Sam: Okay shall shall we start yeah okay my notes up blah blah blah switch this to live here we go,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, February 8th, 2025.
Sam: It's just after 18 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Menter,
Sam: Yvonne Boas here again. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hi.
Sam: You seem enthused. Did you have a great birthday?
Ivan: The birthday was very good. it the
Ivan: only you know there was here's one
Ivan: thing that happened okay so um my friend that that you know mireya okay okay
Ivan: yes she she did at the last minute it wasn't totally a surprise because i had
Ivan: to go pick her up but she said i organized this din i was i was putting together a dinner,
Ivan: And I had told her about it. I'm like, well, it would be great if you could come.
Ivan: And then also she surprised me. I said, well, I got a ticket. I'm coming. Let's go.
Ivan: So she flew down on, dinner was on Saturday night.
Ivan: She flew down Saturday afternoon so we could go to dinner and flew back Sunday
Ivan: to go home just so she could come to my birthday dinner. Okay.
Ivan: So she did do that, which is really awesome. Okay.
Ivan: All right. We had a great time. the one thing that wasn't awesome,
Ivan: is that Manu had been sick the previous couple of days and Manu had wanted to
Ivan: go to the restaurant and we got to the restaurant you know,
Ivan: dressed him up and he went to the restaurant he kind of like he soldiered to
Ivan: get to the restaurant then got there and was like oh my god,
Ivan: I feel terrible I need to go home,
Ivan: and Juan said look,
Ivan: You've got your family here, your friends that came. I'll just take them home.
Ivan: I'll take an Uber and I'll take them back home. So that sucked.
Ivan: Okay. So that was, you know, but it was still, we still had a really good time, but Manu couldn't come.
Ivan: Now, Manu did insist that, well, okay, fine. So I could be there at the restaurant
Ivan: that day. So then we need to go.
Ivan: We need to go later. We need to go back.
Ivan: so i'm not sure if we're gonna go today i don't
Ivan: think no we're not gonna go today because we're gonna go see dog man
Ivan: the dog man yes what's dog
Ivan: man dog man is a series of books and uh
Ivan: that is police officer that had a dog and they were in some kind of like accident
Ivan: explosion and so all of a sudden they decided that the way to save them was
Ivan: to fuse the guy's head to the dog or the dog's head to the guy something along
Ivan: those lines and so it became dog man so.
Sam: You said it's a series of books i see it's.
Ivan: Yeah there's a series of books and well no it's the first movie that i know
Ivan: of about dog man but there's a series of dog man books so i'm all about this
Ivan: this guy who is a cop that's half man half dog.
Sam: So wait are you seeing the movie or are you.
Ivan: Going to like.
Sam: Is the author coming.
Ivan: He's been right no no no the movie came out it came out like about a week ago
Ivan: Mano has been reading all the books He really likes them, and the movie came
Ivan: out So we're going to go today to go see the movie.
Sam: Okay, I'm looking. There's a 2025 animated film.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: There was a 2018 Italian crime drama film by that name.
Ivan: Okay, I don't think that's it.
Sam: And a 2023 French action drama film by that name.
Ivan: I don't think that's it either.
Sam: There was a children's musical by that name.
Ivan: Well, that may be related to the book series.
Sam: And there was a an album and a song by kings x by that title as well i.
Ivan: Don't think that's that's it either.
Sam: And the the i guess the book series is the graphic a comedic graphic novel novel
Sam: series by dav pilkney yeah.
Ivan: That that's that's that's the author yes.
Sam: And then there was a character by gillian mark as well.
Ivan: Not yeah it's dave pilkey that's the that's the author of the series.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So dog, man.
Sam: So I, I have added all three movies and the book series to my lists to potentially watch.
Ivan: Yeah. We'll watch it sometime like in 20 80 something.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Something, something, maybe something like that, perhaps.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway, you know.
Ivan: So, so yeah, so it was, it was really cool that I mean, I, I see,
Ivan: I, I mean, I talked to a regular, I, I, I had, I, we had met up at some event in New York, Thank you.
Ivan: not last year but the year before but i used to go more
Ivan: often to see somebody that i know from pittsburgh sam's
Ivan: met her at least once more from
Ivan: more and more times and i don't know
Ivan: so that just surprised me to come to my birthday and it was really really
Ivan: really really cool that we got cool got to
Ivan: hang out so so yeah you know even though it's like i mean the her she got here
Ivan: like the day before at like four o'clock and then her departure flight was at
Ivan: 7 a.m the next days i had to get it was yeah so yeah so anyway so that was birthday very.
Sam: Exciting anything else for our but first segment that you want to relate before
Sam: before i i say something i.
Ivan: Don't know yeah because that was just my question of what happened at my birthday
Ivan: yeah but first look i i it's Speaking of generalities,
Ivan: okay, all right, about the current state of our world, you know,
Ivan: this is a very exhausting time that we live in again.
Ivan: You know, we did this before with Trump before where it was just every, you know,
Ivan: with him, It's just, it is this entire circus of him doing shit to just that,
Ivan: that becomes, it does become impossible to ignore as much as you want to. Okay.
Ivan: And it's exhausting for everybody. Okay.
Ivan: And because that's what he wants. He wants the attention. That's why he's doing
Ivan: this more than anything else. Okay.
Ivan: And it's just, I mean, between my job and shit and whatever,
Ivan: I mean, this is fucking exhausting, man.
Ivan: I have decided, and I have set this, and I did this, and I'm keeping to this.
Ivan: I have to completely set time limits on how much scrolling I'm doing on whatever the fuck it is.
Ivan: Because, no, it's just draining.
Ivan: I have set a limit of 40 minutes a day.
Sam: Wow.
Ivan: That's it.
Sam: I can't imagine being that low.
Ivan: Now, what I'm doing is, which is less stressful, still you get the news,
Ivan: but it is honestly using more Apple news.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: To reach more of what's going on, to know what's going on.
Ivan: So I've been devouring tons of those, and I've been actually noticing that I'm
Ivan: settings that I hadn't used before, and that I could subscribe to certain things
Ivan: and I could get certain things a certain way.
Ivan: Although, here's the one thing that I have as a feedback about this.
Ivan: I'll tell you what, the content in Apple News is fantastic, but they haven't
Ivan: really updated the application for you to tweak and customize those feeds more attuned to the taste.
Ivan: They've left it a little bit. They've added some features and done some stuff,
Ivan: but damn it, they should allow you to be able to customize that feed more.
Ivan: That is the drawback. But it really does provide you a place where I can get
Ivan: from a ton of sources just what the hell is going on without having to go on
Ivan: social media to do that and having to go to each individual website to get that information. Okay?
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: And so, so yeah, so that, that, that's what I, I, you know, for.
Sam: For that kind of overviews thing, I still use Google news more like,
Sam: and I don't use their app.
Sam: I'll go to their website on desktop and go to the, for, therefore you page.
Ivan: But the thing is that, you know, you could use it on the phone.
Ivan: I could use it on the iPad. It lets me save articles.
Ivan: Man, they've got a lot of content. I didn't realize they've got like New York Magazine.
Ivan: They've got the Atlantic. They've got, you know, they have so much, so many.
Ivan: I didn't realize they added even more local newspapers that they buy.
Ivan: You can like, you know, pick like different newspapers from different places.
Ivan: There's just so much stuff on there.
Ivan: that it's just, you know, it's, it's available on all the devices.
Ivan: I don't have to just, I don't have to just do it on desktop.
Ivan: I find it that, you know, I've been using it a lot more and so I can find out
Ivan: what's going on, but without a lot of the,
Ivan: the, the, the commentary is really just, just worse than anything many times, you know?
Ivan: Yeah. I, I, I understand the mood. I don't need it.
Ivan: Repeat. one of the things that happen is it's just people keep
Ivan: banging on it over and over and i'm like okay
Ivan: yeah you know what you're just creating a spiral this
Ivan: is a depressive spiral i don't i don't need this shit i know it's bad i know
Ivan: it's fucking bad i don't i don't i don't need you know well i don't need the
Ivan: extra commentary on it i know it's bad i could tell all right so yeah so that's
Ivan: what I've come to, but it's still,
Ivan: I mean, it's just, you know,
Ivan: and I just, just mentioned one thing.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And I, but maybe reiterate this. Why was I so early on?
Ivan: caught on to the reality that Elon Musk is an asshole.
Ivan: How the fuck did everybody why was everybody so late to this, Sam?
Ivan: Because you've no, I've said this for it's not recent.
Ivan: It's been years. I mean, I'm pretty sure I looked it up like seven plus seven
Ivan: years at least that I've said this.
Ivan: That this guy is a massive asshole.
Ivan: Why did it take people so long to catch on?
Sam: I don't, I mean, he's certainly been a lot more vocal and out there in the last couple of years.
Sam: I mean, he was always there if you were paying attention, but now he's just
Sam: in your face constantly.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I mean, I actually take that back slightly.
Sam: In the last few weeks, his visibility is a little bit different.
Sam: He's out there tweeting obnoxious stuff, but like I don't see like that.
Ivan: Man, like that time he called that guy a pedo back in like the Thailand cave thing, for example.
Sam: No, I know.
Ivan: The way that he, listen, Sam, why did people miss that?
Ivan: Anybody that talked and said anything negative about Tesla stock going back.
Sam: Oh, no, I know.
Ivan: He had his whole gang of thugs like these clowns right now at government going
Ivan: and viciously attacking them, doxing them. making their lives miserable.
Sam: Oh, no, no, I know, I know. What I was going to say just now,
Sam: though, was like his recent, like in the last few weeks, visibility is his Doge
Sam: thing is doing all kinds of stuff, and I'm sure we'll talk about that later.
Sam: And he's still doing obnoxious tweets that occasionally get surfaced.
Sam: But what you don't see as much of, at least I haven't seen as much of lately,
Sam: is like actual like him doing videos or public appearances or those guys.
Sam: He seems to have quieted down on that front, which is,
Sam: just i don't know interesting like it's a different kind of visibility and specifically
Sam: in contrast to donald where yeah he he's also doing his truth social posts and
Sam: all that but you know you do see the video of him i don't i don't know maybe
Sam: it's just maybe it's an illusion based on my media consumption i don't know what.
Ivan: I'm saying is my my question is i'm going back to the question.
Sam: The question why did it take.
Ivan: So long for people to notice that this guy is a massive raving asshole.
Sam: I i think it's all about the level of visibility
Sam: i mean lots of people did notice back when years ago
Sam: but lots of people didn't care because those
Sam: his antics were antics that
Sam: if you weren't paying attention could easily
Sam: you know pass under the radar and you
Sam: didn't know he was doing those things you know
Sam: i guess but now like what he is doing is front and center because it's national
Sam: news yeah yeah you know and and so that that's i think a big part of the difference
Sam: also i mean honestly he's gotten bigger too i mean you know well.
Ivan: He has gained weight.
Sam: Okay but i was talking like you know he's richer than he was oh.
Ivan: All that you mean.
Sam: He's richer than he was he's more prominent than he
Sam: was he's got more his fingers and more stuff than he was he's got the big megaphone
Sam: because he owns twitter now yeah so there are a lot of things that make him
Sam: more visible and more out there than he was five ten years ago i mean and again
Sam: he was out there five, 10 years ago.
Sam: If you were paying attention, you saw his stuff, but, but if you weren't paying
Sam: attention, it would go right over your head.
Ivan: It's just, I've realized that my asshole radar is pretty good.
Ivan: I mean, I was, you know, I was on the Trump is an asshole, massive raving fuck face like 20 years ago.
Ivan: Plus I, you know, I mean, and you know that. And so I, I don't,
Ivan: I, I, you know, I don't, I don't get it.
Sam: How you were talking about how Trump was an asshole when you were still in the womb.
Ivan: Probably but you know I mean I was like I mean this goes I mean my Trump is
Ivan: a fucking like lying piece of shit like loser like it was like late 90s you know,
Ivan: It was in the 90s, for sure. But I just, I don't, I don't, there is this thing
Ivan: where these type of people, like right now,
Ivan: are quite popular.
Ivan: But I guess those are the phases in, like, the world.
Ivan: I mean, Mussolini was also very popular at one point in Italy.
Sam: So, what the fuck does that say? Yeah, this is why, I mean, we've said before,
Sam: this is a global thing right now. This isn't just the U.S. Yeah, it's not just here.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Like, people are craving your sort of brash, type A,
Sam: just push and get whatever the hell you want and don't care about anybody type
Sam: personalities because they're frustrated with, you know, the anti-immigrant
Sam: thing seems to be worldwide.
Sam: there's a frustration generally that
Sam: with hey democracies are slow and it
Sam: takes time to build consensus and
Sam: you don't get results fast and so people are frustrated that like hey we voted
Sam: for x and it didn't happen so let's you know let's get this guy who's just going
Sam: to come in like a bulldozer and and do whatever so so.
