Sam: So where are you? Are you in Puerto Rico again?
Ivan: No.
Sam: No?
Ivan: No, I'm in Orlando right now.
Sam: Oh, okay.
Ivan: I was in the Dominican Republic. I was in Puerto Rico. Now I'm in Orlando.
Sam: Okay. Disney weekend?
Ivan: Mm-hmm.
Sam: Yeah, okay. Here we go. Here's the music stuff.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, September 13th, 2025.
Sam: It's just after 2.30 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Mentor,
Sam: Yvonne Boas here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hi.
Sam: You look tired.
Ivan: Sam asked me, where am I? And I'm like, I'm glad you knew.
Ivan: That's like, he's like, are you in Puerto Rico? And I'm like,
Ivan: no, I'm not in Puerto Rico.
Ivan: And I'm like, you know, I've been, I was in Dominican Republic.
Ivan: I was in Puerto Rico. I am now in Orlando.
Ivan: I should be home Sunday.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: my my wife i mentioned this briefly last week she's been in denmark all week she comes back having a.
Ivan: Much better time than we are.
Sam: She's yeah she and and touring all over
Sam: the country by the way not like she flew to copenhagen but
Sam: then she's been every day she's in one or two different towns by bus as as this
Sam: whole this whole group of like legislators and other civil civil servants gets
Sam: tours of various transportation infrastructure and other crop around the country of Denmark.
Ivan: You know, good. You know, a lot of things that, uh, in terms of,
Ivan: I will say this, look, I experienced transportation across the world. Okay.
Ivan: You know, I'm not going to say we have, we, you know, we, we sometimes are very
Ivan: hard on when it's like, we have the worst infrastructure. We don't, we don't have that.
Ivan: That's, that's always an exaggeration, but, well, we sure can learn certain
Ivan: things about how other countries do certain things for sure to bring into the U S.
Ivan: My experience, especially in those countries around Europe and that area,
Ivan: around Denmark, the Netherlands, I still always am amazed that the first time
Ivan: I went to the Netherlands, where I landed at Schiphol,
Ivan: and basically I went through immigration, I took this elevator downstairs,
Ivan: and there was this sprawling train station there, and it took me wherever the
Ivan: hell I wanted to go in the country.
Ivan: I mean, literally where I got to on the train was I did take a cab for a little
Ivan: bit because I had a couple of bags.
Ivan: But if I had a smaller bag, I could have just walked to the hotel.
Sam: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Ivan: You know, so it was just very easy to do.
Ivan: And I've been there twice, both times. It was not in Amsterdam.
Ivan: It was in some other location.
Ivan: And same thing. Went down, took my train, got to the town, short distance.
Ivan: It was just so convenient.
Ivan: That is, you know, definitely.
Sam: Well, I'll tell you, like, you know, the trip is to, like, go see all kinds
Sam: of things that are actually related to her job and such.
Sam: But about an hour ago, she texted me and was like, is the podcast done yet?
Sam: And I'm like, we haven't even started. We're not going to start for like an hour.
Sam: And she's like, oh. And I'm like, wait, isn't it like four in the morning there?
Ivan: No, the other way.
Sam: No, no.
Sam: yes oh.
Ivan: No yeah she's contact right oh i thought she's asking you four in the morning.
Sam: No no i was asking her isn't it like four in
Sam: the morning there why are you texting me right now and and
Sam: she's like oh i was at the casino with a
Sam: bunch of these folks and like so yeah
Sam: she she was out all night at like one of apparently six casinos in the entire
Sam: country of denmark like and she's like it was small i'm like did you win us
Sam: millions of dollars at least and she's like she started with 699 kroner and
Sam: ended with 716 so I guess at least she was up you know but,
Sam: but yeah I.
Ivan: Mean I you know I don't I don't do a lot of going out of like trips anymore hell.
Sam: Every night she's been talking about like she's gone out to one place she's
Sam: gone out with various people she's with the one.
Ivan: Thing is that she is traveling with a group.
Sam: Yeah, she is traveling with a group.
Ivan: And so when I have wound up in past traveling with a group, then you guys we
Ivan: tend, you know, say, hey.
Sam: What do we do this? You have dinner together, you go out and see the sights together a little bit.
Ivan: Exactly, right, right, right. So you tend to do that. But like,
Ivan: for example, like, I go on a damn business trip. I'm going by myself.
Ivan: I finish my fucking meetings. I'm going to the fucking hotel.
Ivan: I, you know.
Sam: Get some food, go to bed.
Ivan: Yeah. Watch TV. That's it.
Ivan: I, you know, I will say when I was younger, I used to definitely go out all
Ivan: the time on the on these trips.
Ivan: But right now, I don't care. And I don't, you know, there are times when I,
Ivan: you know, like a couple of weeks ago, we had a dinner with a group. Okay, that was nice.
Ivan: But that's like, that's an outlier. Okay. All right.
Ivan: I don't, you know, I don't, you know, especially when I go to certain places where I go very often.
Ivan: It's like, what am I going to, it's like, some people ask me,
Ivan: it's like, is she going to take your family out to dinner?
Ivan: I'd come over here every couple of weeks. How many fucking times?
Ivan: You know, they got lives.
Ivan: Things. I mean, I don't see my parents that often. They live nearby.
Ivan: What am I going to do? I mean, it is a location where I go and I talk to them. I see them.
Ivan: I do stuff or whatever. but fuck I don't go every time so most of the time I
Ivan: just work go to a hotel go to find a restaurant nearby go watch TV.
Sam: Understood so anyway as usual on this show we're going to do our little but
Sam: first thing I'm going to talk about a couple movies I don't know what else Yvonne has to talk about.
Ivan: And then we'll talk about the serious stuff before I forget because it talked
Ivan: about the casino the last hotel I was in that I slept in before this one,
Ivan: Wednesday night, has a casino. A nice casino.
Ivan: And I've stayed at this hotel quite many times. I have not gambled a dollar at this casino.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And I used to like going to the casino a lot. And I haven't gambled a,
Ivan: And the one thing is that if I'm going to a hotel with a casino on 15,
Ivan: 20 times a year, I don't want to be gambling at a casino 15, 20 times a year.
Ivan: The last time I went and gambled to the casino was about a month,
Ivan: about a few weeks ago, because I went to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood,
Ivan: Florida for a concert with my with my wife. And she wanted to gamble.
Ivan: And we very promptly lost one hundred dollars.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Inside like five minutes literally.
Sam: That sounds like so much fun which.
Ivan: I was just like well fuck this no that's it i i have 100 bucks that's why i love it i'm like.
Sam: You know speaking of that kind of stuff like we did have the powerball was over
Sam: a billion dollars for a few drawings so i did spend some money on powerball
Sam: tickets well for the very last drawing you know I spent $40 and won 18 for the,
Sam: for the couple of drawings.
Sam: So I'm down, you know, it's, it's not actually up, but it's not the usual,
Sam: which is the last couple of drawings before that I spent 40 bucks and got nothing,
Sam: you know, but I am, but my, my, my rule at this point, like it used to be if
Sam: the lottery was over 500 million, I'd buy a ticket.
Sam: Then that started happening way too often. So now it's, I'm only buying a ticket
Sam: over, now it's a billion.
Sam: I think I did a little while at $750, but then I decided that was happening too often too.
Ivan: Yeah, you know, a billion, come on.
Sam: Yeah, if it's a billion, I'll put in the 40 bucks and, you know,
Sam: and I know you can buy a single ticket for less, but I just max out what you
Sam: can buy at the machine in one shot. And that's the 40 bucks.
Ivan: Well, anyway, because I'm here at a hotel and my son, I know at some point when
Ivan: I realized that I'm a hotel, we'll get irritated if I do a podcast for too long here.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Let's try to get to your movies.
Sam: Okay. We'll jump straight to the movies. One thing I do want to mention on movies.
Sam: I've been talking for a long time that ever since 1998, I've been going through
Sam: that AFI 100 movies, 100 years, 100 movies list.
Sam: I'm not going to talk about the movie until I get to it in order but I will
Sam: say this week Alex and I watched number one we finished off the list and not only that,
Sam: number one is Citizen Kane I won't review it right now but I will say by pure
Sam: coincidence last weekend last Saturday night I was on the verge of going to bed And number one,
Sam: Citizen Kane was the next one on our list.
Sam: And I was scrolling TikTok before I fell asleep.
Sam: And I hit a video that's like, hey, everybody, for one day only this month,
Sam: if you want to see it, Citizen Kane is in the theaters.
Sam: So I went and checked what day it was. And it was that day.
Sam: You know, like this was Saturday night. It was going to be Sunday.
Sam: So we bought tickets and saw Citizen Kane in the theater. on last Sunday.
Ivan: Wow. Okay. Talk about a fucking coincidence.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. And it was like, apparently, this is Regal Cinemas in conjunction
Sam: with Turner Classic Movies.
Sam: The entire month of September, every day is playing some classic movie.
Sam: But it just happened that the day I saw this on TikTok was for Citizen Kane,
Sam: and it was the next movie on the list.
Sam: And I was like, screw it. We have to go see it at the theater.
Sam: it's number one on the damn list after having gone through
Sam: this list since 1998 you know
Sam: and so we saw it in the theater and someday i
Sam: will give my review of that but that is not one of the ones for today
Sam: and by the way i think i mentioned this on the show again alex and
Sam: i have agreed that we next
Sam: time this comes up in our rotation we are
Sam: starting the 2007 re-ranking from
Sam: number 100 so okay okay
Sam: but the next movie on the list is actually
Sam: also from the 100 years 100 movies
Sam: list uh but it's number 14 in the 1998 list number 22 into 2007 list which is
Sam: some like it hot from 1959 okay it's a marilyn monroe movie with tony curtis
Sam: and jack lemon and billy wilder Okay.
Ivan: Has Jack Lemmon in it too?
Sam: Yes. Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Billy Wilder.
Ivan: I don't remember if I was... Let me see. Did I ever see this movie? I don't think so.
Sam: So I am going to give this... I am vacillating between a thumbs sideways and
Sam: actually a thumbs down. Okay.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: This is intended to be a comedy, but it's all just, you know...
Sam: Let me read you the first paragraph of the plot, and you'll see where this goes.
Sam: In Prohibition, Chicago, Joe is a jazz saxophone player and an irresponsible,
Sam: impulsive gambler and ladies' man.
Sam: Jerry, his anxious friend, is a jazz double bass player.
Sam: They work in a speakeasy owned by local mafia boss Spatz Columba.
Sam: Tipped off by informant Toothpick Charlie, the police raid the joint.
Sam: Joe and Jerry escape, but accidentally witness Spatz and his henchmen gunning
Sam: down Toothpick and his gang in revenge.
Sam: An incident inspired by the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which of course is real.
Sam: Spatz and his gang see them as they flee.
Sam: Broke, terrified, and desperate to leave Chicago,
Sam: Joe and Jerry disguise themselves as women named Josephine and Daphne so they
Sam: can join Sweet Sue and her society's syncopators, an all-female band headed to Miami by train.
Sam: On the train, they befriend Sugar Cane, the band's vocalist and ukulele player,
Sam: who's played by Marilyn Monroe, of course.
Ivan: Marilyn Monroe.
Sam: So this whole movie, it's supposed to be sort of a slapstick comedy,
Sam: but all the comedy is about sort of the gender bending, like they're dressed
Sam: up as women, people are confused,
Sam: with, oh look they're dressed up as women,
Sam: there's some gay jokes there's some trans jokes I mean they didn't even call it that but it's all,
Sam: just like stupid comedy about, oh my god they're wearing dresses and they're
Sam: in with all the women but they're actually like horny men,
Sam: and that kind of stuff it's.
Ivan: Like something that could be comedic.
Sam: You know it's the kind of humor I can see where I can see,
Sam: It just very much is the kind of humor that has not aged well.
Ivan: I haven't watched it, so I have no idea.
Sam: I mean, even if you sort of discount the sort of homophobic and transphobic elements of it,
Sam: it's just the kind of stupid humor that I don't tend to enjoy all that much.
Sam: Ah, it's just like, you know, there's some physical humor.
Sam: There's, there's like, it's just very lowbrow.
Sam: And, you know, meanwhile, you know, this apparently got like,
Sam: it opened to critical and commercial success and is considered to be one of
Sam: the greatest films of all time.
Sam: Received six Academy Award nominations, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay.
Ivan: You can give it a thumbs, okay, give it a thumbs, you can give it a thumbs down.
Sam: Thumbs down. I mean, at best, a thumbs sideways. But I, thumbs down.
Ivan: Not your cup of tea.
