly.
Sam: We need to bring back the fucking bell and the timer and all that crap that
Sam: we had a couple of years ago.
Ivan: My cleaning lady hit my bells. Here's a bell. Where are my fucking bells?
Ivan: I don't. Here's another bell. Where the fuck are my bells?
Ivan: Multiple bells. Oh, there, there, there, there. I got a bell.
Ivan: I got a bell. Here we go. Bell.
Sam: Okay. So having said all that. Okay.
Ivan: All right. You want my concluding remarks?
Sam: Oh, concluding remarks. I
Sam: was just going to say like, hopefully by the time we get to the next show,
Sam: we have either the congressional people capitulating and we're on with Biden
Sam: or Biden drops out and we're not still talking about the drama.
Sam: Okay. Go ahead. Your last thoughts.
Ivan: My concluding remarks fuck all these people I'm so sick and tired of them they
Ivan: can all go fuck themselves let's just gather around Biden and go fucking beat this asshole.
Sam: Yes okay with that the stuff at the end of the show go to curmudgeon-corner.com,
Sam: wait yes Alex quick quick quick we're trying to wrap it up quick,
Sam: is like a few seconds. Okay, I'm going to hit play on the thing that Alex has queued up.
Sam: Okay, that's it? Okay.
Ivan: Okay, yeah, very exciting.
Sam: That was a clip from Blapature episode 20, which was episode 110 on alexemsula.com.
Ivan: Okay. Very not exciting.
Sam: So I don't know exactly what was happening there. I'll make sure the...
Ivan: You were trying to say bye.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Sam: Anyway, go to curmudgeon-corner.com. There you will find the archives of our show,
Sam: including transcripts on more recent shows you will
Sam: find all the ways to contact us facebook mastodon email
Sam: you will find what else will you find yvonne our patreon uh links a patreon
Sam: yeah you can give us money at various levels we will mention you on the show
Sam: we will ring those bells for you we will send you a postcard we will send you
Sam: a mug all that very importantly at two dollars a month or more,
Sam: we will, what will we do Yvonne?
Sam: Oh, we will invite you to our Commodions Corner Slack where throughout the week,
Sam: Yvonne and I and various listeners are sharing links and chatting about the
Sam: news and chatting about other things and sharing Wordle scores, everything.
Sam: It's a lot of fun. You should join us if you're not there already.
Sam: So Yvonne, what was one thing from the Commodions Corner Slack this week that
Sam: we have not talked about on the show?
Ivan: Fuck, I was just about to talk about something and i realized that i can't talk
Ivan: about this i'm sorry i i have to very on the fly change something else pick
Ivan: something up yeah yeah confidential information no confidential information
Ivan: no no if you want to know the confidential things.
Sam: Apparently you should join the curmudgeon.
Ivan: You have to go on to slack,
Ivan: Well, the one thing I shared, there's a New Yorker cartoon showing J.D.
Ivan: Vance that I shared and the caption read, and again, sir, I'm so sorry that
Ivan: I called you America's Hitler and so relieved that you took it as a compliment.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: I'm sorry I had to switch on the fly. I was going to say something else.
Sam: Say something you shouldn't say.
Ivan: Yeah, there is another thing that we shared is that there are these new Trump
Ivan: sneakers that are released that have a apparently picture of Trump bloody with a U.S.
Ivan: flag with him saying fight, fight, fight on the side of it. Look,
Ivan: look, they look amazing, of course.
Ivan: Yeah, I think I also shared that there was a trading card almost issued immediately.
Ivan: It's amazing. You know, there were so many grifts that came right after the
Ivan: shooting attempt like that.
Ivan: It was like, I mean, within 24, 48 hours, they had merch.
Ivan: Okay. That was like, just, you know, of the shooting.
Ivan: It's just incredible how these guys just are monetizing everything.
Ivan: You know, it's not like the Democrat, you know, if we were that creative as Democrats,
Ivan: we would have an image and we were to try to monetize a biden's bad debate performance
Ivan: somehow i don't know what we could do with it but some kind of like a voice
Ivan: generator like yeah ask me like like you you two can sound.
Sam: Like a confused.
Ivan: Old man and we yeah i mean it's obviously easy for both.
Sam: Of us but i.
