Sam: Hello, this is Sam from the Future. We recorded this show Friday night, U.S. time.
Sam: That would be Friday, June 19th? No, no, 20th.
Sam: Friday, June 20th is when we recorded this show.
Sam: And, well, before I got it out, there were a few news developments.
Sam: Specifically, during this show, we talked a little bit about Donald Trump's
Sam: statement that he was going to wait a couple weeks, potentially to figure out
Sam: what to do about Iran and how, generally speaking,
Sam: he has used this two-week time frame many, many times before to avoid making decisions.
Sam: Well, Saturday we actually attacked Iran.
Sam: Now, one report had it that, well, there was an angry call between Trump and
Sam: Netanyahu and where Netanyahu said, we're not going to wait two weeks.
Sam: We are going to attack ourselves if you don't do it yourself.
Sam: If the U.S. doesn't do it, we will, basically.
Sam: And shortly after Donald Trump did the attack, which would sort of fit with
Sam: what we also talked about on this show about, you know, he's always influenced
Sam: by the last person who talks to him.
Sam: However, there has also been reporting that the two-week thing this time around
Sam: was completely a ruse, that the decision had already been made,
Sam: that things were already underway.
Sam: Given how this administration is known for truth-telling, I'm not sure I know what to believe.
Sam: I mean, fundamentally, they had already reported that the plans were made.
Sam: Everything was ready to go and was just waiting on a final decision from Donald
Sam: Trump to basically hit the go button.
Sam: So I wouldn't be surprised if they're just trying to finagle the language to
Sam: make it seem like Donald Trump wasn't flip-flopping all over the place on this thing.
Sam: But on the other hand, who knows? Like, all of the players involved here are
Sam: not particularly known for truth-telling.
Sam: anyway there's a discussion later
Sam: on in the show well in the show proper about about all of the iranian developments
Sam: and about the two weeks that as i just said ended up not happening and various
Sam: other things now that the attack has happened.
Sam: We'll see how things develop. It is still unclear, as I am recording this on Sunday evening U.S.
Sam: time on the 22nd, you know, how effective the attack was, what was actually
Sam: destroyed, what was not.
Sam: There's one thing the Americans are saying, there's one thing the Iranians are
Sam: saying, and again, we have no actors on this stage that are known for their truth-telling.
Sam: So until or unless there's independent verification of something, who the hell knows?
Sam: And of course, Iran is threatening retaliation. They're saying they're closing
Sam: the Straits of Hormuz, all kinds of things.
Sam: And so, whereas the U.S. administration seems to be saying, you know what?
Sam: It's a one and done. We did this.
Sam: Hopefully now there'll be peace. We shall see.
Sam: Anyway, I will start the actual show we recorded in just a moment.
Sam: I did have one other thing to say.
Sam: For any of our listeners in the greater Seattle metropolitan area.
Sam: Yvonne's going to be in town June 30th through...
Sam: I guess he's coming in late on the 29th and leaving on the 3rd,
Sam: but basically the 30th, the 1st, and the 2nd, he's going to be around.
Sam: And we're talking about doing a curmudgeon's Corner meetup.
Sam: Those of you who are on the Slack regularly may already know about this because
Sam: we're discussing it there.
Sam: But for those of you who aren't on the Slack, if you are interested,
Sam: most likely, although nothing's final, final, final yet,
Sam: most likely we will do some sort of meetup the evening of Wednesday,
Sam: July 2nd in Seattle somewhere.
Sam: If you are interested in joining us, please go to curmudgeons-corner.com.
Sam: All of the ways to contact us are listed there.
Sam: Email, Facebook, Mastodon, right.
Sam: But email us or whatever and let us know you're interested and we will put you
Sam: on the list and make sure to let you know exactly where and when and all of
Sam: that kind of stuff once that's decided.
Sam: So if you are a regular listener and in the Seattle area let us know we'd love
Sam: to we'd love to have you meet us and meet you if we haven't met you before and
Sam: all of that i guess that's it i guess now that i've like spoken for a long time.
Sam: We can start the actual show here we go,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeons Corner. It's Saturday, July 21st, 2025.
Sam: Just after two UTCs, we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter. Yvonne Bo is here.
Sam: Hello, Yvonne. Welcome back.
Ivan: Hi.
Sam: Are you excited to be back? Did you miss me last week?
Ivan: Yes.
Ivan: I don't understand what is it that you had going on I mean I you know the the
Ivan: it wound up that okay I could only do Thursday right you couldn't do it yeah.
Sam: You could do Thursday or Saturday I could only do Friday.
Ivan: So right no I couldn't do Saturday either but I could do Thursday but you couldn't
Ivan: do right but you couldn't do Friday you know you could only do Friday I.
Sam: Couldn't do thursday yeah i could only do friday and so we had ed you.
Ivan: Know that.
Sam: That was that was good ed ed uh ed was here ed had a good time we had a good time it was good.
Ivan: No but what did you have on thursday do you have another one of these do you
Ivan: have to show your face at some event again or something the.
Sam: Family went to a movie.
Ivan: Oh okay which yeah well.
Sam: I'm not going to talk about this today but we went.
Ivan: To the live action How.
Sam: To Train Your Dragon, the live action version.
Ivan: Yeah, you don't have to do a review.
Sam: I'm just wondering. And we went on opening day.
Ivan: Oh.
Sam: Like we were making a point of going on opening day.
Ivan: You did the opening day.
Sam: We did not wear costumes, though.
Ivan: Ah, that's good.
Sam: Well, we probably should have. It would have been good. You know, we could have.
Ivan: Like... You know, dress up as a dragon?
Sam: Or a viking. Or both.
Ivan: Viking.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: But no, I will save a full review for when we do that in order,
Sam: but my short thumbs up, very thumbs up, it was a big thumbs up for the original animated version,
Sam: but also a big thumbs up for the live action version.
Sam: Okay, that's good. it was a good remake
Sam: but you know speaking of speaking of
Sam: movies though i i i told ed last week i had calculated that at the rate i am
Sam: watching these things and finishing things i will never catch up if i only mention
Sam: one a week so i have to do two so when it gets to be my part of the But first,
Sam: I will do two movies.
Sam: But, you know, I was going to say I'll bring back the timer for that.
Sam: But I forgot to, like, bring the timer into the room.
Ivan: I have a timer here.
Sam: Well, then you can be the one to, like, buzz me out.
Ivan: Hold on.
Sam: I mean, I've got multiple timers. I just don't have them within arm's reach of where I am right now.
Ivan: Right here, which is one that you sent me. It's right here.
Sam: Oh, yeah, yeah. I really enjoyed that particular timer, but Alex broke it.
Ivan: You know, I have now, after I was with a colleague from work this week,
Ivan: who has been at the company only one year, also has a MacBook Pro.
Ivan: And they explained to me how they've already broken the keyboard. And I'm like, how?
Sam: Well, as you know, I already broke my screen and had to have it fixed under AppleCare already.
Sam: It's less than...
Ivan: No, it's about a year old now.
Sam: It's about a year old. I mean, they had about six months in, I broke the screen.
Ivan: So, so apparently the way that they did it was, you know, okay.
Ivan: So they, they're in sales just like me. We have a, you know, similar role.
Ivan: They just cover a different, you know, thing.
Ivan: But, but, you know, we're, you know, we're, I have the same manager and I guess,
Ivan: you know, they're travel, whatever.
Ivan: You know, as you know, I'm, I'm a neat freak. Okay.
Sam: Yes. Yes, you are.
Ivan: All right.
Sam: That's a fact.
Ivan: Okay. Well, neither is she. And as maybe she's not like, I've been to her house.
Ivan: I, listen, this is a crazier part of the story.
Ivan: Look, I went to her house because one day we were supposed to meet for dinner.
Ivan: My boss was in town there. We're supposed to meet for dinner.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: She's a single mom. Okay. Her son was at the house. She was alone at the house.
Ivan: She was just going to meet us.
Ivan: Called her on the phone. Hey, what time are we meeting? And something didn't sound right.
Ivan: Honestly, she sounded delirious. Okay?
Sam: That's not good. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, she sounded...
Ivan: As something told me, and I've only met her for like six months,
Ivan: but something sounded way off, beyond the norm.
Ivan: Okay. And she lives in Puerto Rico. And I'm like, okay, are you okay? And she was incoherent.
Ivan: I had her home address. I said, I'm going to your house right now.
Ivan: I found her delirious on the bed. She really had no clue.
Ivan: She had been vomiting nonstop.
Ivan: And she, and I'm like, you know, look, I'm, you know, much faster was me calling
Ivan: an ambulance, whatever shit show. I'm like, look, here, come on.
Ivan: I'm taking you to the hospital. I loaded up in the car.
Ivan: And so I took her to the hospital and not sure what virus she had.
Ivan: But what happened is that with her fever and whatever, she got super dehydrated
Ivan: and was just, you know, she was just, she just wasn't.
Ivan: she doesn't even remember that I went and I got her out of her room and took
Ivan: her to the car. You had no idea.
Ivan: That's how bad she had been. So I've been to her house. So she's not as messy
Ivan: as you, but she's not as a compulsive neat freak as I am. Okay? Alright?
Ivan: That's a reality, but her place is pretty decently clean. Okay?
Ivan: But it's not like me. So, I don't know.
Ivan: You know, she's traveling. You eat, like you buy a Starbucks or whatever.
Ivan: Bah, bah, bah. She's working on the keyboard she got the keyboard really dirty okay oh yeah i.
Sam: Remember we're now back to the broken computer.
Ivan: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so so i've forgotten what the destination of all that
Ivan: explaining that what that i know that she's i've been to your house i've been
Ivan: to her house i know she's not as clean freak as i am but she's she's cleaner
Ivan: than you she's in the middle of but she's in the middle of uh of us okay in
Ivan: that range so she's probably.
Sam: Right like at normal.
Ivan: Yeah yeah yeah yeah she's like at normal okay she's
Ivan: not at me level she's like nor you know yeah she's normal but
Ivan: she's normal okay so she goes
Ivan: and tells me well i decided i need to clean the keyboard because it was getting
Ivan: kind of sticky okay right yeah so she she went and she pulled out all the keys
Ivan: which i do not wreck okay once again i said what are you doing look i i this is not a good idea.
Ivan: Do not pull out the fucking keys. Okay?
Ivan: Just don't do that. Well, she managed to put them all back except one of the keys, which she broke.
Sam: Okay. Yes.
Ivan: All right? Which is what usually happens with pulling apart all the fucking keys.
Ivan: It's just, you know, the standard thing.
Ivan: So anyway, she broke the keyboard Okay? She broke the damn keyboard I just,
Ivan: you know, look I urge people Listen, if you're going to clean the damn keyboard Okay?
Ivan: Whatever you do Try to avoid Removing the keys Okay?
Ivan: That always never works Out well It just, you know, one of them will never go back The way that,
Ivan: It's supposed to it's just you know that that will it just so so avoid that
Ivan: at all costs okay i you know the thing is she's had a one-year-old macbook she's
Ivan: got a red keyboard mine is about to turn four years old,
Ivan: you know it looks new you know
Ivan: i i am i did i did uh uh you
Ivan: know i i did i am getting a replacement this year
Ivan: because apparently our life cycle is four years so i
Ivan: i am kind of happy about about getting that because i still
Ivan: have an intel macbook pro and you know
Ivan: i i did i do want to get you know apple
Ivan: silicon laptops especially since they're dropping support of a lot of those
Ivan: now they're being pretty aggressive about you know fuck you know fuck this until
Ivan: hardware we're not you know we're not gonna keep keep supporting any yeah we're
Ivan: not we're not supporting this shit for well i'll.
Sam: I'll tell you i'll tell you two things along your repair stories first of all
Sam: i know the time i talked about it more extensively was when yvonne gpt was on
Sam: the show like the reason i my screen on my laptop broke.
