Sam: Shall we jump in?
Ivan: Yes. Okay.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, October 4th, 2025.
Sam: It's just a couple minutes before 14.30 UTC as we're starting to record.
Sam: I'm Sam Mentor, Yvonne Bowes here. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hi.
Sam: You sound enthused as usual.
Ivan: Well, no, I am worse. And I'll explain why.
Ivan: Well, I'm not—I need surgery.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And this week, the pain that I've been experiencing has gotten markedly worse.
Ivan: That's not good. No, it's not good. I probably did it to myself.
Ivan: Look, I... Well, in order to find a doctor who could figure out very quickly
Ivan: what the hell my problem was, because I got a little bit frustrated with the
Ivan: doctors I've been seeing here.
Ivan: Well, my brother, my sister-in-law's a doctor and her office is right by another
Ivan: doctor's office who pretty much was the right person to see for what my problem was.
Ivan: And so last Friday, you know, I called my brother who works at the same hospital.
Ivan: He's a pharmacist, not a doctor, but he knows his stuff as well.
Ivan: I said, you know, I got this going on.
Ivan: What do I do? And he said, hang on, because he, aside from being a pharmacist,
Ivan: most of his time is spent managing the office at my sister-in-law's doctor's office.
Ivan: And anybody who's been a doctor now with all the paperwork and insurance and
Ivan: shit and whatever goes on, you need somebody that can do that.
Ivan: And so he's the guy that does that for their practice.
Ivan: So he walked over there and called me back. Well, they can see you on Monday.
Ivan: Right. And I'm like, okay, so, but, okay, this is in Texas. So I had to fly
Ivan: to Texas on, on Sunday to go get looked at.
Ivan: And the doctor, after doing the physical examination, was able to figure out
Ivan: that, yeah, you don't have a muscle strain. You don't have the particulitis.
Ivan: What you have is a hernia.
Ivan: I'm now realizing that this had been there for a while.
Ivan: I had some minor discomfort in the past that I had put off as soreness.
Sam: You'd blown it off.
Ivan: Well, I put it. No, I thought I was just sore.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know, I thought it was just something temporary. You know, I work out a lot.
Ivan: And so I just thought, no, you know, muscles get sore and you get some pain that must be just it.
Ivan: And it went and it came and it went away. So it didn't stay there permanently.
Ivan: But since July, it started permanently. OK, it didn't go.
Ivan: That's what that's how I wound up to the doctor, because I started getting pain
Ivan: and it started not going away.
Ivan: But look i had to fly to texas and back
Ivan: for that i i went on sunday i came back monday night and you know my brother
Ivan: doesn't live in dallas or houston where there's a direct flight i had to fly
Ivan: to i had to change planes to get where they live so it was basically six hours
Ivan: going there six hours going back i mean i got i got home on monday like at two in the morning,
Ivan: 2 30 in the morning and then but okay i
Ivan: also had to go to guiana now look
Ivan: i i have to say i always looked at the map and i thought guiana was closer because
Ivan: i knew it was right right by venezuela and i've been to caracas before and it's
Ivan: like it's less than three hours well no guiana is okay,
Ivan: is really much further out.
Ivan: Another thing is, I mistakenly thought it was on the Caribbean Sea.
Ivan: It is past Trinidad. It is on the Atlantic coast. So it is that much further out.
Ivan: It's closer to five hours to get there.
Sam: Okay. Yes.
Ivan: And I had to go on a Wednesday night, five hours there, and then came back yesterday, five hours back.
Ivan: While I was there, I started getting, the pain started getting worse because
Ivan: I spent 10 hours on a fucking airplane round trip.
Ivan: Plus, let me just say this.
Ivan: Look, Guyana right now is experiencing a huge growth spurt.
Ivan: Guyana for many, many decades was even poorer than Haiti.
Ivan: Okay? In the Americas. It was
Ivan: the poorest country in the Americas for an extended period of time. but.
Ivan: But Venezuela's stupidity has been Guyana's gain because what happened is as
Ivan: Venezuela destroyed their oil production and economy,
Ivan: you know, some guys at ExxonMobil figured out, you know what,
Ivan: they're bordering Venezuela, right? There's got to be oil there.
Ivan: And lo and behold, in 2015, they found it. And they found a huge amount of it.
Ivan: Um, and so their economy right now is booming.
Ivan: Listen, you know, I started doing my, my research as I go over there and I'm
Ivan: meeting with a customer, you know,
Ivan: do you realize that right now Guyana has like almost like the highest GDP per
Ivan: person in the Americas right now?
Sam: I had no such realization.
Ivan: Exactly. No, neither did I. It's like shit like that that all of a sudden I realized, holy shit.
Ivan: I mean, they are basically, money is flooding in there, and the economy is the
Ivan: fastest growing right now in the Americas.
Ivan: Like, literally, like, it's been growing in recent years. Of course,
Ivan: it started from such a low base, so it makes it happen, but it's been growing like 50% a year.
Ivan: You know, crazy numbers like this.
Sam: Okay?
Ivan: And so, but, but, but.
Sam: But, yes. Yes.
Ivan: Listen, being that they were at the poorest state, their infrastructure is still,
Ivan: you know, that shows that they are still, you know, one of the poorest.
Ivan: The airport is, right now, it takes an hour to go from the international airport
Ivan: to downtown, to the city. Okay? It's an hour drive.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: The road is about the worst road that I've had to traverse over a long distance.
Ivan: I'm not saying it is the worst, but it matches the worst.
Ivan: Well, after you've been on a five-hour ride, you got to take a one-hour ride in a very bumpy road.
Ivan: In a car that is more made to be resistant to getting damaged rather than for
Ivan: passenger comfort, back and forth, that didn't help either.
Sam: In a body that's already sore.
Ivan: In a body that's already having problems, that was not helpful.
Ivan: I will say this one thing.
Ivan: The people in Guyana, everybody that I met with, was incredibly pleasant and lovely.
Ivan: And I will take any of them over most of the MAGA idiots that we have here.
Ivan: I will ship them. I don't know. I will make out.
Ivan: Listen, I will quickly trade for them in a heartbeat.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Okay. No questions asked. You know.
Ivan: By the way, one also interesting tidbit. They are fanatics for KFC. Listen.
Sam: For KFC.
Ivan: KFC. Look, Sam, I'm talking insanity fanatics.
Ivan: I went and I drove through, passed a couple of KFCs and they had drive-thrus.
Sam: So you had some. This is the country.
Ivan: No, I did not. No, no. I passed by the drive-thrus. No, no, no.
Ivan: I just saw the drive-thrus. Look, I wasn't there long enough. I mean, I think I only.
Sam: Was- Because I was going to ask for the comparison between their KFC and our KFC.
Ivan: No, what they told me, here's what they told me. The guy told me that.
Ivan: Now, remember another thing, another interesting tidbit about Guyana.
Ivan: Things that I felt, but look, I hadn't visited the country before.
Ivan: So I started reading up. I wanted to know about the culture, economy.
Ivan: You know, I don't like going to a place without...
Sam: You don't want to go in cold.
Ivan: No, no, no, no. I want to find out everything I can about, you know,
Ivan: what's happened and so forth and so on. And I, you know, I hadn't really dug into it a lot.
Ivan: Largest population is of Indian descent.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: All right. The second is African slaves.
Sam: Just to be clear, indigenous Americans, not like...
Ivan: No, no, no. No, India.
Sam: Oh, India. Okay. From India. Largest population overall?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Like greater than?
Ivan: Yes. Than everything else.
Sam: Wow.
Ivan: Okay. And I'll explain why. Okay. This is what happened. Okay.
Ivan: You know, so it's people from India. Okay. That move to, move there. Okay.
Ivan: You know, descendants of African slaves. And the last one are the indigenous.
Ivan: Okay. That's the smallest set. Okay. So what happened is that when...
Sam: I'm confirming this, and absolutely, it's like 40% Indian, 29% African,
Sam: 20% mixed, 11% indigenous,
Sam: and then trivial portions of European and Chinese.
Ivan: Yes. And so here's how this happened, okay?
Ivan: Okay, first, you know, there's gold and other, you know, valuable things in
Ivan: Guyana, okay? It was a British column. They abolished slavery, right?
Ivan: So what did the British at the time decide to solve? How did they decide to
Ivan: solve the problem? Indentured servitude.
Ivan: Okay. They brought in Indians that they put on indentured servitude contracts
Ivan: that wanted to get out of India, put them on a contract, shipped them to Guyana,
Ivan: and that's how they were replacing the slave labor.
Sam: Okay, then.
Ivan: And that's how, and by the way, that is why I had been to a few ex-British colonies, like Jamaica.
Ivan: I can't remember what other, which other island I went to.
Ivan: I think it was maybe in the Caymans, I experienced this, where I met a lot of
Ivan: people Indian descent. And I was like, why did, you know, why the Indians?
Ivan: And this is the reason the British in the 1800s decided to, when they abolished
Ivan: slavery, that they replaced it with indentured servitude.
Ivan: And many brought many Indians because India was a colony and many wanted to leave.
Sam: Of course, yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, of course. And they, and they, and it was like, because the indenture
Ivan: servitude, the one thing about it is they were like, hey, it ends.
Ivan: Because the contracts had a fixed definition of time. It wasn't like forever.
Sam: It wasn't like slavery where your kids are going to get sold as well.
Ivan: No, it was like, it was a period of time. And then after the period of time
Ivan: and then you, whatever. And so a lot of them took the deal.
Sam: Just to be clear, generally speaking, those contracts were set up in such a
Sam: way that they kind of trapped you anyway.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, they tried to – yes, yes, yes.
Sam: It was like – It was very hard to actually get out of those under the theoretical terms.
Ivan: Because they would add debt to it and then you owed more and so then it would
Ivan: file on so it would add more time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ivan: But the vision was like, hey, the contract ended. And in many cases,
Ivan: even though they trapped him, eventually they ended and it didn't carry on to
Ivan: the next generation and so forth.
Ivan: So therefore, but so that's how, so that was the, so that's the thing,
Ivan: which is why, you know, also it's like number one sport is cricket.
Ivan: It's also another thing, but, but, you know, but like, so, so the,
Ivan: the guy that I was speaking to who took me around, who's also of Indian descent,
Ivan: explained to me that the thing about the KFC.
Ivan: Well, he believes that basically they take whatever the herbs and spices they
Ivan: send, and they basically double them up.
Ivan: So that's the KFC local. Basically, it is the same, except if you remember herbs
Ivan: and spices, it's doubled up on herbs and spices.