Ivan: Mean we do it that way we do it very well every apparently every week exactly
Ivan: Okay, so that's it. That's all I got.
Sam: Okay, so I have one more thing to mention.
Sam: It is my intention that when I edit this show, before I put it out,
Sam: I will do some things a little bit differently than I have in other recent episodes.
Sam: I'm just changing some stuff around to see how it goes. So I would like to know
Sam: from anybody who's made it this far in the show. No, please tell,
Sam: tell if you're on the Slack, tell us on the Slack.
Sam: If you're not go to the website and contact me in one of those ways and tell
Sam: us, tell me first, did you even notice any difference at all?
Sam: And yes or no. And then if, if yes, do you like it better or worse than before?
Sam: And the answer may well be, no, you may, you don't even notice a difference,
Sam: but if you do notice a difference, tell me if you like it or not.
Sam: and we'll we'll see i i just i want to try something different with the with
Sam: the editing process and want to get feedback and depending on that feedback
Sam: i'll either do it again or i won't so and i won't say what those changes are
Sam: because i don't want to bias anybody towards you know what i will or will not do but.
Sam: But let me know. Okay. Well, with that, we're done. Thank you everybody for joining us as usual.
Sam: Stay safe. Have a good, good, good, good.
Sam: Have a good week and we'll plan to be here again next week.
Sam: Oh, and I should mention, we tested it last week for the first time and we did it again this week.
Sam: And I I'm willing, I'm going to keep doing it for a little while just to see,
Sam: but if you i am we've been
Sam: live streaming while we're recording and so
Sam: if you're interested in that at all you can go
Sam: to us on youtube just i mean you can go to youtube and search on curmudgeons
Sam: corner but we're not the only curmudgeons corner on youtube they're at least
Sam: we're they're at least three curmudgeons corners on youtube we're the one that's
Sam: curmudgeon hyphen corner but if you if If you want to go to us directly,
Sam: it's youtube.com slash at curmudgeons hyphen corner.
Sam: Because if you leave out the at sign, it goes to one of the other curmudgeons corners.
Sam: It's just, it's stupid and weird. It goes to a curmudgeons corner without the hyphen, but whatever.
Sam: Anyway, you can check it out on YouTube for video versions of the podcast unedited
Sam: after we're live streaming.
Sam: If you want to catch us while we're actually live, I am posting that we've gone
Sam: live when When we go live on Mastodon on the curmudgeons corner Mastodon account.
Sam: So if you don't follow that, you can follow it and start finding that out or
Sam: just guess we're usually around Friday evening around two UTC.
Sam: But it, it varies week to week.
Sam: Anyway, have a great week, have fun, but not too much fun.
Sam: And we'll see what happens next week. I expect it's going to be another crazy week full of news.
Sam: I think we're, we're in for a roller coaster, roller coaster,
Sam: roller coaster ride from now
Sam: until november or hell probably till
Sam: january so january yeah okay bye everybody here comes the outro say goodbye
Sam: yvonne bye you know you're supposed to you know the routine from you know way
Sam: back and when was it with the 20s you're.
Ivan: Like really just dragging.
Sam: This thing out.
Ivan: I've never had you drag out an ending for like any longer. Does your God say goodbye?
Sam: You're supposed to say goodbye, Yvonne, because that's part of the,
Sam: you know, what was it, Gracie? What was the guy with Gracie? The old guy?
Ivan: The guy, the guy who played God.
Sam: The, who is, you know,
Sam: George, George, George and Gracie, like their radio show back before television,
Sam: George Burns and his wife, Gracie, she he'd say, say goodbye,
Sam: Gracie. And she'd say goodbye, Gracie.
Sam: And that's how they ended their shows. Don't you remember?
Ivan: Can we add this fucking thing?
Sam: Weren't you around in the golden days of radio?
Ivan: Jesus Christ. Christ, I mean, you know, George Burns on the radio.
Ivan: What is this like? It's before I was born.
Sam: It was probably before our parents were born. I don't know. But like,
Sam: it was a long time ago. It's like the 30s or something.
Sam: Maybe the 40s. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know. Look it up. Go to Wikipedia.
Sam: I'm not going to. Look up when George Burns and Gracie Allen had their show
Sam: on the radio. Anyway, here's the outro. Have fun. Bye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Bye-bye. Okay. Okay, now I'm hitting stop.