Ivan: Is is.
Sam: I closed it with a needle in there.
Ivan: A needle?
Sam: I don't know where the needle came from. I don't know, like...
Ivan: What the fuck do you get a needle from? The hell? You don't sew?
Ivan: What the hell do you get a needle?
Sam: Well, and actually, it was more like... It was like the kind of straight pin. It wasn't a needle.
Sam: It was like a straight pin of the kind that you pin... That come,
Sam: like, when you buy a new dress shirt. And they come pinned together.
Ivan: Okay. All right. So one of those dress pins. Okay. So one of those clothes.
Sam: Now, of course...
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Of course, it had been, like... It's actually not that long since I'd bought
Sam: one of those because I bought one like in January.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it may have been from that somehow.
Sam: It may have been from that, but somehow it got in there.
Sam: I closed the laptop with that like sitting on the keyboard or something and
Sam: it hit the screen and it cracked.
Sam: So that's how I broke my laptop keyboard and or not the keyboard,
Sam: I screened. And luckily, Apple care.
Sam: and and i will say the other thing is right before
Sam: this show i i had for for
Sam: the day i i i've been alex has been using my laptop while i'm away at work he's
Sam: doing various projects on it so it had been downstairs well i i we had taken
Sam: it away and i brought it back so i was setting it back up at my docked location.
Sam: And even though I'm using it docked, I did open it up and I noticed it did have crumbs.
Sam: There was like food stuck to the screen of some sort.
Sam: So yes, this is the kind of thing that probably does not happen in your household.
Ivan: Look, I will say that my, let me see, I'm trying to figure out how old these keyboards are.
Ivan: Okay, they're both very old. Okay, let's see.
Ivan: Yeah, they don't really have... They're a little bit... They...
Ivan: These are got to be at least five years old, six, actually seven.
Ivan: I don't think I've cleaned. And
Ivan: also, I don't think I've cleaned them in a long time. And they're fine.
Ivan: You know, I mean, I could stay on the cleaning, but it's not like it's not.
Ivan: I'm not I'm not I'm not rushing to to get them cleaned at this point.
Ivan: Also, another thing I discovered this week, aside from the fact that,
Ivan: you know, a lot of people are clumsy with their computers.
Ivan: A very interesting factoid. for whatever reason or scrolling through the TV
Ivan: and Matlock was on TV the original.
Sam: Or the new one.
Ivan: The original because there is a new one,
Ivan: because there is the new one and all of a sudden I saw that the original was
Ivan: on TV and I was I had a very long week okay I must admit I started today I had an 8,
Ivan: there's nothing worse than an 8am meeting and I had several of them this week. 8 a.m.
Sam: Fucking meetings.
Ivan: 8 a.m. meetings are the worst.
Sam: Definitely.
Ivan: I mean, I'm just... You know, I do get to them functional, but it takes a Herculean effort.
Sam: Herculean? Is that how you say it?
Ivan: I think so. Hercules? Herculean?
Sam: Herculean, maybe?
Ivan: Herculean? Herculean?
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. Herculean effort to be, you know, composed for a fucking meeting
Ivan: to discuss the migration of a core banking application, you know,
Ivan: and the necessary, you know.
Sam: So scintillating conversation.
Ivan: Yeah. Not exactly. Yeah. And complex, you know, because we're talking about, you know.
Ivan: how much storage capacity and services and what things and, you know,
Ivan: all the different subcomponents and stuff and security and shit.
Ivan: So it's not, you know, this isn't some fluffy conversation. Okay. All right.
Ivan: And so, damn it, I got to be this fucking call to talk about this at eight in the fucking morning.
Ivan: And, you know, so the day at four o'clock, I was already kind of wiped out.
Ivan: I decided to just lay down and watch some TV because we were going to go out
Ivan: in there. So I go and I put on, put on Matlock and I'm looking at,
Ivan: I'm looking at Andy Griffith. Okay.
Ivan: Who's, who's Matlock and, uh, in the series.
Ivan: The series was filmed. Filming began in 1985 around there.
Ivan: I'm looking at how old is angry Griffith when he is on that show.
Ivan: I don't know if you remember the image and I'll send you an image of how Andy
Ivan: Griffith looked because I took a picture off the TV and, and I am like,
Ivan: okay, so I mean, I'll send you the picture on your messages.
Ivan: How old does that guy look to you in that picture? I just say,
Ivan: I mean, what do you think?
Sam: Well, we have to index for the 80s because people listen.
Ivan: To just just whatever. I'm not. No, no, no.
Sam: If this was today.
Ivan: How old does that guy look to you?
Sam: If I saw this person on the street today, I would guess early 70s.
Ivan: Early 70s, right?
Sam: But given this was the 1980s, I would guess he's younger than us.
Ivan: He's not younger than us. Okay. He's not younger than us.
Sam: So he's late 50s.
Ivan: Yes. He's 59. So I sent this picture to my brother, my two brothers,
Ivan: one who was already 60 and the other one who was about to turn 58 this week.
Ivan: And I said, guys, okay, let me tell you something.
Ivan: This, this guy here is your age. And they're both like, oh, what the fuck?
Sam: Well, this is something that people have pointed out a lot when looking at media
Sam: from decades ago, is that how, you know,
Sam: if you compare a given age between TV shows in the 80s and how people look today,
Sam: they look older, you know?
Sam: And now I've seen a couple of people do experiments where they basically adapted,
Sam: like they took what they look like now, but then did their hair and outfit and
Sam: just styling in an 80s style.
Sam: and they did instantly look older now be so part of it is just the cultural
Sam: association of the time but there does seem to also just be a thing with and this depends highly on,
Sam: where you are socioeconomically and all kinds of other issues but people being
Sam: healthier longer and there is there are.
Ivan: Two well there is a big factor that I know impacted a lot of those people,
Ivan: in their 50s at that time. It was the smoking.
Sam: Oh, yes. That was big.
Ivan: The smoking was huge.
Sam: And even for non-smokers, because it was freaking everywhere. You could not escape it.
Ivan: You could not escape the smoking. The damn smoking.
Ivan: Look, I mean, smoking aged people drastically, quickly.
Ivan: Smoking has been shown to give people heart disease, high blood pressure,
Ivan: all of these damn things.
Ivan: And not just that, It made people's faces age.
Ivan: I mean, it has been shown that people that were heavy smokers compared to the
Ivan: other, you know, smoke, their faces would age so much, so drastically compared to non-smokers.
Ivan: And that is just a factor. Look, I have a friend of mine that I knew over here
Ivan: who smoked so much until his 50s.
Ivan: And then he quit smoking. And I saw him three or four years later after he quit
Ivan: smoking. and he hadn't smoked for three or four years, he looked like he had lost 10 years.
Ivan: He looked 10 years younger. It was crazy.
Ivan: And I do think that one of the things that was such an impact to those people
Ivan: at that time was how much smoking happened back then.
Sam: Yeah, and I don't know exactly when the peak year was. Probably in the 70s, I would guess.
Ivan: Yes, I think so.
Sam: But the penetration of the percentage of the population that were regular smokers was insanely high.
Sam: Like today it's unimaginable. I mean, people still smoke and people vape and
Sam: people do other things and people smoke things other than tobacco.
Sam: Yeah. So it's still out there by all means, but the percentage of people who don't,
Sam: is higher, is, you know, most people don't anymore.
Sam: And when they do, it's rarer, at least,
Sam: within certain parts of the country, certain socioeconomic circles.
Sam: Again, like if you go, this is one of those things where if you go to sort of
Sam: the more blighted parts of the country,
Sam: smoking rates are higher than they are in the richer parts as is drug use as
Sam: is all kinds of things because you know for all kinds of reasons people turn
Sam: to substances when other things in their lives aren't going right so the peak.
Ivan: For smoking was in the,
Ivan: around the 50s, 60s where it was over 40 you know it actually spiked,
Ivan: I see, from the 60s into the 70s into the mid 40s, okay?
Ivan: And then it started coming down, down, down, down. Until now, it's 11%. Okay?
Ivan: So it's down like 80% from where it was. But the one thing that you mentioned,
Ivan: you're right, because it wasn't just you smoking.
Ivan: If you, listen, if you socialized, you went out, say
Ivan: you only drank and you didn't smoke you
Ivan: go out to a bar back then dude if
Ivan: you were going into a cigarette chamber okay yes
Ivan: i mean i i would go out
Ivan: in the 80s and i remember when i went to the places i mean everything i wore
Ivan: just even when i i didn't smoke reeks of cigarettes the moment i came i i came
Ivan: home every night so yeah i mean you were in a in a cigarette chamber airplanes
Ivan: for god's sakes they're smoking on the damn airplanes, smoke on the airplanes,
Ivan: smoking at the offices, smoke.
Ivan: I mean, I mean, hell on TV. I was watching some old Johnny Carson shows where
Ivan: he was smoking. He was smoking in between.
Ivan: Like, you know, he would go and like sneak off to the side to grab a puff from
Ivan: a cigarette, you know, while he was recording the show live on TV.
Ivan: So, yeah, I mean, he was, you know, that's how prevalent it was back then.
Ivan: But yeah, I definitely, there is definitely,
Ivan: I have no doubt that that is one of the biggest reasons why people are around
Ivan: 50 years now look so much younger than they did back then.
Sam: Well, and like you said, even the 11% is...
Sam: Unless you are one of the 11%, it's less visible, too.
Ivan: Right. Yeah.
Sam: I mean, even now compared to 10 years ago,
Sam: like, I remember 10 years ago when I was coming in and out of buildings at work,
Sam: there'd still be, like, you know, several people sitting there smoking near
Sam: the entrance somewhere.
Ivan: Right. Now they won't even allow them near the entrance anymore. Yeah.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You're, like, banished.
Sam: Yeah. So like, you know, I, you don't just notice the presence all the time,
Sam: unless you're one of the ones doing it yourself.
Sam: I mean, I'm not going to say I haven't seen people smoking.
Sam: I have within, you know, even at work, I saw someone smoking a cigarette and
Sam: tossing it out before going in the building within the last week.
Sam: But it's rare. It's much rarer.
Ivan: It used to be when I when I worked at an office in the late 90s,
Ivan: early 2000s, I mean, there was an entire I mean, I literally I had all these
Ivan: managers of smoke. I would go, OK, let's go.
Ivan: You know, we I mean, we were just a whole bunch of people outside standing, you know, smoking.
Ivan: I wasn't one of the smokers, but I had I work with two people directly most
Ivan: of the time. Both of them smoked.
Ivan: So I'm like, OK, I'm going to go outside with you to have a chit chat.
Ivan: I'm like, whatever, at least we're outside. I'm not inside a room like locked in, like sucking this.
Ivan: But yeah, you know, but that was like a typical thing.
Sam: Right. Yeah, no, definitely. I think that's part of it. And like I said,
Sam: though, there are other factors, too.
Sam: Like somebody like I keep going back to this experiment somebody did where they
Sam: they, you know, they were pointing out the like there's a picture of like the
Sam: golden girls or whatever with their ages next to it.
Sam: Like they're they're all in their 50s, except one who was actually in their 40s.
Sam: you know um and jesus
Sam: christ and and and you know that whole
Sam: show was about them being old and over the hill and like right yeah whatever
Sam: but you know basically this person who was the same age just dressed up like
Sam: older like dressed in the style of that they dressed in that show Oh,
Sam: and yeah, they instantly look 10, 15 years older just from changing how they
Sam: dressed and how they did their hair.
Sam: You know, well, look, I mean, but I think you're absolutely right.
Ivan: You know, we got the Brimley cocoon line that we've talked about.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I mean, you know, look, Wolfram Brimley, for whatever reason,
Ivan: you know, was a he when he was in cocoon.