Ivan: Anyway uh this is exhausting sam i don't know the fuck i i mean i i um,
Ivan: But I will say that it doesn't help that I haven't been able to exercise as much as I normally do.
Ivan: I notice that the exercise does help get my mind off of this to a certain extent.
Ivan: But I've been I have been traveling for right now for four straight weeks.
Ivan: I will travel the next two weeks again. So I will wind up six straight weeks
Ivan: at least right now of traveling.
Ivan: And it may be more. i i i don't
Ivan: i don't it's i i my my i
Ivan: i i am having to do to go
Ivan: basically every week to puerto rico right now i
Ivan: have found it like inevitable to not not get
Ivan: on a plane and go and meet with people and
Ivan: part of it is also you know look this return to
Ivan: office it well it
Ivan: doesn't impact me in the sense that my company hasn't done that
Ivan: um maybe for some people you're meeting with have yes so
Ivan: you have to go to their office that's right yeah yes
Ivan: you know because no i mean they they've been like they've actually been pretty
Ivan: how do i say pragmatic about that you know they know like sales roles like what
Ivan: are we doing man you know yeah we're not we're not you know you don't you We're
Ivan: not sending you to the office, whatever.
Ivan: They don't want to spend the money on the real estate. They were closing real
Ivan: estate even before the pandemic, even before stuff and whatever.
Ivan: They were like, you know, but there are certain roles that, yes,
Ivan: they have said that they want them
Ivan: in the office and certain things and consolidated some in certain places.
Ivan: But they're like, look, I mean, you know, field people covering multiple geographies,
Ivan: like based in whatever. I'm like, what are we doing?
Ivan: I mean, you're going to the office to do what exactly?
Ivan: Your boss isn't even there. What the hell are we doing?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So that that's that that's been like so they've been
Ivan: pragmatic about that i haven't heard
Ivan: anything about that's gonna make a a change in
Ivan: that at any time soon we don't have an office anywhere to go to anyway
Ivan: unless they get they close they shut it down so it's
Ivan: not like i mean there was but if they
Ivan: told me to go back to the office every day there was an office that was like
Ivan: in a reasonable distance that would have been convenient to go daily that i
Ivan: would have been like okay i i can figure that out it's fine no big deal but
Ivan: they closed it down two years ago so i mean so that you know i mean if.
Sam: Well, we had a couple of snow days here this week.
Sam: So got to work from home, which instantly like means, oh, you know,
Sam: two days this week, didn't have the commute, actually probably got more work
Sam: done than I would have otherwise.
Sam: You know, it was nice, I guess.
Ivan: How full is the office right now?
Sam: Oh, it's getting so it's actually full now. It's getting so it's actually full.
Sam: Like if you want to grab a conference room, it's hard to find one now.
Sam: If you, there are people in the hallways, there are, you know,
Sam: I have, you know, I think I've said before on this show, like I tend not to
Sam: sit at my proper desk because I just don't like it.
Sam: Well, you know, look, look, honestly, the issue and my entire time working has
Sam: been like this, at least at my current employer, which is over 19 years now.
Ivan: Oh my God.
Sam: Yeah. At the beginning, we had personal two-person offices.
Sam: So we had an actual office with doors and walls and two people per.
Sam: And as long as I got along with my office mate, that was fine.
Sam: I had no issue with that. I sat in my office a lot.
Sam: But either when...
Ivan: You guys went to an open plan? No more offices?
Sam: Well, eventually they went to open plans and only managers had offices.
Sam: And, you know, and even before then, sometimes when it's like I didn't have
Sam: the best relationship with my office mate, I would do this. But once we went open plan.
Sam: Almost all the time, I was wandering around trying to find the common areas
Sam: where they have like couches and comfy chairs and stuff like that.
Ivan: Those are good. And since they have them there, that's good.
Sam: Every office tends to have at least a few spaces like that.
Ivan: Well, that's good to have those, you know, at least. Yeah.
Sam: And that's usually where I would go. Like my criteria for actually feeling comfortable
Sam: sitting down and working is I like to have my feet up as opposed to just be
Sam: sitting in a stiff position.
Sam: It depends what I'm doing, but I like to have my feet up. So I like to have
Sam: a footstool or whatever that I can put my feet up.
Sam: I don't like having people around me. I'm sorry.
Sam: I like to find a space where the next closest person isn't like right next to me.
Sam: And and and honestly yeah i don't what i
Sam: don't like the feel of having somebody sitting where they can
Sam: see over my shoulder all the time okay and it's
Sam: not you know and and yes i do sometimes check the
Sam: news yes i do but it's not like that my primary concern is oh my god they're
Sam: going to check and they're going to see over my shoulder that i'm not doing
Sam: work i have to have one of those hot keys to bring up the fake spreadsheet or
Sam: whatever no no it's it's not that it's just I feel self-conscious in a way,
Sam: like whenever there's people just hovering and that can see exactly what you're doing second by second.
Sam: Cause you know, I, I will be productive over the course of the whole day,
Sam: but I don't want to feel like, like I have to watch.
Sam: Yeah. I don't want to feel like I'm being watched and I can't like flip to the
Sam: other window for 10 seconds without somebody questioning it and all that kind of stuff.
Sam: And so those are the spaces I feel comfortable in. And even there,
Sam: like at my office now, it's getting harder to find spaces that meet that criteria
Sam: because there are more people, especially at lunchtime.
Sam: You know, because, hey, everybody's using those open spaces for lunch.
Sam: Now I typically don't eat lunch at lunchtime.
Sam: So I still want to work during that time. So that that's been problematic for me.
Sam: But, you know, and also like I'm now the person who sits closest to where I,
Sam: my official desk is, is now actually somebody I do work with.
Sam: That had not been the case really previously. So
Sam: I do have stuff to talk to them occasionally so i've
Sam: spent a little bit more time at my actual desk than i
Sam: would have otherwise and also lately i've been
Sam: doing the other time i stay at my desk is if
Sam: i'm doing something specifically where having bigger multiple
Sam: screens would be helpful like because if i'm
Sam: sitting at one of those comfy chairs i just have my laptop screen and
Sam: that's all yeah yeah and and for lots of things that's absolutely
Sam: fine i don't mind i don't mind the ergonomics of it i don't mind working on
Sam: the laptop keyboard and the laptop screen on my actual lap it's fine but there's
Sam: certain things like you know this last week i've been doing something where
Sam: i've been trying to refactor this big like this this big like,
Sam: document full of information okay and i'm trying to restructure it into a new
Sam: new format that makes it easier to see what the hell is going on and so i've
Sam: got these two things i'm copying and pasting me in between them and looking yeah you.
Ivan: Would two screens would would be.
Sam: So two screens is very helpful in that situation two
Sam: large screens is very helpful in that situation so i've
Sam: been sitting more at my desk to do that you know and also like if you know i
Sam: was gonna say like at home if i'm having a conference call where i'm going to
Sam: be going over a document as well as needing to see what the people are saying
Sam: and seeing their faces and stuff i always hook up to my multiple full screen setup at home.
Sam: But at work, I actually don't.
Sam: Because my desk is in the middle of everything and there's people around and
Sam: it feels rude to have a call there.
Sam: So I go to a conference room or someplace private or one of those little phone booth things,
Sam: unless there are more people that are also actually in the same building,
Sam: in which case, okay, well, that's the conference room scenario we go we go to
Sam: the conference room but even then i'm on my laptop again.
Ivan: Right so.
Sam: Although in in those cases we have the big screens but.
Ivan: So i got i i am now because i got that new ipad pro a couple of months ago which
Ivan: i i have to admit that now that i've got that new ipad pro i am definitely using
Ivan: my ipad way way way way way way more than i used to be doing okay all right I have noticed,
Ivan: holy shit, I am like now, like, just, just,
Ivan: gravitating to using this iPad a lot more than I expected. But one of the good
Ivan: things is that I carry it, you know, when I'm traveling together with my laptop,
Ivan: and so I can use it as a second screen.
Ivan: So when I go to, because we do have an office in San Juan where I've been traveling
Ivan: a lot, and I will go there to a desk,
Ivan: I can, you know, put down my laptop and like connect to the iPad and basically
Ivan: have my two screens right there like handy while traveling. So that's definitely been.
Sam: I haven't that was.
Ivan: A true of my old ipad but but this.
Sam: Was you know but.
Ivan: It was slower this is working a lot better yes.
Sam: So like to to i don't know i i guess i'm done with the worst you got me distracted
Sam: onto the ipad thing the other on ipads i keep thinking these days like do i
Sam: want an ipad again and so i had.
Ivan: To let me i had debated about.
Sam: So let me let me tell you my problem with the
Sam: do I want an iPad again thing is how
Sam: that thought process goes to me is okay
Sam: I think I want an iPad again maybe
Sam: but I don't need like the
Sam: high-end iPad Pro sure I
Sam: don't even know for sure I'm going to use the damn thing so maybe I'll
Sam: just buy the absolute bottom end iPad like the
Sam: cheapest ones like 350 or something it's not
Sam: that expensive i could go do that and and then
Sam: just see if i use it and then if i use it
Sam: and and i'm like then maybe i consider upgrading
Sam: in a year or something but then then i go
Sam: look at the bottom end ipad and i'm
Sam: like it's shit well then it's fair not
Sam: but yeah it's then then you hit apple's famous ladder of their products yes
Sam: because i'm like well looking at this bottom and ipad it's but it's only a hundred
Sam: bucks more for this one that's a lot nicer that it's a that and then you add
Sam: the memory and that's another.
Ivan: Hundred bucks then you add the cell that's another fifth yeah yeah this just starts.
Sam: The next thing you know you've got a fully loaded ipad pro Exactly.
Sam: You know, and then I'm like, you know, I could, I could justify 350 for this.
Sam: I'm not going to justify 1500 bucks or whatever.
Sam: And so I ended up not doing anything, you know, but here.
Ivan: But here is a thing though. But now, because I, you know, went the way that
Ivan: I got a Mac studio because I wanted to have a desktop still regardless.
Ivan: You have your laptop. Do you take your laptop to the office?
Sam: Oh, my personal laptop? No.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: I mean, I have my work laptop, obviously. But the only times I've ever taken
Sam: my personal laptop to the office are when I, like, during election season when
Sam: I knew I was going to take lunch off and do some election graphs during lunch.
Ivan: Okay. Okay.
Sam: That's the only time I've done that because I've been hesitant.
Sam: I mean, I've done it a few times anyway.
Sam: But I'm hesitant to do that kind of stuff on my work laptop.
Sam: Like, I like to keep personal and work separate. So like, but that's been very rare.
Sam: I think I've done it like twice ever where I've brought my personal laptop to work.
Sam: Now, what I do all the time is like right now, as we're recording this podcast, I'm in my office.
Sam: My laptop is hooked up to three 27 inch screens and a bunch of external hard
Sam: drives through a dock and a full size keyboard, mouse, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: But I find myself now regularly multiple times per week, undocking the laptop
Sam: and working on it in the couch and the living room.
Sam: You know, I do that all the time, all the time, you know, because I can I can
Sam: sort of hang out there like my son's watching TV or something or I put on the
Sam: news on the on the projector screen and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: You know, I do that all the time. but you
Sam: know and and look i have honest questions of like
Sam: how often would i use the ipad that's the problem if i
Sam: knew for sure i would use it all the time then that's
Sam: a different story but like i'm not sure
Sam: like because last time i had an ipad i sort of slowly used it less before it
Sam: got too old and died anyway um and i've got the the the pro max size phone now
Sam: which is good for lots of stuff.
Sam: So I don't know. And, and like, you know, I, I feel like if I got,
Sam: if I did get an iPad again, at some point I would get the, the medium,
Sam: like I wouldn't get an iPad mini and I wouldn't get like the 13 inch size.
Sam: I'd get like the 11 inch size, the, the in between.
Sam: And you know, I feel like I would use it for some things, but I'm not sure I'd
Sam: use it for a lot, which is why I was, I'm like,
Sam: You know, maybe one of the cheap ones. But then again, I hit that lot.
Ivan: The thing is, the reason I need it is because of my travel.
Sam: I don't have that.
Ivan: Exactly. I needed to get it because of my damn travel.
Ivan: I've gone so much, I don't want to be doing personal shit on my work computer, okay? At all.
Ivan: Okay. I don't want to avoid it. You know, I maybe get some message or something,
Ivan: but I don't do personal shit on my work computer.
Sam: I mean, you know. As we have discussed many times before, keeping those things
Sam: as separate as possible is really smart, and it's dumb not to.
Ivan: It's dumb not to.
Sam: And, you know, I admit I'm not perfect on that. You know, I've sort of slipped over time.
Ivan: I slip, like, sometimes it's rarely, okay, I need to do something, I'll use my laptop.