Sam: Not my kind of movie at all.
Sam: I mean, and, you know, it's not even one of those where I can say not my kind
Sam: of movie, but I can appreciate the artistry. I just felt like it was dumb.
Ivan: No, you just didn't like it. Okay.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Hey, fair.
Sam: So, next, Ouija. How do you say it? Like Ouija boards? Ouija. I guess it's Ouija.
Sam: Ouija from 2014.
Ivan: Can I just say that until probably like in my late... It had to be I was over 18.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Alright. The way that we pronounce that in Puerto Rico. Aweja.
Sam: Aweja. Okay.
Ivan: Aweja. Aweja.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: We're going to play Aweja. So
Ivan: when all of a sudden I heard people in the States call it a Ouija board.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Like, I kept thinking, W-E-E-G-E, what the hell? What the hell is a fucking Ouija boy?
Ivan: So, that was very confusing to me for a while until I figured out what the hell
Ivan: people are talking about.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: So, I still don't even understand how the hell that turns into Ouija, but it's O-U-I-J-A.
Sam: I mean, entomology. Well, it's because it comes from the French,
Sam: we, and German, ja, or ja, ja, ja.
Ivan: Ja, ja. Yeah, but okay, we, okay, but it's ja.
Sam: So it should be we, ja, not g. Wait, wait, wait, sorry.
Sam: The popular belief that it comes from those two words is a misconception.
Sam: Oh. In fact, the name was given from a word spelled out on the board when medium
Sam: Helen Peters-Nosworthy asked the board to name itself.
Sam: When asked what the word meant, it responded, Good luck.
Ivan: Okay. So the pronunciation is just whatever.
Sam: It's just a made-up word, and it's made-up pronunciation.
Ivan: And somebody made up the fucking pronunciation. Okay, great.
Ivan: Beautiful. All right. Awesome.
Sam: Okay. So I will give the first... This is a 2014 movie.
Sam: It will not go on anybody's top 100 list of anything.
Sam: When we say that...
Ivan: What about bottom 100 list?
Sam: I don't think so. I mean, I'm probably going to give this one a thumb sideways.
Sam: So I'm going to give this one a better ranking than the one that was 14 on the other damn list.
Sam: But it's a stupid horror movie. Okay.
Sam: Like the first paragraph of the description again, Debbie recalls playing Ouija
Sam: with her best friend Lane as children. In present day, she throws her Ouija
Sam: board into the fire and implies to Lane that something strange happened with the board.
Sam: After Lane leaves, the Ouija board reappears in Debbie's bedroom.
Sam: Debbie becomes possessed and hangs herself inside her home. That's how it starts.
Ivan: Jesus Christ. Okay.
Sam: And then, you know, they attend the funeral. And then the friends decide to
Sam: communicate with the Ouija board again.
Sam: And the typical things that happen
Sam: in horror movies proceed to happen throughout the rest of the movie.
Ivan: Okay. Okay.
Sam: And I'm, I'm giving this a thumbs sideways rather than a down because I remember
Sam: actually being somewhat amused and entertained by the movie.
Ivan: Like, okay, well that's important.
Sam: And like, now can I say like, you know, was I, I don't remember being like super scared.
Sam: as opposed to pausing the movie frequently to confer with Alex on how stupid
Sam: the characters were being and how they were going into situations where they
Sam: were doing exactly the wrong thing at every turn.
Sam: And just, you know, sort of your standard horror movie tropes of like,
Sam: oh, look, there's something weird going on here. What shall we do?
Sam: Oh, let's try to talk to the dead spirits.
Sam: Oh, let's try to go into the haunted house. Oh, let's go deeper in.
Sam: Oh, why don't we separate and go different directions so we can look in different
Sam: parts of the house? You know, all this kind of stuff, you know?
Sam: It's just your standard sort of people in a horror movie being stupid.
Sam: And, of course, a bunch of them get killed.
Sam: You know, the question is sort of what is the mystery that's behind all this
Sam: in the end? And you find out and who survives and who doesn't.
Sam: And, of course, they, I believe they're, am I incorrect?
Sam: Yeah. And then, apparently, we have not yet seen it, but there is a prequel
Sam: to this that has subsequently come out.
Sam: So, we will probably eventually see the prequel.
Ivan: Okay, all right. Yeah. Okay, all right.
Sam: So, that's it.
Ivan: I'm sure I'll never watch this.
Sam: Oh, and I'll note, like, you know, the Wikipedia says, you know,
Sam: based on Ouija, the game by Hasbro.
Ivan: Well, you know, they were making fun on this TV show, the studio on Apple TV.
Ivan: How one of the things that they decided was, I can't remember what other product,
Ivan: they were looking at the movies like the, you know, we recently had that Minecraft
Ivan: movie and stuff like that.
Ivan: So, the studio head was all excited because they bought the rights to be able
Ivan: to make the Kool-Aid movie.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: I could see, you know, you got that pitcher guy, you know, that breaks through the walls, you know?
Ivan: Yes, yes, yes.
Sam: I could see that. Now, wait,
Sam: since we're talking Kool-Aid and the Kool-Aid man, The very important question
Sam: that I've seen debated online earnestly by people, is the Kool-Aid man the pitcher
Sam: or is he the liquid inside the pitcher?
Ivan: God, I thought it was the whole thing.
Sam: Or is he the pitcher and the liquid inside is his blood?
Ivan: Well, it's like, are you the body? Exactly. It's what I'm saying.
Ivan: Are you the body or the blood? No, it's everything.
Ivan: I figured the liquid is kind of like the blood.
Sam: So then when the Kool-Aid man is handing out Kool-Aid, he's handing out his blood?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. That's fine, then.
Ivan: Basically.
Sam: Well, you know, their whole religion is based around drink my blood, you know?
Ivan: Exactly. That's what I'm saying.
Sam: Exactly.
Sam: Okay, well, anyway, I think that's enough movies. Let's see, a preview, what's next?
Sam: Astro Boy from 2009, next week, and also the 1958 French-language version of Les Miserables.
Ivan: 1958, okay.
Sam: Non-musical, dramatic version, not the musical.
Ivan: Not the dramatic one. I mean, I actually, Jesus Christ, I read the book in French class. Still remember.
Sam: You know, anyway, that's that's for next time. So let's take a break real quick
Sam: and then we'll talk serious stuff.
Sam: Obviously, there was a bunch of serious stuff that happened this week.
Sam: And Yvonne, you'll be able to tell us where to start when we get back.
Ivan: Oh, whoopee.
Sam: Yeah, I know. Back after this.
Break: You're supposed to say do do do. Do do do.
Break: Alex Amzala. Alex Amzala is awesome.
Break: Its videos are fun. And today, once again, we have one of our most loyal subscribers
Break: here to tell you how awesome Alex Emsla is.
Break: I'd say on a rate from 1 to 10, Alex Emsla is awesome at, I don't know, 37, 82.
Break: He's pretty radical. His videos are phenomenal. They're full of creativity.
Break: And they're so funny and exciting to watch.
Break: Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that Dad pretending to be you
Break: because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't because I told him to?
Break: Yes! Good job on remembering, Dad.
Break: Do-do-do!
Sam: Okay. We are back. What more serious newsy topic would you like to start with, Yvonne?
Sam: We've got the Epstein book. We've got Russia, like, sending drones into Poland.
Sam: We've got Charlie Kirk, of course.
Sam: And a few other things, too. I think those are the three biggest ones.
Ivan: Talk about the big elephant in the room. Talk about Charlie Kirk. Okay.
Ivan: You know, the thing this week, first of all, my, my, I don't understand still at this point.
Ivan: And it's something that is, I think we've seen other things like this happen in the past.
Ivan: I've said this before, where I don't understand why it's become so hard in recent
Ivan: times for when the death of somebody notable, whether it's good or bad in any way.
Ivan: Turns into this political game.
Ivan: You know, people can't just go and, like, number one, be appalled at the violence.
Ivan: It's just very, it's not that hard to be appalled at the political violence that caused this.
Ivan: But, you know, at the same time, it doesn't whitewash this, you know,
Ivan: how the person lived just because he was, you know, murdered in a way that is deplorable.
Ivan: You know, it doesn't do that. But also, the fact that the entire,
Ivan: because this was the entire Republican Party's reaction,
Ivan: first was not to wait to see who it was and start flinging all sorts of false
Ivan: accusations that the person that committed the murder was some trans, you know,
Ivan: the first thing they said, it must have been a transgender person for whatever the hell reason.
Ivan: By the way, how many transgender murderers have we had in recent years,
Ivan: Sam, that have done anything like a school shooting?
Ivan: Anything, Sam? Is there a lot of those?
Sam: This obviously was the back and forth he was having right when the guy was shot.
Sam: The answer the person in the audience gave, and I believe we'd looked this up
Sam: on the Corregions Car Slack a couple weeks ago, too, when we came up with that
Sam: last school shooting or whatever.
Sam: In terms of mass murders since 1970 or whatever,
Sam: or no, not mass murders, specifically mass shootings,
Sam: there were something like five over the course of decades, as opposed to 1,500
Sam: plus in the same time frame of cis white men.
Sam: You know, so it's like a tiny percentage.
Ivan: And, you know, there's a whole other thing on the radical leftists that go and
Ivan: do murder. You look at the stats, the same thing.
Ivan: Basically, the whole damn lot of them are right wing.
Sam: So someone specifically looked at political violence and specifically political
Sam: murders going back the last few decades.
Sam: It wasn't quite as dramatic as cis versus trans, but in the United States,
Sam: right-leaning domestic terrorism was typically about double left-leaning political terrorism.
Ivan: Exactly but all these people without even knowing who they are let's wait for
Ivan: the facts let's talk about it started just making up all these accusations and
Ivan: threatening I mean just the threats of violence this is war,
Ivan: I'm just and in threatening war accusing the left of this is the of bad rhetoric and I'm like,
Ivan: You want to tell me where, you know, I mean, we literally had a week when the
Ivan: president of the United States threatened the city of Chicago with the U.S. armed forces.
Sam: Yes. Although now he's sending them to Memphis, I think, right? Tennessee.
Ivan: Who knows? And, you know, and these people have the balls to go and, like,
Ivan: try to tell me that the left is inciting this violence when it's,
Ivan: like, literally everything, you know what?
Ivan: I said, you know, today we were talking about this.
Ivan: We don't know the reason why this kid unfortunately chose to do this.
Ivan: What, you know, and by the way, as soon as they found out it was this white
Ivan: dude, the rhetoric went from kill them all, burn them all, prosecute them, whatever.
Ivan: Oh, what turned this sweet boy into such a bad kid? right because it was a white dude.
Sam: Right immediately i mean
Sam: well not not only i'm not even acknowledging any
Sam: not only a white dude but a white dude from a conservative gun
Sam: loving family right right exactly is and i just saw like i was gonna say the
Sam: thing about his his father being a retired sheriff or whatnot but just within
Sam: the last couple hours apparently the sheriff's office where he supposedly worked
Sam: was like, no, he wasn't. So I don't know.
Ivan: No, I actually saw in some other place that he had some kind of business,
Ivan: okay, all right, is what he did.
Ivan: So I think that whole thing about the police was mistaken.
Ivan: But regardless, I'm just, you know.
Sam: Oh, apparently he had the same name as somebody who was the sheriff.
Ivan: And that's why I got confused. Okay. Look, this, you know,
Ivan: events like this, really, call for trying to bring calm,
Ivan: the right reaction should be to not inflame the situation, but to calm it down.
Ivan: You know, and the thing is that regardless of what is it that radicalized them,
Ivan: what I said is that I guarantee you that two
Ivan: factors that are absolutely a factor in these in all of these happening is this
Ivan: entire glorification of guns and this entire just culture of hate that we have
Ivan: right now in so many platforms and so many things.
Ivan: The exact details about it, you know, probably, you know, change exactly whatever.
Ivan: But those two factors are critical factors in driving, you know,
Ivan: these kinds of kids to do these kinds of acts.
Ivan: I mean, just like the kid that tried to shoot Trump, you know, last year.
Sam: Well, one of the things that's been pointed out, and as you said,
Sam: we don't really know his motives yet.
Sam: There are a lot of people speculating based on incomplete information, right? Right.
Sam: Some of the latest stuff is that he might be like affiliated with these this
Sam: griper trend or whatever with Nick Fuentes,
Sam: which is basically a group that is was complaining that Charlie Kirk was too liberal.
Sam: You know, he wasn't conservative enough.
Ivan: Listen, but these guys were freaked out enough that, you know,
Ivan: Laura Loomer and these guys started deleting tweets, right?
