Sam: Okay, let me make sure we've got the live stream thingy.
Ivan: Live stream thingy with the thingy and the thing.
Ivan: All the beautiful thingies with the thing.
Ivan: All gorgeous.
Sam: You know when you do that.
Ivan: Yeah, they all wind up later like used, yes.
Sam: That will absolutely be in our cold open. Sing some more, Yvonne.
Ivan: The thingies with the thing and the thing, thing, thing.
Ivan: We love little thingies over here. We have a lot of them.
Ivan: We keep them in our place. We share them with everybody, the nice little thingies.
Ivan: Thingy, the thingy, the beautiful little thingy.
Sam: Okay, with that, shall we start?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay, here we go.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, November 22nd, 2025.
Sam: It is just after 3 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter.
Sam: Eddie Vonbo is back! I take it you're feeling better. You're recovered. You're doing great.
Ivan: I am feeling a lot better. You know, as mentioned, a few weeks back,
Ivan: I got this hernia surgery.
Ivan: I got my nephew giving me shit about it, saying, ah, it's just hernia surgery.
Ivan: I'm like, listen, asshole, you know, you got it done when you were 15.
Ivan: Let me tell you something.
Ivan: All of these things, when they happen as we are older, are all just harder.
Ivan: I have noticed that any healing in general, like any cut or something,
Ivan: takes longer to ever, like, heal than it used to.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Especially the last, like, five years that I've noticed this, okay?
Ivan: So, yeah, you know, it's like, you get a cold now, you're coughing for weeks
Ivan: on end after the damn cold.
Ivan: You know, in the past, it was like, ah, three, four days are done.
Ivan: Now I got a cold, I'm hacking for two more weeks after it's done.
Sam: Yeah, well, I guess it's not entirely done in that case, huh?
Ivan: Well, it's done in the sense like, you're not contagious. You know,
Ivan: you are past the area where you're like.
Sam: You're past the worst of it, but it lingers for quite a while.
Ivan: It lingers, exactly. You get this lingering thing for a long time,
Ivan: and, you know, that's a thing.
Ivan: But honestly, I did, I,
Ivan: my sister-in-law, who's a doctor, before I went to surgery,
Ivan: she's the one that actually got, you know, my brother and my sister-in-law are
Ivan: the ones that got me the doctor that treated me because she you know she had
Ivan: before the surgery she had given me certain supplements to take specifically
Ivan: to heal faster afterwards and to not,
Ivan: get a swollen up, be as bad, you know, right afterwards.
Ivan: And they seem to, it seems to have help because I know that I went to the doctor
Ivan: and as a matter of fact, the checkup, I did it, the first check I did about
Ivan: four or five days after I was out at a hospital.
Ivan: And he was like, surprised, wow, very little swelling. This is right.
Ivan: You know? So, so yeah, he expected more swelling and he was like,
Ivan: no, no, you're, you're, this is really good.
Ivan: So, so yeah, but I was like, Like, the first bit was very tiring.
Ivan: But, Sam, what the fuck has been going on, for God's sakes? Look, I'm gone for two weeks.
Sam: Yes, yes.
Ivan: MTG quits. I don't know.
Ivan: Like, Mom Dami and Trump are in the White House kissing each other or something.
Ivan: You know, we've got stocks are going to hell. You know, they're all over the place.
Ivan: I don't understand what, you know, what the fuck?
Sam: This is what you get for leaving. It's all your fault.
Ivan: Good God almighty. Probably. I'm going to take probably. It might well be.
Ivan: I mean, yeah. Maybe you have to take some responsibility. Own it here for a little bit.
Sam: No, I mean, I was noticing as I was putting together like the notes that I,
Sam: you know, we have a channel on our conventions corner Slack for potential show topics.
Sam: But right before the show, I copy it over into another document and make it
Sam: a little neater and stuff like that.
Sam: And just the sheer number of things this last week in particular. I mean, you were gone.
Sam: I mean, usually in recent weeks,
Sam: Well, it's, yeah, there have been a few things, but there hasn't been,
Sam: you know, this time, like I'm looking at, you know, I added a couple of movies
Sam: and books, but we have the Epstein Files vote. We have MBS at the White House.
Sam: We have the Quiet Piggy comment. We have Olivia Nuzi.
Ivan: Oh my God, fucking Olivia Nuzi. Oh my God, Olivia Nuzi. Holy shit.
Sam: You put in something about the water at McDonald's. Who knows what that is?
Sam: The Syrian president was at the White House.
Ivan: Too.
Sam: Oh, water at McDonald's?
Ivan: You know, well, it's simple. Yeah. But yes, there was something that happened
Ivan: with Trump and water at McDonald's, yes.
Sam: Okay, okay. I didn't even know it was Trump-related. I thought you personally
Sam: had a bad experience or something.
Sam: Okay. You had put in something about Trump's net approval ratings.
Sam: We wanted an update on the UPS plane crash.
Sam: There's been development. There have been developments on the Texas redistricting.
Sam: Right! There's been developments in the Comey case, Dick Cheney's funeral.
Sam: There's a Ukrainian peace deal on the table that's being discussed.
Sam: I had said in the context of that, we should revisit what's happening in Gaza, too.
Sam: There's the Mom Downey Trump stuff you mentioned. And just a couple hours before
Sam: we started recording the show, there's this MTG resigning thing.
Sam: That follows on a rift between her and Trump that's been growing over the last few weeks.
Sam: So, yeah, lots of stuff going on, and I'm sure I haven't even mentioned everything.
Sam: This is just the things that one or the other of us put on the commutage score
Sam: slack to say maybe we should talk about.
Sam: You know, so Christ.
Ivan: What the fuck is going on, Sam?
Sam: So we got lots of, we got lots to talk about.
Ivan: We got lots to talk about.
Sam: So just to, just to wrap it up though, surgery successful, you're feeling better.
Sam: Are you a hundred percent yet? Or like 80?
Ivan: No, God, no, no, no. Listen, here's the thing. No, I am not.
Ivan: I, there's still, I'm still taking pain meds three times a day for it.
Ivan: It's gone down. It's gone down, gone down, gone down. But no,
Ivan: I still have some discomfort from the surgery.
Ivan: Right now, it's like 90 plus percent down.
Ivan: First of all, but fuck, right after surgery that I woke up.
Ivan: Holy shit was I in pain. And I had given me morphine. And I'm like, nurse, yeah?
Ivan: Look, whatever you gave me, not enough. Give me more.
Ivan: Well, I got to check with the doctor. I don't give a shit what the hell you
Ivan: gave me. Whatever the fuck it is, not enough. I need more. Now.
Sam: More, more, more, more, more. More.
Ivan: I don't know what the fuck it is they gave me, but that worked. Okay?
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Went in, injected me. One funny thing about this whole thing is my brother was
Ivan: there with me the whole day.
Ivan: He decided because my mom's older. You know, she was taking care of helping me at the house. Okay.
Ivan: But at the hospital, it was uncomfortable and stuff. My mom,
Ivan: you know, she's 80. She's tired.
Ivan: You know, my brother said, listen, mom, stay over there at the house.
Ivan: Then my wife's, you know, my sister-in-law, they're going to go pick you up.
Ivan: Come over to the hospital later when he's out. I'll take him.
Ivan: You know, I have to get to the hospital like at six in the morning. Okay.
Ivan: By the way, the thing about the hospital is my sister-in-law's office is at that hospital.
Ivan: So it's at the same facility.
Ivan: So this was, you know, very easy. So one thing that happens is that I show up to get the pre-op.
Ivan: Oh, Mr. Bo, yes, I keep calling your wife's office all the time and talking
Ivan: to you, whatever. And I'm like, wait, no, no, no.
Ivan: I'm his brother. Gosh, but you guys look so much alike. I'm like, are you guys twins?
Ivan: No, no, no, we're not twins. Okay. But listen, we look so much alike.
Ivan: My brother's face ID on his phone has confused me with me.
Sam: Me with me?
Ivan: I mean, me with me. Me with me. Hit him with me. I grabbed his phone and swiped the face ID.
Sam: You sure they didn't operate on your brain?
Ivan: No, they didn't get that yet. But, you know, that's later.
Ivan: But I grabbed his phone, and his phone thought I was him.
Ivan: Okay. I didn't realize. I swiped it up. I started using it. And I realized,
Ivan: wait, I didn't ask, didn't ask me for the password.
Ivan: Because usually, you know, you grab like your wife's sword.
Sam: Right, right.
Ivan: You got to get the passcode.
Sam: Put it in the car.
Ivan: Now, it doesn't happen all the time, but it has confused me with him on various occasions.
Ivan: So that's how much we looked alike. So I went in in the morning and he said,
Ivan: no, your brother can't come in yet.
Ivan: So a nurse comes in and like just asked, who am I looking for to bring over?
Ivan: Because there's another nurse. go out there, look at the guy who just looks
Ivan: like me with more gray hair. That's it.
Ivan: That's basically all it took. It just kept happening.
Ivan: We spent so many days together, everybody kept like, wait, who's what?
Ivan: No, I'm the brother.
Ivan: He stayed with me the whole day at the hospital. He brought his laptop,
Ivan: he had some work to do, he stayed there or whatever.
Ivan: So he took care of me for the day So that was good So everything went fine No
Ivan: problems Like right now Been working,
Ivan: The first week and a half That was hard But this week's been Been a lot easier
Ivan: The travel's not as bad as I expected Thank god So that was good You.
Sam: Rode a bike back to Florida right?
Ivan: Rode a bike.
Sam: Thank you.
Ivan: No, no, took a, took an airplane. You know, thankfully one of them happened
Ivan: to be, I actually planned this on purpose.