Ivan: But there is some incidental usage, which I know with the company is perfectly
Ivan: fine. But I just don't, you know, I make a rule to not do it.
Ivan: It's just sometimes, you know, maybe I've logged on to an airline website.
Ivan: I needed to do it and I had the laptop right there and I needed to check on
Ivan: something, for example, or something like that. But I'm not reading news.
Ivan: I'm not, you know, I'm not doing stuff. Or maybe I'll, you know,
Ivan: I'm not accessing my bank.
Ivan: I'm not, you know, yeah, I'm not doing any of that stuff.
Sam: Yeah, so I probably do a little bit more than I should. But anyway,
Sam: okay, we should move on to our real topic.
Sam: I did want to say one additional thing first. Well, two, two.
Sam: First, Pete, Greg, and Ed, I
Sam: suck. I still have not done your postcards or sent the mug. I will do it.
Ivan: We're going to cut his salary like as soon as we can.
Sam: Yeah, so Pete and Greg, I owe doing a postcard and then sending the postcard
Sam: to Yvonne so Yvonne can add his stuff and send it to you. Ed, I owe you a mug.
Sam: Someday, someday. Also, last week with Bruce, I mentioned that I'm near to the
Sam: point of ready to do media reviews again, and I was hoping to do one this week,
Sam: but I didn't get, I didn't finish like logging my stuff.
Sam: So I'm not ready to do that yet. Maybe next week. We'll see.
Sam: And that is it. Shall we take a break, Yvonne, and then come back and talk about our more newsy stuff?
Ivan: Breaky, breaky, breaky, breaky.
Sam: Breaky, breaky, breaky.
Sam: Okay, here we go.
Sam: Okay, on the AlexEmslow.com subject for a second, there are new videos this
Sam: week that have been posted,
Sam: one of which was posted on February 6th about a snow day from a previous February
Sam: 6th exactly eight years ago.
Sam: So Alex made sure to edit the video of him and I playing in the snow from eight
Sam: years ago and made sure to schedule the posting to be exactly eight years after
Sam: the damn thing was recorded. Wow.
Sam: And I will add to that. We had snow this week.
Sam: So we went out in the snow also exactly eight years from that previous video.
Sam: in fact the video posted while we were
Sam: outside playing in the snow again and not
Sam: only that he he had us do activities
Sam: to recreate what we had
Sam: done in the video eight years previously now that
Sam: was all of course recorded on video which will
Sam: be probably be published i doubt in another
Sam: eight years at the pace he's going but maybe if
Sam: you're lucky it will be out in another 50 years if
Sam: you come back and you know check in at that point
Sam: while when alex is retired and catching up
Sam: in that stuff and we're long dead you know
Sam: but good lord but anyway and also
Sam: also i will add he convinced
Sam: me to post on my own youtube channel
Sam: not the curmudgeon's corner but a
Sam: very embarrassing video of me singing and dancing along to stuff on the apple
Sam: tv including the very famous song hamster dance you know on uh on my youtube
Sam: channel it's six minutes long and uh it sounds and.
Sam: And I am neither a good singer nor a good dancer.
Sam: I make some motions that in retrospect are, are regrettable.
Sam: Some of which involved the dog, some of which involved a stuffed animal.
Ivan: And so, okay.
Sam: Anyway, it's out there. So yeah, that's, that's, that's, Okay, so, Yvonne.
Ivan: You know, I'm going to give a data point, like right now.
Ivan: Great news for Donald Trump, according to the RCP average.
Sam: Oh, yeah. His approval rating?
Ivan: Oh, yeah. The favorable, unfavorable. I have never seen anybody.
Ivan: Oh, no. It's actually, yeah, he, I guess it's, it's.
Ivan: Actually, I guess it's improved. But compared to...
Ivan: I'm looking at the polls that are there. I'm noticing there's a big one with
Ivan: a plus 10. He seems to be sliding back the other way.
Ivan: I don't think I've ever seen a slide from... Because he came in with an approval,
Ivan: positive approval at this point.
Ivan: But I think that he will go down. So given where it is, like right now,
Ivan: he's going down quite quick.
Ivan: So, yeah, he's at, it says plus 3.4.
Ivan: But RCP has very few. There's been very little of this. I saw it 538.
Sam: What's interesting, too, is usually they do favorability for people who are
Sam: out of office and they do approval rating for people who are in office.
Sam: I've noticed 538 has a page up for approval ratings, but it's his last term.
Sam: they don't have one up for this term.
Ivan: No, no, no. There is one in 538 for his term.
Sam: Oh, yeah. I just flipped to it. I just flipped to it. It's got very few, though.
Sam: It's got very few. It's got very few. They don't have a graph yet.
Sam: The other thing they had...
Ivan: No, there's a graph.
Sam: I see it right here. No, no, no. Sorry. They have that graph.
Sam: What I meant, on previous ones, they had comparison graphs for all the other presidents.
Ivan: All the other presidents. Yes, yes, yes.
Sam: And they don't have that up yet. Like they had a little chart at the bottom
Sam: where you could look at comparison.
Ivan: There was one that showed that he's his, you know, yeah, he's.
Sam: But the average there is still at a, you know, approval 49% disapproved 44.2. It's still positive.
Ivan: It's still positive.
Sam: Which, if you flip that.
Ivan: I think the one thing compared, like, Biden, when he came in into the last term,
Ivan: his positive was, like, plus 22.
Ivan: So he started off with a plus four. Not exactly a...
Sam: Well, he started out at plus eight. He's down to a plus four already after three weeks.
Ivan: Okay, yeah. Right.
Sam: Sorry, let me not round. Plus 8.2 initially is now plus 4.8.
Sam: So closer to 5 than 4. But yeah.
Ivan: It's only been two weeks.
Sam: Three. Well, almost three. Almost three.
Ivan: Almost three.
Sam: Two and a half.
Ivan: It feels like three years. Fuck. Jesus Christ. What are we going to talk about? Do I got to choose?
Sam: You choose first. If you want me to choose first, I can choose first.
Sam: You know? It's okay. I mean, look, one easy way to divide it, if you wanted to.
Ivan: Okay, all right, go ahead.
Sam: Well, first of all, we could try to avoid Trump entirely, but that's hard.
Sam: But if we're going to do Trump stuff, we could divide it into things he's actually
Sam: been doing, and then the reaction to it. Could be a separate segment.
Sam: Or we could pick specific things. Like we could talk about tariffs or immigration
Sam: or, or Elon Musk going into all the agencies or something like that.
Sam: I don't know. What do you want to do?
Sam: You know, this is the kind of stuff that like other people would like plan before
Sam: we start, but no, for us. No, no. We're doing it live.
Ivan: Yeah, we're doing it live. Um, well, uh,
Ivan: Well, let's talk about, I guess, I think the number one thing right now is what
Ivan: is going on with the government, the federal employees in the government. Okay. All right.
Ivan: And, and, and Doge in general and what they're, what they're trying to do.
Ivan: This is, it's, it's, well, the first thing that they, they did,
Ivan: which they've been pushing hard, which all of a sudden a federal judge actually
Ivan: blocked a couple of days ago.
Ivan: Since the beginning, I had said, by the way, that the strategy,
Ivan: and I'd shared a link to one group that has been opposing legally many of these
Ivan: things that are happening,
Ivan: that number one strategy is to just start suing for everything. Okay, all right.
Ivan: This is the only good tactic that's available, like, right now,
Ivan: is to fucking drag them into court.
Sam: Quick tangent here, and maybe we'll talk more about this later, maybe not.
Sam: But I just want to say, how people...
Sam: There's been so many criticisms about how people are reacting.
Sam: And we did ourselves, like two weeks ago when we were talking about here,
Sam: we were talking about how the only Democrat who's responding well is AOC,
Sam: blah, blah, blah, in terms of communications.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And I feel that's true. And maybe the Democrats have stepped up a little bit
Sam: in the last week or so in a way they hadn't before.
Sam: But still, it's improving communications. And I hear lots of people going,
Sam: why aren't you doing anything?
Sam: Why aren't you doing it? And I'm like, look, because you didn't vote them control of anything.
Ivan: Thing, right.
Sam: There's, you know, basically, look, there's two things you can make noise.
Ivan: You can't even drag them. You can't even subpoena them to drag them into hearings.
Sam: You can't do anything. So there's communication strategy. You can make noise.
Sam: And so I hear people saying, oh, no, are you going to send them a sternly worded letter?
Sam: Well, fuck, that's about all they can do. I'm sorry.
Sam: Now, there's a bit more like you can be more effective in the communication
Sam: than a sternly worded letter.
Sam: You can you can do performative event. You can do protests, performative events.
Sam: People have pointed out that in the Congress, you can pull out every possible
Sam: procedural delay tactic you possibly can.
Sam: You may not be able to stop things, but you can slow things down.
Sam: And you can also choose to just oppose everything.
Sam: Like the McConnell style, just make everything fail.
Sam: Like, as opposed to, like, there's still a strand of the Democrats of,
Sam: oh, well, let's find places where we can do bipartisan cooperation. Oh, fuck this shit.
Ivan: No, fuck this.
Sam: You know, you've got certain Democrats voting for nominees and stuff like that.
Ivan: This ad has just, you know, fuck that shit.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: No.
Sam: I mean, but yeah.
Ivan: This has to be right now scorched earth.
Sam: Yes. Yeah, I don't. Every time I see one of those where it's like some set,
Sam: you know, some some one of his nominees, instead of being a party line vote,
Sam: has like 60 votes or something.
Sam: I'm like, what the fuck are those Democrats doing?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: I don't care if it's a sort of normie. I don't care if it's and Rubio was nearly unanimous.
Sam: You know, I don't care if he was a formal former senator and fairly normal,
Sam: like oppose, oppose, oppose be a damn opposition.
Sam: But but yeah, so you can do more of those kinds of things.
Sam: But otherwise, the main thing that's possible right now is lawsuits.
Sam: And there are all sorts of groups which you were about to talk about.
Sam: And I'll let you get back to in a second who are doing lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits.
Sam: but and they you
Sam: know they'll probably a bunch of them go up to scotus and who knows what
Sam: will happen there given the current supreme court uh it probably
Sam: depends on the issue but that those are
Sam: the things right now the things that democrats can do are make noise slow things
Sam: down a little bit in legislator in the legislature states blue states can oppose
Sam: in various ways and lawsuits And that's really it.
Sam: So the people who are going like, why aren't you doing something?
Sam: Why aren't you doing something? You're acting like everything is normal and
Sam: you're just running for 2026 instead of like you're doing something.
Sam: It's like, well, you didn't give them the House.
Sam: You didn't give them the Senate. You didn't give them the presidency.
Sam: The Supreme Court is 6-3 conservative majority. What the hell do you want them to do?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, and I know some of them are like, let's have a revolution already, but like, come on.
Sam: Things, you know, well.
Ivan: A revolution when, okay, look, those go south. No, no, no, it's not that the
Ivan: problem is, it's not that it's that look, the majority of people,
Ivan: I know that we've had this discussion for a few times on, on our Slack.
Ivan: Oh no, it was still whether it, because people are saying this was stolen.
Ivan: This is whatever. And I'm like, listen, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say this,
Ivan: but the vote, the majority of fucking people that went to vote,
Ivan: even when you take into account all of this shit and whatever, whatnot voted for this.
Sam: Yep.
Ivan: That's the reality. Narrowly, but yes, narrowly, but they did.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: This is what they fucking voted for. You know, you, you.
Sam: So you do also get, I mean, and I, I enjoy watching these videos as much as
Sam: anybody, but I don't know.
Sam: I don't think any significant numbers are changing their minds yet,
Sam: But you get videos of these, you know, they're calling them to fuck around and find out videos, right?
Sam: Where it's like some Trump voter who now is already within the first three weeks
Sam: suffering consequences from the fact that Donald Trump is in charge.
Sam: the most I've seen several with
Sam: people who are being rounded up by immigration services or their family members
Sam: are the most recent one that's been going around are a couple of farmers who
Sam: were reliant on aid that has been frozen by Musk and his company and are like
Sam: I'm going to lose my fucking farm and it's like well sorry dude listen they the.
Ivan: One thing is but but I do think that one of the things that's very interesting
Ivan: about all these videos is that these people you know these people are upset
Ivan: because they took away something from them directly.
Sam: Yes yes and i know it's all.
Ivan: About the selfish prick vote.
Sam: Okay and i've seen a few videos calling this out as
Sam: well including one you shared on the questions corner slack yvonne but
Sam: others as well that all of this and
Sam: this comes back to the core issue of
Sam: empathy which i think underlies a
Sam: lot of american politics right now is there's
Sam: just apparently half of the voting public who can't
Sam: understand empathy every every decision is about well how will it affect me
Sam: and if it if it's not them it doesn't even cross their mind like oh this is
Sam: gonna screw this other group that i'm not a part of well why would i care about that you know not.