Sam: Yes, yes. I know Laura Loomer had been really critical of Charlie Kirk for the
Sam: last month or so, saying he wasn't a real Trump supporter and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: There was a variety of stuff. But I just want to say on this guy,
Sam: maybe he is this griper thing or however the hell you say it.
Sam: There are also a few, you know, people pointed out like some of the bullets
Sam: had sort of anti-fascist slogans on them and stuff like that.
Sam: But apparently all of those things were related to online gaming meme culture
Sam: and in some cases are typically used ironically. So it's hard to say what that really means.
Sam: Like in one, in one of the games, it's, it's apparently like,
Sam: this is an anti-fascist slogan, but it's used by people who are clearly fascists in the context.
Sam: So it's like part of the end joke that it's an anti-fascist slogan being used by fascists.
Sam: But, you know, maybe he is like, maybe he did have like a switch and it turns
Sam: out he is anti-fascist. Right.
Sam: But you don't know. But like one of the things
Sam: that's being that's somewhat a trend in some of these recent events is people
Sam: where you actually can't really nail them down on any sort of consistent ideology
Sam: ideology on a left right spectrum.
Ivan: No, you're right.
Sam: It's more like it's a random hodgepodge of views, some typically associated
Sam: with the right, some typically associated with the left, but like a big ongoing...
Sam: But wait, I was just going to say, but the big ongoing theme being burn the
Sam: fucking system down, we hate everything, you know, like let's...
Sam: And glorification, like you said, of violence.
Ivan: And look, it's glorifying the violence, glorifying the hate,
Ivan: but also, by the way, I think a big thing about our current culture is the attention.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Because this is a huge thing where, you know, the social media culture is,
Ivan: what can I do to draw more attention, more attention, more attention?
Ivan: Well, hey, you ought to talk about getting attention today.
Ivan: You know, he certainly, he certainly, you know, did that.
Ivan: And, you know, heck, there were a lot of people that glorified,
Ivan: like, the Columbine shooters.
Sam: For example.
Ivan: And such kind of murderers.
Sam: And there were copycats for years.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. And so there is this culture of glorifying a lot of this as well,
Ivan: where they think that they're going to be seen as heroes, martyrs, something.
Ivan: I don't know. And just the whole thing about being, you know,
Ivan: getting the attention is more than anything.
Sam: Even when they go into it knowing it's going to be like suicide by cop or whatever,
Sam: it's going out in a blaze of glory.
Ivan: Blaze of glory. Yeah.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And so we will learn more about this guy in particular.
Ivan: But the whole political response from Trump all the way down,
Ivan: I mean, it's just so appalling.
Sam: Well, it almost seems like once it came out, like you said, you know,
Sam: white guy, middle class family, conservative-ish family, Utah Mormon, you know.
Ivan: Trump, by the way, couldn't give a shit, like, very, very, very soon after.
Sam: Well, that's what I was going to say. It's almost like you could feel the disappointment
Sam: because they were all riling themselves up to use this as an excuse to crack
Sam: down on Democrats and liberals everywhere.
Sam: You know, there were people reposting things from, let me find one of them that
Sam: I shared on the Curmudgeon Corner Slack a little bit ago. But there.
Ivan: All the very aggressive things, posts. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. Let me find one of them real quick and then I'll read a bunch of these.
Ivan: Here we go. I like the one about the Reichstag fire. Is that one there?
Ivan: About the guy, this is our Reichstag fire. I'm realizing these people don't
Ivan: know what the Reichstag fire was.
Sam: Well, or they don't care. Like it was the Nazi, you know, yeah, they don't care.
Sam: You know, it was an excuse to consolidate power.
Sam: And that's, you know, so here's the thing.
Sam: And someone pointed out, these aren't just random right-leaning accounts saying
Sam: the things I'm going to read. These are some of the most, these are a lot of
Sam: really popular accounts that I'm going to quote from.
Sam: Libs of TikTok, this is war.
Sam: Joey Manorino. The Democrat Party must be classified as a domestic terror organization
Sam: and their members, leaders treated accordingly. Enough is enough.
Sam: Brian Eastwood. Charlie Kirk.
Ivan: Can I stop you on that one? Can I stop you on that one? Enough is enough because of what?
Ivan: Can you please list the entire streak of violence incited by the damn Democratic Party?
Ivan: I mean, it's just the utter gall of these comments. Go ahead.
Sam: Here's another one. And like some of these I recognize, some I don't.
Sam: I've seen this shared a few places with people saying like, trust me,
Sam: like a lot, these folks have lots of followers. Okay.
Sam: And I do recognize a bunch of the names, just not all of them.
Sam: Brian Eastwood, Charlie Kirk getting shot is the shot heard around the country.
Sam: I'm ready for civil war. You want to fight and you're going to get it.
Sam: Oilfield Rando. I don't want the National Guard sent to Democrat cities anymore.
Sam: I want the Air Force sent.
Sam: Sean Davis, when Democrats lose elections, they couldn't steal.
Sam: They murder the people they were unable to defeat.
Sam: Ron...
Ivan: Can he also... By the way, can he provide me a list of the people we have murdered
Ivan: from this last election since the November 6th Joe Biden loss?
Ivan: Can I please have the detailed list?
Ivan: Sam, what fucking delusional world are these people living on?
Ivan: Or is it just that, you know what, the lie needs to be just.
Sam: You know, as big as possible? Obviously, I haven't been watching the last little bit,
Sam: but I saw a post on Mastodon in the last hour saying that Fox News tonight is
Sam: continuing along with the rhetoric about it being the liberals' fault despite this.
Sam: You know, and I'll add, you know, Donald Trump's initial statement was all about
Sam: how it's, there were a few statements about we all have to calm down,
Sam: but there was a lot about how it's the radical left.
Sam: And, you know, he was talking on Fox and talking about how, yeah,
Sam: well, yeah, there's a radical right too, but they're not really a problem.
Sam: The radical left is the right.
Ivan: No, no, no. No, no, no. Let me be clear. He said beyond that,
Ivan: he said, hold on, i couldn't care less.
Sam: Right and they're.
Ivan: 80 of the source of the violence and i couldn't care less.
Sam: Here here are a couple more of those gunther eagleman they've declared war,
Sam: esthetica there's no going back after this there's no more words to be said
Sam: the only way this ends is the complete annihilation of the democrat party you know no,
Sam: And look, I'm sure you can find folks on the left who've said incendiary things, too.
Ivan: I mean, not that not as popular, not as with many followers and not as many
Ivan: leaders saying these kinds of things.
Ivan: It's the stuff like Nancy Mace, for example, coming out and like saying shit like this herself. OK.
Sam: And, you know, look, I've said I've said on this show.
Ivan: Donald Trump said it himself.
Sam: Well, yeah. And look, I have said on this show myself that this this is actually
Sam: like a battle for the soul of the civilization and someone will win and someone will lose.
Sam: But I'm not suggesting we go out and murder all the Republicans.
Sam: But I do want their ideology extinguished.
Sam: I think it's toxic and needs to go away, but not necessarily.
Ivan: The lead senator from Utah, another prominent one, he was also one that said
Ivan: some very vicious things, okay, about this, which then he walked back,
Ivan: but he said shit like this, too.
Ivan: And I'm sorry, but there is no senator or Democratic leader,
Ivan: you know, you can find that says anything.
Sam: Well, in fact, there are a bunch more of these quotes, but I don't have to read all of them.
Sam: In fact, we had the exact fucking opposite.
Sam: We had every freaking Democratic leader, first of all, bending over backwards
Sam: to condemn this, say this is not violence is never the solution. This is horrible.
Ivan: I don't need to bend over backwards to condemn the violence. I'm sorry. Yeah, right.
Sam: That was the wrong word. It was an automatic condemn to violence.
Sam: There was no bending over backwards for that. The bending over backwards came
Sam: when quite a few of them went further than that and started talking about how
Sam: great a guy Charlie Kirk was.
Ivan: Well, that's the one where I'm just like, no, hey, hey, hey, stop.
Sam: You know, and how he exemplified the desire for people to talk.
Ivan: No, no, no, no, none of that. No, no, no.
Sam: And we should put the flags at half-mast all over the country.
Ivan: I'm like, yeah, no, no, no, no, none of that. But yes, this is something that I find appalling.
Sam: But my point is that Democrats, unanimous, I have seen there were.
Ivan: It was unanimous.
Sam: There, I've seen a few people.
Ivan: I'm sure there's an exception.
Sam: Yeah, there are a few people who are, you know, there are always some exceptions.
Sam: There have been no prominent exceptions.
Sam: But without exception, like elected Democrats and prominent Democratic pundits
Sam: have said, this is inexcusable. This is never a solution.
Sam: The violence is bad. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And like I said, a good deal of them went further and started talking about,
Sam: like, saying good things about this guy.
Sam: And I think that's excessive because I think you can have—both things can be true.
Sam: That killing somebody like this is inexcusable, counterproductive,
Sam: and horrible and can only lead to bad things.
Ivan: So more, more bad things.
Sam: And also this guy was a scumbag. Absolutely had everything he stood for was
Sam: horrific, you know, and is complete opposite of my own values.
Sam: And I feel like he was a destructive force in society and, you know, was negative.
Sam: And these things can go.
Ivan: Listen, there's something I saw tonight. Somebody, there were two founders of
Ivan: Turning Point USA. And you can confirm that this is true.
Sam: Yeah, I saw your quote on this. I don't know if it's true.
Ivan: Well, you check to see if Bill Montgomery died of COVID because he said,
Ivan: Bill Montgomery was against masks and vaccines and died of COVID.
Ivan: Charlie Kirk was anti-gun regulation and killed by a gun.
Ivan: Not only is he anti-gun, he actually, there is a quote directly by him saying
Ivan: that the cost of the Second Amendment is that we're going to have a few people
Ivan: killed. That was basically.
Sam: Bill Montgomery for as per Wikipedia, co-founded Turning Point USA,
Sam: died of COVID on July 28th, 2020.
Sam: I don't know whether it's true.
Ivan: Oh, yeah.
Sam: He spoke out against all the stuff.
Ivan: Probably. Oh, I'm sure he had a problem.
Ivan: If it was by July, that's when the tide had already turned about.
Ivan: All these guys were all anti-everything, anti-mask, anti-vav, whatever.
Sam: And he was 80 when he died. So he wasn't a young one like Charlie Kirk.
Ivan: Yeah. No vaccines available by the time he died, I don't think so. July 2020?
Sam: July 2020. So that was really early in the...
Ivan: Yeah, that was really early in, yeah. But anyway, I, okay, look,
Ivan: I don't even want to, I don't want to keep talking about Charlie Kirk because
Ivan: I honestly, because he doesn't deserve it.
Ivan: I mean, to me spending this much time on him. So let's move on to another subject.
Sam: Okay. Do you want to just go ahead and take a break and then I pick something
Sam: else entirely and we, we move right along? Okay.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: So let's see. What's that? What's the next break? We already did one break.
Sam: So, okay, the next one is this one.
Sam: We'll be back right after this, and I guess I'll pick a topic.
Sam: And, yeah, I'll leave you in suspense for a few minutes on what that will be.
Ivan: Here you go. Suspense.
Sam: However long this break is. I don't know. Here we go.
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Sam: Okay. We're back. We're here.
Ivan: We're back.
Sam: It's exciting.
Ivan: Okay. So, so, Sam.
Sam: Have I left you in suspense long enough? Has it been long enough?
Ivan: I'm tingling.
Sam: I could keep it going longer.
Ivan: I'm tingling.
Sam: Tingling?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: That's nice. I'm happy for you. Enjoy the tingle.
Sam: No, I figure we had the Epstein book come out.
Ivan: Oh, my God. You know, the news that we have to discuss are so disgusting.
Ivan: thing oh my god that Epstein book.
Sam: So we had we had heard about the one page from Donald Trump we hadn't seen the
Sam: actual picture of it we'd heard it described but we got released the entire
Sam: book not just the Donald Trump page but all these other people who contributed it with various things.
Ivan: Holy shit Sam,
Ivan: That book was disgusting.
Sam: I did not go through all the pages. I saw some highlights.
Ivan: Neither did I, but I saw some of the highlights. The lowlights. Holy shit.
Sam: There was a piece of artwork, just as an example,
Sam: that had Epstein giving balloons to obviously small girl children and with a year marked,
Sam: and then another year marked like 10 years later where they've all grown up
Sam: but not grown up too much and they're all hanging over him like in scantily dress.
Ivan: And massaging him in scantily dress.
Sam: The one theme throughout this entire book was, oh yeah, we're making jokes about
Sam: how we know you like little girls.