Ivan: There's, there, there are, so America between Dallas and Miami on certain, on,
Ivan: on, on certain flights that, you know, for, they, they need to move an international
Ivan: aircraft between one of the other, one of the other hubs.
Ivan: Okay. So there's times that there's always a triple seven that's flying between
Ivan: Miami and DFW, just short flight.
Ivan: But, look, I wanted to get that
Ivan: plane because, you know, because I could get on a seat that was a bed.
Sam: Right. Right.
Ivan: Okay? Which was, you know, I'm like, no, I don't want to be stuck for three hours sitting...
Ivan: You know, I had been, I told you that I've been, I've been traveling,
Ivan: like even in regular domestic first class and I'd been in pain. Okay.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And I'm just like, I want to, and so I looked, oh, wait, if I leave at this
Ivan: hour, I can get on a flight that's actually, you know, has an international business class seat.
Ivan: That's, that's, you know, that I could lie down on.
Ivan: And, you know, and because I always get upgraded on those flights,
Ivan: I always get, there's like 60 first class seats. You get, you get a fucking upgrade.
Ivan: Okay. You know, I got, I got an upgrade very easily. Like we had my boss.
Ivan: So that way I knew that. I was like, Oh God, I was able to, to lay down on, on the flight down.
Ivan: And because air traffic control had been like, you know, messy getting,
Ivan: look, getting out the, we weren't majorly delayed, but it was slow. Okay.
Ivan: It was slow. getting from and
Ivan: dallas is a big airport just even getting to
Ivan: from from you get leave the gate and
Ivan: they tell you yeah the flight might be two hours and some minutes but
Ivan: well we're gonna wait 35 minutes for takeoff i'm
Ivan: like fuck jesus christ you know plus you realize you you you put it all the
Ivan: time first boarding you know another half hour 45 minutes and then you got another
Ivan: half hour sitting here it turns into easy three four hours sitting in a fucking
Ivan: place and i'm like And I'm not feeling all that great.
Ivan: So I'll try to avoid that. But anyway.
Ivan: Everything's everything worked out.
Sam: Okay. Well, before we I'm glad you're alive.
Sam: I'm glad they didn't accidentally remove something they shouldn't have removed.
Ivan: Hey, anything like that? You know, you know, that's the one thing.
Ivan: You know how they did this thing. I, you know, they mark you, right?
Ivan: You know, so they ask you multiple times.
Sam: Why are you in here? Like my wife had her knee surgery just a few weeks before
Sam: you had yours, your your hernia surgery.
Sam: And I was there for all the prep stuff and like they ask over and over and over again why are you.
Ivan: Here again let's make sure it happens that
Ivan: those errors still happen okay I
Ivan: mean because I heard of an error like that recently happening and I'm like stunned
Ivan: how the hell could this still happen okay and they even marked with permanent
Ivan: ink okay on my leg you know on the side This is the fucking side. This side. You know?
Ivan: I believe, I did ask, first thing I asked when I woke up from anesthesia,
Ivan: and people do exactly what I meant. Like, I said, is he alive yet?
Sam: Oh.
Ivan: That was my first question.
Sam: Is he alive?
Ivan: Unfortunately, they said, and unfortunately, they said, told me yes.
Ivan: It would have been nice if I could have gone with, you know,
Ivan: with, you know, let me tell you, that anesthesia, I mean, fucking anesthesia,
Ivan: I mean, you know, it's amazing.
Ivan: I mean, I don't remember it. I mean, it's like, boom, gone. All of a sudden, I just wake up.
Ivan: It's like, oh, you know, it's like amazing. It's just gone. I don't,
Ivan: no drink, nothing. Just, just.
Sam: Yep.
Ivan: And then I woke up.
Sam: That's the way you want it. You know, you don't, like, occasionally you hear
Sam: about a story where somebody was accidentally, like, they were conscious during the entire surgery.
Sam: Yes. Like, unable to move or anything, but they were conscious.
Sam: They knew what was going on. They felt everything. You do not want to be that person.
Ivan: No. No. No. No. And Dr. Marquez is a wonderful doctor, by the way. Just to be clear.
Sam: That's incredibly rare.
Ivan: It's incredibly rare, but it has happened. But Dr. Marquez, who treated me,
Ivan: wonderful doctor, by the way, great guy.
Ivan: You know, one thing about it, he was also very reassuring, calming.
Ivan: You know, there is this thing, you know, he has this really,
Ivan: honestly, it's this very fatherly presence.
Ivan: He's, you know, he must be in the 60s. He's been doing this for 35 years.
Ivan: It's very nice and reassuring to get a doctor. It makes you feel,
Ivan: like, all, like, comfortable.
Ivan: I got to admit that that doesn't suck.
Ivan: Especially when they're going to cut you open.
Ivan: So anyway all right.
Sam: Enough of.
Ivan: My fucking you know.
Sam: What i was gonna say is before we get to the serious stuff
Sam: like the entire time you've been gone there have been co-hosts and they get
Sam: to pick the topics and none of them decided to ask me about my tvs tv or movies
Sam: or anything so that's been in suspended animation and you know also we need
Sam: to catch up with me having you know,
Sam: less schedule obligations.
Sam: I'm watching more shit anyway. So, like, I'm falling further and further beyond.
Sam: So, let's just knock out, you know.
Ivan: Let's knock some of them out.
Sam: Well, yeah, okay. So, I told you before you left that the very next one was
Sam: going to be the TV show, The Twilight Zone, the original Twilight Zone,
Sam: that ran from 1959 to 1963.
Sam: You know, I have watched.
Ivan: I i mean i recently watched a few episodes but i.
Sam: Remember like.
Ivan: Back i mean i'm i've watched a lot of the episodes it's a good show.
Sam: It is a good show i mean there are 156 episodes
Sam: total over the course of five seasons now
Sam: obviously there are some episodes that
Sam: are famous that have gotten into the cultural zeitgeist
Sam: and like even if you are not
Sam: a twilight zone watcher you may
Sam: have been aware of a twilight zoner yes you know and there and and you know
Sam: i even describing some of these episodes like the whole thing is if you haven't
Sam: seen them they're usually some twists they're usually some things that are surprising.
Sam: So if you say, well, the one where blah, blah, blah, if you haven't seen it, you just gave it away.
Sam: You know, not always. Some of them, there's no real twist. It's just the whole
Sam: thing is kind of eerie and weird and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: In others, there's some sort of twist, but there's usually some sort of twist. I will say.
Sam: The episodes that are super famous are super famous for a reason.
Sam: They're good. They're well done. They have, you know, that sort of twist at
Sam: the end that sort of gets you or it's just saying something that's,
Sam: you know, I don't want to say profound, but maybe a little profound,
Sam: you know, and there's a few of those.
Sam: But I'd say if you look at the whole thing, though,
Sam: It's a little uneven. There are some episodes that aren't that great as well,
Sam: you know, but on average, it's consistently pretty decent.
Sam: There are only a few clankers in there. And even the episodes.
Ivan: Well, 150 episodes. I mean, damn it. That's a lot of work.
Sam: That's a lot of episodes.
Ivan: And let me say, the thing is that the show was very creative. Okay. Yes.
Ivan: And so I can see how it had to occasionally have a misfire.
Ivan: I mean, because a lot of other shows have, you know, some themes like very recurring,
Ivan: like the same characters or whatever.
Ivan: But if you think about it, the Twilight Zone, they never really had the same cast of characters.
Ivan: The stories were almost every single one originally self-contained.
Sam: Well, yes. I mean, that's the whole thing. It's an anthology series.
Sam: Each episode is self-contained. There's no continuing story. No nothing like that.
Sam: It's just a different thing. Now, you do see some of the same actors and actresses come back.
Ivan: But they're playing different people.
Sam: Right?
Ivan: Exactly. Right.
Sam: And I'd say, you know, of the five seasons, the one, and I will mention there's
Sam: one episode that is not usually included.
Sam: Like if you go online to the places that have all the episodes,
Sam: there's one episode that was like a French short movie that was repurposed,
Sam: that they licensed as a Twilight Zone episode.
Ivan: Interesting.
Sam: But only for like the original airing.
Sam: So if you want to be complete, you have to go find that French movie,
Sam: that French short movie.
Sam: And it is available on YouTube, fairly low quality.
Sam: But we were complete. We watched that one, too.
Sam: But no, I'd say the one place where they sort of went off.
Sam: Okay, two things. One, you're right. There's a lot of originality there.
Sam: But by the time you got to the end of the five seasons, there were...
Ivan: Probably running out of ideas.
Sam: Yeah, you started seeing some things where this feels kind of familiar.
Sam: Oh, they're looking at this town where something weird is going on,
Sam: and the exact weird thing might be a little bit different, but it has the same vibe.
Ivan: Yeah, I gotcha.
Sam: Or, you know, they're landing on an alien planet, and something weird is going
Sam: on, and then there's something that happens as a twist. And it's,
Sam: you know, it's not exactly the same as the previous episode,
Sam: but it feels familiar. So that's sort of.
Ivan: Well, if you think about it sometimes, I mean, yeah, I get it.
Ivan: And I mean, but yeah, but like I said, you need 150 and the originals were so original.
Ivan: At some point you start like, okay, guys, what the fuck are we going to write about now?
Sam: Yeah. Now I will say the one place where I think they went wrong and they realized
Sam: it and they went back the next season was season four.
Sam: They, for seasons one through three, there were 20, the episodes were 25 minutes long for season four.
Sam: They made 51 minute episodes. Yeah.