Ivan: how old was he 52 i think it was i
Ivan: look uh looking up the age hold on
Ivan: wilford brimley age oh
Ivan: shit okay he was 49 when he
Ivan: was cast sappy was 50 okay
Ivan: turning 50 during the filming i mean holy shit yes it's 49 years old holy shit
Ivan: man they lived a hard life back then let me tell you holy shit wow yes.
Sam: Anyway shall we move on.
Ivan: Yeah you know if any of you can't I can't notice that I'm stalling talking about
Ivan: potential World War III or other stuff or whatever, you know, chaos and whatever.
Ivan: It's just because I gotta be honest with you, I'm exhausted.
Sam: Well, I got two movies and you've got the timer in front of you.
Sam: How much time are you going to give for each movie?
Ivan: All right. Ten minutes.
Sam: Ten minutes each?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Or ten minutes total? Okay. Okay.
Ivan: I'll give you 15 minutes total. Okay. All right.
Sam: Here we go. No, give me, so seven and a half.
Ivan: I'll give you like seven and a half. Okay. So I'll go, I'll,
Ivan: I'll make the seven and a half.
Ivan: All right. And, uh, I think we're good. I think we're good. Yeah. Time. Yeah. I hear it.
Sam: Okay. Number one, which I watched on September 15th of last year, Godfather part three.
Ivan: Ah, the most hated one.
Sam: Except, I must say, it is hard to actually find the original Godfather Part
Sam: 3 now, because they put out Godfather Coda, which was...
Ivan: Oh, yeah, it was a big... Yeah, I know.
Sam: They basically re-edited it.
Sam: So Godfather Coda is the one I actually saw, which was released in 2020.
Sam: Okay. Um, so I'll say like, so apparently there were, there's like three different versions.
Sam: There's the original like theatrical release, which was when,
Sam: on 1990, there was a director's cut or quote, final director's cut from 1991.
Sam: And then Godfather Coda was in 2020.
Sam: And it says the Wikipedia summary of the Coda one is for the film's 30th anniversary,
Sam: recut titled The Godfather Coda, The Death of Michael Corleone,
Sam: received a limited theatrical release, followed by digital and home releases.
Sam: This version includes changes to the beginning and ending and some edited scenes
Sam: and musical cues as a runtime of 158 minutes.
Sam: He has said that the 2020 recut is the one that he and Puzo originally envisioned
Sam: and that it vindicates its status
Sam: in the Godfather trilogy as well as his daughter Sophia's performance.
Sam: Both Pacino and Keaton gave their approval to the new cut, noting it is an improvement
Sam: over the original theatrical release.
Sam: So I have not seen the originals. I've only seen the Coda version.
Sam: And I know that this, as you alluded to, people sort of hated it compared to the others.
Sam: I thought it was fine. I give it a thumbs up. I liked it, you know,
Sam: fine. And it was, you know, it was, it was nominated, not the Coda version,
Sam: but the original was nominated for best picture.
Sam: You know, it was a, you know, it was a good movie, you know?
Ivan: I thought so too. I listened. I thought that the original version without that,
Ivan: that re-edited, I've watched both, was good too.
Ivan: I think the people, I, a lot of the shit that Coppola got was about this daughter being in the movie.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: I thought she did fine and she's shown herself to be actually be a very good,
Ivan: director in her own completely standing on her own so she's shown herself that
Ivan: she's not she's not a hack yeah,
Ivan: Some people criticized Andy Garcia on the movie, which I actually thought he
Ivan: did a really good job in the movie.
Sam: I'm not going to remember who is who, but yeah.
Ivan: He is, what's his name, Corleone's nephew, the one that married,
Ivan: the one that wound up to marry his daughter.
Sam: So just to hit it real quick before we run out of time, plot-wise,
Sam: this is the last of the three Godfather movies. Apparently, they had thought
Sam: about a sequel, but Godfather 4 never happened.
Sam: There was a book that came out of that.
Sam: But, you know, and it basically, like with, they did some of this in the other
Sam: movies too, but it's the later,
Sam: older Michael Corleone, but with lots of flashbacks to the past as well.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, going back to when his family was still in Italy, when they first
Sam: came over to the States, et cetera.
Sam: And this one has like a whole part of the plot about, you know,
Sam: interfering with papal succession, you know, as well.
Ivan: Which, by the way, here's the interesting thing about that part.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Very similar to what happened recently, some of the events, okay, specifically.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Specifically related to financial fraud in the immobiliaria, the company,
Ivan: you know, this holding that the Vatican has, where there was one person that
Ivan: recently the Pope wrote that he removed precisely for that, okay,
Ivan: before he died, okay?
Ivan: So I was like, whoa, what the hell? This is, you know, what I heard about that happening.
Sam: Well, this also just in the movie, too, it's also inspired by real events from earlier, too.
Sam: There was conspiracy around the death of Pope John Paul I.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: You remember, only lasted like a month in office. A month.
Ivan: Yes. And there was a conspiracy that he was murdered.
Sam: And there was a banking scandal there, too.
Ivan: And there was a banking scandal, yes.
Sam: And so, yeah. Anyway, I liked the movie. I enjoyed it.
Sam: I understand they changed a few things around. And I remember,
Sam: after watching it, reading a little bit about the specific changes they made.
Sam: But, you know, which I guess were to try to clarify some things and to,
Sam: you know, slightly change the nature of the very ending, which I won't give away, but you know,
Sam: I liked all three movies, to be honest. Like, you know, I enjoyed the whole series.
Sam: Alex watched them with me. He did not enjoy them so much. But, you know, whatever.
Sam: I thought they were good. I enjoyed them. They deserve their reputation as an
Sam: important film series that, you know, now if I had to pick, like,
Sam: you know, would three be my number one?
Sam: not probably not but i i thought they were a
Sam: good trilogy it it's fine as a series like
Sam: you know you know there's some
Sam: where you feel like okay they're just milking it they're just milking it like
Sam: you mentioned a few weeks ago like fast and furious 27 or whatever the hell
Sam: they're on now and they're i i going into space and stuff you know but yeah
Sam: you know we we didn't have like.
Ivan: Oh i don't think they.
Sam: Probably did.
Ivan: Go into space right yeah.
Sam: Godfather three did not involve any
Sam: involve anybody going to space or you know on to the ocean gate submersible
Sam: or anything like that you know you know but you know it was uh but yeah no enjoyable
Sam: trilogy is my seven and a half minutes up i'm like vamping a little bit you're.
Ivan: Like you're have a minute left.
Sam: I have a minute left. So anything else to say?
Sam: I mean, I don't know. Like, I enjoyed it. It was a long time ago.
Ivan: So I don't remember all the details. If we don't have, let's go to the next
Ivan: one. We'll save some time, and we'll go, you know, that way.
Ivan: Okay, so let's go to the next one. I'll give you the seven and a half minutes back.
Ivan: We're back here. Okay, so let's go to the next one. Okay.
Sam: Okay, the next one. Watched on September 19th, 2024, just a few days later.
Sam: The Princess and the Frog from 2010. it's a Disney animated thing,
Sam: I'm giving it another thumbs up I really enjoyed it it's from 2009 it was,
Sam: set in New Orleans in the 1920s there's a waitress who wants to someday own
Sam: a restaurant and you may guess from the title The Princess and the Frog she
Sam: meets a you know, she meets a frog,
Sam: who actually in fact was a prince who was turned into a frog by some magical spell,
Sam: and and adventures ensue and uh
Sam: it's a musical a few songs a few good songs it it tugs at your heartstrings
Sam: at all the right times you know there's a there's a scene where you know no
Sam: spoilers but something happens to a character and you like you want to cry it's
Sam: all emotional and And, you know,
Sam: there's, you know, look, it's a Disney cartoon.
Sam: So it's all the things you would expect of that.
Sam: It's emotional at the right times. There's sort of adventure sequences. There's comedy.
Sam: It's a fun movie. It's just plain fun movie.
Sam: It won. Did it win or was just nominated? It was nominated for Best Animated Feature that year.
Sam: Big thumbs up. I enjoyed it. And it is one of those things that it's a family
Sam: movie, not a kid's movie.
Sam: So, you know, that you really do have the two types.
Sam: Sometimes you have movies that are really, really aimed at like younger kids
Sam: of a certain age and adults have, you know, sort of suffer through it.
Sam: This is one that's good for the whole family as, as most Disney movies are,
Sam: you know and yeah like i'm not gonna have a lot i'm not gonna use the whole
Sam: seven and a half minutes of on this one either have you seen this one no i haven't
Sam: seen it it's it's worth seeing,
Sam: and it you know and like i said it's good for adults but like if you have kids
Sam: kids will like the movie too you know it's and it was also i should say it was
Sam: well known this was the first disney princess who was black and so at the time oh my god yeah.
Ivan: I'm just jeez yeah.
Sam: You know i mean it was 2009 it was you know it's about freaking time you know
Sam: disney had been around a while by 2009 you know but you know but you know still
Sam: this is the kind of thing that you know how even today you had obama and you had.
Ivan: A black princess i mean jesus christ,
Ivan: You know, now you know what we have, MAGA.
Sam: I mean, even now, I mentioned I saw the live-action How to Train Your Dragon.
Sam: There was controversy because the female lead in Animated was like,
Sam: you know, a blonde Viking, right?
Sam: But they cast a black actress in that role for the live-action remake.
Sam: And so there was a lot of controversy when they first announced that casting.
Sam: She was excellent, by the way. She did a great job. She inhabited the character.
Sam: It went, you know, anybody who's bitching about it, there is absolutely no reason other than racism.
Sam: You know, it's, and yeah, but that's, that was like the cast,
Sam: the movie came out this year, but the casting was announced like a year ago or more.
Sam: and there were people complaining about it the whole
Sam: you know oh they're going woke and
Sam: blah blah blah oh give me a fucking break you know
Sam: it's and like princess and the frog by the way you know is also like you know
Sam: it leans into sort of new orleans culture and the fact that she's black is relevant to that,
Sam: you know, you know, in the 1920s and, you know, the, the sort of dynamics of
Sam: 1920s, Louisiana and such.
Sam: And it would, the movie would have a different character if she wasn't,
Sam: you know, and, but whereas the, the, the dragon movie, it really didn't make
Sam: any difference, but there were all kinds of people going, you can't do that. Vikings were white.
Sam: And you know the straight up answer to that in a movie like How to Train Your
Sam: Dragon is you know what else?
Sam: talking about a movie with a fucking dragon exactly Vikings didn't ride dragons either Jesus.
Ivan: Fucking Christ you idiots,
Ivan: God almighty.
Sam: Yeah. So.
Ivan: Oh, we need the historical accuracy for a movie that involves a fucking dragon.
Sam: Yes.
Sam: Yes. Okay.
Ivan: I'm checking my list. So we got two minutes on this. I'm checking my list of
Ivan: Fast and the Furious movies. Okay.
Sam: You did talk about this only a few weeks ago, but go ahead.
Ivan: Yes, but I'm looking through the list, okay? By the way, they didn't go to space, okay?
Sam: Let me correct that.
Ivan: I exaggerated a little bit about that. They did go to Japan. One thing I can see.
Sam: Well, that's like space, isn't it?
Ivan: I mean, kind of. I mean, if you've been to Tokyo, it looks like you're out of space, you know?
Ivan: So it's very modern. So let's see. So the first one we'll call it.
Sam: But look, James Bond went to space decades ago.
Ivan: J-Spot was to space multiple times. Okay, Moonraker, okay, you know,
Ivan: where they did the whole thing where apparently you could launch a shuttle attached
Ivan: to the 747, which is completely, you know, had a lot of holes in the plot.
Sam: But still, anyway, Fast and Furious did not go to that.
Ivan: The first one was the Fast and the Furious.
Sam: Right, right.
Ivan: Okay, the. It's important.
Sam: The, yes.