Ivan: Basically. Holy shit! Yes!
Sam: And some of them implying that, you know,
Sam: they had some experiences together but all of
Sam: them with with the possible there were a
Sam: couple of exceptions that were more innocent like there was
Sam: a letter from bill clinton in this book he he
Sam: was one of the few did that
Sam: did not seem to be making a sly joke about
Sam: epstein's pedophilia okay he said
Sam: some other things about how his contributions to society or some bullshit but
Sam: like almost everything in this book the most generous interpretation is they
Sam: knew he liked little girls and were making jokes about it. That's the most generous interpretation.
Ivan: Let's be clear. The Trump one, okay, that was in there.
Ivan: The one, the real one versus the sketch that we saw.
Ivan: The artist's recreation showed a woman that from her features was older.
Sam: Right. Yes.
Ivan: And the one that was drawn by Trump, actually pretty much showed I mean,
Ivan: not a pre-pubescent girl, but definitely a young teenager.
Ivan: A young teenager. Yes.
Ivan: I, I, this thing is just,
Ivan: It's revolting. I just, you know, it was just revolting.
Ivan: And, of course, now all of a sudden we have the book, we have Trump's signature,
Ivan: and everybody's now arguing, oh, well, that's not Trump's signature.
Ivan: I mean, it's a fucking— It's ridiculous.
Sam: It's absolutely ridiculous.
Ivan: I mean, it's a spot-on match. It's a spot-on match.
Sam: People instantly produced dozens of contemporary examples from the same time frame.
Sam: The difference compared to his current signature, this is where he's just signing
Sam: Donald as opposed to signing Donald Trump.
Sam: And it's like, you know, what, 20 years ago. So it's evolved a little bit over time.
Sam: But, you know, a whole bunch of people ranging from Mary Trump,
Sam: his like, what is he, a cousin? Whatever she is.
Ivan: Niece.
Sam: Niece, cousin, whatever. whatever niece niece niece
Sam: what's his name cohen produced some
Sam: examples some several journalists produced examples like
Sam: there were dozens of easily available versions
Sam: of his signature from about the same time where he just signed
Sam: donald and they all looked identical you don't even need to be an expert could
Sam: it have been right and someone pointed out like oh yes what's the theory here
Sam: But someone forged this 20 years ago with a nefarious plan of waiting 20 years
Sam: and then exposing it as a fake Donald Trump thing,
Sam: knowing that 20 years from now, he's going to be president.
Ivan: Well, of course. I mean, that's how Democrats work.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I don't think I don't think you understand how good a conspiracy we are.
Ivan: I mean, we see into the future.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And with all that George Soros AI money back from the 1990s AI, we could predict this.
Ivan: I don't think you understand. I don't think you understand how good that George Soros AI money is.
Sam: Right. Yeah. I mean, look, the thing that comes together off all of this,
Sam: and this goes back to what some of the survivors were saying last week as well, that we talked about.
Sam: They're like, you know, yes, they're probably other men, you know,
Sam: and we know like Prince Andrew was explicitly named by the one who had suicide.
Sam: We know there are probably other names, but most of the survivors were like,
Sam: what we really want to get at is all of the people who enabled him.
Sam: You know, there's people who knew about this and who did not report it.
Sam: There were people who knew about this and laughed and facilitated.
Sam: And, you know, there were stories this last week about how various financial
Sam: institutions, he was setting off money laundering flags left and right.
Sam: And executives at those companies signed all the paperwork to exempt him from some of that stuff.
Ivan: Well, specifically JPMorgan Chase, apparently one of the one of the key one
Ivan: of a high executive at JPMorgan Chase basically kept signing off on everything.
Ivan: Now he's buying. He's buying.
Sam: Right. right and you know and and
Sam: so there's a lot of like can we follow the money can
Sam: we see who he's enabling him what was behind that sweetheart
Sam: deal in florida like 15 years ago or however long it was that basically gave
Sam: him a slap on the wrist and let him go on his way and continue to abuse women
Sam: or girls i should say uh girls not women yeah and you know that that's what they're like Yes,
Sam: again, there may have been other men who also abused women, and we certainly
Sam: want to get them if they're out there and if there's evidence,
Sam: but there was a much larger circle.
Sam: of people who contributed to this happening in one way, shape,
Sam: or another by ignoring it, by enabling it, by facilitating it in one way or another,
Sam: by letting him off the hook instead of prosecuting him down in Florida, all of this stuff.
Sam: And that's sort of part of what, you know, they want to get to the bottom of.
Sam: I mean, some of those survivors last week specifically said,
Sam: We're not even accusing Donald Trump of anything, so we don't understand why he's blocking this.
Sam: And, of course, like, the natural response here is, there's got to be a reason.
Ivan: There's got to be a reason.
Sam: You know, it's.
Ivan: Got to be a fucking reason.
Sam: There was one of the survivors who was interviewed is like, you know,
Sam: I voted for Donald Trump.
Sam: And part of it was because I believed he would help get to the bottom of all
Sam: of this. So I don't understand what he's doing now.
Ivan: Yeah. So it's, it's, it's so fucked up.
Ivan: I really, I mean, I shared some of them and I was just, I, I,
Ivan: I was, I mean, seriously, I was nauseated. It was revolting.
Sam: And, and, and it was page after page after page from one prominent person or another.
Sam: are like some of the names I recognize some of them I didn't,
Sam: but like they're all sort of wealthy, well-known people within those various circles.
Sam: There was one, I don't think it was part of this book, but also released this
Sam: week, there was a note from Dershowitz, I think, basically saying,
Sam: from him to Epstein, basically saying, I took care of that one story that was
Sam: being published, I talked to them, and I made sure to redirect it,
Sam: so instead of mainly talking about you, it's going to be talking about Bill Clinton. Yeah.
Ivan: And he was patting himself on the back about that.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I'm sure he's not getting a perogy from that guy and he's been arguing with and martha's vineyard.
Sam: Well and it was very interesting by the way how this book came about like that
Sam: it it came out that you know they were busy they're arguing in congress about
Sam: trying to get the doj to hand over the documents they had was apparently someone
Sam: pointed out exactly someone pointed out,
Sam: and apparently this actually happened live on a conversation on an MSNBC show,
Sam: where somebody told the member of Congress who was on the oversight committee, by the way,
Sam: the Epstein estate is going to have this book.
Sam: And DOJ may not want to give it to you, but if you subpoena the Epstein estate, they will.
Sam: And they're like, let's talk right after of the
Sam: show and they got the right and they got the
Sam: the subpoena going like the next day and that's
Sam: where this came from from the epstein estate and they gave a bunch of other
Sam: stuff apparently uh just yesterday i think a trove of emails was also released
Sam: from from between epstein and maxwell you know going back and forth about various
Sam: things so this stuff is still trickling out.
Ivan: Trove.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And let me tell you, that trove was dammit.
Sam: I haven't paid as much attention to it, so tell me a little bit about that.
Ivan: Well, listen, when I read, well, I didn't read the details of the emails,
Ivan: but the summaries I saw was that the emails showed very clearly that they were
Ivan: completely in cahoots in this damn enterprise.
Ivan: That this was not, like, Ghislaine was no innocent bison. No.
Ivan: It just clearly proved what we know and is the reason why she is in jail.
Ivan: So, you know, it's... And, of course, now she's sitting in minimum security.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Which, by the way, let me tell you something. Minimum security,
Ivan: Listen, they don't call it Club Fed for nothing, okay?
Ivan: It really is very different, okay?
Ivan: It's not, I mean, I know that we talk about rehabilitation a lot for criminals.
Ivan: We're talking about also punishment.
Ivan: You know, that part really lightens up the punishment part quite a lot.
Ivan: And for people I know that have been there, okay?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It's it's it's i mean it it was a huge huge concession to move her to to that
Ivan: facility okay it's not no small thing right in exchange for.
Sam: Her saying you know donald trump was always a gentleman he wasn't involved with anything.
Ivan: Yeah basically.
Sam: I mean it's it's fairly clear.
Ivan: No, no, no, wait. I didn't see anything I thought was inappropriate, which, by the way.
Sam: You know. She doesn't think anything was inappropriate, and she's completely.
Ivan: Exactly. Of course. Right. Yeah.
Sam: And she, look, the thing is, this
Sam: is continuing to dribble and dribble and dribble. It's not going away yet.
Sam: The discharge petition in the House
Sam: is one vote away. They need one more Republican to have that go forward.
Sam: Now, even if it goes forward, it doesn't mean that everything's automatically
Sam: released or anything like that.
Sam: There was a vote in the Senate that failed, for instance.
Sam: But one vote away. I don't know if they'll get that vote or not.
Sam: There's been a lot of pressure on congressional Republicans not to sign on to this thing, obviously.
Sam: But they're close, you know?
Ivan: You know, asking Ghislaine Maxwell, who is inappropriate, is like if a cop asked
Ivan: me, hey, do you think you were going too fast?
Ivan: I would say no.
Sam: Not at all.
Ivan: I wasn't, sir. Not at all.
Sam: 135 was perfectly appropriate for the conditions. For the conditions, yes.
Ivan: I don't see what your problem is. I thought it was fine.
Sam: Yes, yes. Okay. I think we have exhausted Epstein.
Sam: Did you want to... I saw you out on another topic.
Ivan: Okay, I did add another topic.
Sam: Should I take another break? or should you just want.
Ivan: No no no no let's do this no let's do because we took a break you know let's
Ivan: let's do two and then we can take another break before that i added this one on,
Ivan: the the accusations to get fed governor oh god what's her name i was gonna say
Ivan: lisa cook or linda cook oh god it's a lisa it was did i have it right the first
Ivan: time okay you should check i.
Sam: Think it's lisa.
Ivan: I have double checking yes it was lisa cook i had it right the first time So
Ivan: Reuters went and checked and pulled, apparently,
Ivan: the loan applications in question, you know, to see if what she was being accused of was, in fact,
Ivan: the case, that she had claimed this second home as a primary home.
Ivan: Well, apparently Reuters got the documents I'm not sure how exactly It was first
Ivan: reported by Reuters Here it is,
Ivan: And they pulled the document And it read The loan summary from bank fund staff
Ivan: Federal credit union May 21 reads Property use,
Ivan: vacation home So it was properly done So this whole thing I think even there
Ivan: were lawyers I guess at some point And maybe we were like wondering why didn't
Ivan: they go and categorically do it when they didn't have the information man was like,
Ivan: Hey, maybe it's a clerical hero, but maybe, you know,
Ivan: You know, make sure. But apparently, when Reuters went and got the documents,
Ivan: it showed that, no, this accusation by Bill Pulte is false.
Sam: Nice. Well, they're still going to investigate, right? And now that there's
Sam: an investigation open, they may find something else.
Ivan: Well, they could go and investigate, but, you know, they've got nothing on this.
Sam: Well, look, here's the thing. And, you know, and by the way,
Sam: a court also said that he couldn't fire her yet.
Sam: Like, it's going to be appealed.
Ivan: He couldn't fire her. Look, the reason wasn't good enough.
Sam: You know, because you can fire for cause.
Ivan: Yeah, but there is, look, cause has certain definitions. Okay, all right?
Ivan: And that's the thing about it. The word cause isn't used where you can just invent what cause is.
Ivan: I mean, that's the main thing.
Sam: Well, we'll see when it gets to SCOTUS. They may redefine it.
Ivan: Well, but here's the reality. Well, yes. I mean, who knows what the SCOTUS is.
Ivan: They even have a fucking lower courts, like basically right now,
Ivan: they're getting into an argument with the fucking lower courts because they're
Ivan: telling them that, you know, who the fuck knows what you guys mean anymore? Okay? You know?
Sam: It's real easy. They mean whatever is beneficial to Donald Trump.
Ivan: Yeah, to Trump. To Trump at this point, yeah.
Ivan: But look, like right now, the main basis of the accusation is pretty much you
Ivan: got documents flat out that show that it's not accurate.
Sam: Right. Well, the thing is, and I think we talked.
Ivan: We've got the prosecution is not going to. By the way, the prosecution is not
Ivan: going to go anywhere because nobody's going to build this either.
Ivan: Because one of the problems with this is it's how selective it is.
Ivan: But you can see that, you know, they can pull errors and they're not.
Ivan: They're only prosecuting her. So we're all the other.
Sam: But here's the thing. In the end, if your goal is simply to make my life miserable
Sam: for your enemies, none of that matters.
Ivan: No, none of that matters.
Sam: I mean, none of that is a big part of it. You start the investigation,
Sam: and they need to hire lawyers, and they need to spend time, and they need to defend themselves.