Sam: Instead that that got too long it was
Sam: it was it was stretched out they were clearly filling
Sam: the space and it worked much better
Sam: with the shorter episodes the longer episodes
Sam: you sort of were like and by the way like
Sam: i think like for if if you go for
Sam: like what were the famous episodes that lots of people
Sam: know about those weren't the 51 minute episodes
Sam: you know those were the nice short
Sam: you know you're you're gonna have you know
Sam: it moves quickly it gets to the point you
Sam: you have you know rod sterling come up
Sam: and make his little statements you know that also were a critical part yeah
Sam: exactly season four they really did drag it was just you know for this kind
Sam: of material stretching it out to almost an hour was too much and so for the
Sam: fifth season they went back to the 25 minute episodes.
Sam: But overall, thumbs up for Twilight Zone.
Sam: If you're at all into this kind of stuff, it's worth watching the original.
Sam: You know, I have on the list to check out, there have been four now.
Sam: There was the original that ran from 1959 to 1964.
Sam: Then there was the Twilight Zone movie, of course.
Sam: And then you had three more TV series. They're all named The Twilight Zone.
Sam: There was one from 1985 to 1989.
Sam: There was one from 2002 to 2003. And the most recent was from 2019 to 2020.
Ivan: I don't think I watched any of the newer ones. I did watch the Twilight Zone
Ivan: movie. That I definitely watched. It was controversial in and of itself.
Ivan: Not so much because of the crash. Because of the crash.
Sam: Yes. Yeah. For anybody who doesn't remember, there was a helicopter crash.
Sam: A bunch of the actors were killed. Yeah. Et cetera.
Sam: And there was some controversy over exactly how that was laid out and safety and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: I remember watching the 1980s version of Twilight Zone as well.
Sam: Now, I say I remember watching it. Do I remember any of the episodes? No.
Ivan: So it was obviously not that good. I will say there was one episode.
Ivan: Listen, there is one episode of Twilight Zone that always, in my mind,
Ivan: has always stuck with me.
Ivan: That's the one that had Burgess Meredith.
Ivan: I looked it up. It was in season two, episode 29. the
Ivan: obsolete man is the is the episode where
Ivan: apparently in a it's a i looked
Ivan: up the plot in a future totalitarian state romney wordsworth spoilers coming
Ivan: spoilers coming spoilers coming romney wordsworth is put on trial for being
Ivan: obsolete his reverse occupation as a librarian is punishable by death as the
Ivan: state has eliminated books and that episode well i'm not going to go
Ivan: the rest of the details because I think it was...
Ivan: It was very interesting. It always stuck to my head how they,
Ivan: you know, this entire thing.
Sam: Well, when you mentioned Burgess Meredith, I thought you were going to go for
Sam: time enough at last, which is another episode that he's in that's very famous because of how it ends.
Ivan: Yeah. Well, I don't know. We'll avoid more spoilers, but Burgess Meredith is
Ivan: very good in the Twilight Zone. He really did a great job.
Ivan: In there. And so, yeah. So he was... It was just...
Ivan: You know, you think about some of these where we're talking about how maybe
Ivan: they sounded like kind of off the wall-ish. But shit...
Ivan: Stuff going on now they're not they don't sound so crazy after all now.
Sam: Well and and the thing too is
Sam: that you know 1959 to 1960 what what did i say four yeah 1964 59 to 64 that
Sam: was a long time ago but most of these episodes hold up really well.
Ivan: Well yeah that's the.
Sam: Thing i mean you can laugh at some of the special effects and you can laugh
Sam: at some of the stylized acting and things like that.
Sam: But for the most part, the thing that they're trying to get across and the thing
Sam: that sort of punches you at the end of each episode still works in many, many of these episodes.
Sam: There are a few that don't, like I said, but on most of them,
Sam: they're hitting some sort of timeless theme that still applies today.
Sam: Now, some of them, like, you know, there are a few that didn't last as well,
Sam: especially the ones where they're, like, talking about, like,
Sam: you know, some technology thing that, whatever.
Ivan: Sure, but the thing about it, there aren't that many shows that are that old
Ivan: that really they hold up as well as The Twilight Zone.
Ivan: I, I, it's just, they, they really, it was really, it's a great show.
Sam: Yeah thumbs up watch twilight zone most of
Sam: it's uh i think it's on uh paramount so it's on paramount plus streaming okay
Sam: there you go except for those like one or two episodes with licensing issues
Sam: and if if you hit one of those you can uh you can find them online okay you
Sam: can you can you can find them just use your google foo all.
Ivan: Right so we got so we got you got twilight zone what else.
Sam: Should i do one more let's yes i'll do yes i'll do one more one more i mean
Sam: to really catch up, I'd need to do a whole bunch, but like one more is enough.
Sam: Okay. The next one, oh man. And I forgot to bring up the, this is an AFI list
Sam: one. So let me bring it up.
Sam: Sunset Boulevard from 1950, number 12 in the 1998 AFI 100 movies list,
Sam: number 16 in the 2007 list.
Sam: This is, I'll read the first couple paragraphs of the plot, the first three paragraphs.
Sam: At a mansion on Sunset Boulevard, police officers and photographers discover
Sam: the body of Joe Gillis floating face down in the swimming pool.
Sam: In a flashback, Joe relates the events leading to his death.
Sam: Six months earlier, Joe, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, tries to interest
Sam: Paramount Pictures in a story he submitted.
Sam: Script reader Betty Schaefer harshly critiques it, unaware that Joe is listening.
Sam: Later, while fleeing from repo men seeking his car, Joe turns into the driveway
Sam: of a seemingly deserted mansion inhabited by forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond.
Sam: Learning that Joe is a writer, Norma
Sam: asks his opinion of a script she has written for a film about Salome.
Sam: She plans to play the role herself in her return to the screen.
Sam: Joe finds her script abysmal, but flatters her into hiring him as a script doctor.
Sam: Joe moves into Norma's mansion at her insistence and sees that Norma refuses
Sam: to believe that her fame has evaporated.
Sam: Her butler, Max, secretly writes all of the fan mail she receives to maintain the illusion.
Sam: At her New Year's Eve party, Joe realizes that she has fallen in love with him.
Sam: He tries to let her down gently, but Norma slaps him and retreats to her room, distraught.
Sam: Joe visits his friend, Artie Green, and again meets Betty, who thinks a scene
Sam: in one of Joe's scripts has potential.
Sam: When he phones Max to have him pack his things, Max tells him Norma has cut
Sam: her wrists with his razor.
Sam: Joe then returns to Norma, and their relationship becomes sexual.
Sam: Dot, dot, dot. It continues. The two of them sort of circle.
Sam: They have a relationship. It becomes clear that,
Sam: that she is more and more delusional as time goes on and you deal with all the aftermath of it.
Sam: No spoilers for the exact ending, but the last line of the movie is iconic.
Sam: She comes up to the camera and goes, all right, Mr.
Sam: DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up, and approaches the camera and comes straight into her face.
Sam: It was good. Thumbs up. I can see why it's up there.
Sam: Again, for a movie of its time, I say this repeatedly whenever we're talking
Sam: about 40s or 50s movies, it is stylized.
Sam: It is not super realistic.
Sam: The characters are sort of caricatures. But it's okay.
Sam: It gets the point across and you understand what's happening and you get caught
Sam: up in the drama of it and this sort of tragedy of what happens.
Sam: Wikipedia says it's a dark comedy film noir.
Sam: And yeah, it's good. I don't have a lot to say about it, but it does what it's supposed to do, I guess.
Sam: And you do have a few things like, the last line is about Cecil B.
Sam: DeMille. He plays himself in this movie.
Sam: There are a bunch of other people that play himself themselves.
Sam: HB Warner of Warner Brothers plays himself.
Sam: Buster Keaton played himself. There are a few others sort of famous actors and
Sam: directors who show up playing themselves.
Sam: It's good. I mean, it's sort of obviously it's a Hollywood movie about Hollywood
Sam: and it's very self-referential, but that's okay.
Sam: You know, it was good. I like it. It went well.
Sam: Gloria Swanson was Norma Desmond. That's another name that might be recognizable.
Sam: William Holden played Joe Gillis, another name that, you know,
Sam: recognizable. He's been in a bunch of stuff.
Sam: Who else? Jack Webb was in it.
Sam: Those are big names I see here, other than the people playing themselves.
Sam: So, yeah. Have you ever seen this movie?
Ivan: No.
Sam: No. Okay.
Ivan: No.
Sam: It's definitely, you know, look, if you like 40s and 50s movies,
Sam: this is a good example of 40s and 50s movies.
Sam: If the second it shows up in black and white and with the stylized characters
Sam: that are caricatures, you get turned off, then you're not going to like this either.
Sam: But, you know, there you go. That's all I got to say about that.
Sam: All right. Shall we take a break and then start, like, I don't know.
Sam: Picking a few of these many, many things that we listed at the beginning of the show that happened.
Ivan: Yes, many, many wonderful things.
Sam: Wonderful, yeah, okay. Maybe some of them are wonderful.
Ivan: Many, many.
Sam: Some of them less so. Okay, let's hit the break. Here we go.
Sam: And we're back.
Ivan: And we're back.
Sam: So where do you want to start? We got all of these things.
Ivan: Try to look through this list of shit.
Sam: Do we want to just try to lightning round this and like jump out of order?
Sam: Or do we want to like concentrate on a couple of big things?
Ivan: No, no, no. Let's lightning round this. I think, okay, I'm going to start with
Ivan: one thing because it's a little bit older subject, but I wasn't,
Ivan: I couldn't talk about it.
Ivan: The UPS plane crash. Yeah.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: NTSB came out already pretty quickly with a with
Ivan: a report confirming what
Ivan: some of the initial reports showed a whole bunch of people just saying stupid
Ivan: things but bottom line is that before the the preliminary NTSB report which
Ivan: confirmed what what basically most people speculated I mean that that.