Ivan: Not just why do i care about that i hate that group because they're maybe taking something from me.
Sam: Right. Whereas then all of a sudden on a whole bunch of these videos and like,
Sam: and just, not just videos, I've seen stories about it in other places.
Sam: You know, it's suddenly...
Sam: The Trump policy is affecting them.
Ivan: Them.
Sam: You know, directly or their family directly. And then they're like,
Sam: oh, my God, this isn't what I voted for.
Sam: And it's like, you didn't think it would be you, you jackass.
Ivan: Right. Yes.
Sam: Like, there is not a single thing.
Ivan: They called you all by name and you didn't think it was going to be you.
Sam: There's not a single thing Donald Trump has been doing so far that he did not
Sam: completely telegraph during the campaign.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: Like, nobody should be surprised about a fucking thing.
Sam: And, you know, I've heard people say, well, you know, I didn't have time to
Sam: read all that stuff. I didn't have time to research it.
Sam: Well, fuck you. You know, I'm sorry.
Sam: Like, the information was out there.
Ivan: It was repeated over and over. And you said that the Democrats were all lying.
Sam: Yes, that's the other thing. It's like, oh, you're lying. That's not true.
Sam: He has nothing to do with Project 2025.
Sam: None of that stuff is real. You know, he's, oh, he just says that.
Sam: He's loud and blustery, but he won't actually do that.
Ivan: Right, right, right.
Sam: He was president before and we were fine, you know?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: So, anyway. So, back to Elon Musk. Lawsuits. Lawsuits are one of the ways that
Sam: Democrats can actually fight right now.
Ivan: It's really the only good tool that they have at their disposal.
Sam: It's the only thing that isn't just talk, essentially. It's the only thing.
Ivan: And it's the only one that has teeth in any way, shape, or form.
Ivan: And because as much as the reason is, when you get a court order like that,
Ivan: as much as people say, oh, man, they're just ignoring or whatever, listen.
Ivan: Ignoring it always has consequences, you know, down the road.
Ivan: You can't just, you know, it's hard.
Ivan: You know, it becomes hard.
Sam: And so it does become hard. But I think one of the open questions that we're
Sam: still in very early days is,
Sam: does the Trump administration try to push these things hard in terms of ignoring and or just like
Sam: trying to actively get around some of these court orders, you know,
Sam: I think in some cases already, it seems like they've given lip service to the
Sam: court order, changed a couple things, but then tried to keep doing it anyway
Sam: in a different way, and then only to be slapped down again by the next court order.
Sam: And the question is how hard they push. Do we ever get to that point where the
Sam: Trump administration explicitly says, we're ignoring that?
Sam: So far, no. So far, no. But I think that's what everybody's worried about,
Sam: right? Because if you get to that point, then you have the true constitutional crisis.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: You know, and frankly, like I mentioned the 6-3 court before,
Sam: there's a chance by the time this gets to the court, Trump will win a lot of
Sam: these. The court has signaled.
Ivan: But actually, that's not true, Sam.
Sam: Well, no.
Ivan: The reality is that a lot of these decisions that have not been about religious
Ivan: or faith or whatever stuff.
Ivan: The reason why many people were pissed off at this court right now is because
Ivan: you had Amy Coney Barrett, and they've been calling her a traitor,
Ivan: not voting for them on this shit.
Sam: To be absolutely clear, I said they may win a lot of these, not all of them.
Sam: And I think one of the things that they've explicitly said is part of their
Sam: strategy is they want to throw tons and tons and tons of these into the court
Sam: system, get them up to SCOTUS.
Sam: and if there's 600 of them and they lose 500 and win 100 they're going to be
Sam: happy with the 100 they won i.
Ivan: Don't know they but listen they had won like i don't know how many they lost one and they were pissed.
Sam: Well no they will of course be pissed at you know well and then the question
Sam: will they ignore scotus even then but like but you know here's the thing like
Sam: it depends on which ones too, right?
Sam: And one of the things, the court has signaled that they like,
Sam: the current 6-3 majority, or at least five of the majority,
Sam: are hot on the unitary executive kind of thing. They like executive power.
Sam: They like giving the executive more than they used to. There have been a number
Sam: of rulings in that direction over the last couple of years.
Sam: And so they're not, not, not a hundred percent consistently.
Sam: There are a few counter examples and it also does appear to depend on who's
Sam: president. So I don't know that they're completely consistent.
Sam: Like there's some rulings that have stripped power from the executive,
Sam: but it was while Biden was president.
Sam: And would they have ruled the same way if it was Trump doing the same thing?
Sam: I am not convinced that they would.
Sam: Like, it would be nice to think it would be consistent, but I don't know that it is.
Ivan: You know, listen, the one that I think that we're against it,
Ivan: And listen, the reality is that we don't know exactly what's going to happen.
Sam: We don't.
Ivan: One thing.
Sam: And it may take a while.
Ivan: But the one thing is that the number one strategy that they have to do is every
Ivan: single thing that they're doing, they have to challenge the legality of it. OK. All right.
Sam: Democrats need to learn from Donald Trump himself.
Ivan: Yeah. Delay, delay, delay, delay.
Sam: Like Donald Trump was such a master of this. I mean, he made he made things
Sam: that normally in routine cases are settled in a day, expand into years.
Sam: Yes. Or at least months for the one step.
Sam: Yeah. And just through taking advantage of every single procedural opportunity.
Ivan: You have to throw every fucking lawyer
Ivan: that you got with every fucking bullshit thing that every little tiny thing
Ivan: you want to drag every single doge guy and Elon Musk and all of those into depositions
Ivan: and do it to things you want to fucking make their lives miserable in court.
Ivan: and put him through the chipper on every single one like that asshole said the other day about USAID.
Ivan: The guy is a disgusting fucking prick.
Ivan: By the way, doing Vladimir Putin's...
Sam: People might not know.
Ivan: The only... The biggest major asshole we've got right now operating.
Ivan: Fucking Elon Musk. He is such a dirtbag.
Ivan: I I really hate him so much.
Sam: You're adding him to the list with Donald Trump with people you're willing to openly hate.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Uh yeah no.
Ivan: Oh and putin putin's on that list okay it's fine it's a pretty distinctive list
Ivan: what you what i've got the three people i've got is fucking putin trump and elon musk um.
Sam: Yeah i i mean look the all these cases are i'm not all of them but the the strategy is almost explicitly,
Sam: look, we're going to do things that seem to be clearly illegal,
Sam: but the traditional way that administrations have done this stuff before is
Sam: at the very least, when they do something that is on the edge,
Sam: they have the Office of Legal Counsel or whatever write up a document with some
Sam: justification for why it's really legal.
Sam: Right. And then they go do it. Now, sometimes those justifications are pretty
Sam: weak, you know, but they do something.
Sam: They do something to say, here's why it's legal, and then they do it,
Sam: and then someone takes them to court, and then the court decides and sometimes overturns it.
Sam: The Trump strategy seems to be, fuck that. We're just going to do what we want.
Sam: and the burden is on whoever doesn't like us to take us to court about it.
Sam: And then we'll worry about it. Like, we're not going to try to figure that stuff
Sam: out first. We're not going to, like, try to justify in advance.
Sam: We're just going to do what we want to do and then let them try to stop us.
Sam: And, you know, and look,
Sam: here's the problem with that is, you
Sam: know probably from our point of view is legal
Sam: stuff is relatively slow in the
Sam: end now we've they're within the first few weeks there are already
Sam: some temporary restraining orders there's some preliminary injunctions the you
Sam: know for the the most obvious one like the this birthright citizenship stuff
Sam: is like on hold there uh a lot of there have been judges saying no elon's team
Sam: can't go into these agencies they can't do this they can't do that well today the.
Ivan: Judge completely like blocked them and told them to actually destroy all the
Ivan: data they had captured from treasury. Like a judge ordered that today.
Sam: Right. Yeah. I saw that. And the, the question is on all of these things,
Sam: is speed and and yes and yes
Sam: how can like because traditionally the court system
Sam: as we saw with the donald trump cases is slow is very very slow so i think part
Sam: of the trump plan is do enough damage so by the time anybody even tries to stop
Sam: you it's already done yes like and yeah so then then like let's talk about us but.
Ivan: I think that they'll then they'll they'll have to rebuild it the way that they
Ivan: want to, which is what I think that they did with USAID.
Ivan: Because Marco Rubio is one that has for years advocated for USAID shit,
Ivan: but now they want it to be reconstituted under the, you know, Secretary of State,
Ivan: you know, basically under the State Department and Rubio, they just wanted to
Ivan: do things the way that they want.
Ivan: So, hey, we get rid of everybody because we are doing this purity test of everybody.
Ivan: So let's not even do the purity test.
Ivan: Let's just fucking and fire them all, and then we'll be forced to rehire a whole
Ivan: bunch of them because, you know, probably we did this illegally,
Ivan: and then we'll just bring back the ones that we want, and then we'll just,
Ivan: you know, pay off the ones that we don't want back.
Ivan: It seems to me that that's the ultimate strategy because the funding isn't going to take away.
Ivan: The legal framework is forcing it to exist, so it seems like it's their entire M.O. for this shit.
Sam: Yeah. And this is exactly the point here is like they can do what they've done
Sam: with USAID, for instance, then lose all the court cases and still end up with
Sam: what they wanted at the end.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Like they will still have the impact they wanted even after they lose the cases,
Sam: because by the time this makes its way through court, there will be facts on the ground.
Sam: Like even now, like right now, all of these USAID people have been told they're fired, essentially.
Sam: Now, there's a court order saying, no, you can't do that.
Sam: But if you're one of those employees, what are you doing right now?
Ivan: Nothing. You're twiddling your thumbs and getting paid. That's it.
Sam: You're twiddling your thumbs. You're getting paid. They're definitely telling you.
Ivan: But all the work was stopped.
Sam: All the work was stopped. All the work was stopped.
Sam: It's not going to resume. Even if they're court orders that happen,
Sam: these people are, you know, any sense that they might have had about job security has gone.
Sam: So, you know, they're all looking for other opportunities anyway.
Sam: You have already broken the agency, regardless of what happens from this point out.
Ivan: Yeah yeah yeah yeah totally yeah.
Sam: And and this is true like the other big one
Sam: where this is happening right now is fbi and doj
Sam: for that matter they're they're doing purges they're gathering lists of anybody
Sam: who had anything to do with the january 6 investigations no matter how minor
Sam: there have been lawsuits on this and injunctions from judges as well in terms
Sam: of where this list can go and blah, blah, blah. But what have you done?
Sam: The entire agency is fucking scared.
Sam: The entire agency is frozen in place because they don't know what their futures
Sam: are. They don't know what they're doing.
Sam: And they're also clearly the messages out there loud and clear that no, if you just,
Sam: do your job and like try
Sam: to do things based on the law and
Sam: the established procedures that have existed for decades rather
Sam: than follow the political orders no matter what then you're fucked you know
Sam: and so yeah you know that and you know i mentioned this to bruce last week the
Sam: result of this is not going to be a smaller less powerful fbi now it's.
Ivan: The one that they want.
Sam: It's going to be a probably even more powerful FBI that instead of holding to
Sam: any general principles of law and accountability and transparency and blah, blah, blah,
Sam: is all about just go after the people Trump wants you to go after.
Ivan: Well, there is one thing today in the news where Trump apparently is very displeased
Ivan: that that despite all the redirection and effort on immigration,
Ivan: the reason I bring it up is because they told a whole bunch of FBI agents to
Ivan: stop doing criminal stuff and focus on immigration.
Ivan: And they're all like, what the fuck are we supposed to do about this?
Ivan: I mean, it's like, you're like, what the hell? You want me to stop investigating
Ivan: actual crimes, you know, and focus on immigration? Do what exactly?
Ivan: And so that was one thing, but
Ivan: that Trump is very displeased that the deportation numbers are not higher.
Ivan: Which is something that we have said already, you know, I don't know how many
Ivan: fucking times, okay, that it's just mathematically.
Sam: Well, there are a couple of things here. One, apparently arrest numbers are
Sam: up a little bit, but deportation numbers less so because they don't have the
Sam: resources to actually make some of these people leave.
Sam: So they're actually releasing a bunch of these people.
Ivan: Releasing them, a whole bunch of these people. Yes.
Sam: You know, so. So, by the way.
Ivan: This was what was trying, you know, a lot of what they're trying to give them
Ivan: the funding and what Biden had done with with the Republicans that they came
Ivan: up with this compromise deal, blah, blah, blah, that Trump blocked.
Ivan: And so they haven't done any of that.
Ivan: It's not like they multiplied the people. The problem is, as we've said before,
Ivan: oh, Biden is letting everyone in.