Sam: You fire her, and she has to go to court to try to get it reversed,
Sam: and then that's going to be appealed, and you're going to make it impossible for us.
Ivan: No, I know, and that's part of the whole thing. I get it, but...
Ivan: But the problem is, but Sam, on the flip side, my whole point about this is
Ivan: that on every one of these, you have to fight.
Ivan: Because they're trying to do this. Unfortunately, the other flip side is that
Ivan: it doesn't matter how big or small, you're basically down to,
Ivan: at this point, you have to fight them on every single thing.
Ivan: Every comma, every T, every damn thing. There is no thing about working on them on any of these.
Ivan: You have to fight them at every corner.
Sam: Well, ideally you absolutely would, but the reality is lots of people who get
Sam: attacked this way won't have the ability or resources to do so.
Ivan: Listen, most of the big targets that they are going after can't.
Sam: The big targets will get attention, but that's actually part of the problem
Sam: is they're doing this at every level.
Sam: They have decimated DOJ. They have decimated FBI, they have fired, you know, entire,
Sam: agencies are nearly gone.
Sam: And yeah, the people at the top of that chain might be able to afford it or
Sam: have pro bono people come after them. The people at the bottom are just screwed.
Ivan: Listen, actually, I know that there's a lot of people I understood at the bottom.
Ivan: But the thing is that you get more attention to these.
Ivan: But it goes back to this whole thing that George Will said about the article
Ivan: where he's saying, unfortunately, that the wheels of this kind of stuff slowly,
Ivan: especially if you've got a Supreme Court that has enabled them in certain cases.
Ivan: But the reality is that, yes, they are getting the advantage on this. But it doesn't matter.
Ivan: When you're thinking about the long term, you still have to keep fighting all of these anyway.
Sam: Yeah, I'm not disagreeing.
Ivan: It doesn't really matter. You have to fight wherever you can.
Ivan: You have to fight every single one of these.
Ivan: and it's one of the reasons I'm telling you like why the hell Trump had to finally
Ivan: back off on all his bullshit threats to Chicago and now why he's going to fucking Memphis yeah.
Sam: I think it's.
Ivan: Memphis right or whatever New Orleans whatever I think it's.
Sam: Memphis I'll check while you talk it.
Ivan: May be Memphis but you have to do it that way unfortunately it's exhausting
Ivan: but it is what it is I don't see what else we can do at the moment And,
Ivan: eventually Donald Trump will have a heart.
Sam: Attack it is Memphis I had it right.
Ivan: Eventually Donald Trump will have a heart attack.
Sam: Well yes something will happen there are more rumors about that this week too
Sam: did he have a stroke was his something going on with the side of his face something looked.
Ivan: Off with his face.
Sam: And did they doctor the video of him talking about Charlie Kirk to like changes face and you know.
Ivan: Listen, listen, what I said, I didn't say like I said on the Slack. I did not think it was AI.
Sam: Some people did.
Ivan: But it did look like I didn't, I didn't, but I know some people did,
Ivan: but I thought that they went in and they touched it up.
Sam: At the very least, what appear there are a few there was at least one of,
Sam: and maybe more of something they call a morph edit,
Sam: which is basically like, you know, if, if you are talking for a while and you
Sam: mess up and then you repeat and,
Sam: you know, when you splice those together, instead of just doing a sharp cut,
Sam: use a morph effect to try to smooth it out.
Sam: And that looks weird. Like there was one place where people were pointing out,
Sam: it looks like his finger disappeared.
Sam: It was a morph edit, you know, so this
Sam: was obviously done in multiple takes and then sliced together and then people
Sam: were pointing out just things like more standard video effects like they pumped
Sam: up the the the the color uh right you know they they they might have added some
Sam: smoothing effects you know some stuff like that that's.
Ivan: The kind of shit that i'm talking about they they just really like just pumped
Ivan: up all that shit they like they pumped it up to the max.
Sam: Well and so yeah like i think and we're having the health conversation again
Sam: apparently Look, it's clear the guy is aging.
Sam: It is clear he's got health issues of one sort or another.
Sam: I've said on the Slack a few times, and I said on this show on the time I was
Sam: solo here, like, look, when we get to something really, really acute happening,
Sam: I don't think they'll be able to keep it secret very long.
Sam: Like, you know, people were talking about maybe he died days ago and they're keeping it secret. No.
Sam: If the guy drops dead, we will know about it really fast.
Ivan: Listen, we kept how bad Reagan was for a long time.
Sam: Yes. And that's the kind of thing, like, it is very easy to imagine that,
Sam: you know, how people were talking about is that what happened with Joe Biden, right?
Sam: Like, were they covering up how bad his true situation is? And I think like disappear.
Ivan: Like in any way like like that.
Sam: There was a lot talked about how they were very productive of who got to see
Sam: Joe Biden and for who for how long and stuff like that.
Sam: So, look, this is all very believable. It's happened to presidents before where
Sam: there are health issues of both parties where there are health issues and the
Sam: people around them try to hide it and make it, you know,
Sam: and protect the president from those things. Look, that's very believable.
Sam: And I could very much see, you know, if he is gradually deteriorating and getting
Sam: worse, they're going to try their best to hide that as long as they possibly can.
Sam: All I'm saying is if something really acute happens, like he has a full-blown
Sam: heart attack, he has a debilitating stroke,
Sam: anything that would actually require,
Sam: oh, we're going to rush him to the hospital, we will know about them.
Sam: They're not going to keep that secret for days.
Ivan: Dave!
Sam: Yes, I know, Dave. Dave. I'll add it to my list yet again to watch again. But, you know, yeah.
Ivan: I mean, we can get Dave. All of a sudden, we get this nice Trump.
Ivan: That's what happened in the movie. The original Dave was an asshole.
Ivan: And so I went and changed it into Dave, and Dave was like this great president.
Sam: Exactly, yes.
Ivan: Well, all of a sudden, we got this guy walking around as Donald Trump,
Ivan: and all of a sudden he's saying, I love America, I love immigrants.
Ivan: And everybody's going, what happened?
Sam: Yes. Well, since we're drifting into this kind of stuff and sort of not the same as Charlie Kirk,
Sam: but I will mention, like, there was a thing this last week as well,
Sam: where some, first of all, it started with some reporter saying,
Sam: you say Washington, D.C.
Sam: has gotten so much safer because of the National Guard.
Sam: Well, we haven't seen you go to a restaurant.
Sam: And so Donald Trump was like, OK, fine, I'll go to a restaurant.
Sam: And so he went to a restaurant that's just right across the street from the
Sam: White House. So it's not like he went far.
Sam: But then protesters there started immediately yelling.
Ivan: As far as I can tell, there were other patrons at the restaurant.
Sam: No, no. Here's an interesting part. Like, I thought so at first, too.
Sam: First of all, he went over the president, the vice president,
Sam: several cabinet members. I think Rubio was there.
Sam: I think several other people pointed out.
Ivan: Isn't that like really bad protocol to have all the people together?
Sam: I mean, basically, we're talking a designated survivor situation if somebody
Sam: took out that restaurant, right?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, like you're taking out half the line of succession because they're
Sam: all there in one room at some restaurant.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And to what you were saying, it was just other patrons there.
Sam: I can't believe it was coincidence because it turns out the protesters, it was Medea Benjamin.
Sam: You remember her? Code pink.
Sam: She is a very prominent career protester in Washington, D.C.
Sam: Now, is it possible she just happened to be at that restaurant when Donald Trump decided to walk over?
Sam: Maybe she spends a lot of time in D.C.
Sam: protesting all kinds of crap. Right. Okay. She protests things at Congress.
Sam: She protests all over the place. She is a professional protester, okay?
Sam: A professional far-left protester.
Sam: But here's the thing, and I saw a few people point it out later.
Sam: All of the initial coverage was about, oh, look at Donald Trump.
Sam: Look at how upset he is by the protesters. But then,
Sam: people started pointing out, you have a whole crowd of like six or seven protesters
Sam: here in this restaurant, 10 feet or less away from the president.
Sam: What the fuck is the Secret Service doing? You know, now they have the right
Sam: to protest, but normally the Secret Service would go in there and sweep the place.
Sam: Like I said, this is a well-known leftist agitator. You think they'd let her
Sam: stay or they'd let trump come in.
Ivan: Look i mean i i mean i mean
Ivan: i mean i mean maybe they have look here okay
Ivan: look there was this one time where i bumped into right he was president yes
Ivan: into into hw bush okay okay right so i this is a time when i went during this
Ivan: presidential classroom,
Ivan: and I was roaming the halls of Congress. Okay?
Ivan: Literally just going around, checking out what the hell is there. The place is huge.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Okay? So I'm walking towards the place and I was heading towards the gallery. Okay?
Ivan: All right? I was heading towards the Senate gallery, if I remember correctly.
Ivan: Yeah, exactly. I was heading towards the Senate gallery. And all of a sudden,
Ivan: as I'm walking, Me, this 18-year-old at that time, a Secret Service agent,
Ivan: an agent, which I didn't know was a Secret Service agent, tells me to stop.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Okay, you can't keep going. And I'm like, okay. And lo and behold, it's H.W.
Ivan: Now, I'm remembering, no, this wasn't, it was still beat. He wasn't president, okay?
Ivan: It was beat because he had to go in to cast a tie-breaking vote.
Ivan: And that's what I was, I wanted to, that's what I was going to the gallery to
Ivan: watch this. Because there was a tie, okay?
Ivan: And there was going to be a tie-breaking vote, okay?
Ivan: And so, and that's why he was there. But the reality is they had, I mean, I don't know.
Ivan: I was like a few feet from him. I mean, it's not like they searched me or anything.
Sam: Well, even a few years later, when I got to go to the White House with WRCT
Sam: the year after you left, and I know you're still upset you didn't get to go on this.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: But, you know, I was sitting 10 feet away from Al Gore, Bill Clinton,
Sam: Tipper Gore, several cabinet members.
Ivan: We didn't guys have to go through security to get there.
Sam: We had to go through security to get there. But I was stunned at how lax that security was.
Sam: And remember, this was before 9-11. Everything's been way tightened up since then.
Sam: But I remember back then being surprised at how little security there was.
Sam: I mean, it was like the same kind of security that I got a few weeks back when I went to the fair here.
Sam: some like some guy looked inside my
Sam: bag and was like oh there's nothing there but they didn't even pull the stuff
Sam: out to look at what was underneath right and i'm like there could have been
Sam: something in there what the hell search me better you know but yeah so i but
Sam: you'd think right now i mean,
Sam: People tried to kill him twice already, you know?
Ivan: The bill that I saw, okay, by
Ivan: the way, the bill that I saw passed was the catastrophic health care bill.
Ivan: This was a bill, Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988,
Ivan: which for some reason caused a lot of controversy because this is one of those
Ivan: things that's a precursor of the kind of stuff we're talking about,
Ivan: trying to broaden, like,
Ivan: oh my god, health care coverage to everybody.
Ivan: And how there was opposition to that for some reason.
Ivan: And that bill required a tie-breaking vote by H.W. Bush when it passed in 88.
Ivan: So I was right. He was still VP. He was soon president, but it was right before.
Ivan: And for some reason, because of a whole bunch of reasons that I don't really
Ivan: recall, many people were pissed off about it for some reason,
Ivan: and it was repealed basically like a year later.
Ivan: It didn't even last that long.
Ivan: But by the way, the one thing about it is that you think about the changes that
Ivan: we've had since the now Republican policy, But H.W.
Ivan: went to cast a vote in favor of it to pass it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: OK. And then, of course, it didn't happen. And so that's how I wound up seeing.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: And having H.W. Bush say hi to me.
Sam: Excellent.
Ivan: Which I was, like, stunned. I'm like, hi.
Sam: Like, hi.
Sam: Very nice. But yeah, no, my point on this was just the fact that so many angry
Sam: people were allowed to get only 10 feet away from the president,
Sam: seems like a security failure.
Ivan: Seems like a security situation that could bring some catastrophic consequence at any point in time.
Ivan: And let's be clear about this. This administration is so incompetent in so many
Ivan: levels and so many things with the signal breaches, all this other stuff or whatever.
Sam: And just to be clear, I want to be absolutely clear just like the Charlie Kirk situation.
Sam: If somebody did get Donald Trump that way it would be bad for the country.
Sam: As much as I hate Donald Trump and think he's a horrible president.
Ivan: It would be horrible. It would be horrible. All right.
Ivan: So this is not good. This is what they're doing. This is not good.