Ivan: Okay. okay and and the sam the
Ivan: drive-through the car lines there were like 15
Ivan: 20 cars long 25 it
Ivan: was they would wrap around the block okay it
Ivan: was like it was worse than any lines that i've seen a
Ivan: chick-fil-a which i i don't see them like having those lines anymore
Ivan: i realize they're not they're not as you know but
Ivan: yeah it was like kind of like that was crazy so i i saw
Ivan: that so that was like the one thing that that stood out uh
Ivan: now you got me wanting some kfc i know kfc
Ivan: is good but like i said he we both said yeah but
Ivan: i'm like you know i haven't eaten in a while because i'm like you know we're
Ivan: trying to you know it's it's just but but it's it's i mean i i i like it so
Ivan: so anyway so it it was it was just quite interesting but it's also i mean you
Ivan: can see obviously how the i mean,
Ivan: the poverty that,
Ivan: you know, it's starting to, like, be...
Ivan: Covered up to some way, but, but man, I mean, you could see how.
Sam: But it's still there. Yeah. Because generally speaking, when you have sort of
Sam: the kind of rapid growth you're talking about, it is not evenly distributed.
Ivan: It isn't, but it is being distributed. I will say that you can tell that's why
Ivan: so many people are like, one thing they were talking about was that right now,
Ivan: a country that had very few cars, that right now they're basically registering
Ivan: about 3,000 new cars a month.
Ivan: And this is so even they are extremely taxed as well.
Ivan: And they are building a new highway to the airport. Okay. All right.
Ivan: That is not finished yet.
Ivan: They did build this new airport, which is, it's gotta be one of the smallest
Ivan: airports I've been to outside of being in a, one of these Caribbean Island airports.
Ivan: Okay. um it is one of
Ivan: the smallest international airports that
Ivan: that i've ever been to it's pretty
Ivan: new and shiny it's a little bit of a it's a little
Ivan: bit of a wonky design but hey it's it's nice and
Ivan: clean it's got food it's got gates
Ivan: it's air conditioned it's you know i mean
Ivan: you know it looks it looks decent it's
Ivan: a the design is it's a little bit weird because
Ivan: the gates don't actually have the
Ivan: waiting areas there there is like this general and actually
Ivan: the signage if they put now that i know the
Ivan: the drill i know how to maneuver it
Ivan: but they didn't have signs there that explain this there's this
Ivan: general waiting area that is on the first floor and then when your flight gets
Ivan: called you go up to a second level and you walk over to the gate and then you
Ivan: go in but there isn't a waiting area at the gate itself ah right okay so so
Ivan: that was a little bit like confusing at first because I.
Ivan: They need to the only thing they really the only thing that was missing was
Ivan: really the signage to make it clear but it was you know nice clean good the
Ivan: security is better than a lot of other airports I've seen I'll tell you what they had a good,
Ivan: equipment and things and stuff and whatever. And the hotel was new and shiny.
Ivan: Another very interesting thing. They asked me, what about the beaches?
Ivan: And I'm like, well, no beaches.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And the reason is, at first, I thought I looked at the water and I'm like,
Ivan: is that mud or is it pollution?
Ivan: And I'm like, I've been, but I've been to places that have rivers and waters that are
Ivan: very polluted and it's a lot of times very obvious
Ivan: from the smell you know it's just
Ivan: you know like in brazil specifically i remember that you know
Ivan: you'd get to these polluted waterways and the stench from the
Ivan: water is just yeah god it's awful that's the
Ivan: one that i remember most specifically but that wasn't that's not it at all it's
Ivan: not it's not pollution either it what happens is that they get runoff from major
Ivan: rivers going there including the amazon and that runoff actually is carrying
Ivan: quite a lot of mud, like a lot of mud.
Ivan: Like, it's just, but a lot of mud because these are very powerful rivers that are sending there.
Ivan: So all the water, like literally, when you go and look at it, looks like mud.
Ivan: And if you went and it's the, actually, it is the muddiest coast in the world
Ivan: is that I figured, because I looked at it and I'm like, is that mud?
Ivan: And so I had to look at it. That looks like mud.
Ivan: That was my thought. And I looked it up that Guyana has the muddiest water coast anywhere.
Ivan: Basically, if you went into the water like, yo, let me go to the beach.
Ivan: Let me take a dip. You'd come out and you're like basically caked in mud.
Ivan: Not exactly really the best beachgoing experience.
Sam: At least a different experience.
Ivan: It would be quite a different one. It's not like you're going to come out polluted.
Ivan: It's just you're going to be covered in mud.
Ivan: I mean, I know some people that like being covered in mud. I've seen this.
Ivan: Okay, you know, but mud fights or whatever. I'm not one that likes to go get covered in mud.
Sam: Yeah, no, it's never appealed to me either.
Ivan: Yeah, I saw these people at camp going to get into mud fights in the mud,
Ivan: and I'm like, ah, no, thank you.
Sam: Yeah, no, no.
Ivan: I'm out. Thank you.
Sam: Okay, so...
Ivan: So anyway, so yes, all of this travel and getting to know...
Ivan: Look, I will say, quite a cool experience.
Ivan: Okay, all right. I don't know, I didn't look into... is there any way to like
Ivan: get some proper tourism, like to get to know like the country?
Ivan: I didn't go, I didn't get, get time to research, to go into research it.
Ivan: But what I will say is that despite the fact that, you know,
Ivan: poor, whatever, there's not a lot of hotels.
Ivan: I mean, the hotel that I stayed at was, was a nice hotel, but,
Ivan: but it's not like a five-star hotel, but the rate was for a five-star hotel. It was like $500 a night.
Ivan: And I was like, geez, okay. So, so,
Ivan: Man, the people are so lovely. I really had a great time.
Ivan: That really was, you know, that was the positive of my experience.
Ivan: You know, it's like, it's just quite a lovely group of people.
Ivan: I really liked, you know, being there.
Sam: Now, before I do my but first segment, and once again, I've forgotten the agenda
Sam: at the beginning of the show.
Sam: We're doing our but first where we sort of talk about personal stuff,
Sam: movies, whatever. And then we'll get into the news in the next segment.
Ivan: Oh, I am scheduled for surgery on November 5th.
Sam: That's what I was going to ask is what's your date? So you got a while yet.
Sam: That's like a month away.
Ivan: I have a while.
Sam: And it's getting worse. So that's not a good combination.
Ivan: Well, the one thing is I think I made it worse this week. I'm going to go to rest.
Sam: That seems like a good idea.
Ivan: You know, I'm going to give it by I'm going to rest.
Ivan: I will say that it's a good another good thing is that I got an I got my a new
Ivan: chair for my office and I will say that I've noticed that sitting in the air
Ivan: on chair makes a big difference where I when I'm sitting here I'm actually not
Ivan: experiencing pain at all.
Ivan: OK, so that's that's a big that's a big plus apparently about getting the new chair.
Ivan: So so probably being at home and not
Ivan: sitting on some random thing and sitting
Ivan: on an airplane for you know 10 hours i i literally sat over 20 hours on a plane
Ivan: this week probably not the best smartest thing probably not but you know i had
Ivan: no i had no many other choices look i i planned this meeting with these guys
Ivan: i'd been working on this it had been.
Ivan: For months. It was just, it was months and months.
Ivan: I probably, I started talking to this customer in, started talking directly to them.
Ivan: I'd been sending trading messages or whatever, but really, really nitty gritty in March. Okay.
Ivan: And we had set up for our first in-person meeting now.
Ivan: And very close to getting, you know, this deal completed. And I met with their,
Ivan: it was with their CIO and their CEO. And I'm like, I can't blow this damn meeting off.
Ivan: After it's been set up for so long. I got to suck it up and do this.
Ivan: So, you know, I did. And it was, I know that I've paid, but I'm like,
Ivan: it was worth it in the sense of, it was a great meeting with them.
Ivan: It was nice to see the country.
Ivan: You know, the only thing we ever hear about Guyana is like Jim Jones.
Ivan: I mean, basically, if you ask anybody.
Sam: If they know anything about the country. I made a Kool-Aid joke as soon as Yvonne mentioned it.
Ivan: It's the only, it's the only, I mean, the first, you say that name and that's
Ivan: the first thing that comes to anybody's mind.
Ivan: And I'm really glad to be able now to not have that as my first thought when
Ivan: we talk about the country of Guyana.
Ivan: And I'm very happy about that.
Sam: Okay. So I'll do my stuff real quick.
Sam: So first of all, I am going to do movies and I'm not going to let this be the
Sam: whole thing, but I'm also traveling.
Sam: Anybody who's watching our video live stream will notice I have a different background.
Ivan: Your background looks very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
Ivan: very different. Definitely doesn't look like your house.
Sam: I'm at an Airbnb in Toronto. I'm visiting my sister.
Sam: I have a nephew who is now six months old that I'm visiting for the first time.
Sam: So that's very nice. Get to hold the baby and like play with it.
Sam: It's old enough. so it like is a you know it's interactive a little bit it's
Sam: not just sleeping all the time and crying you know it does a little bit of stuff
Sam: but it's not yet a toddler so we're still in that middle zone but you can.
Ivan: Hold it you can hold the baby.
Sam: You can hold the baby you can sort of bounce it you can like yeah yeah yeah
Sam: it's like looking at you it's old enough it's like laughing and Yes. Yes.
Ivan: It's great time. Yes.
Sam: So having a lot of fun also getting to chat with my sister and have a couple
Sam: of conversations with her husband for really the first time I met him like for
Sam: five minutes at the wedding,
Sam: you know, but otherwise have not had a time to like sit down and really chat
Sam: with him or anything. So I've done that a little bit.
Sam: So it's a lot of fun. And I was traveling. I was, I was a little bit,
Sam: you know, for, yeah, I don't travel that often.
Sam: And we also had this government shutdown going on. So I was worried,
Sam: like, am I going to have like massive TSA delays?
Sam: Am I going to have, you know, issues with customs, whatever.
Sam: And I'll just say that there was a delay. The plane itself was delayed more
Sam: than four hours, but it was a, it was a mechanical issue.
Ivan: What hour line did you fly in?
Ivan: Alaska? Air Canada?
Sam: This way was Air Canada. I'm going back on Alaska. But, you know,
Sam: there was a mechanical issue.
Sam: The plane that was, like, it was a plane that was coming, it was just going
Sam: back and forth between Toronto and Seattle, right?
Sam: So it hadn't left Toronto yet because there was some sort of mechanical issue.
Sam: Turns out they switched out the plane because they'd already,
Sam: like, boarded people onto the plane and they were taxing and they had to bring
Sam: them back to the gate and pull them all off. and find another plane and all that kind of stuff.
Sam: And so it was like four hours late for that. But like, you know,
Sam: going through security in Seattle was incredibly quick. It was just minutes.
Sam: Like I got through the whole thing.
Sam: Like, you know, we have that clear thing, but I was like, I didn't even bother
Sam: to try to figure it out because the line was going so fast and everything.