Ivan: Because the second one was too fast and too furious. then
Ivan: you had the Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift and
Ivan: then you had Fast and Furious not the Fast and Furious oh right this is why
Ivan: I made sure to mention that there was a the Fast and Furious and then there
Ivan: was a Fast and Furious okay no the okay very important then you went into Fast 5,
Ivan: then you went into Fast and Furious 6 then you went into Furious 7 get rid of
Ivan: the fast timer went off, there you go so,
Ivan: the fate of the Furious not faster anymore then we simplified it to F9 sounds
Ivan: like a jet fighter craft at this point and then you went to Fast X which sounds like an iPhone and.
Sam: There was a spinoff called Hobbs and Shaw.
Ivan: Hobbs and Shaw, yes,
Ivan: And they've got a plan for Fast X Part 2.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Okay. And then you've got another one that they think Fast and the Furious presents Hobbs and Reyes.
Ivan: Not Hobbs and Shaw. Not sure who Reyes is.
Ivan: And then the other ones have no name. But they have two more.
Ivan: One that says Untitled Standalone Film.
Ivan: Untitled Female Led Spinoff. I mean, I'm not...
Sam: And as I scroll down the Wikipedia page, there are two short films as well.
Ivan: They're short films, yes. The Turbo Charge.
Sam: And a TV show. And a TV show. The Spy Racers on Netflix.
Ivan: And six seasons.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I mean, I got to say, man, let me tell you something.
Ivan: I got to give good credit to Vin Diesel for milking the shit out of a mediocre movie.
Ivan: and making it a gravy train that, by the way, I'll give credit to Vin Diesel
Ivan: for being a stand-up guy because when Paul Walker died, he basically still kept
Ivan: taking care of his daughter,
Ivan: gave him money, walking down the aisle.
Ivan: So, you know, knowing that his death, he actually took care of,
Ivan: you know, one of his co-stars, so I'll give him credit for that.
Ivan: But this guy milked, I mean, this is 30 years of milking, you know,
Ivan: this. I mean, this makes like Tom Cruise with the Mission Impossible movies
Ivan: seem like just, you know, he's a rookie.
Ivan: I mean, this is serious milking here. Okay.
Sam: And by the way, the TV series is animated.
Ivan: Oh, the TV series is animated. Oh, there you go.
Sam: But apparently.
Ivan: And there's also, listen, there's also a very shitty ride. Okay. Which I went on.
Ivan: I went on when I went to Los Angeles a couple of years ago.
Ivan: they have a ride at universal studios okay as well which i thought was ridiculously
Ivan: stupid okay but i got on it it's there so they've got a ride at the universal
Ivan: studios hollywood i think they also have the same one in.
Sam: Florida oh i i have to correct myself though i i started to say that the animated
Sam: series has a lot of the same voices no it only has vin diesel and some cameos
Sam: otherwise not so yeah oh well so.
Ivan: The ride is called fast and furious supercharged.
Sam: Okay i mean
Sam: so shall shall we go ahead and take a break and then get to world war three
Sam: and everything else that we need to talk about yeah okay um yeah okay here here
Sam: comes a break and then we will,
Sam: talk about the more serious things going on in the world.
Sam: And actually, there's too many serious things going on in the world.
Sam: We probably won't get to all of them. But here we go.
Sam: Okay, so we're back. Now, I had mentioned there was a lot going on,
Sam: and we'll only talk about some of them.
Sam: So let me list the list real quick, because some of these don't even feel like
Sam: they were still this week.
Sam: We had the Minnesota lawmaker shootings, the state reps.
Ivan: Jesus Christ, that was still this week? That was this week?
Sam: Yeah, that happened last Saturday, which was after Ed and I recorded the last show.
Sam: We had the No Kings rallies. We had Trump's parade.
Sam: We had the New York comptroller, who's also running for mayor,
Sam: arrested, trying to do some, you know, on immigration stuff.
Sam: We, of course, have Iran that I'm sure we're going to talk about.
Sam: we had the supreme court make a significant decision on trans rights and the
Sam: other things sort of fall into that category wait.
Ivan: What was okay what was the decision on trans rights i don't remember this one now which one.
Sam: The supreme court let stand uh states who have outlawed um gender affirming
Sam: surgery for for minors right yeah so and and that affects approximately half
Sam: the country And so, you know, basically,
Sam: if you're a trans kid in those states, you're out of luck right now,
Sam: unless your parents are wealthy enough to, you know, take you to a different
Sam: state for your treatments.
Sam: So that went on i will say on the
Sam: no kings thing i'd mentioned last week
Sam: both ed and i talked about how the fact we intended to go
Sam: to these things i did go and i will say it was it was it was good like i went
Sam: in everett washington and you know ed and i talked about like one of the reasons
Sam: for things like this is not necessarily that you expect,
Sam: oh my God, Donald Trump will see all these rallies and change things.
Sam: And no, that's not it. But it's when you go to them, the sense of,
Sam: you know, no, you're not alone.
Sam: A lot of people also feel this way. A lot of people are upset by this.
Sam: And to sort of get that validation and to feel like, you know,
Sam: especially right now when, you know,
Sam: all of the institutions are going the other direction, you know,
Sam: the presidency, the court, the Congress, et cetera.
Sam: And we have things like the Supreme Court decision, you know.
Sam: Being in a place where you are surrounded by like-minded people who are being
Sam: loud and vocal, and you can see that there are actually a lot of them.
Sam: Nationwide, I think the estimates ended up at five or six million people nationwide
Sam: participated in these things. I saw some estimates.
Ivan: Basically, as many people that went to the parade in Washington, right?
Sam: Just a tad more. But yeah, I've seen some estimates that were even higher,
Sam: but the most credible estimates were five to six million.
Sam: And, you know, like when I was in Everett, Washington, you know,
Sam: there were big crowds. There was a little rally.
Sam: And then there was like a couple hours of sign waving along one of the main drags through town.
Sam: And the thing that got me the most and honestly had me like tearing up at certain
Sam: points were that, you know,
Sam: almost the entire time where people were sand, sand, sand, sign waving,
Sam: the, the road was still open. This wasn't a parade.
Sam: This was just people lining the sidewalks with their signs.
Sam: So there was still traffic going down the street. and
Sam: there was almost non-stop the
Sam: entire time people honking in support
Sam: and waving out their windows as they drove by whereas like i've been to i've
Sam: been to sign wavings before for like candidates like both for my wife and for
Sam: other local candidates where you know you're just sitting on a corner waving
Sam: the sign for your candidate or whatever and yeah you get some supporting honks,
Sam: but you also get people, well, no, you get a few,
Sam: but, but you also get people giving you the finger and yelling out the window.
Sam: There was none of that going on. And maybe they were just intimidated by the large crowd.
Sam: And exactly good.
Ivan: You know, I, I, I, you know, I want to go back to the time where fucking racist
Ivan: people were intimidated into not being racist.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Can we go back to that time? You remember the good old days?
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Ivan: When they were scared of being fucking racist?
Sam: Oh, yeah. But like, no, it was just very heartening to like,
Sam: you know, we spent probably an hour walking down the street because there was
Sam: like a like a mile where people were lining the streets and we walked down one side and up the other.
Sam: And, you know, during that time, you know, I mean, just all the energy that
Sam: was there was just very heartening and invigorating.
Sam: And, you know, it's like, yeah, let's go.
Sam: And I've seen some things afterwards, you know, we've criticized like,
Sam: you know, Democratic leadership before for not having this kind of energy.
Sam: And there were a lot of Democratic leaders who sort of stayed away from these things.
Sam: And, you know, with notable exceptions, the usual notable exceptions.
Sam: but it's like, come on folks, harness this energy.
Sam: Like, let's go, let's show some vigor, show some fight.
Sam: And, uh, cause there are clearly lots of people that are just ready for that
Sam: and want to want an outlet for all this energy and want leaders that also show
Sam: the same kind of energy as opposed to sort of just,
Sam: what we're getting.
Sam: So, again, with notable exceptions. Okay, that was all I had to say.
Sam: The other things that I listed that were not particularly newsy,
Sam: I've mentioned on the show my little Tempest game machine that has been in a
Sam: box for months, or not months, years.
Ivan: Years.
Sam: Years and years. My son Alex arranged for me to get it for Christmas like three
Sam: years ago or something. I opened the box once, saw it looked complicated to
Sam: put together, put it back in the box.
Sam: And ever since then, I've been begging my family every birthday,
Sam: every Christmas, every Father's Day, can you please put this together for me?
Sam: Because it stressed me out when I even looked at it.
Ivan: Yeah, you would be no good at assembling. Because I assembled it and I...
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: You would not be the right person to do it.
Sam: I have assembled other things, and I hate assembling things,
Sam: and it stresses me out, even when it's simple.
Sam: I opened this box, and it didn't look simple. No, this is not simple.
Sam: I was like, screw that. I'm not doing it. So Alex and my wife,
Sam: Brandy, together put this thing together for this fall. Together, together, together.
Sam: Put it, assembled it for this Father's Day. I've been playing it. It comes with 12 games.
Sam: I've now played 11 of them. I've said nobody else is allowed to play it until
Sam: I play the first game on each one of the games. I've got one more to do.
Sam: But I've been enjoying it. I've been playing every day.
Ivan: I like ours. We don't have the Tempest one.
Ivan: I got the Ms. Pac-Man one. It's got about a dozen games. No, we've got Galaga.
Sam: It's got... No, and I must say, the reason... Dig Dug.
Sam: The reason Alex got this for me is I had said before, from that era of games,
Sam: Tempest was my favorite.
Ivan: I, I, I, I.
Sam: I like, that's why I have this one. And, and I have, I have played the,
Sam: I have played the others on this console.
Sam: It's got like Centipede and Millipede and those are, and like Missile Command
Sam: and a few other things like that.
Ivan: Ah, Missile Command. Yes.
Sam: And, and, you know, those are fun. Those are okay. But I must say Tempest is, is my go-to.
Sam: And like, I've played Tempest clones elsewhere.
Sam: But this has the proper spinny wheel control and like, it's not the same game.
Sam: If you're trying to do it with an Xbox controller or something.
Ivan: You know, it's just not.
Sam: You know, so, so I am enjoying the spinning wheel.
Sam: I'm enjoying the game. So thank, and oh, Alex wants me to mention that he has
Sam: also, he has been coding up a Tempest clone for the iPad using what,
Sam: what's this program called Kodia?
Sam: c-o-d-e-a he's been he's he's
Sam: been using that to to program a tempest
Sam: clone that every time
Sam: he shows it to me he's added more of the original game into it so it's got the
Sam: sort of spinning around and shooting things and he's now got it so you can finish
Sam: a level and you know as several of the things if you don't know what the tempest
Sam: game is this won't mean anything to you but,
Sam: you know anyway he's every time he
Sam: hands it to me it's got more features except the one thing that
Sam: i still have not gotten used to obviously an ipad does not have a little controller
Sam: to spin he's set it up so the controls are actually spinning the ipad and and
Sam: i can't quite i can't quite get used to those controls but i have managed to
Sam: finish the level that he's set up so Anyway,
Sam: okay, that was everything else.
Sam: What, Iran? Are we just going to go to Iran now?
Sam: Or are we going to spend the rest of time talking about Trump's party?
Ivan: No, let's go to Iran.
Ivan: Iran.
Sam: So, Ed and I did talk about Iran a little bit.
Ivan: I hate Iran.
Sam: Because it had started last time. Israel had attacked.
Sam: Iran had started to retaliate when we recorded last week's show.
Sam: But obviously, it's continued this whole time.
Sam: And I guess the big additional thing is Donald Trump has been contemplating
Sam: whether or not to let the U.S.
Sam: get involved in helping take out.
Sam: The underground portions of the nuclear capability. Camp, uh, whatever.
Ivan: Nucular!
Sam: Nucular, yes, sorry. I keep wanting to say Frodo for where this is.