Ivan: And it's going to lead into something bad happening to one of these guys because
Ivan: of how lax they are with everything. I just don't understand.
Ivan: Given the incitement of violence that they have done across the board and how
Ivan: they are also lax on the other end is preposterous.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, look.
Ivan: You told me your wife was concerned. They're all actually looking at the other thing.
Sam: Let me tell the—I'm going to say what I feel like I can say.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: My wife is a state legislator. As I said, she has been on a trip in Europe with
Sam: a whole bunch of other state legislators and some other people who are involved
Sam: in state government in various ways.
Sam: bipartisan group to be clear so she's
Sam: been hanging out with both republicans and democrats and they've
Sam: been you know they're going out and socializing and they're
Sam: going out drinking in the evenings and they're talking about stuff and a
Sam: i want to say that that's actually like a good sign that's good that you know
Sam: at least at the state level in washington state you can have republicans and
Sam: Democrats from across the aisle who go out together socially and have a good time.
Ivan: I think that's a good thing. I think that's a great thing.
Sam: And, you know, like my wife has worked with various Republicans on bipartisan
Sam: stuff and gotten things done. And it's good that that kind of thing can still
Sam: happen at certain levels. Okay.
Sam: But as part of their conversations, and I don't think I'm violating a conference
Sam: here. If I am, I apologize to my wife.
Sam: But people on both sides are incredibly nervous about the environment getting more dangerous.
Sam: And this is not the Democrats are afraid or the Republicans are afraid.
Sam: This is everybody is getting really nervous about what's the security situation.
Sam: Do we have to change our habits? Do we have to think, change how we think about
Sam: security? Do we have to like not be doing the things we've been doing?
Sam: And I guess I said changing habits, but like you just just things like,
Sam: you know, where you go, what kind of events you have, what things you participate in,
Sam: you know, if you have a town hall for your district, are you putting your life
Sam: in danger because you never know what kind of Yahoo is going to show up from the opposing side?
Sam: You know, in both directions, right?
Sam: And because the environment all across the board is just getting more tense
Sam: and people are more angry and there are a lot of crazy people out there.
Sam: And yes, there is easy access to guns and, and, you know, and to some degree, I'm like.
Sam: I want to be able to say, don't worry about it. You're exaggerating.
Sam: It's not a big deal. But, you know, state legislators were killed,
Sam: you know, just a couple months ago in Minnesota by some nut job who had a list
Sam: of Democrats in the state legislature to go after, you know?
Sam: And by the way, that's another contrast I meant to bring up earlier.
Sam: Like with Charlie Kirk, everybody's talking about, is this a big changing point?
Sam: like before they found out he was a white guy.
Sam: You know, is this a changing point? Is this a part of a civil war? Blah, blah, blah.
Sam: This guy blew away the former Speaker of the House in Minnesota,
Sam: her husband, her dog, and they shot another legislator and his wife.
Sam: And it disappeared out of the headlines in a few days.
Sam: You know, and nobody was talking about, is this going to change everything?
Sam: you know um you know
Sam: and you know no one was you know
Sam: donald trump's made all the made all
Sam: these comments about how wonderful charlie kirk was and how
Sam: much of a serious situation i don't think he ever said a damn thing about the
Sam: situation in in minnesota even though it was it turned out that one was a conservative
Sam: guy with a hit list of liberals yep you know and yeah so anyway yes The environment
Sam: is tense and getting tenser,
Sam: and I feel like it's going to get worse before it gets better.
Sam: I actually think, you know, it's a good thing this wasn't some far-left,
Sam: you know, Bernie Sanders,
Sam: AOC nutjob who killed Kirk, because I think that's the path that would be more
Sam: likely to lead to an immediate escalation.
Sam: this path I feel like the a lot of the conservatives who are getting riled up
Sam: for civil war have sort of been like oh never mind then yeah basically but at the same time it's.
Sam: This is, there has been a slow, gradual increase of this kind of stuff.
Sam: A few people have rattled off like the list of political violence in the last decade.
Sam: And there's been a lot of it, but well, quote unquote, a lot.
Sam: Relatively speaking, the United States has less of this than most places,
Sam: but it's been increasing.
Sam: You know, we had, how we had January 6th was
Sam: 100% political violence the state legislatures i mentioned nancy pelosi's husband
Sam: someone mentioned yeah someone tried to set fire to the governor the governor's
Sam: mansion in pennsylvania right well i tried to they did they did they did they tried to.
Ivan: Kill they tried to kill the governor.
Sam: And they escaped uh there was that plot to to kidnap gretchen whitmer whitmer
Sam: it also failed but a bunch of people were caught for that.
Sam: And yeah, there's a lot of this, there's a lot of this and it seems to be accelerating.
Sam: Yeah. I remember a couple of years ago, we had this conversation on here and
Sam: we listed a whole bunch, but we're like, well, luckily most of them have failed.
Sam: You know, there are a bunch of failed attempts. There are some people who got
Sam: hurt, but nobody's been killed.
Sam: And well, we've had a bunch of people killed now.
Ivan: Yeah. So well, and unfortunately I listen, Even though we Close this subject out Sorry,
Ivan: But even though This is going to get worse I don't I don't see how This is not going to get worse.
Sam: So i i can't disagree with you i want to disagree with you like i said i wanted
Sam: i wanted to tell my wife you're overreacting blah blah but i can't i can't i can't say that.
Ivan: Oh she's not overreacting.
Sam: You know she's like should i should i buy body armor like i'm like maybe you
Sam: know if you're out doing public events and stuff i mean didn't help kirk you
Sam: know but yeah but yeah I don't know.
Sam: It's just like the situation is tense and getting tenser.
Ivan: And is that the right way of saying that?
Sam: I don't think so.
Ivan: It's getting tenser.
Sam: It sounds weird. I keep thinking of the mathematical tensor every time I say
Sam: that. I've been watching too many general relativity things lately.
Sam: I'm reading a physics book with my son right now.
Ivan: I heard you say it earlier, and I didn't say anything.
Sam: More tense. Tenser. Well, again, I keep thinking the mathematical version.
Sam: because I am currently with Alex reading a book that includes some,
Sam: we're in a general relativity chapter right now.
Sam: We're talking about tensors and metrics and all that kind of stuff.
Sam: That's spelled differently, of course, T-E-N-S-O-R.
Sam: But it's basically a certain matrix type of thing, you know, whatever.
Ivan: But I'm trying to see, wait, hold on.
Ivan: All right, hold on more. More 10s?
Ivan: Wait. Okay, more tense or tensor.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Both more tense or and tensor are grammatically correct comparative forms of the adjective tense.
Sam: It did sound weird, though. I admit. I was thinking it sounded weird while I was saying it.
Ivan: Well, tensor is a valid comparative form, often following the rule of adding er, more tense.
Ivan: More tense is used for multi-syllable adjectives. has become the more natural and preferred choice.
Sam: Okay, well, as I said, I much prefer, in mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic
Sam: object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects
Sam: associated with a vector space.
Ivan: Well, that's the tensor I'm thinking about. Try to say that without reading it.
Sam: Anyway on the lovely note of you know political violence probably getting worse before it's better.
Ivan: Let me say that you know aside from poland firing uh drones that you know getting
Ivan: drones fired at it that the one good news in the world is how the hell does
Ivan: brazil have a better democracy than ours yes.
Sam: Okay let's take a break and then we'll hit those things one two three.
Ivan: Well, there's no hitting. No, we're going to end the show after this.
Sam: No break.
Ivan: I think we're good. I think we're good. It's just, all I'm saying is...
Sam: It was not a really short break. I was excited.
Ivan: Okay, all right. We'll take the break. We'll go and wrap up after that.
Ivan: Okay, here we go. All right, come on. All right.
Break: I want to be on top of the tree.
Break: I want to be on the floor when I fall off the tree.
Sam: There you go. See, that was worth it.
Ivan: Wasn't it? Okay, that was worth it. Okay, all right.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, now I'm wondering why we don't get more listeners. Anyway.
Ivan: God sakes. After me singing last week.
Sam: Yes. I put that right at the beginning so no one could miss it.
Ivan: Yes. Oh, God. Okay. Yeah. Anyway.
Sam: That actually, the song from last week, it happened in the middle during one
Sam: of the times my computer crashed and Yvonne was vamping while I was rebooting
Sam: my computer. And I pulled it out from there.
Ivan: He said for me to do something to kill time.
Sam: Yes, I did. And Ivan did.
Ivan: I just started singing. Anyway.
Sam: Anyway, Poland and Brazil. And we had the coup in Nepal, too. Or not coup.
Sam: The revolution, whatever happened in Nepal.
Ivan: Well, listen, we had the mass protest that led to the resignation of the prime
Ivan: minister and an undecided political situation.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And the mass protests were very violent. I don't know violent in terms of how
Ivan: many people they killed, because aside from the military that killed some of the protesters,
Ivan: I know they set a lot of buildings on fire and things on fire,
Ivan: but I don't know if they actually killed a lot of people.
Sam: I don't think there was a lot, but I honestly am not sure.
Sam: I did see one clip going around on the situation in Nepal where there was a
Sam: tourist bus that was trying to get through the protesters in front of the parliament
Sam: building that was on fire.
Sam: And the protesters, just made
Sam: way for the bus. They were waving at the bus saying, welcome to Nepal.
Sam: Thanks for coming and waving at them.
Ivan: Well, that's nice of them.
Sam: And meanwhile, you know, the parliament building or whatever it is burning right
Sam: behind them, you know, as they're going through.
Ivan: Well, that's nice of them, at least, you know. They're like,
Ivan: you know, okay, that's cool.
Sam: Anyway, yes. And just to finish up on Nepal,
Sam: I have not followed it closely, but the bottom line is apparently the
Sam: government there has had corruption issues for generations and
Sam: the younger generation had just had enough of it but they it was triggered by
Sam: them trying to shut off access to all kinds of social media and they were like
Sam: no and they protested enough like you said the the the prime minister resigned
Sam: and now there's an uncertain situation going on that will resolve itself one way or another.
Ivan: So, I mean, the other two things, look, we have those drones that that that
Ivan: Poland shot down that Russian drones, which, you know, it's like it's always
Ivan: when it's a friend of Trump.
Ivan: If it's a friend, if it's a friend of Trump, then it's like,
Ivan: oh, well, maybe an accident.
Ivan: Yeah, I didn't mean to, you know, shoot.
Ivan: I mean, I'm just anyway, always. But, of course, he wants, for some reason,
Ivan: he wants, for some reason, the EU...
Sam: I was just going to say on Brazil.
Ivan: Oh, well, we've got the Venezuela thing.
Sam: Well, no, I was just going to complete on Brazil. Like, yes,
Sam: Brazil took action against Bolsonaro, who had basically...
Ivan: Who tried! They tried to do the same...
Sam: They tried to do January 6th, and they also failed.
Ivan: And the solution was that they're throwing the bastard into jail for 25 fucking years.
Sam: Yeah, they arrested him. They went to trial. They're throwing him in jail.
Sam: But, you know, Trump is mad about it. Rubio is threatening things.
Sam: They're threatening more tariffs.
Sam: They already added some tariffs because of this. They're threatening more.
Ivan: And they have said, go fuck yourselves.
Sam: Yeah. And.
Ivan: He's not getting out of jail. He's going to jail for 25 years. Good luck.
Sam: And this is the right answer, you know.
Ivan: And that's the right answer.
Sam: You know, and if the U.S. wants to make fools of ourselves by throwing on tariffs.
Ivan: And tripling coffee prices or whatever president
Ivan: of brazil was not that popular okay all
Ivan: right because he's also one that's been involved in some corruption scandals
Ivan: and got brought back you do realize that the thing that they have done with
Ivan: attacking him once again as he has done with other foreign leaders is that his
Ivan: popularity has soared right and by the way the other thing is that on the tariffs on the terror front,
Ivan: Because our president is an idiot, okay?
Ivan: One of the things is that he's also handed a whole bunch of trade victories
Ivan: to Brazil by selling soybeans and other products to China at the expense of
Ivan: American exports, which now are super expensive and collapsed.
Sam: Yes, and someone pointed out, by the way, the tariffs that are being proposed
Sam: right now, two things, of course. One is what I mentioned before.
Sam: As with all the tariffs— We actually have.
Ivan: A trade surplus.
Sam: With Brazil already. Right, right. But as with all tariffs, the people who pay
Sam: the price are the Americans buying the product.
Sam: So in the case of Brazil, that's like coffee and beef, okay?
Ivan: Coffee is soaring. And beef is soaring.
Sam: But also, somebody did the analysis of what parts of Brazil would get hurt the most by the tariffs.