Sam: And I haven't been through U.S. customs heading back yet. That'll be when I head back.
Sam: And they're the ones who are being assholes right now. But like.
Ivan: Well, make sure that you, and this is advice for anybody, that if you don't
Ivan: have a global entry, okay, there is the mobile passport control app,
Ivan: okay, that what you do is once you land, it lets you like do the punch in the information.
Ivan: So that way they scan with the code. It expedites that process.
Sam: Okay. so like u.s has one of those too i did one
Sam: of those for canada but like u.s has one yes but
Sam: but all i was gonna say is like canadian customs look took like 10 seconds yeah
Sam: i i did that little app and then you know you had to go to a kiosk and confirm
Sam: that what you'd done on the app was correct and i was like yes and i suppose
Sam: if you hadn't done it on the app you could do the whole
Sam: thing at the kiosk, but like I'd done it on the app.
Sam: So I, and then like, you know, you, you go up to the little guy and you know,
Sam: the last time I went to Canada, when I went up to the little guy,
Sam: they, they asked me some questions, not a lot of questions, but they asked me
Sam: like, you know, 30 seconds worth of, why are you here? What are you about this time?
Sam: It was like, okay, good. Have a nice time.
Sam: No, no questions at all. Just waved me through.
Ivan: Well, I will say I have global entry. So right now, basically,
Ivan: the process is I walk up to a kiosk, scans my face. I don't even pull out my passport.
Ivan: And then I walk past a person who confirms that they have a picture of me and
Ivan: they call my name and I go. So that's pretty much it.
Ivan: That's all it involves. Not even filling out a form.
Ivan: Going to Guyana. So usually when I go to a country that I haven't been to,
Ivan: I try to look up whether there's anything to fill out for entry. Okay.
Ivan: For some reason on the American Airlines app, it didn't show that there was an entry form.
Ivan: In some countries, I've been to either you get a paper form when you get there.
Ivan: Most of them have them electronic like right now. But I try to look up,
Ivan: hey, is there any form to fill out? It didn't say anything on the app.
Ivan: When I get there, I go and they have these automated kiosks that are now,
Ivan: Dominican Republic has these for departure control, where you put your passport, it scans it.
Ivan: And when it does, it looks up to see if you filled out your form,
Ivan: confirms, and whatever.
Sam: So I didn't want to get into all this detail. My only point on this before dropping in movies.
Ivan: But here's the thing. What happened when I got there? Look, it didn't say anything about any form.
Ivan: And I've been to countries where right now they're not requiring forms.
Ivan: I want to get to go over there, put my passport on the thing.
Ivan: It's rejecting me. Well, you got to fill out the form. I'm like, oh, I have no form.
Ivan: So I had to go try to fill it out. And by the way, the CAPTCHA on this form,
Ivan: I don't know what the hell.
Ivan: The worst CAPTCHA in history. I literally had to type it, I think, for entry and exit.
Ivan: I kept typing it. Like, I did it more than 10 times. It kept regretting my CAPTCHA.
Ivan: Do you realize how annoying it is? All the capital letter, a small letter. I hate these things.
Sam: Okay, fine. Can I move on now?
Ivan: You can move on.
Sam: My entire point was just like, I was worried because of the governmental shutdown,
Sam: there would be delays. There were none for me.
Ivan: No.
Sam: There were none. Everything was smooth and rapid and, you know,
Sam: aside from the mechanical delay on the plane, which cost me four hours.
Sam: But luckily, I got the notification of that before I left home.
Sam: So, like, you know, I wasn't stuck at the airport that whole time.
Ivan: That's good. Yeah. That's always good.
Sam: You know when.
Ivan: I get the notification that my flight's been canceled and i haven't made it
Ivan: to the airport i'm like oh good.
Sam: Yeah and like you know
Sam: and honestly i needed the extra time to get
Sam: ready like i i i was hurrying to try to rush and get out the door i got the
Sam: notification that it was first it was delayed one hour and then later they delayed
Sam: it another three hours and so as soon as i got the it's delayed one hour i went
Sam: from like rushing to get everything ready to I'm going to take my time.
Sam: I'm just going to relax. I'll do this slowly. I'm not going to worry about it. And then, you know,
Sam: Anyway, so I ended up getting to the airport minutes before my original flight would have left. Yeah.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: You know, so now, but my behavior had changed. Like if my flight was still.
Ivan: You weren't stressed out in a rush.
Sam: Yeah. Like if it was leaving at the time it was supposed to leave,
Sam: I would have gotten out the door a lot quicker.
Sam: You know, I just took my time.
Sam: Anyway, no more travel adventures. We've had enough travel adventures,
Sam: so I could go blow by blow with more travel stuff, including some interesting stories.
Sam: But I will skip that, because instead, it's been a couple weeks since I did
Sam: movies, so I'm going to do at least one. At least one, damn it.
Ivan: All right, we need to do a movie. Okay.
Sam: Okay. The movie Dark Days from the year 2000. this is not one that anybody is
Sam: likely to have really heard of probably okay.
Ivan: Good yeah i'm like what the hell i don't know what the hell this is okay.
Sam: It is a because it is a documentary that and you know yeah documentaries are
Sam: often you know big box office blockbusters right you know yes yes people are just running number one.
Ivan: Movie uh number one movies of all time i think top five, like grossing is all documentaries.
Sam: Yes, exactly. So no, this was a small little movie.
Sam: It was about homeless people in Manhattan, you know?
Sam: And so specifically it was, it was released in 2000, but it was shot in the mid 1990s.
Sam: It, it was a lot of the people who sort of specifically it was focusing on people
Sam: who were living in old Amtrak tunnels that were not.
Sam: And some of them were not in active use, others, you know, the tunnels in use,
Sam: but there's places off to the side where there's room, you know,
Sam: it's not like every single space is taken up by the train.
Sam: And so it follows basically a community of homeless people there and sort of the,
Sam: they'd built themselves like make two shelters and little houses like within
Sam: the tunnels where they lived.
Sam: But there were, you know, people who, you know, there were some that lived by
Sam: themselves in their little things.
Sam: There were people who lived as roommates. They had populated their little shelters
Sam: with, you know, furniture and appliances and things that they'd,
Sam: like, scavenged from elsewhere.
Sam: And it follows their story up through the point where, you know,
Sam: Amtrak basically kicks them all out because they're going to start using the
Sam: tunnel again or whatever.
Sam: And you know and obviously these
Sam: people have various levels of
Sam: issues there's drug addiction issues their mental health issues there are other
Sam: things going on you know some of them are more sympathetic than others but you
Sam: you know you get to know them as like you know look these are human beings.
Sam: They're down on their luck for various reasons. They've got various issues they're
Sam: working through, but they have lives. They talk about their families a little
Sam: bit. They talk about how they got down there.
Sam: Some of them talk about how, yes, they had opportunities to go elsewhere,
Sam: but they chose to be there and here's why.
Sam: And you feel for these people when their living space gets destroyed and things
Sam: like that so you know it's i'll give it a thumbs up i mean obviously this is
Sam: not you know you're sort of.
Ivan: It's not a comedy it is not a comedy oh my god you gotta be kidding me so you
Ivan: weren't laughing your ass off to this entire movie i wasn't.
Sam: Laughing my ass off.
Ivan: So you're you're not like you know so you're not like some maga head that would
Ivan: have been just watching this and watching these people suffer and going,
Ivan: ah, look at those losers!
Sam: Yeah, exactly. I mean, and, you know, look, it's also not, you know...
Ivan: Sam, the problem is they don't have bootstraps, Sam.
Sam: Yeah, they're not picking themselves up by their bootstraps.
Ivan: They don't have boot... And it's this whole thing where we've moved away from
Ivan: boots and some people don't have bootstraps anymore, Sam. I'm telling you.
Sam: That's right. But you just can't do the same thing with sneakers.
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: No. But I was going to say, it's also not the type.
Sam: Like, there's some documentaries that are narrator heavy, where the narrator
Sam: talks you through the story.
Sam: If there was a narrator here, I barely even remember them.
Sam: It was, you know, basically, I think there was an interviewer,
Sam: but even the interviewer, you didn't hear very much.
Sam: You basically heard these people speaking in their own voices about their own lives, you know.
Sam: And so it was powerful in that way. It apparently did win a few awards,
Sam: won a Sundance Award for, you know, cinematography, documentary, etc.
Sam: Won South by Southwest Film Award as well, a few others.
Sam: Anyway, thumbs up. I liked it. You know, if you're in a in the mood for a more
Sam: serious documentary, I mean, it is, it was 1990s that it was filmed.
Sam: So this isn't current, per se.
Sam: I mean, that was, it's a long time ago now, right? You know,
Sam: but, but it was still good.
Sam: And I think most of the problems that they're highlighting probably have not
Sam: changed all that much, you know, in the subsequent 20 years.
Ivan: Hell, some right now, especially under this administration, has gotten worse.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, these are not problems we have solved.
Ivan: No, no, we got, you know, we have so many places right now, especially in,
Ivan: I mean, even in democratic states, we're trying to make homelessness like illegal.
Sam: Well, I mean, this is one of the fundamental problems is that in a lot of policy
Sam: making to deal with homelessness, they're not really dealing with homelessness.
Sam: They're trying to make it so that quote unquote regular people don't see it.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, they want to make it less visible. They don't want to actually solve
Sam: the problem because so their policies are dealing with like,
Sam: oh, let's go every every few weeks.
Sam: Let's clean up the homeless encampments or whatever.
Ivan: And not actually addressing, hey, guys, why are you homeless?
Ivan: How can we help you to try to get you out of homelessness?
Ivan: Okay. And look, in some cases, by the way, it's not like there are many cases
Ivan: where you can provide help.
Ivan: But also, by the way, there's a lot of people that are actually voluntarily homeless as well.
Ivan: They're trying to live off the grid. They don't want to be.
Sam: Although very often that is tied with mental illness as well. So they're.
Ivan: Yes, but.
Sam: Not always, not always.
Ivan: Yeah, but the thing is, it is, it is, but the problem is, again,
Ivan: it used to be in the old days.
Ivan: What did we do with people that we considered mentally ill? Exactly.
Ivan: And so that it's, it's one of those things where if, if.
Sam: There is a fundamental thing that back.
Ivan: It gets very.
Sam: Going back to the 80s, I think it was during the Reagan administration where
Sam: they sort of decided, you know, We're going to move away from this installation,
Sam: institutionalization approach and we're going to let people
Sam: out but the problem is they didn't replace it with anything
Sam: to like actually help these people right um you know so and i i generally like
Sam: there's a place for inpatient care for the mentally ill but there's if you're
Sam: not and but it was overused it was massively in.
Ivan: Many cases it was involuntary.