Sam: It's not Frodo, uh, because of the Lord of the Rings.
Sam: It's Fordor? What is it? Fordor?
Sam: The Iranian base where they're doing enrichment or whatever.
Ivan: Something like that.
Sam: But I keep wanting to call it Frodo.
Ivan: I am... Something.
Sam: And it's not Fodor's either. That's a travel guide.
Ivan: That's a travel guide, yes. That's correct. footer, yes.
Sam: Fordow, F-O-R-D-O-W, is the actual thing. Not Frodo.
Ivan: Not Fredo.
Sam: It's the Fordow fuel enrichment plant.
Ivan: Given that you did the godfather, Fredo.
Sam: Oh, Fredo, yes, Fredo.
Ivan: Yes, it's not Fredo.
Sam: Or Alfredo.
Ivan: Or Fettuccini, Alfredo, yes.
Sam: Exactly. Now you're making me hungry. Okay, we're still avoiding the topic.
Ivan: Look, so, okay, well, now, see? It seems that Trump's chickened out.
Sam: Yes, it does appear. Like, here's the thing.
Sam: He went from, when this whole thing started, the U.S.
Sam: position stated by all kinds of administration people was this is entirely between Israel and Iran.
Sam: We have nothing to do with it. We're not going to be involved.
Sam: We were pushing for Israel not to do this.
Sam: because we were pushing the peace talks, we wanted the new deal in place, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: Then there was a leak that said, well, actually, Donald Trump has said publicly
Sam: that he was pushing for the deal, but actually he didn't say no to the Israelis.
Sam: And he actually gave the green light.
Sam: And then there was reporting that what was actually happening is Trump really
Sam: liked the coverage on Fox of what Israel was doing.
Sam: And so he wanted to take some credit for it.
Sam: And so he was.
Ivan: God, which makes sense. Yeah.
Sam: And so then, you know, there was still sort of, then there was this talk about
Sam: how, well, Israel's not going to be able to get all of the capabilities because
Sam: they don't have the right kind of bunker buster bombs.
Sam: And so, you know, they really are going to need the U S and Netanyahu is trying
Sam: to get Trump to get involved.
Sam: And sin though, so there was a lot of Donald Trump saying, well,
Sam: we might get involved in a, we, we, we might kill Khamenei too.
Ivan: And we might even use a tactical nuke.
Sam: And we might use a tactical nuke. Now, Trump didn't say that.
Sam: There was somebody else said that. But like, you know, it's been implied that
Sam: nothing is off the table.
Sam: And so there was a ramp up of the hawkish rhetoric coming from Trump and those
Sam: surrounding him for a few days.
Sam: And then it became clear that there
Sam: was a significant schism in Trump land between the isolationist wing who really
Sam: bought into Trump as the peace president and doesn't want war and wants to keep
Sam: away from all of this stuff.
Sam: And the whole point is, you know, America first, forget about all these international entanglements.
Sam: In fact, Bannon specifically was on TV saying, you don't want to let this Iran
Sam: thing distract from deporting all the illegals, because if you don't deport
Sam: all the illegals, you've lost the country.
Sam: And so, apparently...
Ivan: This straight. Let me get this straight. Okay?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: So my choices are, okay, it seems,
Ivan: fucking send a fleet of B-2 spirits with these bunker buster bombs over there in order to you know,
Ivan: maybe fail at this and maybe stop the Iranians, maybe not, maybe trigger World War 3.
Ivan: Or, Or my door number two is this ridiculous mass cruelty event that we're living with right now.
Ivan: Is that, you know, with the deportation? Are those my doors at this moment?
Sam: Well, there are other people that say why you have both. But I'll also say you
Sam: also had the faction of the Republicans who are more aligned with the neocons.
Sam: who, you know, and like, what's his name?
Ivan: Bomb them.
Sam: Lindsey Graham was one of these.
Ivan: Well, Fetterman was like bomb.
Sam: Fetterman, yeah, absolutely. On the Democratic side, there are a whole bunch
Sam: saying, yeah, absolutely, we have to take out the Iranians, whatever we do now,
Sam: let's take our chance. Let's do this.
Sam: We've been wanting to do this for a decade, you know?
Sam: And so it seems like at the moment we are recording, and this could change in
Sam: the next hour, the last person to talk to Donald Trump was indeed Bannon.
Sam: And so the current thing that came out immediately after Donald Trump had Bannon
Sam: over to the White House was, okay, let's,
Sam: We'll give it two weeks. We'll give the Iranians two weeks to maybe come to
Sam: the table and do the peace deal after all.
Sam: Now, a couple of things on this. First of all, I will say— And apparently.
Ivan: Wait, Trump was also talking about the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sam: Yes, yes. We'll hit that in a second.
Ivan: But that's not unimportant, okay? Here is the thing about this.
Ivan: Remember that Obama got one. And there is this entire Obama,
Ivan: you know, thing that kills him, okay, about that.
Sam: Ed and I talked about this last week. You know, Trump clearly in multiple areas is saying,
Sam: hell, today he like truth socialed something where he almost explicitly said
Sam: it, but he was hoping for the fix the Ukraine situation in 24 hours and get
Sam: the Nobel Peace Fries for that.
Sam: Feeling that he wanted to get a Nobel Peace Prize for solving Gaza by building
Sam: the Gaza and Riviera and kicking out all the people.
Sam: Now, he was hoping to get a Nobel Peace Prize by bringing back the Iranian deal
Sam: that he killed eight years ago.
Sam: You know, there's... Oh, and he's also saying he deserves it for solving the
Sam: India-Pakistan situation. Oh, and by the way, just a few hours ago,
Sam: Showing that they know how to suck up, the Pakistanis nominated him for a Nobel
Sam: Peace Prize for the India-Pakistan situation.
Ivan: Now, look, but it's very clear that Bannon went in there.
Ivan: and his, listen, because he had the Netanyahu manipulation using Fox News with
Ivan: going and, you know, doing the bombing and saying,
Ivan: hey, they're a threat, and they were kind of like brainwashing him nonstop with
Ivan: Fox just being all warmongery.
Ivan: So you had him almost on the point of like him pulling the trigger.
Sam: He was ready to push the damn button to drop a nuke on Tehran.
Ivan: Yeah, exactly. He had him all the way there, then Bannon goes in because,
Ivan: you know, like, like, like, you know,
Ivan: like everything happens, like, but the whole immigration thing the other week
Ivan: when he, when he's flip-flopped already, you know, where Bannon goes in and
Ivan: he said, no, whatever you want, that noble peace prize, we can't do this.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden, no, we're off the table. We're going for peace. Two weeks.
Sam: Here's, here's the thing. Well, the two weeks thing, and a number of people
Sam: have pointed this out, but, and some people have made video compilations of this,
Sam: but we'll decide this in two weeks, is a standard go-to thing that Donald Trump does.
Sam: People have pulled video compilations. Apparently, he's done it a few dozen
Sam: times already since January in his second term.
Ivan: Infrastructure week!
Sam: And people pulled it from his first term as well.
Sam: Not just infrastructure week, but basically whenever there was a decision to
Sam: be made that was somewhat hard, his go-to is, we'll make a decision on this in two weeks.
Sam: And he hopes that two weeks later, everyone's forgotten because he never comes
Sam: back and actually makes the decision two weeks later.
Ivan: Oh, my God.
Sam: So, like, the play here is not actually, we'll give it two weeks,
Sam: and two weeks later, we'll make a decision.
Ivan: The play is, in two weeks, I will have created some other crisis in some other
Ivan: fucking way that will make you forget about that one two weeks ago.
Ivan: Exactly. Which is, you know, yes.
Sam: Very plausible.
Ivan: Totally.
Sam: And also in this scenario, he may be like, hey, hell, two weeks from now,
Sam: there's no indication the Israelis are waiting.
Sam: The Israelis have put out a bunch of statements today that says all this reporting
Sam: that we can't do it ourselves is bullshit. We've got ways to do it.
Ivan: But look, it is the Israelis know it is far more difficult for them to do it without our help.
Sam: OK, well, and one of the statements about using a tactical nuke did come from
Sam: the Israeli side, by the way, that there is there is not officially not an official
Sam: statement. But, you know, listen.
Ivan: I got to tell you something. The Israelis have to be out of their fucking mind.
Ivan: To try to use a nuke.
Sam: It is Bibi.
Ivan: It doesn't matter. Okay, look, listen, let's be clear. Why is Bibi doing this, Sam?
Sam: Oh, could it possibly be because his trial's not going well?
Ivan: And his coalition is so fragile. How do you keep that coalition together?
Sam: Well, and this is, you know, Ed and I talked about this about Iran last week,
Sam: but it applies to Israel, too.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: The one thing that is consistent, you know, worldwide, all the time,
Sam: you can point to examples here in the U.S., it doesn't always last forever.
Sam: But if you want a boost in your approval ratings, war.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Like, if you're, if, I mean, hell, they made Wag the Dog about this, right?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: If you have domestic issues and you want to boost and you want to make people
Sam: forget about the domestic issues.
Ivan: War. War against a known enemy.
Sam: Against, yeah. I mean, like.
Ivan: I mean, you know, it's like the Argentinians. Listen, the Argentinians and the
Ivan: Falklands, for example.
Ivan: Look, I mean, that was like, look, that was a sore spot for them.
Ivan: The British, you know, were hated over the Falklands were theirs.
Ivan: that military government was was in you know was in crisis fuck let's take let's
Ivan: take the falklands the hell with it and and their popularity soared okay immediately.
Sam: Well yeah i mean the context ed and i talked about this last week was the israelis
Sam: talking about hey maybe because of this the iranian regime is really fragile
Sam: and they'll fall and i was like no come on the one thing that rallies people
Sam: behind the flag is being attacked.
Sam: Even more than going to war.
Ivan: Well, look.
Sam: There is a certain point. There is a certain tipping point where if it gets
Sam: bad enough, it goes the other direction.
Ivan: But here's the thing. The Iranian regime is vastly unpopular.
Ivan: I had shared an article from The Economist that was talking about this.
Sam: I'll tell you what, they're more popular now than they were two weeks ago.
Ivan: But not that much is what I'm looking at in there. There were actually quite a lot of people.
Ivan: You know, there was an article that I shared from The Economist.
Ivan: The Arab War thinks differently about this Iran war.
Ivan: A new spectator sport with scary consequences in which a lot of the people that
Ivan: normally were like Iranian, like, you know, cheerleaders were just like,
Ivan: eh, fuck the Iranians. You know, what the hell?
Ivan: They're assholes anyway. They've been fucking with us for so long.
Ivan: The hell with them. You know, it's just, it just, it wasn't, there wasn't the,
Ivan: There wasn't the kind of reaction that you would expect outpouring of mass support for the Iranians.
Ivan: OK, but did it maybe improve internally?
Ivan: Somewhat. Sure. But they definitely didn't get some.
Ivan: You know, it's not like when, you know, Russia attack Ukraine. Right.
Sam: Mm hmm.
Ivan: Unilaterally, everybody was on the Ukrainian side. The Israelis attacked Iran
Ivan: and even their neighbors or whatever.
Ivan: They were like, they're supposed to allies. They were like, well.
Sam: I am talking mainly internally in my in the statement I made.
Ivan: But even there was there was talk about internally.
Ivan: Look, there was quite a lot. There was quite, quite a lot of angst against the
Ivan: Iranian regime right now.
Ivan: A lot of people were talking, you know, the things internally that we're talking
Ivan: about was how stupid are our leaders?
Ivan: that they got caught like that and they got killed like that,
Ivan: that they were so cavalier that even though there were messages about the threats,
Ivan: what they decided to do is after bullshit and they got killed.