Sam: And they're the parts of the country that support Bolsonaro anyway.
Ivan: Yeah, so fuck them.
Sam: Yeah, so it's just all ill-conceived. Okay, moving on from Brazil.
Sam: Did we talk about Baltimore?
Ivan: We talked about Baltimore. Yeah, it sounds like it.
Ivan: But the one final one that I wanted to say that I didn't put on the topics is
Ivan: apparently we're a threatened war on Venezuela.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: They're actually, look, in Puerto Rico, a whole bunch of troops have arrived
Ivan: to Puerto Rico, which would be pretty much an ideal springboard to be launching
Ivan: shit to Venezuela from. In case of an attack.
Ivan: I am pretty sure that most of the Venezuelan diaspora is in favor of the United
Ivan: States attacking Venezuela and knocking down Maduro.
Ivan: I don't have a doubt about that.
Ivan: The whole problem with this whole thing and adventure is that most of the time
Ivan: that we do this shit, it never works out well.
Sam: That's an understatement, I think.
Ivan: But there are cases it does. Listen, if you ask the Panamanians,
Ivan: if they are happy that the U.S.
Ivan: took out Noriega, they pretty much unanimously are, thank God.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Okay. So, I mean, look, if you ask the Europeans whether it was good that we
Ivan: went to the Japanese, if we went and we invaded them, they also are probably on the side of, yes.
Ivan: Right. There's the last surveys I saw. So therefore, you know, there are cases.
Ivan: But the reality is that most of the other ones, we fucked this up.
Ivan: But the other thing is, my biggest problem with this is that the only reason
Ivan: that Trump wants to do this is to curry political favors with the Venezuelans,
Ivan: which right now are super pissed at him because he ended TPS for the Venezuelans that had left.
Ivan: That's the only fucking reason that I see that this is happening.
Ivan: And it's simply a political move.
Ivan: And it's also, well, it's also for immigration reasons, because reality is that
Ivan: Venezuelans have been leaving Venezuela in droves because of what's happening
Ivan: with the dictatorship that is in place right now.
Ivan: and I know that there's a lot of Venezuelans that will return for sure if,
Ivan: this regime falls there's a lot of them that will so,
Ivan: Again, the reason is you think he's he's not doing it for altruistic reasons.
Ivan: The only fucking reason he's doing it is because he thinks there is political
Ivan: gain and money to be had by doing this.
Sam: Of course, it's it's always self-serving. I mean, I'm sure like if like what
Sam: you said, if a whole bunch of Venezuelans decide to self-deport and leave and
Sam: go back to Venezuela as a result, all these folks would be thrilled.
Sam: You know, the Trumpists don't want him here anyway. you know so they'd be happy
Sam: about that now the question is as with all of these things,
Sam: there's the one scenario where they go in they depose the guy instantly we set
Sam: up our puppet there really quickly and things go relatively smoothly well there is actually.
Ivan: A guy that was.
Sam: I know, I know, I know.
Ivan: That was elected. Yes.
Sam: No, I know.
Ivan: But that, yeah.
Sam: That's the one scenario. The other scenario is it becomes an ongoing military
Sam: morass lasting years, you know?
Sam: Or even if we go in quickly, if the scenario becomes messy, like Iraq became messy, for instance.
Ivan: I will tell you this, that in the Venezuela case, I'm pretty confident that
Ivan: if they knock them off and they take out the military leaders,
Ivan: there's nothing, that ends quickly.
Ivan: This is all being held by force at the top because they have the money and they
Ivan: have the control of the military at the top and they are paying these people.
Ivan: This is one of those where that's the only thing that's holding this together.
Ivan: It's kind of like, if you think about with Assad in Syria, how he held the country
Ivan: together. That was not by popularity.
Ivan: I mean, he basically like bombed them to submission, okay?
Ivan: for years and years until all of a sudden he just couldn't hold it together
Ivan: anymore for whatever reason.
Ivan: So I don't think that's the case, but my whole point is that I think that probably,
Ivan: this is one of the few times that this may be productive, but my whole thing
Ivan: is that the only reason Trump wouldn't be doing it is for all the wrong fucking reasons.
Sam: Well, but if he were to have a military.
Ivan: Who is a fucking like.
Sam: Incompetent. No, no. But let me just put this out there.
Ivan: Secretary of Defense.
Sam: If Trump had a military adventure, despite all the people who are like,
Sam: hoping that trump would be anti-war and stuff if he has a military adventure
Sam: but it actually goes well it's successful it gets good results he'll.
Ivan: Want to do another one.
Sam: Well no he'll want it but also his popularity is going to go right back up people
Sam: will get excited and rally behind the flag and all this kind of stuff and you know no no listen.
Ivan: When by the way and when we go to what you know you go to one of these places
Ivan: it's like we went to hate and nobody gives a shit about that,
Ivan: this isn't like, you know, this isn't like, I mean, it's going to be like Grenada.
Ivan: Literally. Okay? This will be over almost before it started. Seriously.
Sam: You really think a big country like Venezuela would fall as quickly as something like Grenada?
Ivan: Listen, I'm telling you that this is only, listen, Maduro falls,
Ivan: that place falls apart in two seconds.
Ivan: This is one of those where it's just this
Ivan: is being held together just by
Ivan: the control that he has of the money the control that he has at the top of the
Ivan: military if he didn't have that this thing listen you this thing topples in
Ivan: two seconds okay and i guarantee you that a whole bunch of even the generals
Ivan: and everybody which is like oh yeah we're so glad he's gone i i don't know as you.
Sam: Say that i just keep having flashbacks to we will be greeted as liberators in Iraq.
Ivan: No, no, no. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, but this is, Venezuela is not Iraq.
Ivan: And listen, Venezuela is not Iraq. And listen, Venezuela is in such dire straits right now.
Ivan: They're dying to get rid of this guy. They can't get rid of this fucking guy.
Sam: Right. Okay, one more thing. I actually, like, zoned, I guess.
Sam: Like, we went past Poland so quickly. I had a couple more thoughts on Poland.
Sam: One is just to put this straight out there.
Sam: This is, despite any protestations, this might have been an accident.
Sam: This was clearly not an accident.
Sam: This was Russia. This was Russia testing.
Sam: And with Donald Trump, Poland called an Article 4 conference.
Sam: So it's not Article 5, which says we've been attacked and therefore we've all
Sam: been attacked and NATO has to defend it.
Sam: Article 4 was an emergency meeting to discuss the situation.
Sam: The U.S. did not even send their high-level representatives.
Sam: They sent some low-level guy to that meeting.
Sam: So basically, if this was a test by Putin, we have failed that test already.
Sam: Because the response from the U.S.
Sam: specifically has been tepid. Now, NATO planes, Polish planes,
Sam: and several other countries got up. They intercepted these things.
Sam: They shot a bunch of them down. There was no damage done in Poland.
Sam: So it was successfully defended. Now, nobody wants to immediately make this an escalation, right?
Sam: Like, Poland's not going to go and counterattack Russia or decide that we have
Sam: to, like, you know, we're now going to be on the ground or in the air in Ukraine.
Sam: That's not happening. No one wants to escalate it right now.
Sam: But it's basically what Putin has seen is,
Sam: yeah, he can throw some drones into NATO territory and have no significant consequences come out of it.
Sam: so this will only get tested further as we move on and you know i.
Ivan: I think you know my problem with this
Ivan: stupidity is the whole thing about poking the
Ivan: bear you want to
Ivan: really listen even though trump keeps saying this
Ivan: other thing he's going and like asking the eu and and and like to To tariff
Ivan: China and India To punish them for purchasing Shit from Russia To 100% tariffs
Ivan: Which I'm still a little bit like Are you shitting me? Really?
Ivan: This is what you want to do?
Ivan: Which is This whole thing is a little bit nuts But look.
Ivan: I've said this before, Russia's military might is not really as mighty as it's purported.
Ivan: And the reality is That even just German French Fucking forces Doing a fucking,
Ivan: Counterattack To neutralize shit In that area Would be devastating To whatever
Ivan: the fuck they're gonna hit in Russia So if he wants to really start Poking the bear,
Ivan: And try to see how hard he gets To get back,
Ivan: He's gonna, you know Putin's been exposed more than once as a paper tiger.
Ivan: The only reason right now why Ukraine, he is even like gaining inches,
Ivan: is it is it is an immense expense of human capital and resources, you know,
Ivan: with minimal gains that he is able to do.
Ivan: And that and literally they're throwing everything they've got at them.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Think about this. And they're going just against Ukraine. Okay?
Ivan: Honestly, I don't really know what the...
Ivan: you know, he really wants to do with this? Is it just to test the unity?
Ivan: Is it, like, whatever? Because, obviously, I know that one of his key focus,
Ivan: more being a KGV guy, has been at that.
Ivan: At the head games, which, by the way, he's done quite well seeing where the
Ivan: fuck we are like right now with this fucking situation.
Ivan: But in terms of military, actual strength, he has continuously overestimated
Ivan: what his actual troop strength is versus the reality of what they can do.
Sam: Right. And of course, the reason everybody is hesitant is, of course, nukes.
Sam: That's it. You know, like, if Russia did not have nukes,
Sam: I can almost assure you that we would have had a Gulf War I type response to
Sam: the very first invasions of Ukraine when they took over Crimea and, you know,
Sam: way back then you know it it would have
Sam: been the same kind of thing as we had in kuwait where we
Sam: said no no you can't iraq you can't have
Sam: kuwait we're taking it back you know right that's it
Sam: basically that would have happened a long time ago if it was simply conventional
Sam: and no one was worried about nukes exactly i mean not the fucking nukes yeah
Sam: you have to worry about the nukes you have to worry about the fucking nukes
Sam: you know one more foreign policy thing and then let's close it up.
Sam: Donald Trump is also mad at Israel right now because they bombed Qatar.
Ivan: Oh, fuck, because they bombed Qatar. What the fuck? Oh, my God.
Sam: In order to get some Hamas leaders. And apparently they didn't get all the people
Sam: they were trying to get either.
Ivan: But holy shit, man.
Sam: Specifically, the intention was to kill the people who were actively negotiating.
Ivan: Negotiating to end this, right? Let me tell you something right now.
Ivan: If Bibi doesn't go to jail for war crimes at this point, I don't understand
Ivan: what kind of fucking justice we have in this world.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: That guy is just a war criminal.
Sam: I'll tell you, and I think the same thing. I mean, I know he's got his own trials
Sam: going on for corruption-related stuff. Corruption.
Sam: But I will predict, I mean, obviously Donald Trump got out of all his legal
Sam: cases already and he's president.
Sam: I feel like for both Netanyahu and Donald Trump, they'll die of old age,
Sam: you know, and not in jail, you know.
Ivan: Well, of course, Netanyahu has not been able to stop the cases against him.
Sam: No, he has not at this point. Yes, he has not.
Ivan: So that's the one thing.
Sam: He's been able to slow them down, but he has not been able to stop them.
Sam: Yeah. Okay. Shall we wrap things up?
Ivan: On that happy note.
Sam: Yes. And I will, just 10 minutes ago, I received feedback on last week's show.
Sam: So before we, before we give like the website and everything like that,
Sam: I am going to relate the feedback.
Ivan: What's the feedback?
Sam: This is from my mother. And it's specifically about you, Yvonne, and things you said.
Ivan: Oh, shit. Oh, God. Okay.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Sorry, Bob.
Sam: Been listening I'm.
Ivan: Already saying I'm sorry.
Sam: Been listening to the beginning of your last podcast forward this to Yvonne or tell him,
Sam: Yvonne, thank you for the long segment about possible Spanish citizenship.
Sam: Very important that you have figured it out. But to me, it was all brand new stuff to think about.
Sam: Most of us are taught almost nothing about Puerto Rico in school.
Sam: I grew up in Vermont through 12th grade where French Canadians were next door
Sam: and among us and Portuguese, Italian, and Polish immigrants also in significant
Sam: numbers in school and our communities.
Sam: But anyway, I was very interested in all you said, and it is a wonderful case
Sam: history of how folks need to deal with anxiety caused currently in this country.
Ivan: Okay, there you go. I thought it was about my singing.
Sam: Okay, all right. No, I was like.
Ivan: Holy shit.
Sam: Okay, all right. You did not need to apologize. It was not about your cursing. All right.
Ivan: It was not about the singing. All right, okay.
Sam: It is actually, like, thanking you for an interesting segment.
Ivan: Okay, all right, excellent. Okay, beautiful.
Sam: Okay, with that, let's close it up. curmudgeons-corner.com. You guys know the drill.