Ivan: Let me change that. People that knew about their shit speculated, okay?
Ivan: So UPS flies MD-11s and DC-10s.
Ivan: So does FedEx. You know, they're big.
Ivan: Good for cargo carrying, okay?
Ivan: They've been converted. They've been retrofitted. These aircraft have been heavily
Ivan: maintained and updated over time.
Ivan: The DC-10 originally had, in the first decade, had a series of accidents that
Ivan: made people be afraid of flying it at first.
Ivan: Most of the accidents were related to cargo door-related issues.
Ivan: Those are the big ones that happened at first, where the design of the cargo
Ivan: door failed on a couple of occasions, bringing down, in one case,
Ivan: it almost brought down the plane, another one that killed everybody.
Ivan: And then a big one that is actually, there was a Sioux City accident where an engine blade failed.
Ivan: The engine motor failed.
Ivan: The fan blade failed. It was discovered that, you know, it was a crack in it
Ivan: that was undetected, and that's why it failed.
Ivan: And that's something that actually by the way happened with
Ivan: other aircraft and the inspection process on those
Ivan: changed over time to be able to detect those
Ivan: so the inspection process was better to be
Ivan: able to detect that but this accident goes back to something that happened with
Ivan: american airlines flight in 1979 in chicago which is a major accident is one
Ivan: of the biggest one of the biggest aviation accidents that ever happened was
Ivan: a dc-10 american airlines taken off at o'hare it lost an engine when it lost the engine and.
Ivan: The airplane very quickly veered off and crashed, and there were no survivors on that flight.
Ivan: And it was found to be that American Airlines at the time,
Ivan: to do maintenance on the engines, had not been following the book procedure
Ivan: exactly to remove those engines and reattach them back to the airplane for an inspection, okay?
Ivan: You were supposed to take the engine off, and then the pylons that attach,
Ivan: then you remove that from the wing, okay?
Ivan: Because there are these pylons, there are these screws, there's a system that holds it.
Ivan: You see the little pylon, this thing that sticks out, and you see that's holding
Ivan: the damn engine, okay? And then the engine's attached below it.
Ivan: You're supposed to take the engine off of it and then remove the pylon.
Ivan: American had been removing everything in one piece from the wing.
Ivan: What happened was that that was stressing where the engine and the pylon met,
Ivan: was causing a lot of stress. It fatigued it.
Ivan: The people didn't know that they were doing that. And that's why when that engine
Ivan: separated, and at the point that it separated, which is the problem, So it caused it.
Ivan: Well, that also uncovered a whole bunch of other things that happened because it made that.
Ivan: If I remember the slats retracted, which reduced lift.
Ivan: So there was a loss of control. There was a loss of lift on that wing and it
Ivan: made the plane uncontrollable.
Ivan: And it happened at a moment when it was right at takeoff and crashed the plane. Well, in this case.
Ivan: And the pictures, the video kind of showed it that the plane was rolling normally.
Ivan: And then at the moment of takeoff, right after it reached the point of no return,
Ivan: because there's a speed, reference speed called V1.
Ivan: Once you hit V1, it's a speed usually.
Ivan: So if you take off, say, at 150 knots, V1 is usually about 120 knots.
Ivan: And that's a speed that after that, you can't reject the takeoff.
Ivan: You're too far in. you're better off taking off okay
Ivan: so they were well past v1 they
Ivan: were as a matter of fact when this happened the plane was at
Ivan: v2 speed which is this which is the speed at which you rotate
Ivan: you go and you take off there the plane was rotating as the plane rotated the
Ivan: left engine just all of a sudden became unattached and because of the motion
Ivan: of the engine it's why it unattached in the direction where it turned up.
Ivan: Probably because of the pushing from the air, coming from under it,
Ivan: pushed it up, and the rotation of the engine made it that it went over the damn MD-11.
Ivan: It flew over it and fell on the right side of the plane.
Ivan: The way that it detached, it caused a massive fire immediately,
Ivan: And debris from that engine hit the number two engine, the tail engine, the one at the top.
Ivan: So they were screwed.
Ivan: It's not like this happened early enough when they could reject the takeoff.
Ivan: They were rotating to take off.
Ivan: The damn engine came off. It damaged another engine. They were done.
Ivan: There's nothing that they could do.
Ivan: Analysis, like right now, came back and discovered that there were undiscovered
Ivan: cracks in the engine pylon, that it had been developing cracks.
Ivan: That plane had been in a heavy maintenance recently ago, a couple of months ago.
Ivan: So for some reason, they went undetected. Either they went undetected or something
Ivan: happened when they reattached it that caused it to crack. Bottom line is they
Ivan: grounded the entire fleet until they could figure out why the hell that damn thing cracked.
Ivan: But these aircraft have been, they're taken care of very well.
Ivan: UPS has a great reputation of maintenance, okay? They don't skimp on shit.
Ivan: So whatever the hell it is that happened, it's happened because they didn't know.
Ivan: Is something that for some reason went undetected, or they could have been a
Ivan: flaw in that pile-on specifically, and the inspection process is not catching it.
Ivan: But it definitely, another thing that came up is that apparently during the
Ivan: takeoff roll, some master caution alarm went off.
Ivan: Not sure exactly at what moment, but it's very likely that it probably happened
Ivan: after the speed that they could reject the takeoff. The reality is, if they're rolling.
Ivan: They get that master caution. They're looking at all their dials.
Ivan: Everything looks normal.
Ivan: The procedure you're taught is, listen, which is the one that in norm 99% of
Ivan: the cases works because having an engine fail on takeoff or something like that,
Ivan: it's not something that it's something that a pilot, it's not routine,
Ivan: but it's something that a pilot expects to happen and trains for.
Ivan: And the way that you do is that you take off, you will go around,
Ivan: you'll dump some fuel, you'll come back and you'll land again
Ivan: because the the plane is designed to be able to take
Ivan: off with a failed engine okay it should
Ivan: be able to without a problem so it's not like you know there was no reason to
Ivan: stop a takeoff and the safest and safer thing to do is to do that we've seen
Ivan: pilots try to reject takeoffs late man listen you're gonna overrun the runway
Ivan: you're gonna crash into shit,
Ivan: okay? So that's not an option, okay?
Ivan: Once you reach that moment, the reason you do the math on this in order,
Ivan: what is the takeoff speed at what time?
Ivan: You go, it's because once you get there, if you try to stop,
Ivan: you will not stop. You're going to go off the end of the runway and crash, okay?
Ivan: So you're safer going up.
Ivan: But they don't, why that fatigue has failed?
Ivan: It's up to, like, right now, figure that out. But the reality is that,
Ivan: in terms of general passengers being concerned about anything.
Ivan: Look, passengers don't fly on MD-11s anymore.
Sam: Nobody's flying on MD-11s. Aren't they doing a check of that entire fleet for
Sam: similar problems? Because it isn't one concern.
Sam: It's just plain age and the inspections weren't finding the type of cracks that
Sam: we're probably developing here.
Ivan: Probably.
Sam: So they might need better inspections to keep these things running.
Ivan: Yeah, that is probably it. But look, there's a lot of old airplanes flying out there, man.
Ivan: You know, there's so many old planes flying.
Ivan: I mean, I will say that the MD-11s, DC-10s that are flying out there are some
Ivan: of the oldest that are out there.
Ivan: Now, I will say that I know that FedEx retired.
Ivan: They had these, the DC-10s, which they converted. They called them MD-10s.
Ivan: And what they did is they actually, they took the old DC-10s that required three,
Ivan: they required three crew members. They required a pilot, copilot, and engineer.
Ivan: They had converted those so you could operate them with only two.
Ivan: Replaced the whole glass cockpit.
Ivan: All the avionics got replaced with modern stuff. A lot of upgrades happened
Ivan: to these planes. You know, for cargo airlines to take a plane like that,
Ivan: that has that kind of capacity and spend money is worth it.
Ivan: Because, look, a brand new 777F, okay, you know, brand new freighter,
Ivan: similar to that, costs $200 million, okay?
Ivan: It's not cheap, okay? You could take a 30, 40-year-old MD-11,
Ivan: okay, that used, you could probably get for just a couple of million bucks.
Ivan: Even if you spend 10 million like refitting
Ivan: this thing modern whatever man it's a
Ivan: it's a much better proposition than spending right now 200
Ivan: million bucks if you can still milk some life out of that airframe okay so you
Ivan: know the the oldest ones of these had been retired which are the the md-10s
Ivan: the ones that were dc-10s converted to that i know fedex retired them i don't
Ivan: think that even UPS flies any of them, but FedEx retired them.
Ivan: The MD-11s are a lot newer. MD-11s started flying in the 90s.
Ivan: These are not as old as that. 35 years. Well, 35 years.
Ivan: They're old, but they're not as old as the, I mean, I remember seeing an MD-10
Ivan: that landed when I was plane spotting like a couple of years ago that was like
Ivan: 40 plus years old, some shit like that.
Ivan: You know, it's like, yeah, I mean, you know, you know, that's really old.
Ivan: And look, our strategic air, you know, air command, you know,
Ivan: we're flying B-52s that were built in the 1950s for God's sakes. Okay. Right.
Ivan: You know, age isn't really that big an issue.
Sam: Well, you have this whole ship of Theseus effect, right?
Sam: When you're basically replacing every part of the plane over time. Yeah, absolutely.
Ivan: The fucking thing is barely, there's almost nothing original left of the damn airplane. Yeah. Right.
Ivan: So, you know, but I felt, you know, the one thing is that,
Ivan: Man, I just felt kind of like, I saw it and I saw what happened.