Sam: And specifically, like even those that thought they would probably be an attack
Sam: thought that the Israelis would hold off until the next scheduled meeting with the Americans.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Like, and, and probably I would imagine, you know, Donald Trump probably thought so too.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, he was played by, by Bibi on this one.
Sam: He was used as the bait to make sure the Iranians were caught by surprise because
Sam: they thought they were right in the midst of negotiations with the Americans
Sam: and there was no way the Israelis would attack while that was going on. Wrong.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: You know but but yeah so anyway
Sam: it looks like donald trump has done his it'll
Sam: you know we'll tell you in two weeks and he's
Sam: really hoping this goes away and you know let's hope he's right i don't know
Sam: like you know you know i saw a chart of the number of attacks in both directions
Sam: over the last couple of weeks.
Sam: And it is less than it was at the beginning.
Sam: Like there was a big spike at the beginning in both directions and it is slowing down.
Sam: But it's not over in either direction.
Ivan: Listen, this is very costly for the Israelis, like right now.
Ivan: I just saw that just the defense, just how much in munitions for daily defense
Ivan: it cost when the Iranians were launching was about a quarter of a billion dollars a day.
Sam: Well, and there's also a question of how many of these defensive missiles they even have.
Sam: Like, you know, there were reports that, you know, although the quality isn't
Sam: that great, just in terms of sheer numbers, Iran has more offensive missiles
Sam: than Israel has defensive missiles.
Ivan: So they think.
Sam: So they think.
Ivan: So they think. Because that's been the speculation. Because also,
Ivan: by the way, you know, the Iranians, all of a sudden, the number of missiles
Ivan: they were launching was also going down pretty quickly as well.
Sam: Yes, it was.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Well, and for two reasons. One, you know, well, one is just straight up,
Sam: Israel is destroying a lot of them on the ground. Exactly.
Sam: A bunch of what Israel is doing is attacking known Iranian missile bases.
Ivan: Missile bases, yeah.
Sam: I mean, one of the things that Israel has said is, yes, we're after the nuclear
Sam: capabilities, but we're also after the missile capabilities, conventional.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, because that, and if you remember, that was one of the main,
Sam: I shouldn't say one of the main, there were many criticisms,
Sam: but one of the big criticisms the Israelis and the neocon conservatives in America
Sam: had against the Iran deal that the Obama-Iran deal was that it only talked about
Sam: the nuclear development platform and not all the other things.
Sam: Iran was doing with their missile capabilities and their interference with various
Sam: other countries around the region.
Sam: And Obama's response was, look, one thing at a time, we're dealing with the news.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Whereas, you know, B.B. and others were basically saying, if you don't solve
Sam: everything, we're not interested at all.
Ivan: Ah, the perfect solution. Otherwise, no solution. Yes.
Ivan: And also always, always a way to solve all problems is to always look for the perfect solution.
Sam: And the other thing that all of these folks said was a problem was the Obama deal had a lifespan.
Sam: It was you won't do these things for X number of years and said nothing about
Sam: the time period after that. And they were basically saying the fact that it's
Sam: not forever makes it unacceptable.
Sam: Whereas, again, the Obama position was, hey, if we've got a 10-year moratorium,
Sam: it gives us 10 years to work on the deal for what happens after that.
Sam: And it gives us 10 years to work on improving the relationship I've ever ran
Sam: with the rest of the world to diminish the problem anyway. Of course,
Sam: that didn't play out because Donald Trump, you know, got rid of the deal.
Sam: And I've also seen all kinds of charts in the last week of, you know,
Sam: the amount of nuclear, of refined uranium that Iran had, or the number of centrifuges,
Sam: all various metrics here that show it go up, up, up, up, up.
Sam: then the the the deal
Sam: happens and it goes to zero it
Sam: goes to zero and it's flat and if
Sam: you remember this was verified internationally going yeah
Sam: i know i know all kinds of inspectors and blah blah blah and then there's another
Sam: vertical line that says oh and at this point this is when trump pulled out and
Sam: all those lines start going back up again there's like a three-month delay and
Sam: then it all starts going back up again and exceeds where they were in the obama administration Well.
Ivan: I wish his father had pulled out at some point, but that didn't happen.
Ivan: Um, yeah.
Sam: So I, I, one other thing, just before I forget, when, when we were talking about
Sam: the factions of Republicans,
Sam: including the ones who are upset about Donald Trump, but potentially liking
Sam: war and not being all peacenik,
Sam: my daughter was apparently hearing from the other room and texted me all the
Sam: Trump stands crying over this war effort are goofy losers.
Ivan: Okay let's be clear all the trump stands period about anything are goofy losers
Ivan: all right let's be clear let's.
Sam: Get back let's get back to the walls weird thing that should never have been abandoned.
Ivan: That should never been abandoned you know but there was there was this article,
Ivan: talking about specifically this you can go first because it's about this subject
Ivan: specifically okay You know, talking about why, you know,
Ivan: somebody, it's up stack, Charlie Sykes wrote, why is this happening with Trump? Okay.
Ivan: And these were, these were the bullet points. Okay. About this.
Ivan: You need to understand this.
Ivan: This is what we need to understand about that fetid stew of Trump's cognitive,
Ivan: you know, this is Trump loves to dress up part of being generalissimo,
Ivan: but he is not a warrior president.
Ivan: He revels in the trappings and parade of power, but if he wages war,
Ivan: he wants to be here in America, not abroad. Crazy.
Ivan: Yes, that's what he's doing. He would love day one of the war,
Ivan: not so much the days after.
Ivan: He wants the show, but not the mess.
Ivan: Donald Trump very much wants to be the strong man who drums the big bunker bomb
Ivan: on Iran's nuclear program, but he also very much wants to win a Nobel Prize
Ivan: because he really does fancy himself as a peacemaker.
Ivan: Don't ask. Let me put a parenthesis why that is.
Ivan: Trump enjoys the attention he's getting now and craves being in control.
Ivan: But the fallout from war is uncontrollable.
Ivan: There are $40,000 American troops in harm's way. Iran could blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
Ivan: And finally, the guy who blusters all caps threats, unconditional surrender,
Ivan: really does always chicken out.
Sam: Yes, because he doesn't want to do anything that in the end is risky to him.
Sam: There was another clip, and this was from BBC Newsnight that I saw shared on
Sam: social media with an analyst talking about this.
Sam: And this, I said it was spot on, nails it. Because basically she said,
Sam: look, the thing you got to remember is that Trump does not think strategically at all.
Ivan: Nothing.
Sam: Nothing. He does not think about what's good for America.
Ivan: What's good for the world.
Sam: For Israel, for Iran, for any. No, God.
Ivan: Fuck no.
Sam: It is all about how does he personally come out looking like a winner.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: That's it.
Ivan: That is it. There is no other fucking consideration in this guy's mind.
Sam: Exactly. And so like this flip-flopping you're seeing, like this is exactly
Sam: like at first he was like, hey, I'm going to come out a winner because I'm going
Sam: to come up with a new Iran deal.
Sam: And then he sees Israel kicking ass, blowing up things in Iran and getting positive coverage on Fox News.
Ivan: Hey, hey, hey, hey, I want credit for that.
Sam: Exactly. And then he gets Bannon talking to him and saying, oh,
Sam: no, no, no, that would be a huge mess.
Sam: You want to keep out of this. You
Sam: want to make sure you have your success elsewhere. And so he pivots again.
Ivan: You want to get your noble beast, Bryce.
Sam: And it's all about what does he make him look good. Now, I've also seen people
Sam: point out, because it was both him and it was Tucker Carlson and Bannon.
Ivan: Oh, my God. No, yeah, well, both of them.
Sam: Tucker Carlson was talking to Ted Cruz and was all going in on Ted Cruz.
Ivan: Tucker Carlson humiliated Ted, which I guess is not that hard if you get him one on one.
Sam: Look, he was asking questions about, like, what's the population of Iran and
Sam: such, and I wouldn't have known off the top of my head either.
Sam: you know so but his point no.
Ivan: But but his his point was that he hasn't he had been making.
Sam: His point very detailed.
Ivan: Recommendations without knowing shit about the subject.
Sam: Yes yes the fundamental point was ted cruz
Sam: has been going on about wanting to attack iran
Sam: and we needing to be part of this and how this is
Sam: necessary but then when you ask him questions that
Sam: delve anything beyond the superficial of
Sam: the situation he has no freaking idea exactly and and
Sam: so and and then you may look this
Sam: is this is one of those scenarios where okay
Sam: they're fighting themselves this is like when we were talking about elon
Sam: a few weeks ago right you know yes it's
Sam: fun to watch them fight amongst themselves but you
Sam: don't have to align yourself with them you know it's like
Sam: it's like okay i am glad
Sam: that bannon is in there trying to
Sam: talk donald trump out of getting involved in a
Sam: war but that doesn't make a reasons are awful are awful it has nothing to do
Sam: with what would be my reasons for keeping out of a war in iran right of which
Sam: there are many there are many good ones yes But Bannon's reason,
Sam: oh, you don't want to be distracted from causing great pain and suffering amongst
Sam: the immigrant population in the country.
Ivan: By the way, the immigrant population in the blue states in the country,
Ivan: which is what I'm realizing now, by the way, this is I realize.
Sam: I mean, he's hitting some red states, too. But, yeah, it's mainly.
Ivan: Barely, barely, Sam. Barely. this is all listen,
Ivan: this is all show and he's really targeting like New York and California I mean,
Ivan: you don't see this shit coming out barely out of Texas or.
Sam: Where you are in.
Ivan: Florida or Florida,
Ivan: This is, I mean, and there was, like recently, I can't remember when he said
Ivan: this, that we need to exert the maximum pain on those states specifically.
Sam: They're open about it. They're open.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: It's not even hidden in any way.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Now, and I suspect, you know, there, I suspect there's plenty happening in red
Sam: states too, actually, but where they want the emphasis is the blue.
Ivan: There is some happening, but it's nowhere, nowhere near what they're doing in California, New York.
Sam: My point is just that, you know, it is really weird to be in a situation where
Sam: you're like, go, Bannon, go.
Ivan: I know. I'm like, fuck.
Sam: Or like, oh, Tucker Carlson. You know, go, go.
Ivan: Humiliated Ted Cruz. I'm like, yeah, I'm all I'm all in for humiliating Ted
Ivan: Cruz. I mean, you know, that's always a fun day, you know?
Ivan: I mean, making him look like the complete fucking idiot loser he is. Yes, I'm all in.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: But Tucker Carlson is a hateful, spiteful little man as well. So.
Sam: As is Bannon.
Ivan: As is Bannon.
Sam: Yeah, a bunch of these other folks.
Ivan: As is Miller. As is, you know. Hey, how's Tulsi feeling today, by the way?
Sam: Oh, yeah. Well, we hadn't even mentioned Tulsi.
Ivan: How's she doing? You think she's feeling good today?
Sam: It's not her best week.
Ivan: No.
Sam: So you want to say what happened to Tulsi or shall I?
Ivan: I mean, okay, so.
Sam: This is actually important to the scenario, too.
Ivan: The main thing today, Trump was angry.
Ivan: Earlier this month, I'll read it. This is from a New York Times article.
Ivan: It talks specifically about this call.
Ivan: Trump's rebuke of Gabbard signals an uneasy moment.
Ivan: Earlier this month, Tulsi Gabbard, his director of national intelligence,
Ivan: posted a three and a half minute video, social media, describing her visit to
Ivan: Hiroshima and outlining the
Ivan: horrors caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon there 80 years ago.
Ivan: Speaking directly to the camera, Ms. Gabbard warned that the threat of nuclear
Ivan: war remained as we stand here today closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation
Ivan: than ever before. She said political elites and warmongers are carelessly fomenting
Ivan: fear and tension between nuclear powers.
Ivan: Mr. Trump berated Ms. Gabbard for the video, according to two people briefed on the conversation.