Sam: Which is also the problem because it gets into
Sam: the way that the way that institutionalization worked
Sam: there were many people locked up that shouldn't have been that could have been
Sam: living good lives on the outside with the proper care right um and the problem
Sam: is that didn't exist and you know like you said that it was sort of hide people
Sam: away as well you didn't want them visible but then when they moved away from that,
Sam: the right, there was nothing there to replace it.
Sam: There was nothing there to serve those people.
Sam: And so you ended up with lots of people on the street and you add economic stress,
Sam: you add drug issues, you add all this.
Sam: But yeah, the, the, yes, it seems trivially like, like duh,
Sam: that for all of these sorts of problems, the real way to deal with them is to
Sam: find the root causes and deal with root causes,
Sam: not to try to deal with the symptoms, but a significant portion of our political
Sam: world just doesn't like the idea of preventative stuff, of dealing with root causes,
Sam: of we don't want to give people help that don't deserve it, you know, all this kind of stuff.
Sam: Whereas in a number of places, like compared to other countries,
Sam: compared to places where there have been limited scale testing,
Sam: you know, the best solution is,
Sam: to homelessness is give people homes get.
Ivan: Out of town.
Sam: You know no and wait nah.
Ivan: Nah come on that.
Sam: Can't be right you start with that with no conditions and then you deal with
Sam: like oh let's help their drug issues let's help their mental health there wait
Sam: wait but in the meantime you give them some place to live wait really and not
Sam: just like some packed shelter with like a million people but you give them private place they have.
Ivan: You give them a you give the homeless a place to live what kind of fucking psychopathic
Ivan: communist are you you bastard.
Sam: But the thing is we're gonna.
Ivan: Have you to have to send you to one of these new like magary education camps.
Sam: Well but the thing is with all of this it's also you can't just give them a
Sam: place to stay either you have to also back it up with the other supports that
Sam: they need to in order to make that successful and and and then And yes,
Sam: there are underlying problems with the cost of housing and all kinds of other health care. Yeah.
Ivan: Health care. The fuck are you talking about? That's also, you know,
Ivan: that's only for the rich, Sam. What the hell are you talking about, man?
Ivan: Listen, the Republic. Listen, the GOP policy right now is that if you show up
Ivan: to an ER and you're dying and if you can't prove that you're a citizen,
Ivan: we take you out. We fuck them. We let you die.
Ivan: Well, actually, as a matter of fact, we don't want other people to see you.
Ivan: Will roll you out to the dumpster and we'll just put you right.
Sam: Put you right in.
Ivan: There for you to die and that's it you know that way you know the other people
Ivan: don't get to see your carcass.
Sam: Yes because we can't leave that out yeah no.
Ivan: No no no no no no can't bother the other people.
Sam: You know but yeah i don't know i and one and and the thing is like i promise
Sam: i'll move on shortly but people even the people who are like i don't want to
Sam: spend all this money dealing with like cleaning up the homeless camps and all this stuff,
Sam: if you do the math or they say, I don't want to give them a house, that's expensive.
Sam: It's less expensive than what we're doing now.
Ivan: Right?
Sam: Like the preventative stuff costs less than dealing with the problem after it exists.
Sam: You know, even if it seems like, oh, you're giving them a free house.
Sam: Why don't I get a free house? You know, whatever.
Sam: It's like, you know.
Ivan: And universal basic stuff is so many people are so against it.
Ivan: And it's like one of the one of the things is like most of the universal basic stuff.
Ivan: You know, Puerto Rico, there is a lot of public housing and a lot of people
Ivan: do live in public housing.
Ivan: OK, now Puerto Rico has a lot of people that are in the lower end of the income
Ivan: spectrum. That's just that's just a reality.
Ivan: But, you know, well, why do they get a free house? Look, the free houses are
Ivan: not bad. OK, they're decent.
Ivan: OK, but the reality is that if you can actually afford a house,
Ivan: you probably want to buy something else that isn't really the public house.
Ivan: But at the same time, you know, you want to give those people at a basic house
Ivan: something that is decent, clean, good, safe.
Ivan: OK, you know, it's not, you know, it's not a tent full of holes.
Ivan: You want to, you know, you want to give something that's basic but good.
Ivan: And these people complaining about, well, why don't I get a free house?
Ivan: Well, honestly, if you're making more money, you probably don't want the basic house. Okay?
Ivan: And I'm like, why the hell is it so bad in a nation and so much of the world that is so rich?
Ivan: It's such a fucking problem.
Ivan: To give those in the lower part of the income spectrum the basics to live instead
Ivan: of then going and complaining, oh my God, look at those homeless people over there driving me crazy.
Ivan: And I'm like, well, you know, listen, you want to complain about them,
Ivan: but then at the same time, you don't want them to get the basic shit.
Ivan: Decide what the fuck you want, asshole.
Sam: Yeah, anyway, I mean, let's be clear. It's a hard problem. It's not like there's a magical solution.
Ivan: It is a very hard problem, but just making it criminal and illegal isn't the fucking solution.
Sam: Right. Okay. Normally, I try to do two movies, but I talked about the other thing.
Sam: So I'm back to never catching up unless I do two movies a week,
Sam: but we will save Spider-Verse.
Ivan: Next week, we will get back to
Ivan: two. as a matter of fact, I'll even let you next week, we'll go to three.
Sam: Ooh, three. Oh, amazing. You know, when one of these days, when you're out,
Sam: maybe I'll just do an all-movies episode.
Ivan: Ah, do the all-movie review. Listen, here's the thing.
Sam: But the problem is, I like bouncing them off you, because you have an opinion
Sam: on them, too. Me just saying thumbs up, thumbs down, so I'm sideways.
Sam: I mean, I could go through the whole damn list in ten minutes.
Ivan: Well, you can bring back the... Well, I may be too sick to do one soon. Okay.
Ivan: Not sick, but God bless you. You can bring back Chad GPT to see what he thinks about the movies.
Ivan: You know, the most agreeable idiot in history, you know, let him come in and
Ivan: like, and just nicely agree to everything.
Sam: Yeah. No, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll get to working on that.
Sam: No, if I do three next week, the three will be Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse
Sam: from 2023, The Bridge on the River Kwai from 1957, and Hairspray from 1988.
Sam: So, that would be the... But, let's take a break, and then we'll actually talk
Sam: about the news of the week.
Sam: So, back after this.
Sam: Okay, we're back already. That was the short one.
Ivan: Oh, awesome.
Sam: I think Alex made that recording of me in the car once. I don't know.
Sam: It's many years old at this point.
Sam: He had this little app that you can record like that and then add various vocal
Sam: elements and all kinds of things and distort it in various ways.
Sam: This is the undistorted version.
Sam: There are some, you know, maybe we'll get one of the distorted versions one
Sam: time where it's like a robot voice or something. Yeah. That'd be cool. Right. Yvonne.
Ivan: That'd be awesome.
Sam: Yes. Okay. So where shall we start Yvonne?
Sam: We've had like, you know, stuff, I guess.
Ivan: The shutdown.
Sam: Oh, the shutdown. Right. Yes. Yes. We did have that.
Sam: So what we are shut down. I mentioned, I was worried that that would impact
Sam: my travels, but it did not.
Sam: What do you got? Like, you know, we've, There seems to be much less concern
Sam: about this shutdown than the last few times we had shutdown drama.
Ivan: Well, let's be clear about this. At this point right now, shutting down the
Ivan: government to me seems like a good idea. Can I be honest?
Ivan: With the federal government that we have, it seems that for the most part,
Ivan: against its citizens and the world, why the fuck do I want it open right now?
Ivan: I mean, how is that helping us in any way, shape, or form?
Sam: Well, at least theoretically, there are a lot of services that help people potentially
Sam: that will go away or be delayed or whatever.
Ivan: Listen, we're getting paid Social Security, okay? It's not going away.
Ivan: It's not like Medicare and Medicaid benefits right now are being stopped,
Ivan: okay? Now, if you need a new enrollment or you need to change your Social Security
Ivan: or something, yes, that is a problem.
Ivan: But like I said, this government spends every fucking day thinking of ways to fuck us.
Ivan: Every goddamn waking moment, everything that comes out from them is,
Ivan: hey, we figured out a new way to screw you.
Ivan: I mean, literally, Trump posted some AI video showing him as the,
Ivan: whatchamacallit, the Grim Reaper, with all his accomplices going after America.
Ivan: What the, I mean, who wants this government open? Me, right now,
Ivan: I am like, fuck this shit.
Ivan: Keep it closed as long as possible so they can stop fucking with us.
Sam: Well, I'll say the thing is, though, and this is one of the reasons Schumer
Sam: didn't allow this to happen back at the beginning of the year,
Sam: was this offers the opportunity for the Trump administration to effectively
Sam: change the facts on the ground to permanently shut down even more stuff.
Ivan: Listen, here's the thing about this right now. Exactly.
Ivan: Like, what are you talking about? Like, like, like, like what?
Ivan: Like it was stopping them all? It was open?
Ivan: They don't care. And so...
Ivan: Look, one thing about this is public opinion is totally running against the
Ivan: Republicans about this.
Ivan: They are not winning, even though they've tried to message more on this.
Sam: To be clear, when you look at the polls on this, the biggest category is we blame everybody.
Ivan: No, no, no. The biggest category is not sure, which is not blame everybody.
Ivan: That's two very different things. Because you've got a big block of the country
Ivan: that we've discussed this before.
Ivan: I have no idea that it's even happening. so you can't count those people in
Ivan: the only people you could really look at are the ones that that that that are
Ivan: looking at it and say hey who are you blaming and if you take that group,
Ivan: almost north of 65 percent blame the republicans so i cannot go and like think
Ivan: about the fucking people that basically and blissfully have their head in the
Ivan: sand and have no idea what the hell is going on by the way and which Which is,
Ivan: by the way, quite a large number of people.
Sam: So I'm looking for those numbers because I looked at, I remember seeing who
Sam: the numbers, I don't know.
Sam: I thought the numbers for people who had an opinion were actually bigger than
Sam: I expected. And I remember that. In the Washington Post one.
Ivan: It was like 52, 30-something, and like 20-some-odd percent had no clue.
Sam: No, I'm pulling it up right now. Da-da-da-da-da. So they actually...
Sam: Interesting. They didn't give an option for both in this poll.
Sam: I'm looking at the Washington Post poll.
Sam: The biggest number was 47% Trump.
Sam: The second biggest was 30% Democrats. And then it was 23% not sure.
Sam: So not sure was actually the smallest.
Ivan: But you see, the thing is that when you look at between when you take out the
Ivan: not sure, when you look at that, when you look at that group,
Ivan: because that's the group that's actually paying attention. Okay?
Sam: Well, yeah, but even, but not sure was actually relatively small.
Sam: So even without that, it's 50-30, you know, so.