Ivan: No, they're Jesus Christ. The deportation machine under Biden was in full fucking force.
Ivan: it's just a lot of people you don't i mean what you guys want to do is almost
Ivan: humanly impossible to do.
Sam: Also i will add the donald trump folks
Sam: have been on tv and stuff once again saying things like
Sam: look look look yeah yes everybody
Sam: who's in here undocumented is potentially
Sam: subject to deportation but of course we are going to concentrate on the criminals
Sam: and the violent people and blah blah The percentage of people being arrested
Sam: that have any sort of criminal issue associated with them other than it was.
Ivan: Less than 50 percent that I.
Sam: Recall. Well, more so that percentage is down from the Biden administration
Sam: because because they're pushing to get the overall arrest and deportation. Right.
Ivan: Because they want the numbers up. We need to pump the numbers.
Sam: And actually, the number of actual criminals is relatively small compared to
Sam: the number of overall undocumented immigrants.
Sam: That the only way to get the numbers up is to arrest more people who aren't criminals. Yes.
Sam: And so, yes. So far, so far.
Ivan: Basically, it's that it's very, you can't do something that is completely based on a lie.
Sam: Yeah. And so they have not yet.
Sam: They have not yet succeeded in pushing numbers to significantly higher than
Sam: where they were happening under Biden anyway.
Sam: Now they're going to keep trying. You know, as you said, Trump is mad.
Sam: Trump is redirecting like FBI and other federal agencies to help with this.
Ivan: And what the fuck are we supposed to do man.
Sam: And the end.
Ivan: You know what here's a worse thing right that one
Ivan: of the unions that was that is always shown
Ivan: to be pro-trump is the cbp folks okay those people are pro-trump now just imagine
Ivan: this that happens right now say that he starts doing the same thing that he
Ivan: did with the other areas and starts like a purge of these guys right and saying
Ivan: you guys are not doing what I want.
Ivan: I'm going to fucking get rid of you. What that's going to do is that the morale
Ivan: of this entire group is going to go into the shitter.
Ivan: Because they go in, and they have been, they were pro him.
Ivan: They were trying to do as much as he wants. We're trying out there,
Ivan: we're doing it, and now you're going to shit all over us, okay?
Ivan: Because we can't, because, wait, because we can't do what's impossible. Okay, all right?
Ivan: Based on the resources that we've got, okay?
Sam: And by the way, it's not like ICE and these other agencies are full of like,
Sam: you know, liberals who are all about, like, let's let everybody in and be nice to people.
Ivan: Yeah, they're not full of bleeding heart liberals. Okay. All right.
Ivan: You people, you're fucking deluded. Okay.
Ivan: So the one thing that I.
Sam: Not the FBI either, by the way.
Ivan: Not the FBI either. You know, so which is one of the things that's so crazy.
Ivan: This reminds me of what the hell happened in the Soviet Union every time that,
Ivan: like, especially Stalin had tried to force, like, the...
Ivan: people in the fields to grow more and basically just, you know,
Ivan: punish them or push them because they weren't meeting his, they set these agriculture
Ivan: quotas that were almost fucking impossible.
Ivan: And then they were like forcing to try to do it. And then what happened was
Ivan: production didn't go up.
Ivan: It actually started going down
Ivan: because, you know, these people were like actually faithful or whatever.
Ivan: And then what you're doing is you're shitting all over them because what you
Ivan: asked to do is impossible.
Ivan: And so at one point, they're like, well, fuck you.
Ivan: That's it. Bring somebody else. Fuck you. Can't do it.
Ivan: And so I don't know what the hell, but yeah, he's going to be pissed.
Ivan: But I don't see how, you know, anything really changes related to this at this point, like right now.
Ivan: I mean, because they went out and already in full force.
Ivan: They deployed everybody. Hey,
Ivan: you had all these like famous people like wearing like, uh, you know, Dr.
Ivan: Phil and I, Oh my God, you know, going out there.
Ivan: There was one operation where I saw where they said 400 people to one place.
Ivan: You know how many people they caught?
Sam: One, I believe.
Ivan: Yes. Correct. One. Very productive use of resources.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: But yeah, I, I, I hate this.
Ivan: We've got how many more, how much more time of this, fucking administration do we have?
Sam: Oh, let's see. There are a number of websites tracking this.
Sam: Trump timer. Let's see if I can find one real quick. Trump countdown timer.
Sam: 1,441 days, 21 hours, 42 minutes, and 25 seconds as we're recording this.
Ivan: I will openly declare right now that my alcohol consumption this year has been
Ivan: far higher than it's been in any recent year.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: I, you know, by the way, I don't drink that much anymore as I used to. Okay.
Ivan: But, but definitely it, because, and that's my point.
Ivan: I had, I was barely drinking and now I'm like, you know, eight drinks a week.
Ivan: From almost like two drinks a week or one or zero, maybe.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: This is not good.
Sam: That's a big increase.
Ivan: Yes. Now, it's better than when I was younger When I would like I mean,
Ivan: I drink eight drinks in one day Regularly So, relatively speaking This is a
Ivan: massive improvement Well.
Sam: There you go Yeah, so, okay,
Sam: We started out, and we've taken a tour of all kinds of different things,
Sam: but we started out specifically talking about Elon and Doge going into things.
Sam: Do we want to get back to that? Anything more to say about that?
Ivan: Listen, we did go specifically into what the strategy is of what they want to
Ivan: do and what the outcome is.
Ivan: I don't think that there is anything more to say about it. That is what they're going to try to do.
Sam: Well, the one thing I'll add, though, is as far as I know, correct me if I'm
Sam: wrong on this, most of the court orders coming down are narrow.
Sam: Like, OK, you have to undo what you did at the.
Ivan: There is one lawsuit that is actually just, you know, trying to shut them.
Sam: Down entirely because.
Ivan: What I'm saying is that they did file and it's been it's been it's been filed
Ivan: a few weeks and they've got like.
Ivan: You know, they've got a lot of people that sign up.
Ivan: Citizens for Responsible and Ethics in Washington, by the way,
Ivan: if you want to donate to them.
Sam: Yeah, that's what CRU is.
Ivan: That's what CRU is. But they've got the American Public Health Association,
Ivan: American Federation of Teachers, Vote Vets Action Fund.
Ivan: And they filed basically a suit, basically seeking the court to just absolutely
Ivan: just stop Doge on its tracks. Now, it's been out there for a couple of weeks.
Sam: Because what's happened so far is they've been stopped from doing specific things
Sam: in specific places. But overall, their response to that is, OK,
Sam: well, we'll just go do this somewhere else for right now.
Sam: And, you know, and look, to be clear, let's be explicit here.
Sam: The problem here is not the general idea of, hey,
Sam: let's look at government and try to eliminate things that, well,
Sam: even eliminate things that just, there's a policy disagreement from the president
Sam: or certainly not efficiencies and things like that.
Sam: The problem is there is a mechanism to do that.
Sam: It is relating to, you know, you, look, the Republicans have both houses of Congress.
Ivan: Go pass some fucking laws. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Go. Yeah. You want to eliminate USAID?
Ivan: Go up.
Sam: Go eliminate USAID.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: You have the mechanism to do that. You have both houses of Congress.
Sam: Okay. Yeah. You might need to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate to do it, but you could do it.
Ivan: You could do that.
Sam: You could do that. You could. And same thing here for all of these massive cuts
Sam: elsewhere. The problem is what
Sam: these agencies are doing is, for the most part, what is required by law.
Ivan: Law.
Sam: And also meeting obligations that they have already entered into.
Sam: So there's also flexibility in terms of saying, okay, you know,
Sam: like the grants on health research and stuff like that.
Sam: It's one thing to say we're going to put a pause on approving new one.
Sam: It's another thing entirely to say we're not going to pay the ones.
Ivan: That are already approved.
Sam: That's different. And the legal obligations associated are different.
Sam: And so there's a lot of stuff here.
Sam: Like I said, the approach here is do what you want first and let them try to stop you.
Sam: But there's so much here where it's like we're not trying to change the policy for the future.
Sam: we're trying to put a wrecking ball through everything that's already there that is just,
Sam: executing the law as it exists today right
Sam: you know and that's the you know look i'd have a if they were trying to do it
Sam: the legal way i would oppose it anyway you know right most of these things are
Sam: bad ideas that like usa id is actually incredibly valuable you know here's.
Ivan: The one thing Like USAID was something that was valued by both Republicans and Democrats.
Sam: Alike.
Ivan: And the main reason is because it's one of the instruments of soft diplomacy
Ivan: that we do around in order to counter both Putin and China, OK,
Ivan: in general, in these countries.
Ivan: And the reality is that the number one advocate that wanted to fucking shut down for,
Ivan: USAID, was fucking Vladimir Putin.
Ivan: And most of the shit that they have been spreading about why USAID sucks is
Ivan: fucking Russian propaganda.
Ivan: And these guys are so fucking dumb. Now, I know that Marco Rubio knows that
Ivan: it's fucking Russian propaganda because I know that he's talked about it.
Ivan: But right now, Marco Rubio, as the major fucking ass kisser that he is,
Ivan: he has shoved his head so far up their asses that he's not going to say anything
Ivan: right now about this and just going to let him do a fucking wrecking ball over
Ivan: something that I know he knows,
Ivan: okay, is what Vladimir Putin wants.
Ivan: But he is such a fucking caaskisser that he's not going to do anything to oppose it right now.
Sam: Right. And like you said, maybe on the back end, he tries to keep some things
Sam: going. Like already, like...
Ivan: Actually, I'm pretty sure that he's going to keep most of this shit going.
Sam: Well, one thing that's already been in the news is George W.
Sam: Bush's, what is it called, PFR, whatever, the anti-AIDS program.
Sam: That's one of the things where Rubio has already been out there saying,
Sam: no, no, no, that's one of the things that has an exception. That can keep going.
Sam: That can keep going. That can keep going.
Sam: Meanwhile, reports from the field is it has that.
Ivan: They cut it, right. They've stopped it.
Sam: They've stopped it because of the general guidance, but that's clearly something
Sam: Rubio wants to keep going again.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: We'll see how that goes, whether he can stand it back up again.
Sam: but again it's about you know once they've destroyed it they have to try rebuilding
Sam: the specific thing that they care about yes and by the way rubio might like
Sam: that program who knows if donald trump does you know right he might just.
Ivan: Stay for fucking kill more africans fuck it yeah he's like yeah.
Sam: Let him die why do we why why do we why.
Ivan: Do we care why do we care about a whole bunch of Black people in Africa. Fuck them.
Ivan: That may be, by the way, this is me quoting Trump. Please do not quote me out of context. Okay.
Sam: Hypothetically quoting Trump. You don't actually have a real quote.
Ivan: I'm sure he's probably said something like that.
Sam: Shithole countries and all.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Yes. Yes. But yeah, like the fundamental calculus there is, and this is part of the response too.
Sam: USAID, targeting it is a strategically good first place for something like Doge to go to.
Ivan: Well, because it's very small.
Sam: Relatively, compared to other agencies. Well, it's relatively small,
Sam: but also, foreign aid is unpopular.
Sam: If you just poll people.
Ivan: Like— Foreign aid! No, no, leave the money here!
Sam: Right. Like the reasons why this is actually good for American interests are
Sam: more complicated and subtle.
Sam: It's like, yeah, it's it's like, yes, making people like us more in other countries.
Sam: by helping them, does come back with positive benefits to us in the end.
Sam: I've heard people who are involved in the State Department and USAID giving
Sam: interviews over the last few days talking about how,
Sam: for instance, various programs that we've done overseas have resulted in massive
Sam: intelligence gains for us because people were more willing to cooperate to give
Sam: information than they would be otherwise because they're like,
Sam: hey, the Americans are actually our friends and, you know,
Sam: they're good. They helped us. We'll help them.
Ivan: This is the soft diplomacy part, okay? All right? This is deployment of soft
Ivan: power for diplomatic purposes.
Sam: All of this, by the way, is still, if you're only willing to look at it from
Sam: a purely instrumental how-does-it-help-me point of view, completely ignoring
Sam: the actual benefits to people that you're.
Ivan: Going to have. right right right i mean you know that's the point so.
Sam: Okay i.
Ivan: Mean yeah so.
Sam: Uh so given that we started talking about usaid i
Sam: suggest we take another break and most of the stuff we've been talking about
Sam: so far has been domestic let's just make it a domestic versus international
Sam: division and talk about international for a bit and then wrap up the show sound
Sam: sound good okay so here comes another break and then
Sam: we'll we'll we'll do that back after this yeah yeah,
Sam: yeah you.
Ivan: Can edit this out i'm gonna go get coffee and water i'll be right back.
Sam: Okay enjoy your why would i edit this out we we all want to know that you're
Sam: getting coffee i could go get a tea but no no i'll just wait here you're.