Ivan: She had said that her discussion of nuclear annihilation would scare people
Ivan: and that officials should not talk about it.
Ivan: So that was the first thing. OK, and then she was Trump was asked publicly about,
Ivan: you know, the the military strike on Iran.
Ivan: Miss Gabbard, a critic of overseas entanglements, has privately raised concerns of a wider war.
Ivan: And on Friday, Mr. Trump said she's wrong when he was asked about her testimony
Ivan: in March that Iran had not decided to build a nuclear weapon. Just flat out.
Sam: And let me hit that part, because I think that's actually very important,
Sam: because this is not just Tulsi.
Sam: Like, Tulsi is representing the actual intelligence conclusion of the U.S.
Sam: government that has been consistent for a number of years.
Ivan: That they're not building a nuke.
Sam: Which is that while the capacity that the Iranians have for uranium enrichment is concerning,
Sam: because in theory, it means if the Iranians made the decision to actually build
Sam: a weapon, it gets them closer to that point.
Sam: But the actual situation going back to all the way to, I believe, 2003,
Sam: is that the leadership in Iran, the religious leadership in Iran,
Sam: had put a stop to actual nuclear weapon research.
Sam: And had put out all kinds of statements about how nuclear weapons were immoral
Sam: and should not be used in war, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: And basically killed any actual development of weapons way back in 2023, not 2023, 2003.
Sam: Like over 20 years ago. And the U.S.
Sam: intelligence consensus is that that has not changed.
Sam: The sort of official sense of what's going on is, yes, the Iranians have a civilian capacity.
Sam: Yes, that civilian capacity could potentially be converted to dual use and made
Sam: into a weapons capacity. And yes, there is concern about how short that time period is.
Sam: If you fully develop what the Iranians are doing, you potentially get into a
Sam: situation where converting it into a weapons capacity is a very short timeline.
Sam: Now you hear like some people on the, you know, on the hawkish side say that time period is in weeks.
Sam: But what I've heard from more neutral experts is more likely we're talking six
Sam: months to a year if the Iranians actually decided, yes, we absolutely do want a weapon. Let's go.
Sam: And so...
Sam: There is reason for concern, potentially.
Sam: However, the American intelligence consensus is the Iranians have never actually
Sam: made that shift and said, yes,
Sam: we are building a weapon and we want to build a weapon or that it's moral to do so.
Sam: Right now, there is a religious dicta saying that that would be fundamentally
Sam: wrong and that the country should not do that.
Sam: And that doesn't mean they couldn't change their mind or the next leader could
Sam: have a different opinion.
Sam: But it does mean that when you, and obviously, like, well, I shouldn't say obviously,
Sam: the take is Israeli intelligence has come to a different conclusion.
Sam: But you have to wonder, do they really know something more or are they just, for good reason,
Sam: wanting to index to being more paranoid about the situation because the consequences
Sam: are much greater for them in the short term if Iran does decide to do this?
Sam: and apparently this this
Sam: is a situation where as recently as march
Sam: like you said tulsi was in front of congressional
Sam: committees stating that this
Sam: was the conclusion of an of american intelligence and we have donald trump openly
Sam: on the white house lawn answering a question saying well if that's what they
Sam: think they're just full of it they're just wrong they're they're just wrong
Sam: Not because he knows something specific otherwise.
Sam: It's just it's not convenient for him. And this just reminds you of the situation
Sam: going up to the first Iraq war where, you know,
Sam: the intelligence community was essentially stifled and was only allowed to bring to the president.
Sam: Information that led to the conclusion that, yes, of course the Iraqis are building
Sam: weapons of mass destruction and we need an invasion.
Sam: All of the counter evidence was stifled and held internally,
Sam: and people were told, no, no, no, that's not wanted. We're not going to go there.
Sam: There was plenty of that.
Sam: There was plenty of intelligence indicating that it was bullshit.
Ivan: Including an actual guy that people made fun of, Hans Blix,
Ivan: who was an inspector that went around and basically had done all these inspections
Ivan: and show that they weren't doing this and the u.s government chose to ignore that information.
Sam: And and this this is the similarity i'm pointing
Sam: out it's just like donald and we know this about him in general donald trump
Sam: has no real concern for what is actually true or not yeah what are facts no
Sam: it's what it's what's convenient for his situation again what will make him
Sam: see seem like a winner and oh.
Ivan: By the way as as this was all happening he called the fed chairman powell a complete moron.
Sam: Well yes of course and he said he's going to appoint his successor soon even
Sam: though he's got like a year left on his term or whatever yeah something like
Sam: yeah i mean it's all about positioning himself to look like a winner It is not
Sam: about what's actually happening on the ground.
Sam: And I'll point out, by the way, also, as usual with Israeli preemptive wars,
Sam: or for that matter, preemptive wars in general, it holds true for the Iraq war
Sam: we were just talking about, too.
Sam: You know, if you look at casualties and fatalities in this back and forth between
Sam: Israel and Iran, Israel's killed a lot more people than Iran has.
Sam: just like israel's killed a lot more people in gaza than than hamas succeeded
Sam: in killing israelis you know and so obviously there are other factors at play
Sam: that you have to consider but if you just weigh things in terms of who's killed
Sam: the more people the most people it's not even close yeah.
Ivan: I know oh gosh any other happy fun stuff.
Sam: Happy fun stuff we we we the lawmaker shootings Is that happy and fun?
Sam: I mean, I'll just say on this, having a wife who's a state legislator, this stuff hits home.
Sam: And there, you know, I've heard through the grapevine, nothing I could quote directly,
Sam: but there are considerations being worked up in terms of does security have
Sam: to be increased for other lawmakers, you know, here in Washington and across the country after this.
Sam: and you know my my wife this very moment i just finished a she was attending
Sam: a conference in seattle of women lawmakers from across the country and you know
Sam: this was a topic of conversation you know look i.
Ivan: I when i lived in in puerto rico when i was young there were still residual
Ivan: effects of a significant amount of violence against elected officials in Puerto Rico,
Ivan: assassination attempts and other things, which meant that many elected officials
Ivan: in Puerto Rico at much, you know,
Ivan: unlike in the States, that at the governor level,
Ivan: the ace of the governor, et cetera, many of those had police,
Ivan: I mean, they had to sign security details because of how, I mean,
Ivan: these attacks were, I mean,
Ivan: there was a siege in Old San Juan that happened in the 50s, okay,
Ivan: by terrorists seeking to assassinate the governor.
Ivan: It was this bad, taking lawmakers hostage, you know, all of this.
Ivan: We had bombings regularly, a post office.
Ivan: Hell, there was even an attack on an Air Force base in Puerto Rico that destroyed
Ivan: a whole bunch of F-4 Phantoms on a tarmac.
Ivan: So so we had that level of local violence. And I happen to have the governor's
Ivan: daughter was with me at school and she had a sign.
Ivan: I mean, we had assigned police officers that were guarding our school, you know.
Sam: And look, we've we've said before that, you know, given the increasing temperature of
Sam: It is surprising that we haven't had more of this than we have.
Sam: And that's not to say there's been zero.
Sam: You know, there were plenty of attempts. We had the two Donald Trump assassination attempts.
Sam: We had the softball game shooting where Scalise was shot.
Sam: We had Gabby Gifford. Gabby Giffords. We've had plenty.
Sam: We had January 6th. We've had plenty of situations.
Ivan: Oh, but that was a tour.
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. What are you talking about?
Sam: That was completely peaceful. You know, we've had a bunch of these events,
Sam: but like, and I may be forgetting some, but there may have been one other fatality.
Ivan: The governor of Michigan plot.
Sam: Oh, yeah. The governor of Michigan plot where they were going to kidnap her.
Sam: But this is the first fatality in a while.
Sam: you know with this kind of violence but the thing is that's important here is
Sam: it does look like once again this is like a lone wolf type guy who is just you
Sam: know but that's how this was a liberal right.
Ivan: He was a he was.
Sam: Oh yeah he was a flaming liberal right oh he's a fame antifa obviously no no
Sam: he was not but like this is the thing with when you're raising the temperature
Sam: like this They call it stochastic violence,
Sam: you know, stochastic terrorism, et cetera.
Sam: It is not some like organized group that's, you know, I mean,
Sam: look, they're all, there are these militias and the night, the,
Sam: the three percenters and the proud boys and all these folks, but those are, yeah.
Sam: And those do have their own risks associated with them and things they could do,
Sam: but the greatest danger and the hardest to combat is just random people who
Sam: get radicalized and go decide they're going to do something.
Sam: And this guy had, you know, he ended up,
Sam: killing two people, the ex-speaker of the house and her husband,
Sam: and injuring two more lawmakers, no, one more lawmaker and his wife who are going to survive.
Sam: Also killed the dog of the one he killed as well, by the way.
Ivan: So, Kristi Noem was not involved here?
Sam: Kristi Noem was not involved. But, you know, he had a list of several dozen people.
Ivan: Yeah, I know she had a list of fucking a lot of people.
Sam: And there were people not just in that state, too. This was in Minnesota.
Sam: He had a whole bunch of Minnesota lawmakers. He had a whole bunch of Minnesota anti,
Sam: not anti-abortion, a whole bunch of Minnesota pro-choice activists who weren't
Sam: lawmakers, also on the list, and then a bunch of lawmakers from outside of Minnesota,
Sam: from neighboring states as well.
Sam: You know, so, you know, he had a big long list.
Sam: And apparently, before he was caught, he went to two more houses from people on his hit list.
Ivan: They weren't home, thank God.
Sam: They weren't home, you know, or this would have been more.
Ivan: So, this is a good advocacy for socialize and get the hell out of the house more often.
Ivan: Might save your life. You got some asshole trying to kill you.
Sam: I guess so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so, I don't know.
Ivan: By the way, as my recommendation to you, okay, I don't know about you guys,
Ivan: and my wife gets on me, but number one, okay, you guys have a doorbell.
Ivan: You don't open the fucking door for, you know, you don't know who the fuck it is.
Sam: We've got more fundamental issues with that, right?
Ivan: You should have the door locked.
Sam: Yes, the door should be locked.
Ivan: We should all the doors need to make the argument that i get with my wife you
Ivan: know no she now does it but the arguments that i got listen you need to have
Ivan: your doors locked you know yeah.
Sam: Look look i i mean we we uh conversations are beginning about upgrading security you.
Ivan: Know and.
Sam: And not And because of this shit, you know, not, not, not that we have a specific
Sam: threat right now, but because.
Ivan: But you guys have received threats already that you guys have had investigated.
Sam: My. Yes. They're.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Look, the bottom line is any public figure gets stuff all the time. You know. Yeah.
Sam: There was, yes, there was one situation that was actually credible enough that
Sam: was investigated and discussed, but, but like, you know, it was,
Sam: it was, it didn't turn out to be anything, but like any public figure,
Sam: potentially this kind of stuff could happen.
Sam: But my, my wife is an elected representative. It, all it takes is some crazy right now.
Sam: Like, you know, addresses and stuff are public record.
Sam: Like, you know, this, you know, where we live is not a secret.
Sam: If somebody wants to find it out.
Ivan: Except apparently if you're an ICE agent right now, which apparently you can
Ivan: go around completely without any identification,
Ivan: not identify yourself whatsoever, and grab a random person off the street without
Ivan: producing any paperwork to back up while you're grabbing them off the street.
Ivan: Now, that apparently is okay. I don't know if you've noticed.
Ivan: That apparently is fine. Okay?
Ivan: You know, but no. But your information is public. Yeah.
Sam: No.
Ivan: You need to have a security system that works.
Sam: You need to have cameras that works.
Ivan: You need to make sure your doors are locking on a regular basis.
Ivan: Look, which is the drill.
Sam: Conversations are happening about it.
Ivan: I'm giving you the drill because I have lived through this kind of shit, unfortunately, okay?
Ivan: You know, because we've been robbed. We have had people come in.