Ivan: No, but what I say, it's bad enough either way, but it's worth,
Ivan: but I'm saying, the group that's looking at it, the vast majority of it,
Ivan: blames the Republicans.
Sam: Yes, that's clear regardless. It's almost 50%, even with the not-sures in the mix.
Sam: And let's see what, Let's see one more. Let's see. It's the same one. Same one.
Sam: Washington Post is the only real one. Here we go. Let's see. Did we have?
Sam: Yeah. Not sure is the middle category. They didn't offer a both,
Sam: which is interesting. If they
Sam: had offered a both, I suspect a significant chunk would have gone to both.
Sam: But, you know, OK, we got not. But but regardless,
Sam: they are getting the blame for the moment, Which is interesting because if you
Sam: listen to press reports on this,
Sam: like I've listened to the TV news talking heads and a few other folks,
Sam: there was most of the narrative has been around how the Republicans seem to
Sam: be doing better on messaging. The poll does not match that.
Ivan: No, it doesn't. But but that's you know what? It's this whole thing how we live
Ivan: in all these people and, you know, that we follow the the pundits in the world
Ivan: that they live in. Right. OK.
Ivan: Whereas. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They've
Ivan: got the messaging. They've got the messaging. And even like, you know.
Ivan: Which is why even some of the people that are inside, some people,
Ivan: the Democratic strategist complaining, why are they not only fighting about
Ivan: this and not everything else?
Ivan: And I'm like, Jesus Christ, look, in a world where messaging is so difficult,
Ivan: either you stick doing this very simple and binary, OK,
Ivan: or it risks being this walk debate that 90 plus percent of the people don't
Ivan: fucking pay attention to. Well, because the details just get lost.
Sam: And especially here, we're talking a budgetary debate.
Sam: We're talking about things where some of the issues that people are talking
Sam: about most are, you know, changing,
Sam: undoing some changes to the rules about tax credits that happened in the the
Sam: big, beautiful bill a few months ago.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, and or or rescissions like ask a random person on the street,
Sam: what the hell is a rescission?
Sam: Yeah, come on. You know, this is not going to be, and I think this is absolutely
Sam: one of those cases where, I mean, I looked at the breakdown.
Sam: I have the breakdown up now.
Sam: You know, we mentioned the overall numbers. Overall was 47% blame Republicans,
Sam: 30% blame Democrats, 23% unsure.
Sam: But if you break it up, you know, among Republicans, 67% Democrat blame the Democrats.
Sam: Among Democrats, 87% blame the Republicans.
Ivan: You see that even the Republicans are not, I mean, are down a little bit.
Sam: And their number that grows is the not sure, really.
Sam: 8% of Republicans blame Republicans. So that's, you know, not bad.
Sam: But the independent group, though, it's 50 to 22 blaming the Republicans.
Sam: It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming among the independents.
Ivan: Listen, how can Trump go around and literally proclaim himself? self.
Ivan: Dictator. Because in that one video that he showed, he basically was saying
Ivan: how Congress is irrelevant. I rule everything.
Ivan: He said that, right? And so you want to turn around and blame the Democrats
Ivan: for it being shutting down when you are just claiming that you run everything. Dude,
Ivan: Okay, decide. Okay.
Sam: Which one are you? They do this all the time, though.
Sam: Like, you know, oh, Biden, you know, has lost his mind and is completely ineffective.
Sam: Oh, but oh, he's so dangerous. You can't let him be in charge.
Sam: You know, you know, this this sort of dual messaging where on the one hand something
Sam: is irrelevant, but on the other hand, it's incredibly dangerous is commonplace.
Ivan: Yeah, I get that. But but but it's very difficult when you've been hammering
Ivan: to people how you are the.
Ivan: Have control of everything and have everything in the palm of your hand and
Ivan: then try to claim yourself helpless to the Democrats.
Ivan: Is very difficult. You know, once you've been pounding that message for,
Ivan: I don't know how long, very difficult to do. Okay?
Sam: Oh, and so let's move to where we think this is going.
Ivan: So I think we're looking at the longest shutdown we've ever had.
Ivan: I really do at this point.
Sam: The record right now was in Trump's first administration. It was 35 days.
Ivan: Oh, this is going to go longer.
Sam: Yeah. Well, right now, there's no motion on it on any side to do anything like
Sam: everybody's sort of digging in their heels.
Sam: And a lot of people and look, there are folks in the Republican coalition who
Sam: agree with what you said at the beginning with, well, we like it shut down. Let's just leave it.
Sam: You know, this proves what do we really need and what do we not need?
Sam: And the president actually has a lot of authority to declare that certain things
Sam: are needed and have to continue.
Sam: You know, the counter argument is, you know, do we really want to let Donald
Sam: Trump be the one deciding that? But as you said, he's been deciding that anyway.
Sam: So, you know, last time, the 35 day, and I was reminded of this.
Sam: I haven't double checked it, but the 35 day shutdown, if you remember, was,
Sam: It ended when the Democrats retook the House.
Sam: Like it was right at the end of the term. So the stalemate did not resolve itself
Sam: by the two sides coming to a better deal or whatever.
Sam: There was actually a change in power that enabled them to do something that
Sam: they would not do earlier.
Sam: Now, at this point, we're a year and a quarter. And election's a year away.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, we're more than a year away from the election and add a couple months
Sam: before they actually take power.
Ivan: Listen, but this is one thing where critical services are continuing,
Ivan: but problems will pile up.
Ivan: Look, I realize that a lot of things are going to pile up.
Ivan: Like, as I mentioned, for example, hey, if you just turn 65,
Ivan: you won't apply for Social Security.
Ivan: That gets problematic right now. You can't go to an office. You can't make changes.
Ivan: You can't get somebody died. You can't, like, register that.
Ivan: They're talking about flood insurance, for example, how right now you can't
Ivan: obtain it. You can't get it's complicates so many different things and processes.
Ivan: I think you can't even apply for passports right now.
Ivan: For example, you can't even get passports.
Ivan: It's there are so many things that start getting complicated that that it's
Ivan: it's you know, they start piling up at some point.
Ivan: I'm assuming something's going to happen because here's here's the thing.
Ivan: I don't think, well, I didn't, listen, I don't think that a large group of Republicans
Ivan: really wanted to take away health care from a large port of constituents either.
Ivan: They're just right now being jerk offs to be jerk.
Sam: Or triple the prices and things like that that are happening.
Ivan: Exactly. They didn't really want this. Okay. Yeah. They didn't want this.
Ivan: Okay. So I think that right now,
Ivan: they're being stubborn just to show spine, but at some point,
Ivan: they're going to want to do something too, because they don't want to fuck their
Ivan: constituents that badly, as
Ivan: much as they try to sometimes. But they don't want to do it so evidently.
Sam: And they still don't want to cross Donald Trump.
Sam: Nobody wants to be the first one to cross Donald Trump, right?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: And now, even as is, like we had a couple Democrats in the Senate cross over
Sam: Fetterman and I forget who the other one was.
Ivan: I don't know what the hell. But listen, I don't want to count like anything
Ivan: about what the hell's going on in Fetterman's brain at this moment,
Ivan: given all everything we've heard around his staff, how he seems to be basically losing his marbles.
Ivan: OK, so I don't know.
Ivan: I discount that other people I'll consider.
Ivan: But I don't I don't consider like saying, oh, well, Fetterman decided to do
Ivan: this as something indicative of anything at this point.
Sam: Right. So I'm just checking.
Sam: The Democrats that voted for it were John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto
Sam: from Nevada, and Angus King, who's technically an independent,
Sam: but who caucuses with the Democrats. Those were the three.
Ivan: Right. That's it. Yeah.
Sam: And so you need a few more to reach the threshold.
Sam: You need quite a few more. I don't like three, four, four, five.
Sam: Yeah, somewhere around that ballpark. You need 60 votes.
Sam: And so you already have three Republicans plus those three, that's six.
Sam: You need four more. You need four more.
Sam: But I don't know. I don't know who's going to get weak in the knees first.
Sam: I think it depends a lot on the specifics of what pain does end up accumulating
Sam: in the way you've mentioned, and who is most sensitive to that pain,
Sam: what states is it affecting, all that kind of stuff.
Sam: You also honestly have to not discount the possibility at this point of Donald
Sam: Trump just reopening whatever he feels like, regardless of the rules.
Sam: Say, oh, this particular thing is causing pain. OK,
Sam: executive order reopening that and and essentially leaving it officially shut
Sam: down indefinitely, but turning things on one by one as they feel as they feel
Sam: like they cause pain to the Republicans.
Ivan: But, you know, I mean, that is obviously a possibility and given where SCOTUS
Ivan: is right now that basically decided that we are a monarchy at this point.
Ivan: I'm like, I'm not, you know, I don't I'm not holding my breath about them,
Ivan: you know, doing anything to push back on this administration.
Sam: Right. And so.
Sam: Yeah, so if I had to bet, I think you're right. This probably will go past 35 days.
Sam: And I don't know. Like, I would not be surprised by any of the three options we talked about.
Sam: You know, Democrats capitulating, Republicans capitulating, Donald Trump just
Sam: pushing through and not giving a damn about it at all. You know,
Sam: any one of those three options.
Ivan: Or just Donald Trump changing his mind, which has happened before.
Ivan: And by the way, he changed his mind and all of a sudden made it sold everybody.
Ivan: Like, he made a great deal and, like, convinced everybody that it was like he
Ivan: was right. This is what he wanted all along.
Sam: Oh, yes.
Sam: And, yes, now that you mention it,
Sam: I mean, I would have fit that into the Republicans capitulate category.
Sam: But you're absolutely right.
Ivan: This is not capitulating. This is him saying, I made a great deal and it's what I wanted all along.
Ivan: And, you know, finally, I got the Democrats to do what I wanted.
Ivan: And so, therefore, we have this great deal, even though what he's doing is just
Ivan: what the Democrats wanted. And he will sell it like it was his.
Sam: Yes. Yes. This is his genius. I mean, in so many ways, he's a moron. But this is his genius.
Ivan: That is his superpower. Yes. That is totally his absolute superpower and genius.
Ivan: That he will completely change his mind on something.
Ivan: And then tell everybody it was his idea and then convince everybody it's such
Ivan: a great deal that he negotiated. Yes.
Sam: Yes, even though he's actually just giving the other side exactly what they wanted.
Ivan: Yes, taking the complete other side of what he wanted like 30 days before.
Sam: Well, this ties into the stuff we've talked about happening again and again
Sam: on tariffs with other countries promising to do what they already did and getting
Sam: credit for it as the massive new deal that was Donald Trump forced through because of the tariffs.
Ivan: That's right.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: You forgot that scenario, huh?