Sam: You can go there, find our archives, transcripts, all the ways to contact us,
Sam: all of that sort of stuff, links to YouTube.
Sam: There is no link to TikTok yet. I'm still, like, a month behind posting things
Sam: to TikTok, but I don't know. Eventually, I'll catch up, I guess. I don't know.
Sam: and importantly there is a link to our patreon where
Sam: you can give us money at various levels we will mention you on the show we will
Sam: ring a bell we will send you a postcard we'll send you a mug or at two dollars
Sam: a month or more or if you just ask we'll invite you to our commudgeons corner
Sam: slack where yvonne and i and a bunch of our listeners are hanging out throughout the week,
Sam: chatting about stuff, the news, sharing links,
Sam: funny, funny news stories, serious news stories, random things about our lives.
Sam: Yo, Yvonne and Pete were talking about financial planning and stocks earlier
Sam: today, and I mostly tuned it out.
Ivan: I don't know why we were talking about stocks.
Sam: It was a really long conversation.
Ivan: It was something to happen with a company this week.
Sam: I i i got out of the shower because you know time zones are different and all
Sam: that i got out of the shower before going to work and all of a sudden there
Sam: was like pages and pages and pages of discussion of like investment strategies
Sam: and i was like and so i japanese.
Ivan: Stocks swiss stocks,
Ivan: You know, we talk about, for example, stuff, gold. Yeah, we,
Ivan: we, we, you know, we talk about all those, yes.
Sam: Individual company stocks being overweighted in them versus, you know.
Ivan: Overweighted, right. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes.
Sam: Anyway, so there's that kind of stuff. But Yvonne, what was something else that
Sam: was mentioned on the Commissions Core Slack that we have not talked about on the show?
Ivan: Okay, look, I, this is something I sent just today because I was driving.
Ivan: and all of a sudden I don't know if you saw this picture I posted Sam.
Sam: I'm not sure.
Ivan: There was a truck okay there was a truck on the road.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And I shared this picture on random. Sam can you read the logo on the back of
Ivan: this company? What is the logo on the back?
Sam: It's an Enron logo.
Ivan: What is the name? That's right. It says Enron.com.
Ivan: Right. I mean Enron they were supposed to be dead and it says on the side Nuclear You Can Trust.
Ivan: Okay? And I was like, what in the fuck?
Ivan: What do you mean? Enron is dead. And it's the same logo as before.
Sam: Well, did you follow up by going to Enron.com and checking out the site?
Ivan: Yes. And there is, they've got, okay, first came the news that,
Ivan: this is a New York Times article they have a link to from their website from January 9th, 2025.
Ivan: First came the news that Enron was back. Yes, Enron, the energy company whose
Ivan: profits were built on long-term fraud, which ended with filing what was in 2001
Ivan: the largest bankruptcy in history.
Ivan: Last month, people began noticing a website for a seemingly reborn Enron,
Ivan: using the same logo and branding, announcing an ambitious mission,
Ivan: solving the global energy crisis.
Ivan: Then on Monday, the new Enron emerged with a glitzy marketing video announcing
Ivan: its new product, the Enron Egg,
Ivan: which the company proclaimed to be the world's first micronuclear reactor for
Ivan: residential suburban use. What?
Ivan: I, I, you know, the first, you know, as you may have guessed,
Ivan: is so was Enron a corporate really about to unleash nuclear reactors' homes around the world?
Ivan: As you may have guessed, the answer is no. The announcement indeed was an expected
Ivan: return of Enron itself was part of an elaborate stunt.
Ivan: But I don't, I still don't understand why is there a truck going around like
Ivan: it's hauling stuff for Enron? Apparently, this guy, Mr.
Ivan: Gaines, bought the Enron trademark for $275.
Ivan: Not bad, I guess. I mean, you know.
Sam: That could have been you, Yvonne.
Ivan: Yeah, it could be the new Enron. You know, the power of the atom, flashy graphics.
Ivan: Still, anyone thinking the product was genuine might have given additional pause
Ivan: when told that the key component was something called erroneum ore.
Ivan: erroneum is really just a funny way of renaming materials that are already sort
Ivan: of in the zeitgeist this gabbling good continued after Mr.
Ivan: Gatos introduced Enron's chief technology officer Daniel Wong who reassured
Ivan: any nervous observers that the egg was only used as only 20% enriched uranium
Ivan: far too low to make an atomic weapon,
Ivan: I don't I don't understand it's gotta be a joke.
Sam: Right I mean, I know you said it was written up in the New York Times, but come on.
Ivan: But it was not just in the New York Times. There's a series of articles in here.
Ivan: They have a website that is up.
Ivan: And they've got a truck running around with, I don't know, with the logo on
Ivan: the side on it. So what are they carrying in that truck?
Sam: Those eggs, right?
Ivan: Uranium?
Sam: We have been talking about the price of eggs. Is this what they meant?
Ivan: Jesus Christ. so some scammer listen let me tell you something i shared earlier
Ivan: on the slack that there was another one that bought the theranos brand in south
Ivan: florida and had been and i have another one to talk about in.
Sam: A second after you do.
Ivan: That that had been pasted buying up billboards and he is trying to rehabilitate
Ivan: elizabeth holmes for some reason i think this guy wants the banger or something, I swear to God.
Ivan: It's some dude that looks, if you think about one of these guys with like gold
Ivan: chains, expensive car, you know, dude, South Miami, that's the image you've got.
Ivan: And he's saying Theranos, and he's saying that he built the fucking machine
Ivan: that didn't work. And that he's an inventor of some kind.
Ivan: So you got a guy reviving Theranos, you got a guy reviving Enron.
Ivan: What the, I mean, this is the era of all scams.
Ivan: Which scam did you see?
Sam: Okay, so the one I want to talk about, about other companies sort of back from
Sam: the dead, is Commodore, of the Commodore Vic 20 and Commodore 64.
Ivan: Well, is that one a scam?
Sam: Well, I don't think so, actually. But here's what's going on with them.
Sam: A bunch of the original employees of Commodore from like the 1980s got together
Sam: and bought up the remnants of the trademarks and IP and things that still existed.
Sam: Who knows what long chain of ownership those went through over the years.
Sam: But they got together, they pooled their money, they bought the rights to the
Sam: name back and everything, and are reviving the company to launch a new Commodore 64.
Sam: And if you go to Commodore.net, you can see some of this stuff.
Sam: They've been posting updates on TikTok, and I've seen a few of them as they've
Sam: gone through this process.
Sam: basically there have been a few like commodore 64 emulators
Sam: that you could buy over the years you know just like you showed on
Sam: the podcast a few weeks you got a atari one
Sam: that's like thousand games in one blah blah blah blah blah and there
Sam: have been a few of those you could get like for commodore games too over the
Sam: years that were basically emulators on newer attack with an
Sam: you know hdmi port and all this stuff their approach
Sam: here is different not an emulator not
Sam: a pc retro gaming heaven in
Sam: three dimensions they are it's powered
Sam: by a recreation of the original motherboard with you know and they're they've
Sam: got one that's modern components i guess they've got one that's uh in the classic
Sam: look and feel and they're doing another one that's like transparent with leds
Sam: all over the place and stuff like that but they're basically recreating the original tech,
Sam: the original old tech, and just putting out a new version of it,
Sam: apparently. Now, this is something, I mean,
Sam: The appeal of this is not, there are not a lot of people who want to buy this thing, okay?
Sam: No, no, no. There's a specific niche group of people who might be interested in this.
Sam: I've seen other people, by the way, with retro computing projects.
Sam: Somebody took original Commodore 64 hardware, but built a new operating system
Sam: for it that was more modern, could use a mouse, could take internet access.
Sam: They hacked it into like, you know, Ethernet at like a slow,
Sam: whatever, slow pace the thing could do and did some proof of concepts of it
Sam: interacting with the Internet in various ways.
Sam: There are a lot of people there. There are people who are into retro computing, but it's a small market.
Ivan: It's a tiny market.
Sam: These people are clearly people who they were involved in the original company.
Sam: They love the concept. They love the old hardware.
Sam: They're bringing it back for nostalgia. I don't think they're anticipating that
Sam: they're going to make fortunes off of this stuff, but they're bringing it back for the folks who might.
Ivan: So you don't think they're going to dethrone any of the.
Ivan: Microsoft and Apple are safe.
Sam: I think they're safe. I mean, like, look, there were some interesting things
Sam: that Commodore had, like the Amiga, in some ways, was ahead of its time.
Sam: Hell, even the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 in some ways were ahead of their time.
Sam: But they obviously lost that war.
Ivan: Badly.
Sam: Badly. They were not even second or third in that battle.
Sam: No, they were, they were, you know, but, but you know, I have,
Sam: I have lots of nostalgia for my Vic 20 and my Commodore 64.
Sam: I always wanted an Amiga, but I never got one, you know, and it's a cool little thing.
Sam: They're going to, they're going to price the thing at two 99.
Sam: They're going to price the thing at two 99. And you know, I don't know,
Sam: it might be cool. It might be fun. I don't know.
Sam: I mean, honestly, I have my original Commodore 64 and my original VIC-20 in
Sam: the garage somewhere. I just have to find them and pull them out.
Sam: They probably still work. I mean, there are some components that degrade over,
Sam: like, however many fucking years it's been.
Sam: You know, since, I mean, what was the 1984 or something for the VIC-20?
Ivan: It was 40 years ago.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: 45 years ago.
Sam: But they can be repaired, even if, like, some capacitor has,
Sam: like, gooed all over the place or something, you know?
Ivan: Actually, those are actually even simpler to repair. Yeah, exactly.
Ivan: You replace a few components.
Sam: You can do it.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: But anyway, I found it interesting. I saw, I've, like I said,
Sam: I've watched a few of the videos. Serial.
Ivan: But I was bringing, I'm bringing back scammers. You're bringing back like this
Ivan: is real. You want people to spend money. I'm talking about.
Ivan: I'm talking about bringing back fraud.
Sam: The last video.
Ivan: Like a real fraud.
Sam: The last video I saw from them on TikTok was,
Sam: the serial number 0001 of
Sam: the new motherboard coming off the assembly line and
Sam: a bunch of them signing it and i guess they're going to put like some sort of
Sam: like if if you're the one who actually gets number one there's some sort of
Sam: prize or something that comes with it you know when okay if you buy the thing
Sam: but yeah they're selling it for 299 that's not bad i yeah i could do $299 for a piece of nostalgia.
Sam: Now, having said that, you can get those, like, 1,500 games in one for less
Sam: than that. A lot less than that.
Ivan: Yes, way less than that.
Sam: And this would have less capability than that. But, you know,
Sam: whatever. It's cool. It's the old-looking thing. Yeah.
Ivan: Does it got the little RF adapter?
Sam: No, although they have done some improvements. I'm looking at the back.
Sam: It's definitely got a few modern ports in the back of it that were not in the original Commodore 64.
Ivan: I was just curious if you had to use a little RF adapter with a little slide.
Sam: I'm trying to pause this thing. Does it have an HDMI? I don't know.
Sam: It would be crazy if they don't.
Ivan: If they didn't, they're not a fucking plug-in into anything without a fucking HDMI. It's got to.
Sam: Let's play 10,000 plus original games with more RAM. You can plug in the old
Sam: original cartridges if you have some, or read from the data cassettes if you have them.
Ivan: 10,000 games on it.
Sam: 10,000 original games. But yeah, if you have the old drives,
Sam: old data cassette drives, disk drives, whatever, they'll all work.
Sam: It can hook up to a CRT TV if you've got those.
Sam: No disk drive needed. You can load them off USB.
Sam: Let's see, more memory, faster speed. So it's not just the original.
Sam: It is upgraded. And yes, it does have HDMI. So...
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Anyway.
Ivan: All right, well, let's wrap up.
Sam: Okay, we are done. Thank you, everybody.
Sam: Yeah. Have a great week. Stay safe. All the stuff we usually say.
Sam: And we'll see you next time. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Thank you. Okay, that's it. I managed to get through the whole show without
Sam: crashing once. That's good, right?
Ivan: So that must have been that external drive, you think? One of the external drives?
Sam: I'll continue to troubleshoot. It might be.
Ivan: I think it has to be if you were able. Yeah, because he had no issues today.
Sam: There are only 4,785 of these C64s available to buy still in their first batch.
Sam: So you better get right on that.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. I'm running out the door right now.
Sam: Shipping November 2025. You can get it for Christmas.
Ivan: Yep. Excellent. Excellent. I'll make sure that, you know.
Sam: Okay. I'm hitting stop. Later, Yvonne.
Ivan: All right. Stopping.