Ivan: I was just like, fuck these pilots.
Ivan: What a helpless moment. Because usually you're a pilot. You think,
Ivan: look, we can do something to save this plane. We'll do something, right?
Ivan: And there was nothing they could do. They had no shot. They had no way to save that plane.
Ivan: It happened. It's just one of those things when it happens at the wrong thing at the wrong moment.
Ivan: Happened exactly with the wrong fucking moment that just left with no way to
Ivan: do anything to save the aircraft.
Sam: Which also, in this case, there were a lot of people killed and hurt on the ground as well.
Ivan: Most of them that were killed wound up being on the ground.
Sam: Because the crew was small.
Ivan: Yeah, there were only three people on the plane.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Yeah. Look, thank God it didn't hit. But because there is a Ford Motor auto
Ivan: plant right by there where apparently a few thousand people worked every day.
Ivan: Thank God it didn't hit that.
Ivan: But it's not exactly on the flight path, thank God, which I guess is a good
Ivan: thing. But look, I mean, we've had...
Ivan: You know, planes fly over populated areas regularly. It's a risk. It happens.
Ivan: Still never, you know, one of the worst that I always remember that was with
Ivan: a cargo plane, an LL-747 that hit a frickin' They had a problem after takeoff.
Ivan: It was trying to return to Schiphol, and it hit a fuckin' apartment building.
Ivan: Sliced it in half. I mean, you want to talk about the worst,
Ivan: you know, what are your worst fuckin' nightmares? is to have a 747 slam into
Ivan: a fucking apartment building, of all things.
Ivan: I mean, yeah, I mean, it's just unfortunately one of those things.
Ivan: But luckily, they don't happen very often, thank God.
Ivan: Okay? So a lot of work goes into making sure that that doesn't happen.
Ivan: But yeah, but these guys had no shot, unfortunately.
Ivan: What happened was totally unexpected.
Ivan: And now they're right now yeah we
Ivan: know what we know what happened just not why and so until they figure it out
Ivan: and i think boeing by the way right now is being very because of all the shit
Ivan: that's happened with boeing the last couple of years they've been like yep whatever
Ivan: he says and just yeah just.
Sam: Just to be clear even though it's an md for mcdonald douglas they were bought by boeing a long time ago.
Ivan: Yeah i mean boeing and mcdonald douglas merged like what the heck was it 25
Ivan: 26 years ago almost 30 years ago so yeah so these are these are all there may be mcdonald douglas but,
Ivan: boeing owns mcdonald douglas so that's all that on them now so right you know i i flew on the dc10 a,
Ivan: You know, it felt very spacious inside. I don't know. I always liked just the, here's the thing.
Ivan: They used to, airlines used to fly a lot more of these wide bodies on domestic flights. Okay.
Ivan: Back then, 70s and 80s. They thought that was the way, and so they had a whole bunch of these.
Ivan: And I remember being able to fly a freaking, you know, more ordinary like flights,
Ivan: you know, that now you get a 737 on a DC-10.
Ivan: And it was, it was awesome. I like that. It's huge.
Ivan: But they used to have on American Airlines for a few years,
Ivan: back in the 80s, they had this camera that was in the cockpit that would on
Ivan: the televisions inside the plane would show the departure, would show live video
Ivan: of the departure and takeoff.
Ivan: Right. Which they turned off after there was an accident that happened.
Ivan: It wound up like people, I guess, were watching the accident.
Ivan: They were like, I guess, let's just not turn those on.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, now you have those little displays with the map and stuff.
Sam: But, yeah, the cameras are cool.
Ivan: The cameras are cool. Airbus actually does a lot more where they actually put
Ivan: this camera view that I find that's really cool.
Ivan: That's at the top of the stabilizer wing.
Ivan: Right at the top. So, you get this view, like a video game view of the plane as it's flying.
Ivan: Nice. And that view is super cool. And you usually select that in the planes
Ivan: that have that on the entertainment screen.
Ivan: You can pick to watch that view.
Ivan: You can see the takeoff and landing and everything of the plane.
Ivan: That view is super cool. Okay?
Ivan: I got to tell you, that is a super cool view. Yeah.
Ivan: If you get on an Airbus, A380s, A330s, A340s, they usually have that.
Ivan: If you get on one of those, make sure to pick that view. You will not regret it. You'll love it.
Sam: Okay. Shall we move on?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. Let me hit these in order.
Sam: We've got things we haven't talked about in previous weeks besides the UPS crash,
Sam: but let's just stick with this week.
Sam: We had the vote on the Epstein files.
Sam: And it was nearly unanimous. It was unanimous in the Senate.
Sam: It was nearly unanimous in the House. I think there was one person who voted against it.
Ivan: And I thought it was like, so it was nearly unanimous. Okay.
Sam: Yeah, I think in the end there was one.
Ivan: Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. It was like 400 something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Yeah, to one. And apparently there was some back and forth. Like,
Sam: did he really mean it? Or was it an accident?
Sam: Or what was going on? But whatever.
Sam: Anyway, bottom line, it was nearly unanimous in the House and it was actually
Sam: passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.
Sam: And look, the deal was that it was clear that they had the numbers and it would
Sam: pass in the House by a very significant margin.
Sam: So Trump a few days before the
Sam: vote just went I don't care vote for
Sam: it I'll sign it I'm for this go ahead and
Sam: clearly he was not actually happy about it but he was in a position where he
Sam: was gonna get absolutely rolled anyway like if he continued his opposition of
Sam: it he was still gonna lose badly so he flipped it up and was like okay no I'm
Sam: for it and as soon as he said that,
Sam: All the Republicans were on board, you know, and so it's.
Ivan: It's just it. But, Sam, this is just going to expose the Democrat pedophile ring.
Sam: Right? Oh, yes. Yes. This is only the Democrats.
Sam: Look, here are a couple of things with this that people are talking about now that it's passed.
Sam: First of all, like when this first started being discussed, I had at one point
Sam: said on the show that I thought they were just doing a resolution with no legal force. No, no, no.
Sam: This was an actual law saying you must release this, etc.
Sam: However, there are a bunch of caveats and exceptions.
Sam: And first of all, they give 30 days for the release.
Sam: Second, anything that would affect ongoing investigations is exempt.
Sam: Also, of course, there's instructions to redact anything about the victims,
Sam: which you would expect anyway.
Sam: A bunch of other things. The biggest thing here is that it gives the ongoing
Sam: investigation situation.
Sam: The Trump administration's official line up until about a week and a half ago
Sam: was, we've already examined all this fully.
Sam: There's no potential other cases to examine.
Sam: There's no evidence here that he was blackmailing people.
Sam: There's no other people that we have the evidence to bring to trial,
Sam: etc which, who knows may be true, may not be true who knows,
Sam: but that was the line they had but.
Sam: Then, as it became clear that they were going to lose and this thing was going
Sam: to pass, all of a sudden, Donald Trump
Sam: is, okay, you're going to open an investigation into all the Democrats.
Sam: And Bondi was like, yes, sir.
Ivan: Yes, I will. Only the Democrats.
Sam: And only the Democrats. Yes. And and so now there's the potential that after
Sam: the 30 days are up, they'll do something like, well,
Sam: we can't release most of this because it's pertinent to our ongoing investigation of the Democrats.
Ivan: I fully expect I fully expect right now for Bondi to do the same thing that she did in February.
Sam: Give out the empty folders.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Well, I mean, people have said, you know, one possibility that comes out of
Sam: this is a whole bunch of pages of stuff that is almost 100% redacted gets released.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, and...
Sam: I guess part of the calculus here is, look, this ended up with massive bipartisan
Sam: support for transparency and release the files.
Sam: You got things coming out of this with basically the Republicans went back to
Sam: their districts over the long government shutdown break, and they heard from
Sam: their constituents, their ruby red MAGA constituents,
Sam: release the files.
Sam: And a big part of that is because they want to get that Democratic pedophile ring.
Sam: And they felt like that's one of the main reasons they were into this thing from the beginning.
Sam: It's because they thought Donald Trump would get the Democratic pedophile ring.
Sam: And so what the hell is happening? Release the files and get those folks.
Sam: And they heard that over and over and over from their constituents.
Sam: So the question is, if they do try to stonewall and say, well,
Sam: we can't actually release all of it, or what we can release is, you know,
Sam: black pages. Yeah.
Ivan: And 90% is covered in black.
Sam: Yeah. You know, the MAGA base is not going to react well to that, you know?
Ivan: But they aren't reacting well to it right now. Listen, people,
Ivan: listen, there are so many MAGA people that I keep seeing disappointed, defrauded.
Ivan: Fuck, I mean, it goes even to the whole, MTG just quit, man.
Sam: Yeah, and we'll talk about her more later probably.
Ivan: But my point is that what you keep hearing is complete, utter disappointment. Right.
Ivan: They are just completely, you know, there was an article on Epstein's emails,
Ivan: I think it was November 13th, okay?
Ivan: And they did this thing where they were like mapping, this is in the New York
Ivan: Times, they were mapping the name mentions in his emails, the ones that they got.
Sam: Ah, right, yes.
Ivan: And it showed that basically when you when you looked at names that were mentioned
Ivan: in Epstein's emails, it was like fucking Trump was like overwhelmingly mentioned.
Sam: The one thing I have to say about this is that if you look, the chart showed
Sam: mentions over time as well.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: And what happened is before 2015, there were sporadic mentions of Trump and
Sam: lots of mentions of other people starting 2015 and accelerating into 2016, 17, 18.
Sam: Suddenly, the mentions of Trump exploded. But here's the thing.
Ivan: Well, he was running for president.