Sam: I mean, well, I, like I said, I was counting it as Republicans capitulate,
Sam: but it's not, but it's fun in a way that's not, you know, well,
Sam: it is, but it's not, it is.
Ivan: But it isn't because if you listen, because if you make everybody else believe,
Ivan: and if your people believe that it's your, you made a deal and it's not seen
Ivan: what scenario is the other guys capitulate and everybody sees you're a loser.
Ivan: The other one is you you make it seem like you won, even though you lost and
Ivan: all your constituents believe you won.
Sam: Well, yeah, this is I mean, I'm having flashbacks to the Mueller report.
Sam: No obstruction, no collusion.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: That's that's what Barr said, like Ed, for like the two weeks before he released the actual report.
Sam: So that's what stuck in everybody's head. No obstruction, no collusion.
Sam: Even though the actual report showed lots of obstruction and lots of collusion.
Ivan: That's exactly right.
Sam: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Ivan: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I came in last place. I won. I won.
Ivan: You walk up to the podium. By the way, Donald Trump has done this kind of like
Ivan: literally in even before he was president.
Ivan: OK, I mean, we're he he would he actually David Tepper, I think,
Ivan: is the one that said this, that he showed up to fundraising events,
Ivan: okay, to charitable events where he had not donated a single dime.
Ivan: And he showed up up there like he was some major contributor to help get this
Ivan: thing over the top, blah, blah, blah, showed up there, whatever,
Ivan: and he had not given a dime.
Sam: Right. Okay. Let's take a break.
Sam: And when we come back, I'll pick the topic for the rest of the time.
Sam: And I will start with the speech from the generals and then move on to sort
Sam: of going along with what we've just been talking about,
Sam: sort of Donald Trump's mental state and stuff. Anyway.
Sam: Yes, yes. Okay, here we go. We'll be back after this.
Sam: He just posted a new video, like, a few weeks ago, by the way.
Sam: Like, he's down, he's only posting, like, a few a year now, and there's still
Sam: ones that he originally recorded when he was seven years old. He's now 16, by the way.
Sam: But, yeah, there's a new video out. There's a new video out. So, check it out.
Ivan: Hey, Sam, before we go into the speech, Charles, just a brief mention.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: What about that coin, huh?
Sam: Oh, yes. Well, you know, when he first mentioned the coin with Donald Trump's
Sam: name on it, I got excited for a second because maybe it was minting the coin.
Ivan: Oh, the super coin.
Sam: You know, the super coin. And, you know, I would almost accept a Donald Trump
Sam: coin if they actually did the super coin idea.
Sam: Because, like, it's just so disruptive and cool an idea.
Sam: But, you know, no, it's a $1 commemorative coin, apparently.
Ivan: Um so i i i did read and apparently the law is that you can't have a coin as
Ivan: a somebody leader unless they are living person okay so so here's the deal i'm
Ivan: willing that has been the.
Sam: Law for like 140 years or.
Ivan: Something so here's the deal i propose i'm good with a coin if you're promising
Ivan: me that he's going to die like tonight or something we can go ahead with listen if you're
Ivan: If you promise me that he's going to be dead by Monday,
Ivan: I, man, go ahead, make the coin. No problem. Make the coin.
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: That's a trade I'm willing to make right now. Yes.
Sam: Yeah. So, but, but, but like, honestly, just by natural causes.
Ivan: By the way. Okay. That's what I'm saying.
Sam: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Ivan: You know, he has a heart attack or something. I mean, that cholesterol can't
Ivan: be helped. You know, those kinds of things.
Sam: You are not calling for anything that would necessitate a secret service visit.
Ivan: No, no, no. I'm just, you know, just, just, just, just,
Ivan: you know, if that, I mean, they're playing to admit the coin because they think
Ivan: he's i'm thinking hey they're a bit to the coin because they think he's gonna
Ivan: be dead soon he's seriously ill we don't know that's why they're planning for
Ivan: the coin sam that's the new speculation since apparently he's not posting i
Ivan: i heard again that he's been like a little bit like he's been missing for.
Sam: A couple days again yeah uh well and we'll get to that in a second but yeah no uh.
Ivan: He's getting one of those like just remember you remember the artificial heart
Ivan: guy the the the many you know it was the name but he's getting an artificial heart.
Sam: Dick Cheney.
Ivan: Well, Dick Cheney got one, right. Yeah.
Sam: Well, he didn't get an artificial heart, but he had like a...
Ivan: He got a... This ventricular assist thing, whatever it's called.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ivan: It's basically an artificial heart, basically, because it's too close to work.
Sam: Anyway, just to finish up the coin thing, it is absolutely true that there is
Sam: a law that says you cannot have a living person on a coin, and they are apparently
Sam: 90% of the way through the planning process to release a coin with Donald Trump's face on it.
Sam: Absent your scenario, this is a clear violation of the law, but so is,
Sam: you know, 80% of the stuff the Trump administration has been doing.
Sam: And, you know, no one, it's just, it's, it is what it is.
Sam: Because, like, the mechanisms aren't in place to effectively actually stop a
Sam: rogue president who just says, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to do what I want to do.
Sam: Which is unfortunate, or at least I shouldn't say the mechanisms don't exist.
Ivan: They exist, but nobody wants to use them. The Republicans control Congress,
Ivan: and they basically have said, eh, he can be lawless. We're good.
Sam: And you've got a Supreme Court that is very sympathetic to the idea that the
Sam: president can do anything they want.
Ivan: So you've got the three branches, the two branches that are supposed to do oversight,
Ivan: basically abdicating their role.
Sam: I mean, the lower courts have been repeatedly going against Donald Trump over
Sam: and over and over again on many issues.
Sam: But there's just no level of confidence that when it finally gets to SCOTUS,
Sam: SCOTUS won't just say, OK, fine, you can do that.
Ivan: He can do whatever you want.
Sam: And Donald Trump has taken the position that until SCOTUS says no,
Sam: he's pretty much going to keep going. You know, and, and, you know,
Sam: even, and honestly, we still have that question.
Sam: If SCOTUS absolutely says no to something that he cares about.
Sam: What happens? I mean, we actually had that example from the Garcia in El Salvador.
Sam: So the Supreme Court actually told him, get him home right away.
Sam: And it took him like two months.
Ivan: Yeah, well, he delayed it, but he finally did it, is the thing that even though
Ivan: he dragged his feet, they wound up doing it. So.
Sam: Yes. Although, yeah, they did drag their feet.
Ivan: But they wound up doing it at the end.
Sam: So far, so far, when pushes come to shove in the end, Donald Trump and his administration
Sam: have always backed down from the ultimate confrontations.
Sam: And not only that, like we've talked about taco with the tariffs,
Sam: whenever something seems to be getting unpopular, he has backed off as well,
Sam: you know, because in the end he wants to be loved and he wants people to be
Sam: like excited about it when, and, you know,
Sam: it seems his people hide a lot of things from him.
Sam: But when he gets a whiff.
Ivan: Did the generals laugh and love him when he was given the speech?
Sam: Yeah, let's move on. Let's move on to the generals.
Ivan: So they love. OK, so my key question, did the generals, you know,
Ivan: clap and love what he was when he was given the speech?
Sam: Well, first of all, let's just level set this with the the protocol that generals
Sam: and other military folks are supposed to follow anyway.
Sam: Is that they are non-political, and so they shouldn't clap at something like this. No, no, I know.
Ivan: I know, but I guess he was expecting that, right?
Sam: He specifically said at the beginning, I know you're not supposed to,
Sam: but feel free to clap if you want to, and stuff like that. And no, nobody clapped.
Sam: Nobody clapped, nobody hooted and hollered. He was giving, and this is both Hegseth and Trump,
Sam: were hoping for some positive reactions. They got the generals and admirals
Sam: basically sitting on their hands.
Ivan: Which is what they should be doing! Which I'm proud of them for doing so, by the way.
Sam: Which is what they should be doing. And just to be clear,
Sam: first of all, this type of audience, bring in all the generals that exist into
Sam: one room, has not happened before.
Ivan: Doesn't happen!
Sam: But speaking more generally in front of military audiences,
Sam: the military audiences can get animated and hoop and holler and stuff when presidents
Sam: give speeches and the speeches are wholeheartedly like, hey,
Sam: we're going to support the troops.
Sam: We're doing a good effort. America is great. Blah, blah, blah.
Sam: You know, it's things that are somewhat universal where they're just,
Sam: you know, they're visiting troops in Afghanistan and they're talking about supporting
Sam: the effort and how important the work they do is and stuff like that.
Sam: Okay. In those cases, the military is fully allowed to like clap and express
Sam: appreciation, all of that kind of stuff.
Sam: But what Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are doing here are, and they really were too different.
Sam: I don't want to lump them in together. because they had different purposes and
Sam: were doing different things.
Sam: But they're fundamentally, especially to Donald Trump's speech.
Sam: It's like 100, well, especially, they were both.
Sam: They were both 100% political issues that are controversial in politics today,
Sam: pushing their view, talking about Democrats' evil, et cetera, et cetera.
Sam: This is exactly the kind of thing where Protocol says the military should sit
Sam: on their hands, and they did.
Sam: And a lot of the, you know, it took a few hours for the feedback to start coming
Sam: in, sort of anonymous generals talking to reporters and such.
Sam: The feedback is universally that, like...
Sam: The vast majority of people in that audience were disturbed by the speeches
Sam: and upset by the speeches, not support.
Sam: I mean, obviously, there's some there's some proportion that would be supportive,
Sam: but the vast majority were not. They were upset by this.
Sam: They were like, this is not the kinds of conversations where we should be having.
Sam: They didn't like being lectured by Hegseth on what it means to be a warrior.
Sam: The feedback on Donald Trump was things like, after the first five minutes I
Sam: stopped taking notes because it was just incoherent and rambling and it made no sense.
Sam: Standard Trump speech. The Hegseth stuff was all anti-woke anti-trans,
Sam: anti-woman, like we don't we want to restore,
Sam: and pro-war pro-war crimes I guess like pro-war crimes yeah that was.
Ivan: Very clear yes.
Sam: Yeah it's like we don't want any of these rules that tell you how to behave
Sam: we just want you to kill people kill people and break things you know I.
Ivan: This hexathetic is arranged I I've never heard anybody in military leadership in my as an adult,
Ivan: that I as I remember talk to generals like this.
Sam: Yeah. And even if you actually hear actual military people talking about their jobs,
Sam: like, they don't, with very few exceptions that probably should be run out of
Sam: the rail, they don't talk about the kill people and break things with pride.
Sam: They recognize that it's part of their profession as a necessity,
Sam: but it's all
Sam: about professionalism and being able to do
Sam: what's necessary and not what's more than necessary and
Sam: we want to use our power to achieve the political goals but we want to do so
Sam: carefully they really care about things like rules of engagement and trying
Sam: to avoid the civilian casualties when possible now,
Sam: They could, you know, they could be a lot more careful than there are.