Ivan: Like you're fucking break i'm getting too old for this.
Sam: Here's the break,
Sam: okay we we we are back and uh you know unfortunately this means we missed yvonne
Sam: laughing at that break that he usually laughs at you know i.
Ivan: I yeah you couldn't hear me laughing but i i yes i was listening to it because
Ivan: i my headphones on it they were still working i'm like oh my god maybe.
Sam: Maybe we got to do more of those yeah yeah there you go okay so So internationally,
Sam: like real quick, do we own Greenland yet?
Ivan: Let me check. No. And Puerto Rico has not been sold to Denmark either.
Ivan: I'm really disappointed.
Ivan: I was like really rooting for that.
Sam: Do we have the Panama Canal yet?
Ivan: Not that I know of, no. How are egg prices, Sam?
Sam: I hear they're up.
Ivan: Oh, really?
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah?
Sam: Something about the bird flu but like i i think cdc did finally get to put out
Sam: an update but they pulled some stuff they they put up one thing about cats and
Sam: then had to take it back down i don't know what's going on there like so i i
Sam: guess i don't know something something did.
Ivan: We did we i heard that we were going to pass a balanced budget did we do that.
Sam: Oh is that happening i i I heard that Trump said.
Ivan: Trump said that we were going to pass a balanced budget.
Sam: Oh, did we? I don't think that's happened yet, but I did see some news that
Sam: they're quote unquote making progress towards a budget deal.
Sam: Because we've got deadlines coming up really soon.
Ivan: Well, listen, the debt ceiling thing is already, they're already using like
Ivan: the extraordinary measures thing like right now.
Ivan: So, yeah, like right now, yeah, we're in that window, like right now.
Sam: I think the last estimate I heard was sometime in March we hit the debt ceiling,
Sam: even with the extraordinary measures.
Ivan: Yeah, that's the thing.
Sam: Yeah, it's coming up soon. And the deal where they punted the spending authorization
Sam: stuff that prevented government shutdown also, I believe, expires in March, right?
Ivan: By the way, gas prices are up.
Sam: Oh, right.
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: Imagine that from a month ago. Yeah.
Sam: Well, we were going to talk international. Oh, before I get to the one that
Sam: caused the biggest splash this week. Do we have a 51st state yet?
Ivan: No.
Sam: No?
Ivan: No. Canada isn't part of the. Canada has not been a next. No, not that I know of.
Sam: Yeah. He's going to have to get on that. Anyway.
Ivan: He's going to have to get on that pretty quick.
Sam: The big international splash.
Ivan: The average regular price, like the price of regular gas right now is 3.196 cents for regular.
Ivan: Let's see. It is higher than it's been the last few months, but it's lower than it was 2022.
Ivan: It is a lot higher than 2021.
Sam: How does it compare to same time each of the last few years?
Sam: Because you have the annual cycle.
Ivan: 3.196, January, let's see, last year was 3.197, so it's about the same,
Ivan: 3.445, 2023, 3.413, 2022.
Ivan: Now 2021, 2.420, 2020, 2.636.
Ivan: six okay i mean during the trump administration
Ivan: it was lower 20 2.057 to
Ivan: you know two point you know it was in the mid two dollars range during that
Ivan: time but but here's the thing you go back to shit i mean they give you a year
Ivan: for example i remember gas is super expensive 2008 that was It's like last year, W. W.
Ivan: Bush's term. It was a three. It was at the same price as now,
Ivan: which inflation adjusted is way higher than this. Like right now.
Ivan: You know, we had very expensive gas during the Bush administration.
Ivan: And then when the Great Recession started, it dropped, like, significantly.
Ivan: And then it picked back up between 2010 and 11 and 12.
Ivan: And then 2015, it dropped. It was the last year of, you know, Obama.
Ivan: And it stayed relatively low for the next few years. But one of the things that
Ivan: the reason why a lot of that happened was because gas demand was going down.
Ivan: So it's a supply and demand thing. Heaven forbid, Sam. You know, I know it's like shock.
Sam: Imagine that. Now we were we were saying this segment was mostly international.
Sam: So I was running through the countries.
Ivan: Well, gas comes up.
Sam: Yeah, it comes from places.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Yeah, it comes from places. Um, no, but the, the big splash this week was not
Sam: Greenland or Panama or any of that. It was Gaza.
Sam: Yes. Oh, it was Gaza. It was Gaza.
Ivan: So what happened, Sam, Trump? Well, before we get to Gaza.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Is a war Ukraine over?
Sam: Oh, the war in Ukraine. No, that's not over.
Ivan: In fact, I just look like any, it's look like it's anywhere close to being over.
Sam: In fact, this morning, I just saw news that Zelensky has announced that Ukraine
Sam: has resumed a new offensive push into Kursk.
Ivan: Yes, I've heard that. Apparently, the Russians have not been able to.
Sam: They've made new advancements and taken over more Russian territory.
Sam: Now, having said that, within Ukraine, Russia has continued to creep and get
Sam: a little bit more territory each month. But we are talking a little bit.
Sam: It's basically still a stalemate. The Kursk thing is that basically Zelensky
Sam: wants as much of Russia in his hands as possible if they are forced into negotiations.
Ivan: I think it's a brilliant strategy.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, I think it's a brilliant strategy. I can't argue with that at all.
Sam: Now, the thing, speaking of Donald Trump and his transactional self that has been reported.
Ivan: Oh, wait, the thing this week? Yes, the rare earth deal.
Sam: Yes. So basically, Trump is saying to Zelensky now, actually,
Sam: we might continue to support you in this war in exchange for your minerals and rare earths.
Ivan: Actually, I'm like, okay. And Zelensky was like, sure, let's make a deal. Why not?
Sam: Yeah. And because also, by the way, Donald Trump's like what he has proposed for a deal.
Sam: Actually, I'm going to choke while I'm saying on this. Is it all bad?
Ivan: No, I was shocked too. Listen, I have to think. Listen, I got to tell you something.
Ivan: Marco Rubio must have come up with this. Trump is not smart enough to come up
Ivan: with this. No fucking way.
Sam: It's not just the mineral rights, but also, you know, we've said for a long time that,
Sam: I mean, we said this the first week after the invasion and then sort of backed
Sam: off it a little bit and now we're coming back to it, is like,
Sam: as much as we don't like it, in the end,
Sam: the end of this is probably going to be Russia taking some territory.
Ivan: But not as much if you've got a piece of Russia on one side and if you make
Ivan: a mineral deal on the other end.
Sam: Right. But the other thing that Donald Trump is adding, like,
Sam: is that, OK, no NATO membership.
Sam: However, part of a peace deal would be Western NATO troops all over Ukraine.
Sam: Like we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll bring in troops from Western Europe.
Sam: We'll have faces, you know, and so basically as a deterrent.
Ivan: I'm like, where the fuck do I side?
Ivan: Where, where, you know, where the fuck do I side for this deal?
Ivan: I'm like, look, if I were me, I would do what I've done to other people,
Ivan: but they've made an offer like this, but they don't put it in writing.
Ivan: Okay. I've actually gone and put it in writing.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I I've gone, Oh, you offered all of this. Perfect. I call the son.
Ivan: I'm calling a fucking lawyer. I'm like, draft this whole fucking thing.
Ivan: Just put it on a page. Just, just take everything he said. Oh,
Ivan: he offered, he offered to get just beautiful.
Ivan: I'm like, here, look, let's, what do we sign?
Ivan: Where do we sign? Can we decide? Sometimes that works, by the way, it's worked. Okay.
Ivan: Because you're just taking whatever he says. It's just fucking. Yeah, go. Yes. Yes.
Sam: So, so far, as far as I can tell, no interest from Putin, but you know,
Sam: So the other report is that Trump and Putin are close to organizing a summit
Sam: that will happen sometime soon.
Sam: So we'll see what happens.
Ivan: Well, I'll have these two guys jerk themselves off on a global stage.
Ivan: Fantastic fucking event that we all are just waiting to see. Fucking Jesus Christ.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. Gaza?
Ivan: Hey, so.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Did the people in Dearborn get their savior in Trump or did they get what we
Ivan: told them during the fucking campaign when we repeated, hey,
Ivan: did you hear that Jared Kushner basically said that he wants to like ethnically
Ivan: cleanse the whole fucking place and build condos?
Ivan: Which one is the one that is getting the most traction right now?
Sam: Hmm, interesting. You know, Donald Trump apparently promised these folks in
Sam: Dearborn peace, but didn't say how.
Ivan: How? How? That, ah, that's not true.
Sam: Other people, even before the election on Trump's team, I forget I forget which
Sam: one it was, but somebody on the campaign, like at an off moment,
Sam: like accidentally said, why don't we just nuke the whole place?
Sam: You know.
Ivan: Yes, I remember that one. Yeah.
Sam: I forget who exactly said it, but. um such.
Ivan: As such people with such a such i mean the the the outpouring of of just empathy
Ivan: and love just just such a big heart that they show to.
Sam: The poor.
Ivan: Suffering people it's just.
Sam: Nothing but of course the thing that happened this week is trump at a dual press
Sam: conference with netanyahu at the white house based brought up the idea of like
Sam: the the and by the way apparently it has been reported and he did not tell Netanyahu
Sam: this before the moment he said it.
Ivan: Oh, no shit. Really? Like, I really needed to know? Yeah, like,
Ivan: I couldn't have guessed that one.
Sam: So he goes and he says, you know, yeah, we're going to take over Gaza after
Sam: all the people move out, of course, and we will flatten it.
Sam: We will, like, build the best development you've ever seen. It will be wonderful.
Sam: It will be the Riviera of the Middle East, et cetera.
Sam: and oh of course like all the people they they they can go like egypt and jordan
Sam: they'll take them i'm sure you
Sam: know of course hasn't talked to those folks either you know and look there,
Sam: here's the thing first first of all he has repeatedly actually used the word
Sam: clean in associated in association with this this this is 100% ethnic cleansing
Sam: yes which violates numerous international laws on the face of it.
Ivan: Wait wait wait wait wait i'm sorry what.
Sam: Yeah really shocking so.
Ivan: You can't you can't so so so let me get this straight if we take i mean how
Ivan: many palestinians are in gaza.
Sam: I'm not even two million ish so.
Ivan: I think two million So if we forcibly relocate 2 million Palestinians to build
Ivan: condos, that's illegal?
Sam: Ah, you know, I'm sure they would all leave voluntarily, Yvonne.
Ivan: You think? I mean, you don't think that they're just going to,
Ivan: we say, hey, we show up in these trains and like we just pack them in like cattle
Ivan: and we ship them off to Egypt? They're not going to be just thankful?
Sam: You know, that actually brings up, like, if you are going to even seriously
Sam: consider the possibility of, like, hey,
Sam: let's just give these folks a home elsewhere, okay, the possibility.
Sam: I'm not, and just to be clear, I'm not saying this is a good idea anyway,
Sam: but if you were going to take it seriously,
Sam: you would produce a voluntary option and you would provide, like,
Sam: here's what Donald Trump would do if he was serious about this.
Sam: He would say, OK, look, here's the situation.
Sam: Any Palestinian who wants to.
Ivan: And come to the U.S.
Sam: Is free to come to the U.S. immediately. And we will provide relocation support
Sam: to get you settled in the United States with a free with a path to citizenship and accelerating.
Ivan: How popular would that be with voters?
Sam: Well, how popular would that be with Donald? you know i i.
Ivan: Well listen remember he's very transactional so therefore i could be he could
Ivan: be like oh because the pentagon what's on the other end because if he thinks
Ivan: for some reason i don't know i guess he thinks that this is like really how
Ivan: i value real estate oceanfront yeah.
Sam: Well i i joked with bruce last week but i'll bring it up again you could get
Sam: you could give the gossens cleveland,
Sam: i
Ivan: Mean i listen i don't think that's your new homeland i mean
Ivan: i i i know one thing if they
Ivan: were offering me i'm in puerto rico they're gonna fucking offering me hey we'll
Ivan: take you out of there we're gonna say you know ship you off to fucking cleveland
Ivan: i'm fucking like listen i'll i'll fucking live in a goddamn floating raft in
Ivan: the middle of the ocean before i'm fucking living in cleveland i'll tell you
Ivan: that i'll fucking just you know build a raft out I'm fucking like, you know,
Ivan: like the Cubans do when they cross over without a flot salmon,
Ivan: whatever the fuck. I'll put it together, tie it together. Boom.
Ivan: I'm living on the ocean. Fuck Cleveland.
Sam: But like, look, sorry.
Ivan: People from Cleveland.
Sam: But look, here's the thing. The way to do that would be, yes,
Sam: provide the incentives.
Sam: You know, provide a path out of there and provide support and provide like even
Sam: how like, hey, we will pay you to leave Gaza. Now, this is a bad idea for a
Sam: number of reasons anyway.