Sam: He was running for president and then he was president. I mean,
Sam: our mentions of Donald Trump on this show exploded dramatically in 2015 as well.
Ivan: No, but but but my I get that.
Sam: And like a lot of a lot of the conversations seem to be around.
Sam: It wasn't just like, oh, we're talking more about Donald Trump because he's more involved.
Sam: It was we're talking about Donald Trump because he's president.
Sam: Now, there was an undertone of and we've got shit on Donald Trump.
Ivan: That's what I'm talking about. Because the entire undertone of all of those
Ivan: was that we've got the goods on this bastard.
Sam: Right. But the emails that we've seen so far don't actually have the goods. They just talk about...
Ivan: But they talk about it.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Well, listen, I...
Sam: And that's, of course, why there's the push to release everything,
Sam: because this is just the emails that were released by the Epstein estate.
Sam: What the FBI has, theoretically, is everything they got by raiding this guy's
Sam: house, which there's been inventories of them that have been published,
Sam: where there's lots of video recordings.
Sam: Sam, let me ask you a question. There's lots of logs. There's lots of this. There's lots of that.
Ivan: I fully—OK. I fully expect that they will stonewall even further.
Ivan: Now, the one thing about all the stonewalling, Sam, I mean, Sam,
Ivan: I've never seen anybody look more guilty in my life and afraid of something
Ivan: coming out than Donald Trump with these Epstein files.
Ivan: Because what in all fucking hell if he didn't think that Epstein had him by the balls?
Ivan: And apparently it could be literally here.
Ivan: What that, why would he be stonewalling this much of it?
Ivan: You know, it's like, let me give you my personal example, okay?
Ivan: You know, I was over here when I was president of the condo board and all these
Ivan: people started accusing that supposedly, you know, a whole bunch of people were
Ivan: upset because of a project and they said that I was on the take,
Ivan: that I was taking money under the table.
Ivan: My whole thing was, here, take the presidency, take all the records,
Ivan: here are all the records. Here's everything.
Ivan: Go through it. Knock yourself out. Tell me what you find.
Ivan: You're a fucking smoking gun. Go through everything. Here's everything. Let me know.
Ivan: That's what you do when you're confident that you never did anything.
Ivan: That's exactly what you do. You know?
Ivan: You just turn over everything. You're like, here, knock yourself out.
Ivan: You know? Plus, in an investigation specifically, you know, if you get a subpoena
Ivan: for something, like many times,
Ivan: if they discover some ancillary stuff, but they're looking for X,
Ivan: they can't, they can't use that. Okay.
Ivan: Except in very rare cases. Okay. They can't, if you're, you can't just go,
Ivan: it's not a fishing expedition.
Ivan: Okay. Right. You're looking for records.
Sam: You have to be looking for specific things.
Ivan: Exactly. You're looking for it that ties this to that.
Ivan: You know, you find the other stuff too bad okay you didn't have probable cause
Ivan: to look for you can't you can't use it and so forth but so but this i i've never
Ivan: seen anybody ever act more guilty than donald trump and scared right i mean that's the.
Sam: Whole theme here and and and also the,
Sam: I'm going to use the word cover-up. The cover-up here has been so blatant and
Sam: so obvious that they've been doing everything they possibly can to avoid this stuff coming out,
Sam: that it's become obvious even to the MAGA faithful.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, who are looking for every possible excuse to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt.
Sam: Even they are scratching their heads and going, what's he doing here?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, and if we go through these 30 days and then, as everybody seems to
Sam: expect, there's more stonewalling, there's more obfuscation,
Sam: there's more, you know, hey, we're going to release stuff, but it's all redacted.
Sam: Oh, but, oh, look, you see all the Democratic names, but no Republican names.
Sam: If you see all the, it's all, it's all just going to make them look even worse.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And, of course, you also have, by the way, you still have all these people on
Sam: the right going, well, how would you feel if Bill Clinton's in there? Fuck him.
Ivan: So he's in there. And that's always the guilty hypocrite line, which I always love.
Ivan: So, you know, or the guilty hypocrite guy in a cult line.
Ivan: One of your guys in there.
Ivan: Well, I'm not in a fucking cult, so if my guy's in there and he's guilty,
Ivan: fucking send him to jail, asshole. I'm not in a cult. You are!
Sam: Yes, exactly.
Sam: And we keep hearing, like...
Sam: I don't know. We keep hearing more things. We talked on last week's show about
Sam: the whole thing about Bubba.
Ivan: Oh, my God.
Sam: The latest I heard from apparently a British— Well.
Ivan: It's not Bill Clinton, and it's not a horse, apparently. So what's the latest?
Sam: No, no, no, not about Bubba. The latest thing I heard, there's a British reporter
Sam: saying he had a story that he was going to use for his book or something years
Sam: ago, but the publisher wouldn't go with it, but now he's talking about it,
Sam: was apparently he has plenty of evidence that,
Sam: well, yeah.
Sam: It's just another interesting thing that- Plenty of evidence that what?
Sam: A previous girlfriend of Epstein's, in addition to Ghislaine,
Sam: was Melania before she got traded to Trump.
Ivan: The fuck?
Sam: Now i have not seen this confirmed by anybody else but it was in like one of the british newspapers,
Sam: and apparently there are quotes in the email about some other one that epstein
Sam: was done with and he said so i gave her to trump yeah but apparently that may
Sam: have happened with melania as well.
Ivan: Fucking hell.
Sam: Now, Melania wasn't 13 at the time, but still.
Ivan: Still.
Sam: Anyway, this is all messy.
Ivan: But you know where this goes, this way of...
Sam: And by the way, like I said, I've heard one reporter talk about this.
Sam: I haven't seen it confirmed, so it may be bullshit. So I just want to say that.
Ivan: Listen, this whole theme of talking about women like their property,
Ivan: okay, is so prevalent amongst the right-wing male.
Sam: Which, and by the way, publicly too, I mean, Donald Trump was talking about,
Sam: you know, how Epstein stole his staff from Mar-a-Lago just a few weeks ago.
Ivan: No, but I was thinking the other day, Jesse, I don't know why the fuck I watched
Ivan: a clip of Jesse Waters. Okay, all right.
Sam: Oh, yeah, I think I saw this.
Ivan: He is such a pig of a
Ivan: of a of a of a band there is
Ivan: some discussion related to podcasts and some
Ivan: podcasts that was first where there was a discussion i
Ivan: can't remember exactly is somebody famous and he
Ivan: started talking to these are the women that are on the show with him
Ivan: okay all right and he started talking to
Ivan: them like it was just the most disrespectful
Ivan: way to talk about a
Ivan: woman or to to talk to a
Ivan: woman that i ever see and i'm like thinking holy
Ivan: fucking hell how how are
Ivan: these women sitting at that desk working with this
Ivan: man and not i mean because if i
Ivan: would have been there i would have fucking i
Ivan: mean i might have punched him in the face okay because he was that disrespectful
Ivan: but i realize that this passes as you know whatever fucking dumbass show at
Ivan: five o'clock in the afternoon they put on fox as normal this is the way to talk to women,
Ivan: and i'm just sitting there and i'm like holy shit,
Ivan: And it's just this whole entire continuum of how all of these people,
Ivan: like the Charlie Kirks and all of these people, talk about and treat women.
Sam: Well, and I think part of it is right-wing. I think part of the culture that
Sam: we're talking about, like it's specifically in Epstein circles, are these. Oh, God.
Sam: Not only like many of them right-wing, not all of them, but like mostly rich
Sam: white men, right? that are just absolutely entitled and feel that they are owed everything.
Sam: And if they want something, they should get it. Period. End of story.
Ivan: And it's not just the rich guys. Look, there's a reason why we have all these incels.
Ivan: Okay. The incels believe that they are entitled to fucking sex and the women
Ivan: are denying it to them, but they're not the rich billionaires that could just buy it.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: So you've got this generation. Yes, you've got of the rich guys that do this.
Ivan: But then you've got the other guys that don't have that money who believe they're entitled to it anyway.
Sam: Yes. It's disastrous.
Sam: But I think what you're seeing, and I don't know.
Sam: I honestly hope that we at some point actually get these,
Sam: a fairly good view of these files, because I think you are going to find that,
Sam: you know, there were probably dozens of these rich, influential men who participated directly.
Sam: And then you've probably got hundreds of people that were around and surrounding
Sam: and knew what was going on and just shrugged and did nothing and allowed it to happen.
Ivan: Yeah. And that's a lot of what you've got. Yeah. Ah, I, I, I.
Ivan: This is not going away anytime soon, Sam. You know, they've tried to make it go away.
Ivan: And what they've made it is maybe it's subdued for a little bit.
Ivan: And then every time it comes back, it comes back worse.
Sam: Right. I mean, if you remember, you know, we were talking about,
Sam: like, this stuff back in 2016, you know?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Before Donald Trump was elected the goddamn first time.
Ivan: But it wasn't Epstein directly. It wasn't all Epstein.
Sam: Well, I mean, if you remember that one 13-year,
Sam: that one woman who was putting the lawsuit that said she was raped by Donald
Sam: Trump when she was 13, it was Epstein and Trump that was in that case.
Sam: And then she withdrew the case because she was getting death threats.
Sam: And, you know, look, and so we, we have heard this and there were,
Sam: you know, their interviews,
Sam: there was, you know, recently within the last few weeks, I, somebody reposted
Sam: an audio interview with that woman and I had remembered the case.
Sam: I had not remembered hearing the audio of her deposition before.
Sam: And it was absolutely explicit and going into all this detail.
Sam: And it was out in 2016.
Sam: It was out there and it was mostly ignored.
Sam: And there were other examples. There were people who, in various other contexts,
Sam: talked about Donald's exploits and all the things he'd done.