Sam: You know, there have been a lot of unnecessary deaths in U.S. military engagements.
Sam: I mean, we don't quite we don't quite reach Israeli levels.
Ivan: But the one thing is that the primary mission is is, you know,
Ivan: and I see this in a lot of places is defending is defending the country.
Sam: OK, and that's the primary. Exactly. I've seen a number of retired folks commenting,
Sam: the oath is to support the Constitution.
Ivan: The Constitution, exactly, yes.
Sam: And these fucking jokers are undermining it.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, and so they are not happy about this.
Sam: I, you know, I've even started, started to see some things on TikTok about like, you know,
Sam: military folks starting to talk about the possibility of a military coup at some point.
Sam: Now, I think this is not a likely scenario,
Sam: but even the fact that you've got a few people sort of starting to murmur about
Sam: those kinds of options indicate how much these people feel actually feel disrespected by this nonsense.
Ivan: I mean, that's the thing. I think that's the key thing.
Ivan: That whole event was totally disrespectful to the entire military leadership of the United States.
Ivan: That's the one thing that it was.
Sam: Everything from the call everybody in for something that could have been a memo,
Sam: to the the things you're actually saying i mean and the fact that part of donald
Sam: trump's speech involved you know oh and prepare to use the american cities as
Sam: training grounds we're gonna you know be be prepared for that and if you don't
Sam: like it resign now you know and this is you know So like I said,
Sam: the culture in the military for many, many decades now is we are a professional
Sam: organization. We live by standards.
Sam: We're not just thugs that go out and kill people. You know, yes,
Sam: of course, it's the military.
Sam: They kill people. They break things. Yes, that's part of what they do.
Sam: But the whole ethos is around service and professionalism and doing things by
Sam: the rules and all of this kind of stuff and honor.
Sam: And this is not respecting any of that.
Sam: And part of it, of course, is like, you know, Trump and Hegseth don't actually
Sam: think any of what I just mentioned is valuable at all.
Ivan: By the way, and I'm pretty confident that most of those guys that got to be
Ivan: general had zero respect for, even though Hegseth was in the military.
Ivan: I wasn't sure he was. He was.
Sam: Military.
Ivan: He was in the military, but he wasn't exactly. He didn't really make it that far.
Ivan: And it's something that I read some people mentioning. It's this is how far
Ivan: a mediocre guy gets in the military.
Ivan: You know, that was the thinking that I heard around some people.
Ivan: And so, so these guys knowing when that's the mindset of these guys and they
Ivan: realize that they got the mediocre guy who you basically like, you know,
Ivan: the reason he's not there is because he was mediocre and now is the head of them.
Ivan: You know, I know that I've been in those kind of situations in corporate when that happens.
Ivan: Let me tell you something. The rest of the people that were there looking at
Ivan: this guy, they're all like, this fucking loser is the only thing.
Sam: And this is a different scenario, by the way, than a civilian who's never been
Sam: in the military at all, but has other experience.
Ivan: Exactly. Yes, absolutely.
Sam: Yeah, this is worse.
Ivan: This is way worse.
Sam: And he's coming in and lecturing them, and he's, you know- When they know.
Ivan: He was mediocre.
Sam: You know, and a lot of these things, like the administration has been so hostile
Sam: to like women in the military at all, for instance, let alone trans people that
Sam: they've been absolutely hostile to, but women more generally.
Ivan: Oh my God.
Sam: Now, and look, there is still,
Sam: you know, the military hadn't fully succeeded in transforming to be fully open
Sam: to women in all places anyway, but it's moved on quite a bit from where it was 20, 25 years ago.
Sam: Like there were there were women in
Sam: significant command positions there are women in various combat positions
Sam: celebrated the culture has moved
Sam: on the culture you know it is
Sam: certainly not perfect but they're trying to drag it back 40 years you know and
Sam: and with with all of the or more and with all of this kind of stuff when you
Sam: you don't let's say you did legitimately want to change the culture.
Sam: This is not the way you do it successfully.
Ivan: No, not at all.
Sam: You know, I mean, just, just like we're, we're talking about,
Sam: you know, first the military integrated, you know, integrated,
Sam: not non-white people into the military.
Sam: Then they started accepting women in non-combat roles and eventually some combat
Sam: roles and, and, and trans people
Sam: more recently and gay people more recently, you know, and, you know,
Sam: this has happened over the course of quite a few years and it's the,
Sam: it hasn't been easy.
Sam: The, the, the cultural change has been slow and it is imperfect and it hadn't
Sam: finished yet, but it had gotten to the point where you can't just snap your fingers and undo it.
Sam: And, you know, what they're doing, I just, I mean, on the one hand,
Sam: you know, I hate what they're trying to do, but at the same time,
Sam: I'm glad they're as bad at it as they are,
Sam: you know, because it makes it more likely that it will be easier to reverse
Sam: some of this stuff once they're gone.
Ivan: So i.
Sam: Don't know i i have some more to talk about uh about donald trump specifically
Sam: any more about these speeches before i.
Ivan: Now move on okay oh can i say one thing wait yeah go ahead let's just you're
Ivan: going to talk about donald trump you said oh can i am i my regular reminder fuck donald trump.
Sam: Oh okay yes.
Ivan: Yeah i just wanted to make sure that was clear in the program i don't want to forget to.
Sam: Of course not. No, no. Can't forget that.
Sam: No. So, look, we've talked about Trump's health before.
Sam: We've talked about Trump's mental health before.
Sam: I think it's time to do so again.
Sam: I i mentioned how like generals were off the record quoted as saying they stopped
Sam: taking notes because it made no sense and it was just rambling and going nowhere
Sam: if you listened to donald trump's speech here and i did not listen to a lot
Sam: of it i listened to i listened to.
Ivan: None of it i just read what it is i i like i said before i have a visceral.
Sam: Problem to hearing his voice and I want.
Ivan: To like fucking like, like, like throw shit at it or something. So I have to turn it off.
Sam: So let me start with, first of all, yes, it was rambling and incoherent.
Sam: He's, he's often rambling and incoherent, but it does seem like it's getting worse.
Sam: But also he just physically sounded like shit again.
Sam: Like you remember a few weeks ago we were all talking about,
Sam: oh, he's been missing for a week. Where'd he go? Blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Something clearly happened. And then he showed up again.
Sam: And fine, but he once again sounds like shit.
Sam: Like, he was very, very low energy.
Sam: His voice was a monotone most of the time. It was somewhat gravelly.
Sam: He did not sound well.
Sam: And so the speculation's not going to go away.
Sam: I mean, I still think, like, more so than anything else, like if something really
Sam: acute happens I still believe we will hear about that relatively quickly like if something,
Sam: wrapped no,
Sam: no way they will hide it as much as possible they will absolutely hide as much
Sam: as possible but what I mean by something really acute is like if it's serious
Sam: enough he has to get rushed to the hospital like we will know about that they
Sam: will not be able to hide it,
Sam: absolutely I.
Ivan: Think I mean But listen, I think that they are geared up to even hide that because
Ivan: if, listen, I think speculation is that last time he had to have some kind of
Ivan: procedure, which is why he was like.
Sam: Really like, but they might have been able to do it at the White House.
Ivan: Yeah, but, but I think that they bulked up what they could do at the White House
Ivan: precisely so they can hide whatever the fuck is going on with this guy.
Ivan: So even if he has something major, that they could do it and hide it as much as possible.
Ivan: I've never seen a president, you know, listen, we've had presidents wear the
Ivan: health condition or whatever, they tried to hide it.
Ivan: Sam, this guy's been wearing makeup to hide shit, okay?
Sam: Well, he's been wearing makeup for decades.
Ivan: No, no, no, but he's been wearing makeup to also hide now, like, actual...
Sam: Yes, I know, when he put the stuff on his hands and things like that.
Ivan: Yeah, he's been hiding medical, you know, things that are actual physical ailments.
Ivan: He was wearing makeup because he likes to look orange for some fucking reason.
Ivan: I'm talking about wearing makeup in order to hide signs of some physical issues, okay?
Sam: So what I was saying, though, is I think, like, I hear what you're saying.
Sam: I still think if there was something
Sam: really acute, they would be incapable of hiding it for very long.
Sam: But I think what we're seeing is just regular, gradual decline associated with
Sam: aging, both on his mental state and on his physical state.
Sam: And it's not a dramatic, like, one day he's like this, the next day he's so much worse.
Sam: But it's just gradual decline and
Sam: he's got better days and he's got worse days and you
Sam: know and that's going to continue to happen but
Sam: i also feel like i think we're seeing increasing evidence of him being significantly
Sam: checked out a lot of the time uh in terms of you know like look you you talked
Sam: about him posting the Grim Reaper meme.
Sam: A few days earlier, he posted this med bed thing.
Ivan: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Sam: So for those who don't know or didn't follow this, first of all,
Sam: I didn't know this, but apparently this is an ongoing conspiracy theory on the right,
Sam: that the government secretly has developed med beds using alien technology Yeah.
Sam: Over the last couple of decades. And these are basically beds that you can put
Sam: a person in and they will heal everything.
Sam: They will. By the way, this is.
Ivan: Okay. As far as I can tell, these people watched the movie Elysium too,
Ivan: too, too many times. And you need to add that to your list if it's not on there.
Sam: I'm adding, I'm going to.
Ivan: Okay. All right. This is, this seems to be Elysium to give you the, the gist,
Ivan: the main thing is a movie in a, in a future where earth is like,
Ivan: so contaminated that people are living on space stations and like the president
Ivan: and like all those people are living there.
Ivan: And the space stations have these med beds where, where people can get instantly
Ivan: healed of any condition, but only the, the elite people, the,
Ivan: the chosen people, the bed beds actually DNA scan you.
Ivan: And so they won't give you, if you're not a citizen, they won't give you the healing stuff. Okay.
Sam: Okay. Yeah. So, so that, so that.
Ivan: So I think, I think these assholes. basically watched that movie too many times.
Sam: So yes the idea is it can heal
Sam: anything like from you've got a cold cancer
Sam: somebody chopped so cancer somebody chopped off your arm it will regrow it and
Sam: even d8 and even de-aging like yeah oh you don't you don't you don't like being
Sam: in your 50s anymore okay try out your 20s again you know whatever but and and
Sam: part of the conspiracy of course,
Sam: is the government has this, but is hiding it from people.
Sam: So Donald Trump posted an AI generated
Sam: fake newscast of somebody talking about the new initiative that Donald Trump
Sam: was announcing that included video of a fake Donald Trump talking about how
Sam: they were starting to roll out the MedBed program and it would be available to people.
Sam: And it wasn't going to be available to everybody all at once,
Sam: but they were going to sign up and there's a way and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And he just posted it. Like, it's like, okay.