Sam: But if you were going to do that,
Sam: a purely voluntary, incentivized way, and pay people for the land you're taking
Sam: from them as well, by the way. Pay them full value for whatever.
Ivan: Listen, the reason Beebe loved this, of course, listen, I'm sitting there and
Ivan: if I'm Beebe, of course I'm loving this, is because he took completely all the heat off of me.
Ivan: he just completely completely completely
Ivan: completely took all the fucking heat off of me yeah okay i i mean just it i
Ivan: mean i i i just he i'm sure that bb walked out of there and he was like holy
Ivan: shit this trip was genius it couldn't have gone any better if i never planned it.
Sam: Oh yeah and and look there there are a number like one of the conservative members
Sam: who'd left the coalition with BB was like, hey, if this deal happens, I can be back in.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: You know, look, because because basically the ultimate goal of the right wing
Sam: in Israel is to fully annex West Bank and the Gaza Strip anyway.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: They want to kick the Palestinians out and take that over as part of Israel
Sam: with an Israeli population, with a Jewish population, not with the people who live there right now.
Ivan: Right. And the goal of Hamas is to do the opposite to the Israelis.
Ivan: It's like, it's like, I look at fucking Jesus fucking Christ.
Ivan: I love this shit. Yeah.
Sam: But, but look, nothing like what I said of like a purely voluntary incentivizing.
Sam: That's not what's on the table.
Ivan: No, no.
Sam: And then talking about.
Ivan: You know, and by the way.
Sam: Well, wait, with Trump's initial comments, it very much seemed like he was like,
Sam: BBO invite me in and we'll go clear. out in Gaza.
Sam: But all his staff and everybody and him and a post on Truth Social had to clarify
Sam: like 24 hours later, oh, no, no, no.
Sam: U.S. troops won't be necessary because we will take over after Bibi ends the war.
Ivan: Look, look, this is not going to happen. I mean, as much as it's just one of
Ivan: these fucking idiotic spitballs that he has in the middle of fucking something
Ivan: that he thinks is some kind of brilliant brainstorming.
Ivan: But but the one thing that, you know, did happen with this is a it shows the
Ivan: complete disregard and disdain he has for the Palestinian people.
Ivan: If they weren't if if you guys weren't sure of it before, because obviously
Ivan: many people weren't, you know, now he made it crystal clear to all of you,
Ivan: OK, that he basically values them at zero.
Ivan: yep and so and it and bb is thrilled because donald just completely took like
Ivan: a massive amount of heat that he had been getting over all this shit off of
Ivan: his plate and sent it trump's way,
Ivan: so he's going back and he's like,
Ivan: genius yeah.
Sam: So i agree i i cannot see like an actual future where it's like oh yeah the
Sam: u.s is occupying gaza a year from now.
Ivan: Well, listen, listen, of course, people have short people. Well,
Ivan: I mean, I don't I say short memories. This is a long time ago.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I mean, but, you know, look, I mean, I remember when, you know,
Ivan: we sent troops to Lebanon.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: To try to keep the peace. And how did that go, Sam? Do you remember?
Sam: I believe there was a bombing and Ronald Reagan got the hell out of there.
Ivan: Yes. There was a massive bombing at the Marine barracks that killed a lot of Marines.
Ivan: And after that happened, we're like, well, we're out of here.
Ivan: Exactly. Just as I said, that's it. That did not go well.
Ivan: It did not go well in Iraq when we occupied it either. Okay.
Ivan: It really didn't go all that well in Afghanistan.
Ivan: So, you know, it's not going to go well in Palestine either.
Ivan: Gaza. It's just, it's insane.
Ivan: It's an insane plan. Well, I'm saying this.
Sam: Yes. Did I mention this?
Ivan: Oh, by the way, it's a fucking insane plan.
Sam: By the way, any scenario where foreign peacekeepers end up working in the end,
Sam: the country in question.
Ivan: It can't be us.
Sam: Well, it can't be us. And the country in question also has to fundamentally,
Sam: they really do have to be sovereign. They need to be the ones making the decisions in the end.
Sam: It can't be a scenario where we're coming in, for instance, and saying, no, we're in charge.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: No, no. It has to be, you know, we could help, like, I don't know,
Sam: maybe we can help in some ways.
Sam: But here's fundamentally the thing. If anything, the last year plus in Gaza
Sam: has resulted in Hamas having more support within Gaza than they did before, not less.
Ivan: Hamas, that's not totally accurate. I saw many people that were also fed up
Ivan: with Hamas because of how they dragged them into it.
Ivan: The fact that they wouldn't close a deal on this.
Ivan: OK, the fact that there was a there was a peace offer over and over.
Ivan: I think that you're in a kind of a situation here also where we're,
Ivan: you know, pissed off at the Israelis.
Sam: All I'm saying is that Hamas would still win.
Ivan: I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. The last time I saw
Ivan: something on polling on the ground.
Sam: Not like they can poll reliably.
Ivan: But on where, you know, not like a regular poll, but the one getting sent to
Ivan: it, people were really angry at Hamas.
Ivan: And the anger had been building over time because there's no resolution.
Ivan: There was no endgame. Okay?
Ivan: All right? It's the same thing as what's happening to Bibi on his end.
Ivan: Okay? you know at first you know
Ivan: a lot of israelis were supportive but as time went on why
Ivan: his position became very untenable is because people were like
Ivan: oh what the fuck we keep fighting we keep killing people people keep
Ivan: dying we're not getting anywhere what the fuck is going on and so
Ivan: you had the flip side on their side too where people were also
Ivan: getting fed up now now that there's a ceasefire that
Ivan: may be a different story but it got to a point i know that
Ivan: that especially because but you got two things
Ivan: on one end i mean israel did
Ivan: kill a lot of the hamas leadership that was there yes
Ivan: okay all right which that that really weakened their
Ivan: position overall in general but at the
Ivan: same time people were getting pissed that there was there were
Ivan: multiple ceasefire offers that kept coming up and
Ivan: they weren't closing and so you had the situation on both sides where both were
Ivan: unhappy with their leadership about this because this fucking ceasefire and
Ivan: i'll tell you that a lot of the reason I understood that the ceasefire finally
Ivan: happened is because of also the discontent on the Palestinian side about that
Ivan: this thing isn't ending.
Ivan: So I don't know what happens if there's an election because of that.
Ivan: Maybe like right now, because there's a, there is just to be clear.
Sam: That's a hypothetical anyway. There's not going to be an election in Gaza.
Ivan: There's not an election anytime soon. Yeah, that's not happening.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway, okay. Now we're near the end of time, but I did want to hit.
Ivan: End of time end of end of times.
Sam: End of times.
Ivan: Yeah it's hey hey no it's not get too hasty here I don't,
Ivan: I'm hoping that I can outlive Trump by a long time.
Sam: Dogs and cats living together.
Ivan: I hope I get a chance to piss on his grave when he's dead.
Ivan: He'll probably put him at that golf course over there where they put,
Ivan: like, what's her name? Ivana, like, over there.
Sam: Just on a corner. Okay. No, I wanted to hit—we need to close up,
Sam: but I did want to hit the tariff stuff as well real quick.
Sam: And I think since the last time we talked, Yvonne, we've actually had the tariff
Sam: threat come and go for Colombia, Mexico,
Sam: Canada, and there's even been some back and forth in China as well.
Sam: Let's real quick on the common theme.
Ivan: Is that all of them gave him something that Dio already was getting on?
Sam: Anyway yes the.
Ivan: Three don't the all three they gave them.
Sam: Something colombia canada and mexico colombia canada
Sam: and mexico it turns out in colombia the
Sam: main actual like concession that
Sam: was given anywhere is donald trump conceding not to use military planes and
Sam: not to have them like all shackled when they're delivered right correct yeah
Sam: that was it like that because colombia never actually objected to taking flights
Sam: of migrants back to Colombia that were Colombian citizens.
Sam: And they'd been happening during the Biden administration all along.
Ivan: Biden administration, yes.
Sam: But they were essentially happening on civilian flights. The people were not,
Sam: in shackles and all of this kind of stuff. Trump tried to make it incredibly
Sam: performative by using military planes and sending them in orange jumpsuits and chains.
Sam: And that's what Colombia said no to. And Donald Trump backed off.
Sam: And, you know, the flights resumed in the same way they've been going for years. So that's Colombia.
Sam: For Mexico, by the way, officially on Mexico and Canada, we're only on a 30-day
Sam: delay on the tariffs, but we'll see what happens.
Sam: But in Mexico...
Ivan: By the way, and the problem with Mexico and Canada is that the current trade
Ivan: deal in place with them is the worst ever negotiated trade deal ever,
Ivan: that it's just a disaster, Sam.
Ivan: The trade deal that is in place with them is a fucking disaster that is stealing
Ivan: from America. Now, Sam, who negotiated?
Ivan: Who? Yes. Who signed? Who negotiated that deal and signed it? Who was it? Was it Obama?
Sam: It must have been. It must have been.
Ivan: It must have been, right?
Sam: Yeah. Or Biden? Biden?
Ivan: Biden?
Sam: Yeah. No. Or, you know, it was probably Jimmy Carter. You know, he just.
Ivan: Ah, it was Jimmy. Yeah. Yeah. Just blame it on Jimmy.
Sam: No, it was Donald Trump.
Ivan: It was Trump himself. It's like, like, what the fuck, man?
Ivan: We already renegotiated this fucking deal because you wanted it.
Ivan: We set down, we did it. And now you're like shitting all over your own fucking deal.
Sam: And so Mexico agreed to send 10,000 troops to the border that they were- Now.
Ivan: Sam!
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: You know, was that, you know, absolutely came out of the blue,
Ivan: right? Nobody expected them to send those troops over there, right?
Sam: They'd been doing that for years.
Sam: You know, like, off
Sam: and on i gather the numbers fluctuate but generally speaking they
Sam: have 10 000 plus people at the border doing that
Sam: kind of work anyway they'd done it they'd most recently ramped up requests because
Sam: of the biden administration asked them to in some way and yeah so yeah that
Sam: it's unclear to me whether they're even sending anyone new to the border right
Sam: like at this point They're just doing what they were doing.
Sam: And Canada agreed to spend, what was it, $1.3 billion or something on fentanyl or something?
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some system to interdict the stuff coming through the Canadian border now.
Sam: Which, by the way...
Ivan: Was a deal that they negotiated with the Biden administration?
Sam: Oh, yeah. And they actually announced it fully in December.
Sam: They just repeated it to Donald Trump. that
Sam: they were going to do that and by the way the fentanyl thing
Sam: apparently the actual volume of fentanyl through the northern border is tiny
Sam: anyway nothing you know nothing um so both so all three of these columbia canada
Sam: and mexico basically agreed to do things they were doing anyway,
Sam: and got the tariff threat removed or at least delayed.
Sam: And in at least the Colombian case, they got the Donald Trump administration
Sam: to back down on something else as well.
Sam: Now, here's the thing, though. This is once again one of those things that Donald
Sam: Trump is a master of declaring victory off nothing.
Ivan: Correct.
Sam: And depending how closely you're paying attention and which news sources you're paying attention to,
Sam: like, you may hear what we just talked about, or you may just hear Donald Trump
Sam: won and they backed down.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And that's all you hear. Yeah. Donald Trump threatened them,
Sam: and they backed down, and Donald Trump won. Tariffs are working.
Ivan: Yeah. That's what they said. Tariffs are working.
Sam: And I suspect that a huge proportion of the American population and an even
Sam: bigger proportion of Trump voters, all they heard is Donald Trump won.
Ivan: I'm pretty sure as well.
Sam: And so in the end, he gets what he wants, like, because this is performative. This is transactional.
Sam: And in this case, the transaction is essentially imaginary, but he gets a win out of it anyway.
Ivan: Yeah, I know.
Sam: And meanwhile, with China, by the way, the tariffs went into force with China.
Sam: And the biggest part that everyone was most worried about, that they were like,
Sam: this is going to change the dynamics of Chinese commerce in the United States
Sam: dramatically, is that it would apply to everything.
Sam: Whereas previously there had been an exemption for things under $800.
Ivan: And this is an exemption that occurs to, like, it's not just with China.
Ivan: There is what they call the minimus.
Sam: Basically.
Ivan: Yeah, the minimus. It's a minimus. It's of small value, basically,
Ivan: that those kind of shipments were exempt from customs, you know,
Ivan: tariffs, etc. and so forth.
Sam: And the thing is that whole businesses that have been built on this.
Ivan: Like exactly, Tambu and whatever, they've been building precisely on this.
Sam: Where they're shipping low value items and selling them cheap in the U.S.
Sam: And so like when when the Chinese sanctions sanctions tariffs initially did
Sam: go into effect, everyone was like, oh, crap, this is going to kill all of those
Sam: businesses. This is going to.