Sam: And then, you know, we had, what was it, like nearly 20 women who explicitly
Sam: came out and accused him of assault before the 2016 election.
Ivan: And of course we had to grab him by— But those were—I remember those were adults. Okay. All right.
Sam: Those were adults. I remember that they were adults. With the exception of the
Sam: 113-year-old, those were adults.
Ivan: The 113— And of course we had to grab him by the pussy. Now this is the next level.
Sam: Yes. Yes. But no, there were even like some interviews out there talking about
Sam: Donald Trump with underage people, even back then, even if, you know, even if there were some.
Ivan: No, no, no, we talked. We had heard the stuff about him walking into the beauty
Ivan: pageants with the teenage girls undressed and all this other stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: And, you know, collectively, you know, enough Americans didn't give a shit that he became president.
Sam: And twice now, twice now.
Sam: So, but I think you're right. It's not going away.
Ivan: Well, the thing is that a big portion of the MAGA contingent believed that all
Ivan: of that was BS, but that the Democrats were running a pedophile ring out of, you know,
Ivan: out of a pizza joint in Washington, D.C.
Sam: Yes, absolutely. Okay.
Ivan: It's amazing how they will ignore the factually documented shit right in front
Ivan: of their face, but will make up,
Ivan: will go through every contortion to try to make up some alternate reality that fits their story.
Sam: Indeed. Okay. Your turn.
Ivan: Another happy subject.
Sam: Should we take a break and do another two since we've taken this much time? Sure.
Ivan: Or should you want to do two more and then a break? No, no, no,
Ivan: no, no. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Well, yeah, no, go, go, go. Yeah, let's take a break.
Sam: Okay, here comes a break.
Sam: OK.
Ivan: All right.
Sam: We're back. So let's do two more. Another break, then two more, then be done.
Ivan: Comey. Hey, how's that case going? It is, is, is, you know, look,
Ivan: is Lindsay Halligan apparently a crack attorney?
Ivan: She seems to be really, really good, right?
Ivan: She did everything by the book, right?
Sam: Yes, of course. She's she's crushing it. But I mean, the case hasn't been dismissed
Sam: yet, but it seems like every other day they find something else wrong with it.
Sam: Like, you know, we know that they were, you know, they're trying to dismiss
Sam: it on the grounds that she was appointed inappropriately.
Sam: They're trying to dismiss it on the grounds that this is selective prosecution.
Sam: Both of those are in play because it looks clear that both of those things are
Sam: true. She was, she was not appointed legally.
Sam: And so therefore anything she did is probably void.
Sam: And there's lots of clear evidence that there are lots of similar cases out
Sam: there that they're not going after.
Sam: And Donald Trump specifically called for this.
Sam: And it's like, you know, selective prosecution is apparently really,
Sam: really, really hard to prove. But like in this case, you've got a lot of the
Sam: key players basically saying so out loud that that's what they're doing.
Sam: And then the latest thing is apparently they neglected to actually pass the
Sam: final version of the indictment past the grand jury.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Like what happened was they gave a copy of the indictment with three counts to the grand jury.
Sam: The grand jury said no to one of the three counts.
Sam: But what you're supposed to do, apparently, is then resubmit the indictment
Sam: with only the two counts and have them vote on that.
Ivan: But I also thought that they made changes to the other two, to one of the other
Ivan: two counts as well, on top of the fact that they fucking resubmitted it.
Ivan: So therefore, it's like, whatever, you didn't present the fucking charges back
Ivan: to the grand jury to approve.
Sam: That appears to be the case. And so they basically just treated it as,
Sam: you know, oh, well, on the first time around, they voted no for this one, but yes, on these two.
Sam: So therefore, we can just go ahead and submit the one with these two, and it's not a big deal.
Sam: It is a big deal. They didn't follow the procedures, which, by the way,
Sam: this is also why, if you remember, when this was first submitted to the judge,
Sam: they accidentally submitted the one with three.
Sam: As well as the one with two. And the judge is like, what the hell is this?
Sam: Why do I have two? And why are they different?
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Well, and apparently this is why. And so the final version of the indictment
Sam: was not actually approved by the grand jury.
Sam: Apparently it was signed off on by the foreman, but that's not what you're supposed to do.
Sam: You need the whole grand jury to vote on the actual indictment that's being presented.
Sam: And apparently that didn't happen. So this just adds yet another layer of the
Sam: things that they've done wrong on this.
Sam: And by the way, a whole bunch of these, you know, the first two that I mentioned
Sam: also applied to the Letitia James case.
Sam: The last one was specific to the Comey case.
Sam: But also there's some additional questions about who is actually present when
Sam: in the grand jury and whether there was a gap in the transcripts that wasn't
Sam: supposed to be there of what happened to the grand jury.
Sam: There are a couple of incidents they've mentioned where apparently whoever was
Sam: talking, whether it was what's-her-name or somebody else, actually misrepresented
Sam: the law in a certain case.
Ivan: Oh, that's right. I also saw that, yes, that they actually misrepresented the law as well, yes.
Sam: And then there's one place where they said, now, don't worry if you don't see
Sam: all the evidence and what we're showing you.
Sam: Trust us, we have a lot more than we're showing you.
Sam: Um that's all no you know that's all the other no no so yes thing after thing
Sam: after thing after thing that they're doing wrong um,
Sam: You know, these things are going to get dismissed. They will not make it to trial.
Sam: It's amazing. And frankly, they will be lucky, you know, if they don't come
Sam: out of this with like without losing their bar licenses.
Ivan: I don't think they're going to be that lucky, Sam.
Ivan: Look, almost every lawyer that Trump has forced to do shit like this has wound up being the spark.
Sam: There has been a long trail of those yes.
Ivan: Yeah i mean these people like
Ivan: somebody said that they have decided that in order to go to be at the altar
Ivan: of trump they've decided to just go and like basically just burn their fucking
Ivan: bar license in service of trump but and you know they're going to wind up like, you know,
Ivan: what's his name? Fucking Giuliani.
Sam: Yes. One of many. But yes, Giuliani is one of those.
Ivan: Where all his assets are being auctioned, where everybody is after him,
Ivan: where he is just completely, you know, living up.
Ivan: You know, he's not, he's not destitute as far as I can tell,
Ivan: but he's not living it up as he used to be.
Ivan: That's for damn sure. He is under siege.
Sam: He is probably the most. He is perhaps the most dramatic fall from grace of
Sam: all of these people because, you know, he was America's mayor and all this after 9-11.
Sam: And, you know, and then over the course of time since then, by by hooking his
Sam: star to Donald Trump, he's completely destroyed his reputation.
Sam: You know, hell, even among mega people, like they don't have a high opinion
Sam: of Rudy Giuliani at this point.
Ivan: No, no.
Sam: Because he's proven himself to be an utter clown.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: You know, and part of this, I think part of this is age related,
Sam: to be honest, with Giuliani as well.
Sam: Like he does not have the same faculties he did a couple decades ago.
Sam: But also it's just like. Oh, but come on.
Ivan: He's just another fucking.
Sam: He's just an asshole.
Ivan: He's yeah he's just another grifter like
Ivan: all of these are you know they're all
Ivan: the same it's so fucked up it's all the same shit you know he he thought that
Ivan: he could make you know he was a partner at a major law firm making millions
Ivan: of dollars for basically doing jack shit nothing Just putting his name under on their fucking,
Ivan: you know, roster of attorneys.
Ivan: It lifted prestige. That's it. And for that, he made 4 million, 5 million a year.
Ivan: He burned that to the, he burned that to the ground for what?
Ivan: You know, he made millions of consulting and whatever. Now he's just,
Ivan: nope, who's going to hire him? Nobody hires him.
Sam: No. No. No.
Ivan: But Trump did pardon him, I guess, right? Finally Trump did finally pardon him.
Ivan: I thought I heard that recently. Yeah.
Sam: I thought that recently. Look it up. I hadn't heard that.
Ivan: You know, and you know.
Sam: Most of his stuff is civil anyway. It's not like he was under.
Ivan: Yeah, no, no, no. But no, no, no. Obviously that can't discharge that.
Ivan: But, yeah, on November 10th, Trump partners Rudy Giuliani, another of key figures, allegedly.
Ivan: So he decided involved to overturn the 2020 election.
Ivan: So, you know, he did give him a pardon. But, of course, that doesn't help him
Ivan: with the financial issues.
Ivan: But he finally gave him a pardon.
Sam: Was he actually in Sidney Powell?
Ivan: Was he under any federal?
Sam: Are these preemptive? Or was he actually under federal indictment?
Ivan: Well, he had been under investigation in the past. He wasn't under indictment,
Ivan: but I guess he gave him one of these preemptive pardons.
Sam: Well, and I know there were various state efforts that included him,
Sam: but that's a different ballgame.
Ivan: Too. Yeah, but that doesn't.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. So, yeah.
Ivan: So, he did do that for him. Gave him a pardon. Doesn't really help that much
Ivan: because he didn't really have any federal charges, but...
Sam: Okay. We were talking about Comey, right? Yeah.
Ivan: But it's this whole thing. But the whole thing is, you know, again, it goes back.
Ivan: The reason I mentioned Giuliani is because all these people keep shredding a
Ivan: bar license to go and do Trump's bidding.
Ivan: And Lindsey Halligan and whoever the hell. So the people are going to be up
Ivan: the bat. They're going to shred their bar licenses.
Sam: Another example that I don't think is going to last long, but it was just reported
Sam: in the last 48 hours that another portion of the DOJ was actually investigating
Sam: the folks that were going after all these people for mortgage fraud,
Sam: for having improperly brought on board people to the investigations who weren't authorized to do so.