Sam: And the question is, did he see this online and just think, oh, this is cool.
Sam: And it's like, oh, I don't remember announcing this, but okay,
Sam: I guess I did repost Or what?
Sam: You know, and they did take it down a few hours later. Like, it was taken down.
Ivan: Oh, they did take it down.
Sam: Which is apparently relatively rare for Donald Trump to take down his social media posts.
Sam: But they did remove this one after a little while.
Sam: And just generally speaking, I mean, his unhinged things that he posts on Truth
Sam: Social seemingly get more unhinged and more unrelated to reality.
Ivan: They're nuts.
Sam: Which is hard because they were already bad.
Ivan: Right. But yes, it has escalated in insanity.
Ivan: I mean, it's like, I mean, I am like right now.
Ivan: I realized that I was so busy the last few days that I stopped really reading
Ivan: a lot of media because I, unfortunately, because how much I, you know,
Ivan: actually I was busy and I was having a good time because I, by the way,
Ivan: I realized that my favorite part of, of this job is actually visiting customers.
Ivan: Okay. I've known that before.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And I'm like, damn it. I'm like over there. Honestly, I was having a great time.
Ivan: So I wasn't reading any of this. And all of a sudden, after I got busy late
Ivan: yesterday, I started catching up on some of this shit and I opened it and I'm
Ivan: like looking at some of these posts and some of the posts that he was posting.
Ivan: I don't know, a few of the another on the hinge stuff. And I'm like, what in fucking hell?
Ivan: It's just it's in there and they are worse.
Sam: Yes. And I and, you know, and I think there's a lot of.
Sam: Well, here's the one quote from a couple of days ago. And of course,
Sam: you'll say like it was a mistake, whatever.
Sam: But Representative Dean from Pennsylvania confronted Johnson,
Sam: Speaker Johnson, in the hallways at the Capitol. And this got caught on camera.
Sam: And she started out by saying, the president is unhinged. He is unwell.
Sam: And he's pleading for Johnson to like, do something about this.
Sam: Johnson's answer, his immediate answer before he moved on to other things was,
Sam: a lot of folks on your side are too. Too.
Ivan: Are too.
Sam: You know, and yes, look, I mean, some people have started talking about,
Sam: like, Pritzker's calling for the 25th Amendment.
Sam: Of course, no one's going to listen to Pritzker, right? You know,
Sam: this is like the 25th Amendment has to be the vice president and a majority of the cabinet.
Sam: And by the way, even after they declare it, the president just has to submit a letter to Congress.
Sam: The president has if the president submits a letter to Congress saying,
Sam: no, never mind, I'm fine.
Sam: Then Congress has to weigh in and it has to be a two thirds majority.
Sam: So like the 25th Amendment is really, really hard. You know, I mean.
Ivan: It's basically about as hard. Close to as hard as impeachment, basically.
Sam: Yeah. And basically, like, if the president himself disagrees, it's impossible.
Sam: Like, for all intents and purposes, it's impossible. Like, it...
Sam: It's a workable mechanism if the president is in a coma, okay?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: But if the president is around and disagrees and doesn't think it should,
Sam: or if the president agrees.
Sam: Like, you know, we've had a number of occasions now where the president's going
Sam: into surgery and they sign a letter themselves invoking the 25th to hand over
Sam: power while they're in surgery.
Sam: You know, that kind of thing. But it is not a workable mechanism in a situation
Sam: where the president actively does not agree with being removed. You know, it just isn't.
Ivan: So anybody talking about that— I mean, it is if everybody—if Congress—it's evident
Ivan: to everybody— If everyone agreed.
Sam: If everybody agrees.
Ivan: But given the.
Sam: Current state of affairs—,
Sam: is to get Vance to take over. And so, of course, they're going to pull the trigger at some point.
Sam: I don't buy it. I don't buy it. Like, if the opportunity arises,
Sam: do I think Vance would, you know, grab it? Of course.
Ivan: Oh, Vance is a grifter, of course. I mean, if the opportunity arises,
Ivan: like you said, if he's in a coma, fuck, man, Vance is getting that shit signed like yesterday. Okay?
Sam: Right. But yeah, no, I think a far more likely scenario is like what you were, they'll hide it.
Sam: They'll hide it. I mean, they'll trot him out when they need to,
Sam: and the rest of the government will work around him.
Sam: I think we've got increasing evidence at this point that that's what's happening
Sam: anyway, that he's not really engaged, except every once in a while on an issue
Sam: that he really wants to be.
Sam: I mean, hell, to some degree, this was true even in his first term,
Sam: but I think it's much more so true now.
Sam: There are a couple of issues where he's engaged and cares, but for everything
Sam: else, the people around him are running things, you know, and depending on the,
Sam: depending on the subject matter, it's a different person.
Sam: Like on anything immigration, it's Miller, you know
Sam: and there may be other people in other areas whatever
Sam: but he's basically you know
Sam: that they're they're deciding on the policy they're deciding what
Sam: to do one of the things that was reported out of the meeting that he had with
Sam: the democratic leaders over the over the shutdown last week was that they went
Sam: to him and were like look there are all these things that are going to happen
Sam: with health care that people's premiums are going to go up people are going
Sam: to be kicked off it's you know,
Sam: result of the big beautiful bill and we want to make sure that doesn't happen.
Sam: And then...
Sam: Apparently his response was, I've never heard any of that. That, that can't be true.
Sam: You know, that's the, you know, whatever.
Sam: And, and also, by the way, oh, I, I, I think this happened after our last show
Sam: when he was sending troops into Portland and he finally talked,
Sam: like he talked to the governor, the governor of Oregon and the governor of Oregon.
Sam: And he was like, Portland's not like that.
Sam: Portland's, there's nothing going on. We don't need you.
Sam: And he's like, but I saw it on TV.
Sam: And, and, and she's like, but it's not, it's old stuff, whatever.
Sam: And he's like, are you telling me that what I see on TV isn't true?
Ivan: I'm like that general that they saw that put his fans in his face,
Ivan: which I think, you know, basically just, just, just It's channeled all of us.
Sam: I mean, because it seems clear. Like the Portland thing. There's been other reporting as well.
Ivan: What's going on in Portland? What the fuck is going on?
Sam: The reporting on that seems to be that what actually happened is there was no
Sam: long-term planning on this. Nobody on his team expected it.
Sam: He saw a report on Fox News where they mixed in coverage from the year 2000.
Ivan: The thing that happened, right, what happened years ago. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Which, by the way, even in 2000, it was one event that happened on one block one time.
Ivan: In one block.
Sam: Where somebody burnt a car or something.
Ivan: Yes, yes, yes.
Sam: And so he saw that footage. And then the next morning he started tweeting out
Sam: or truth socialing out, we're going into Portland with everything.
Sam: And then after that, his team scrambled to figure out how to actually do it.
Sam: Now, there's some reports that some of that planning with the team that did
Sam: not end up happening was they were going to send in the 82nd Airborne.
Sam: You know, they were like not just like National Guard. They were going to send
Sam: in like elite troops and all this kind of stuff.
Ivan: Yes. OK. Donald Trump is a psychopath. Yes.
Ivan: Bottom line. Yes. There's after after careful analysis of all the information
Ivan: we've got, Donald Trump is a deluded psychopath. Okay, there you go.
Sam: And I think specifically, he's been, he's had serious mental health issues basically
Sam: his entire life, but now they are being aggravated by age.
Sam: They are getting aggravated by age and getting worse. And stress, yeah. Yeah.
Sam: So, okay. With that, let's wrap it up.
Sam: The usual, go to curmudgeons-corner.com and see all our stuff.
Sam: Stuff. You can see our archives. You can see all the ways to contact us.
Sam: Transcripts of shows. All kinds of cool stuff.
Sam: I still have not added a link to TikTok there, so if you want to see TikTok, go there.
Sam: The most recent thing on there, I need to post more.
Sam: I'm still way behind i'm like a month behind the most recent thing on tiktok
Sam: is the clip of me talking about the trip i took where you know i went on a carnival
Sam: ride with a date and threw up and the people below us were screaming in horror
Sam: as the as the vomit rained down from above on their heads,
Sam: we are so good at setting up sam.
Ivan: On a date i i contributed to setting up sam on that date and Let's just say
Ivan: that I think it went quite well, honestly.
Ivan: You know, it did.
Ivan: As I said, there were a few speed bumps.
Ivan: We had 30 years of stories out of this.
Ivan: Yes, I would say that I proclaim it a success in the end.
Ivan: Even, let's see, it was the vomiting, the horse thing, the horses,
Ivan: the horse allergies at the ER. I mean, you know, there was, you know,
Ivan: there was some action going on, enjoyable for Sam.
Ivan: Everything included all in one event. And I'm like, damn it, you know, yes.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway, that's the last thing on the TikTok is a clip from the show from about a month ago.
Sam: Anyway, that is that. Importantly, there's a link to our Patreon where you can
Sam: give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show.
Sam: We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. we'll send you a mug all that
Sam: kind of stuff or at two dollars a month or more or
Sam: if you just ask us we will invite you to curmudgeon's corner
Sam: slack where yvonne and i and a bunch of listeners are chatting throughout
Sam: the week so yvonne fuck oh
Sam: i caught him by surprise i caught
Sam: him by surprise filibuster filibuster we we need we need a something we shared
Sam: on the curmudgeon's corner slack and talked about that was so exciting and so
Sam: interesting that it will compel people to immediately want to join our Slack
Sam: and get in touch with us to make that happen.
Sam: So have I filibustered long enough, Yvonne? No, no.
Ivan: Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. OK. All right. Story this week on the under random.
Ivan: QAnon Shaman says he's rightful president, sues Trump for 40 trillion dollars. OK.
Sam: In a reasonable amount.
Ivan: Yes, of course. In a rambling complaint, Jacob Chansley claims DJs are spies,
Ivan: and the NSA stole his work for Batman movie and more.
Ivan: I mean, yes, damn it. This is so fitting to 2025.
Ivan: And he sued him for 40 trillion dollars.
Sam: 40 trillion.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Get get get on collecting that moment right away, buddy. There you go.
Sam: And now that the med beds are out, you know, he'll be able to enjoy this 40 trillion over many.
Ivan: Many years. Forever. There you go.
Sam: OK, with that, let's wrap it up. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Stay safe.
Sam: Have a good week, and we will see you again next time.
Sam: I will be hopefully back in the Seattle area, and Yvonne will hopefully continue
Sam: to be well enough to participate.
Ivan: Yes, I hope so.
Sam: Okay. Thanks, everybody. Here comes the music. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Okay, hitting stop. See you later, Yvonne. Feel better. Rest.
Ivan: Ugh. Thank you. Okay. Bye.