Ivan: We have had people put guns to it. You know, so I have dealt with that,
Ivan: which is why I at this age have still and my wife's will we live in Boca.
Ivan: Listen, I don't fucking care.
Ivan: All right. All it takes is one lunatic. OK. All right.
Sam: Yeah. And we're there. We are having conversations about new doors, new alarm systems.
Sam: Like like you said, more more and better camera systems that are installed in
Sam: such like, you know, I've got a little portable ones that I can move around and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: as my wife pointed out someone can just
Sam: snip the cord unplug them yes you know you want one that's
Sam: installed in such a way that it's built in and you can't do that you
Sam: know all of this kind of stuff you know that there are
Sam: you know and you know look we've same thing we're like you know it's a fairly
Sam: decent neighborhood and yeah we had something stolen once in 12 years we had
Sam: something stolen but you know but yeah it's a it's a decent neighborhood it's
Sam: a whatever blah blah blah but all it takes?
Sam: Like you said, one person, especially if they're targeting people.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: Exactly. Like, it's one thing where it's like you want to deter sort of the
Sam: casual thief who's wandering by and looking for the more vulnerable place, whatever.
Sam: It's a completely different problem if you're worried about somebody that might be targeting.
Sam: And so, yeah, and so like their personal conversations we're having in the family.
Sam: But like I said, I am 100% guaranteeing you all 50 state legislatures and probably
Sam: the Congress as well are reassessing what they are doing for security and deciding,
Sam: is it enough or do we have to beef it up?
Sam: because this one event happened.
Sam: You mentioned the one that happened where they tried to kidnap the governor
Sam: and they did take over the state capitol in that situation.
Sam: And I'm sure this is being reassessed everywhere because the threat level is
Sam: increasing because the tension levels are increasing because the animosity between
Sam: the sides here is increasing as well.
Sam: And because, you know, I mean, bringing up the protests and bringing in the
Sam: National Guard to California and all of this kind of stuff, same thing.
Sam: It's like you are taking the already vast divisions in this country and you
Sam: are driving the sides further apart as we go, not bringing them back together.
Sam: And it becomes harder for both sides to imagine reconciling this gap.
Ivan: Not anytime soon.
Sam: Not anytime soon. And so...
Ivan: No.
Sam: Okay, well, that was fun.
Ivan: Yay!
Sam: Shall we wrap it up?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay, curmudgeons-corner.com. go see the stuff.
Sam: We've got the archives, we've got transcripts, we've got links to all the ways to contact us.
Sam: And of course, we've got the Patreon where you can give us money at various levels.
Sam: We'll send you a postcard, we'll
Sam: send you a mug, we'll mention you on the show, all that kind of stuff.
Sam: I know, I know, I still owe postcards and mugs to people.
Sam: Ed did get his mug, but I owe two postcards and a mug and I will eventually get to it.
Sam: You know, I've, I've owed these things for months.
Sam: Well, the new mug is for Todd. It was just on a couple of weeks ago,
Sam: but, but I've, I've owned, I've owed these postcards for like months and months and months now.
Sam: Eventually you will, you will
Sam: get your postcards, but importantly at $2 a month or more on the Patreon,
Sam: or if you just ask us, we will invite you there to Curmudgeons Corner Slack,
Sam: where Yvonne and I and a whole bunch of listeners are chatting and sharing links throughout the week.
Sam: So, Yvonne, what's a highlight from this week's Curmudgeons Corner Slack that
Sam: we have not talked about on the show?
Ivan: Ah, the most important news of the week, which we did not cover here.
Ivan: And we need to make sure that our listeners and viewers are well-informed because
Ivan: this could be an opportunity to save money for you as the Trump Organization
Ivan: announces a mobile plan with a $499 smartphone.
Ivan: The Trump Organization unveiled a mobile phone plan and a $499 smartphone that
Ivan: is set to launch later this year.
Ivan: The new venture is the example of Donald Trump's business empire capitalizing
Ivan: association with a sitting president.
Ivan: Apparently, you can get the new service from Trump Mobile.
Ivan: We'll offer a $47.45 per month plan that includes unlimited talk and data,
Ivan: as well as roadside assistance and a telehealth and pharmacy benefit,
Ivan: Sam, according to its website.
Ivan: The company, owned by President Donald Trump, also announced it will sell a
Ivan: T1 smartphone, which appears to feature a gold-colored metal case etched with an American flag, Sam.
Sam: I mean, but, but Yvonne, the most critical thing, right? This phone is 100% made in America, right?
Ivan: Oh, no.
Ivan: But they said they will get there at some point.
Sam: But we have all these Americans clamoring to build phones.
Ivan: Yeah, because they say, hey, our made in the USA T1 phone is available pre-order now.
Ivan: The reality is that, as usual with
Ivan: them, they say that, and this is like pre-ordering a Tesla semi-truck.
Ivan: You may wait that long.
Sam: How long has that one been now?
Ivan: Just like those seven or eight years we've been waiting for this Tesla semi.
Sam: They do say made in America, Yvonne?
Ivan: They say that they will eventually make it.
Ivan: So there was an interview with, I think, one of the Trump moron kids.
Ivan: I don't know, whichever, one of the, you know, one of those idiots,
Ivan: whatever, it doesn't matter, they're fungible, in my view, anyway.
Ivan: One of them, they asked him about, hey, so is the phone made in America?
Ivan: Well, not yet, but eventually, Sam.
Sam: Eventually. Yeah. Okay.
Ivan: So are we pre-ordering our T1 phone?
Sam: How can you not?
Ivan: You know, I, you know, if I could, it's $500.
Ivan: That's such a waste. Because I would like to get one and take like a sledgehammer
Ivan: and just beat it to pieces and like tape, you know, record that video.
Sam: See, here's the thing, though. You do that, you've still paid them the $500.
Sam: You've still paid them. So you have to, if you're going to do something like that.
Ivan: That have some kind of like a repair breakage warranty, maybe,
Ivan: where I could get my money.
Sam: No, no, no. No, it's, well, maybe. No, you have to have some way where you get
Sam: it from somebody who paid for it, but you don't. Or something.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Or, you know, or.
Ivan: Or I find a used one on eBay for like 10 cents. After somebody,
Ivan: ah, yeah, because look, somebody will buy it.
Ivan: They'll realize what a piece of shit. they'll put it up for sale at 10 cents
Ivan: on the dollar if that, okay, and then we take that one and smash it hmm.
Sam: Maybe I don't know, yeah, I,
Sam: You somehow, you have to arrange the whole scenario.
Ivan: So it doesn't cost me money.
Sam: No, it's not that it doesn't cost you money. The important part is you're not giving them money.
Ivan: Right, right, right. So they don't get money. We need to get a phone without
Ivan: us having to pay for it, but not committing something illegal.
Sam: Oh, that puts constraints. Yeah.
Sam: Like, yeah, I was thinking, you know, stealing. But, you know, you were right.
Sam: We should not commit felonies.
Ivan: Some kind of trial. I say, hey, guys, listen, send us a, listen, we are a podcast.
Ivan: We're extremely conservative podcast.
Ivan: And, you know, we want to review this phone for our audience so you can send us a free sample.
Sam: Yes, that's it. Yes. Okay. You get right on that, Yvonne.
Ivan: There you go. Say, yeah, we are an ultra right-wing podcast.
Ivan: We are all in on Trump. We are on the Trump train. We'll drive the Trump train.
Ivan: Just send us a free phone.
Sam: Okay, fine.
Ivan: This is how they operate. I don't know if you think you realize this, right?
Ivan: This is exactly, I mean, I just felt slimy saying that, but I realize that that's the way they work.
Sam: Right, because, yes, yes. If your bottom line, like Donald Trump,
Sam: is do whatever makes me money, makes me a winner, and it doesn't matter what
Sam: that thing is, then if you can identify,
Sam: hey, it would be more lucrative to become a conservative influencer than a liberal
Sam: influencer, then you just do it.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Because like what you say doesn't matter. It's just instrumental to get what you want.
Ivan: There is a car guy that does car YouTube that has been very successful last
Ivan: five or six years, seven years.
Ivan: And some people are trying to dig into his background and realize that and and
Ivan: he admitted and he didn't want to talk about it because he's ashamed of it.
Ivan: That for a period of time, this is exactly what he was doing online.
Ivan: He was some kind of conservative troll and there was some way that he was harvesting
Ivan: clicks and harvesting those clicks made him money by just posting rage bait
Ivan: and whatever whatnot and getting the interactions and that made him money and he did that.
Ivan: but it was very clear that it was brought up and somebody said,
Ivan: and I'm like, you know what?
Ivan: Yeah, I did that. And I, I, I don't want to talk about that because it,
Ivan: but it's so like, again, he, he, he is a shame.
Ivan: He, it's, you can tell he was ashamed of having done that, but it was at a point
Ivan: where I think he admitted he was, he was broke and it was like,
Ivan: Oh look, I could make money out of this. Great. You know, I could make a living.
Ivan: And so he was doing that, but then yeah, he, he realized it, you know, like,
Ivan: But I am, you know, I have more scruples than that.
Ivan: I don't care how fucked up broke I am. I'm not going to stoop to that level of that.
Ivan: I could do quite a lot of other things that could earn me a wage that don't
Ivan: stoop to being a, basically a scumbag.
Sam: But Yvonne, look, the bottom line here is there are a lot of dumb people out there.
Sam: And the best way to make money is figure out how to separate them from their
Sam: money. In one way or another.
Ivan: Is that P.T. Barnum?
Sam: It's P.T. Barnum was close to that statement. I think you're right.
Sam: That was probably him separating a fool from their money or whatever.
Sam: And just in general, fraud is extremely lucrative so long as you don't get caught.
Ivan: Ah, that's a weird one.
Sam: And by the way.
Ivan: Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. No, no, no. Even if you get caught,
Ivan: what you got to do is make a hefty donation to the Donald J.
Ivan: Trump's super PAC and make sure it's a federal crime and you're.
Sam: You're, I was, I was about to say effectively Donald Trump's administration
Sam: has legalized white collar crime because they are not prosecuting it.
Sam: They are not investigating it. If you do get caught, he'll pardon you for the right donation.
Sam: Uh, Menendez went to jail this week. It's a, it's a miracle.
Sam: He's not pardoned yet. I guess he just hasn't given the right donation.
Ivan: Yeah, I'm like wondering, I mean, when they, I mean, I'm like.
Sam: Fully doesn't he have any of those gold bars left? Come on. Come on.
Ivan: Yeah, I mean, I am shocked, shocked still to this moment that Menendez has not been part,
Ivan: Anyway, we digress. We were trying to end the show.
Sam: Oh, yes. End the show. Okay. Thanks, everybody, for listening.
Sam: We'll talk to you next week. Have a great week. Stay safe. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: We just had Juneteenth. Happy Juneteenth, I guess.
Ivan: Happy Juneteenth. Unless you're Donald Trump who said, I don't know, something just—.
Sam: There are too many holidays where people don't work. Go fucking work,
Sam: bitches. People need to work more. I didn't get the day off.
Ivan: I did. My company gave the day off.
Sam: I am jealous. But apparently we have too many days off. We should all be working more.
Sam: Be grateful for what we get. You know, so anyway.
Sam: Okay. Did I say goodbye? Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: You know, a few times lately when I've seen headlines about Bannon,
Sam: I've misread it and thought they were talking about Barron.
Ivan: Oh, well, yeah.
Sam: Now, Barron Trump is turning into quite the scumbag himself as he grows up,
Sam: apparently, but, you know, I guess you can't avoid it in that family.
Ivan: Well, he has been indoctrinated, you know, from an early age,
Ivan: so unfortunately, I mean, yeah.
Sam: But, you know, oh well, Baron, Bannon, same damn thing, I guess.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay, see you later, Yvonne. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.