Ivan: And it would have because it would have added a lot of like process and cost
Ivan: to every shipment. It just would have I mean, it just would have made it far
Ivan: more complicated because they're shipping directly from China.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And so the thing is that then every one of these would have had to have a customs
Ivan: clearance form and pay duties and taxes and have to be cleared from customs
Ivan: for every single one of these like tiny shipments.
Ivan: It was just would have been a crazy backlog. But now, you know.
Ivan: Trump, for whatever reason, has undone that undid it. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. He put the exemption back in place.
Ivan: I'm going to, you know, you want me to take a wild guess? That's probably not that wild.
Sam: What's that?
Ivan: I wonder where the money got to him that they, that whoever in Temu went and
Ivan: like bought, I don't know how much DJT,
Ivan: how many hotel rooms or what kind of like coin or Trump coin or whatever the
Ivan: fuck that they went and they just decided to go and like spend a few hundred million.
Sam: Because unlike the other three that we talked about, there's no public concession
Sam: from China, even a fake concession.
Ivan: Even a fake concession. There's just got dropped.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Look, by the way, Venezuela the other day with now, of course,
Ivan: all the Venezuelans like up in arms with like the fact that,
Ivan: you know, they voted for him and all of a sudden he said, fuck your family.
Ivan: We're going to deport him anyway, because everything's fine in Venezuela.
Ivan: Look, some oil guy paid off, must have made some nice payoff to him.
Ivan: There was a Mar-a-Lago guy that somehow got all of a sudden to send Marco over there.
Ivan: Now we're friendly with Maduro and now we're buying oil.
Ivan: And, you know, it's all of a sudden that I'm like, OK, you know,
Ivan: look, I mean, this is another one where it's very obvious that there is some
Ivan: payoff somewhere for this to happen. But, you know, is the Justice Department
Ivan: going to go to investigate?
Sam: Oh, you know, not only not only is the Justice Department obviously not going
Sam: to in in investigate Donald Trump,
Sam: but one of the areas that they have reportedly essentially shut down the two there's two.
Sam: One, the group within the Justice Department slash FBI that was dedicated towards,
Sam: like, FARA violations and, you know, international agents, international influence,
Sam: whatever, they're just shutting down that group.
Sam: And just generally speaking, they're also apparently significantly reducing
Sam: the folks that do public corruption in general.
Sam: Because, like, why would you want to investigate that? They're talking to Eric
Sam: Adams in New York about potentially, like, dropping that.
Ivan: Yeah, I know. I did hear that. They're going to drop it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sam: And here's the thing. People are like, well, why would he do that?
Sam: Eric Adams is a Democrat. Yeah, but you know.
Ivan: Criminals are his friends.
Sam: Exactly. Because the idea in general that there should be restrictions on what politicians want.
Sam: What kind of deals politicians could do in exchange for their actions is anathema in general.
Ivan: Totally anathema.
Sam: Because, of course, that's what you want to do.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: That's just how business is done.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, now, do we have any proof of these specific briberies that we're saying? No, of course not.
Sam: But is it plausible? Of course it is.
Ivan: I mean, is it plausible? It's just plausible. It's probable.
Ivan: What are you talking about? What do you mean plausible?
Ivan: It's, I mean, nothing else explains this shit.
Sam: The one other thing to mention on tariffs that came out in the last couple of
Sam: days is the Trump administration is preparing global reciprocal tariffs, which basically,
Sam: as I got the wrong one, but I pointed out on our Commudgence Course Slack that
Sam: this was right out of a Tom Clancy novel as well.
Sam: way or not yeah i said some of all fears yvonne says it was debt of honor you
Sam: know i you know it's been like 30 years since i read any of those books it has been.
Ivan: 30 years yes since we read that book yes.
Sam: But but anyway like no the basic notion here is that if any country has a tariff
Sam: on american goods we put exactly the same tariff on their goods and here.
Ivan: Here it is let me read it because I looked up the plot summary from Debt of
Ivan: Honor, 1994, Tom Clancy novel.
Ivan: Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamada has been plotting to bring back his country
Ivan: to position of greatness for years, partly as revenge for the death of his family
Ivan: at the hands of American forces invading the island of Saipan during World War II.
Ivan: Then there is, it says here, there was some incident with a car accident,
Ivan: faulty gas tanks made in Japan.
Ivan: The incident leads to the swift passage of a law allowing the U.S.
Ivan: to mirror trade practices.
Ivan: of the countries for which it imports goods, cutting off the American export
Ivan: market upon which Japanese economy depends.
Ivan: So there's your, yeah. So that was the initial plot point of the movie.
Sam: Okay, I will also add before we- I mean.
Ivan: There's no movie on Dead of Honor, it's just the book.
Sam: Right, right, the book, the book. I will add though, since we are talking about
Sam: fictional things related to this, people have also been pointing out The opening
Sam: crawl to Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, is the following.
Sam: turmoil has engulfed the galactic republic the taxation of trade routes to outlying
Sam: star systems is in dispute hey.
Ivan: But you know that was all bullshit i mean who the hell would go to you know
Ivan: get get into a tiff over you know the taxation of traders what are you talking about sam.
Sam: Yes anyway anyway so the the reciprocal tariffs actually like initially it's
Sam: like oh well that That might kind of make sense.
Sam: But like the reality is here, this is another one of these things that is probably
Sam: going to work out the same way that we're talking about Canada and Mexico and
Sam: Colombia, which the default will be reciprocal trade, reciprocal tariffs everywhere.
Sam: But then there will be all sorts of exceptions made.
Sam: It'll be Swiss cheese based on like what Donald Trump thinks he can get transactionally
Sam: out of all these different countries, which is what we,
Sam: like Yvonne and I, we talked like before the inauguration that the thing to
Sam: watch with tariffs is not the tariffs themselves.
Sam: It is what are the loopholes in the tariffs and what are the exceptions?
Sam: Because that's where the deals will get made.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: And in this case also, like, I think we said this before too,
Sam: but like, if any of these actually go through and stay through.
Sam: They'll be damaging, they'll be inflationary, all of that kind of stuff.
Sam: But Trump's game is absolutely clear now. I think it was clear before,
Sam: but it's absolutely clear now.
Sam: It's threatened the tariff,
Sam: get some sort of win out of it. And I say win, not real concession because of
Sam: what we talked about before.
Sam: Like in some of these cases, yeah, they say they're doing something,
Sam: but it's something that we were doing anyway.
Sam: So it's only a PR win.
Sam: Maybe in some cases he'll get something real out of it too, based on the threat.
Sam: But the key is the threat of the tariff and then try to get a win out of it
Sam: without ever actually putting the tariffs in place for any period of time that matter.
Ivan: Which is, by the way, it's a moat, which is why we're talking about a whole bunch of the changes.
Sam: Although, to be fair, in his first term, he put on a bunch of tariffs to China that stayed on.
Ivan: That stayed, yes.
Sam: That did cause some damage.
Ivan: They never, and they never got, there were some tariffs that never were.
Sam: I mean, he had to do these farm subsidies to make up for the losses that farmers
Sam: got due to those tariffs. And so it's quite possible that in some of these cases,
Sam: the countries will call the bluff, not do anything.
Sam: The tariffs will go into effect and stay in effect. And then we will see some
Sam: of these negative consequences of tariffs. But I suspect the international world learns quickly.
Sam: And they are remembering how to do business from Donald Trump from what they
Sam: found out last time, which is you flatter him, you give him PR wins.
Sam: They don't have to be real wins. You know, maybe in certain cases you give him
Sam: a real win, but you basically give him PR wins and you flatter him and you talk
Sam: about how he's incredible and amazing and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And you can figure out a way to get through it without having the negative consequences actually hit.
Sam: So, okay, that's it. We're done. We're over time. But I wanted to talk about
Sam: tariffs because they're so interesting.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: Tariffs. Woo! Woo! Woo!
Sam: Yeah. And if you want a primer on tariffs, you know the one source,
Sam: of course, to go to. Right, Yvonne?
Ivan: I go, what?
Sam: If you want to learn more about tariffs, there's only one thing to do.
Ivan: Um, um.
Sam: You're not going to get it. Rewatch Ferris Mueller's Day Off.
Ivan: Oh! Yes! Of course!
Sam: To get the lecture on the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.
Ivan: Tariffs by fucking what's his name, Ben Stein, who's also a MAGA asshole.
Sam: Yes, there you go. So go re-watch that.
Sam: Okay, we're done here. Thanks everybody. Oh, wait.
Sam: Should I say this? Go to our website, curmudgeons-quarter.com All the stuff,
Sam: the transcripts, how to contact us, Patreon, all that stuff.
Sam: If you give us money at Patreon, we will eventually give you stuff,
Sam: even though I'm slow and it takes me forever. Sorry, guys.
Sam: And yeah, and $2 a month or more, or if you ask us, we'll invite you to a convention
Sam: score of Slack, where Yvonne and I and others are chatting throughout the week.
Sam: Yvonne, do you got anything from the Slack this time?
Ivan: Do I have... Jesus, I forgot. Hang on, hang on. There's gotta be something here.
Ivan: Uh... da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, yes. A brilliant one.
Ivan: Pete Hack says Venmo got leaked, and now people are flooding him with payment requests.
Ivan: It's, you know, so the one thing about Venmo, which I realized early on.
Sam: It's by default, everything you do is public.
Ivan: Right. And I very quickly, immediately, I saw this stream. I'm like,
Ivan: fuck this shit. I don't want everybody to know what the fuck I'm doing with my money.
Ivan: Oh, I'm paying whatever I want, and I shut that shit off. But apparently,
Ivan: Pete Hack said being the.
Sam: I don't use it very often, but every time I do, I'm like, okay,
Sam: everybody's gonna see that i just gave you know my daughter thirty dollars i
Sam: just gave my daughter thirty dollars to buy my son dinner you know or whatever okay.
Ivan: All right okay all right you know at least it's not hookers that you're paying
Ivan: so that's good good news okay so pete hack says.
Sam: Venmo you say that but that was part of the evidence but against matt gates
Sam: was his venmo payment Venmo.
Ivan: Why am I not surprised? You know.
Sam: Okay. Go ahead.
Ivan: And now people are flooding him with payment requests. It's a remind button
Ivan: for me combined with the emotional damage. So this guy pending.
Ivan: You requested $45,000 from Pete Haxit. Why?
Ivan: Emotional damage. There you go. So people have been flooding him with requests.
Ivan: I'm sure that he's probably changed his thing by now.
Sam: Probably.
Ivan: Yeah. That was just.
Sam: I would be more interested if he was actually like paying the people who asked them for money.
Ivan: Ah, well, that would be.
Ivan: Well, that would be interesting on me. So what are you telling me?
Ivan: I should send him a payment request?
Sam: See if he pays.
Ivan: I mean, I don't understand. You know, these people are cheap.
Ivan: I mean, only $45,000. I'm like, you know, what the fuck?
Ivan: That's it? I mean, if you're really going to hit him up, hit him for.
Ivan: Although, of course, I'm sure I think the limit on how much you can request.
Ivan: I was going to say, why don't you request a million dollars?
Ivan: What are you doing? I don't think you can Venmo. I don't think.
Sam: Well, and you know, Hegseth has some money, but he's not like, he's not Musk.
Ivan: Yeah, he's not Musk. Oh, well, damn.
Sam: Okay, we are done. Here comes the outro music. Thanks for listening,
Sam: everybody. Tell your friends. Have a great week. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.
Ivan: Look at this Venmo feed. Look, I'm looking just before you go.
Ivan: Look, I just went in. I mean, this guy that I despise. I don't know who I am.
Ivan: I guess he has a contact. Tracy Lopez. This guy is a douchebag.
Sam: Oh, you're giving his name publicly, too.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Fuck him. Whatever. He's a fucking asshole. You know,
Ivan: somehow he tipped an AA club, whatever the fuck that is. you know,
Ivan: you know, he did that on Venmo.
Ivan: Okay. For example, I got, let's see, what else?
Ivan: I got somebody paying for, you know, one guy paid his brother,
Ivan: another guy paid his brother, ginger grooming and tip for groomer.
Ivan: So I'm guessing they groomed her dog wings.
Ivan: I don't know.
Ivan: Basketball. I mean, I don't know, you know, but what else I'm looking at that one.
Ivan: I went because I'm like, I'm literally a guy I hate in his guts.
Ivan: And why the hell is he showing up on my fucking feed? Fuck him.
Sam: Okay. Okay, now can I say goodbye, Yvonne?
Ivan: Yes, you can say goodbye.
Sam: Okay. Stay safe, everybody. Have a great week. Tell your friends to listen to
Sam: the show. We'll talk to you next time. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Thank you. Okay, hit and stop. See you later, Yvonne. Bye.
Ivan: Bye. Thank you.