Sam: Now, I suspect, you know, this is some, you know, career person in the DOJ who's
Sam: trying to actually do their job the way it used to, the way it was supposed to be done, right?
Ivan: We're going to just end that. Following the law, that ends now.
Sam: They will be fired. As soon as we find out about it. I'm surprised they have not already been fired.
Sam: They will be gone. These investigations will be over because the thing that's
Sam: absolutely clear is the Trump DOJ is intended to operate under his direct command
Sam: to go after the people he wants to have gone after.
Sam: End of story. End of story.
Sam: And they should, you know, any time they're going after somebody that Trump
Sam: actually likes, those people are getting fired, regardless of whether the thing
Sam: they're going after has any merit or not. That is not part of the equation.
Ivan: That has no bearing on it.
Sam: So...
Sam: Anything else on this, or it's my turn now?
Ivan: It's your turn now.
Sam: Okay. Let's talk about this Ukrainian peace deal thing.
Ivan: Oh, come on, man. The Ukrainian peace deal.
Ivan: It's, what, another fucking joke?
Ivan: I mean, all of these are a joke.
Ivan: There is no peace deal. This is a Ukrainian capitulation document.
Sam: Essentially, yes. I mean, the key elements.
Sam: Now, the one thing I will say for it is it does include one element that you
Sam: and I have said might be part of any ceasefire,
Sam: which is the Russians have agreed that the territorial concessions to Russia
Sam: will just recognize the facts on the ground and not the legal claim.
Sam: So that it says we'll freeze the lines of combat.
Ivan: The lines of combat where they are.
Sam: Right. And any further discussion of this has to happen through diplomatic means, not through force.
Sam: But it doesn't require the Ukrainians to give up their claim to that territory.
Sam: That's the one thing that I can say is a slight concession because the Russians
Sam: previously had wanted the Ukrainians to outright just give them the territory.
Ivan: Yeah, but come on, man. Look, they've occupied Crimea for like a decade.
Ivan: And, you know, like that is, you know, I mean, the Russians are not going to
Ivan: give up anything back like that once they have it. So it's just, you know, whatever.
Ivan: There were a couple of other things that were positive. And look,
Ivan: there was this one part where apparently the deal had something where Russian
Ivan: assets that were foreign could be given to Ukraine in order for them to rebuild.
Ivan: There was like a substantial amount of money discussed in there over $100 billion
Ivan: of frozen assets that could be used by Ukraine.
Sam: This is typical, of course, for Donald Trump deals where he thinks like,
Sam: just pay them, undoes everything, you know.
Ivan: But but that was that was in there. But other than that, I mean, it's just now, man.
Sam: Well, I mean, it's full of things like NATO promises that Ukraine will never be part of NATO.
Ivan: Right. And they're supposed to put I can't remember something in the Constitution,
Ivan: barring them from stuff. It's just from attempting it.
Sam: And caps on the size of the military and and and restriction on NATO can't put
Sam: forces in Ukraine either.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Right. All kinds of stuff like that. It basically says if Russia wanted to,
Sam: at some point, try again,
Sam: They're making sure that Ukraine
Sam: would not be in a position to defend themselves a second time there.
Sam: Now, it does say Ukraine can apply for EU membership.
Sam: So it does have that. Not NATO, but EU.
Ivan: There are also a thing about security guarantees. But listen,
Ivan: this deal is very one sided and just it's just one thing I saw.
Sam: One thing I saw actually since we started the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, of course.
Sam: I just want to say this. I saw this out of the 28 points.
Sam: I saw this one posted right when we were starting the show.
Sam: And I probably should verify this, but what the hell?
Sam: If this is wrong, I'm sure somebody will correct me.
Sam: Point 27 apparently is structured specifically for Donald Trump.
Ivan: I don't think this is real.
Sam: I don't think this is real. So I shouldn't say it.
Ivan: I don't, no.
Sam: I don't, I'm looking at it. I know the Peace Council things.
Ivan: It sounds, it sounds, I thought I had read the point, yes.
Sam: Let's do, let me bring up the Axios version of this that I mean.
Ivan: All of these powers continue forever, even after he leaves office?
Sam: Well, what they what they're doing is setting up a commission,
Sam: an independent commission that just happens to be headed by Donald Trump that
Sam: makes a bunch your decisions.
Sam: Let me look up the, like I said, I'm going to look up Axios.
Sam: Hold on. Hold on. Give me a minute.
Ivan: Beep boop, beep boop.
Sam: Uh here we go okay here
Sam: here is axios put trump's
Sam: full 28 point ukraine russia peace plan and so let's see you're kidding me i
Sam: i saw more of this here now now i'm hitting a paywall i didn't hit the paywall
Sam: the first time i looked at this damn thing let me see peace plan blah blah blah.
Ivan: It is on.
Sam: What's the name of the thing yeah okay the article in Axios Trump's full 28
Sam: point Ukraine Russia peace plan I'll look it up in Apple News too at the same
Sam: time you'll probably get to it for faster.
Ivan: 28 point oh wait here we go Trump's full 28 point Ukraine peace plan here you
Ivan: go I'll send you the Ah! It crashed!
Sam: Okay, I've got it in front of me. Okay, here are the 28 points.
Sam: Doo, doo, doo. Same from the future here.
Sam: I am about to embark on reading all 28 points of this thing.
Sam: And it's not even the actual like text, text.
Sam: It's like a summary of them. But anyway, it ended up taking about six and a
Sam: half minutes for me to do so.
Sam: And then afterwards, Yvonne and I started talking about how,
Sam: well, actually, maybe that was a little bit excessive. Maybe I didn't need to do all that.
Sam: Maybe I should go back and insert something to tell you guys to,
Sam: you know, if you normally listen at 1x speed, maybe go to 1.5.
Sam: If you normally listen at 1.5, maybe go to 2x.
Sam: If you normally listen at 2x, I don't know, maybe just skip the whole six and a half minutes.
Sam: Maybe just skip the whole six and a half minutes anyway. I don't know.
Sam: Anyway, we talk about the 28
Sam: points, but like, yeah, most of the discussion is after I read them all.
Sam: And that's, you know, six and a half minutes of your time that you could like speed up or whatever.
Sam: Ivana actually suggested that I just go ahead and preemptively speed up the
Sam: six and a half minutes to make it take a lot less time, you know,
Sam: do like the chipmunk effect and stuff.
Sam: I said, no, I wasn't going to do that. But I did agree in the end to put in
Sam: this little notice before I do the 28.
Sam: Of course, I'm rambling so long that you could have just listened to the six and a half minutes.
Sam: I mean, not quite, but close.
Sam: Anyway, you have been warned. Do, do, do!
Ivan: All right.
Sam: Number one, Ukraine's sovereignty will be confirmed. As I can lose my ability to speak.
Sam: Number one, Ukraine's sovereignty will be confirmed.
Sam: Number two, a comprehensive non-aggression agreement will be concluded between
Sam: Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.
Sam: All ambiguities of last 30 years will be considered settled.
Sam: Now, this is one of those things, by the way, a comprehensive agreement will be concluded.
Sam: This is not the comprehensive agreement, right? This This is all like vaporware. Number three.
Ivan: This is like a letter of intent, basically, is what you've got here.
Sam: Number three, it is expected that Russia will not invade neighboring countries
Sam: and NATO will not expand further.
Sam: Number four, a dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO,
Sam: mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions
Sam: for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities.
Sam: That's another letter of intent.
Ivan: The disagreement will be legally binding. Okay, by the way, yeah.
Sam: Don't jump ahead. Let me give all 28.
Ivan: All right, fine, fine.
Sam: Fine. Ukraine will receive reliable security guarantees.
Sam: Specifically, the U.S. and its NATO allies would treat an attack on Ukraine
Sam: as an attack on the entire transatlantic community, which is interesting because
Sam: that's essentially what NATO membership would give.
Sam: Number six, the size of the Ukrainian armed forces will be limited to 600,000
Sam: compared to their 850,000 or so that they actually have right now.
Sam: Seven, Ukraine agrees to enshrine in its constitution that it will not join
Sam: NATO, and NATO agrees to include in its statutes a provision that Ukraine will
Sam: not be admitted in the future.
Sam: Eight, NATO agrees not to station troops in Ukraine. Right.
Sam: Nine, European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.
Sam: Ten, the U.S. guarantee. The U.S. will receive compensation for the guarantee.
Sam: If Ukraine invades Russia, it will lose the guarantee. If Russia invades Ukraine,
Sam: in addition to a decisive coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be reinstated.
Sam: Recognition of the new territory and all other benefits of the deal will be revoked.
Sam: If Ukraine launches a missile at Moscow or St. Petersburg without cause,
Sam: The security guarantee will be deemed invalid.
Sam: Eleven, Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive short-term preferential
Sam: access to the European market.
Sam: Twelve, a powerful global package of measures to rebuild Ukraine,
Sam: including but not limited to the creation of a Ukraine development fund.
Sam: The United States will cooperate with Ukraine to jointly rebuild,
Sam: modernize, and operate Ukraine's gas infrastructure, join efforts to rehabilitate war-affected areas,
Sam: infrastructure development, extraction of minerals and natural resources,
Sam: and the World Bank will develop a special financing package.
Sam: Number 13, Russia will be reintegrated into global economy, lifting of sanctions,
Sam: a long-term economic cooperation agreement with the U.S., and Russia will be
Sam: invited to rejoin the G8.
Sam: Number 14, frozen funds will be used as follows.
Sam: $100 billion in frozen assets to be invested in U.S.-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine.
Sam: The U.S. will receive 50% of the profits from the venture, of course. Of course.
Ivan: Wait, no. Wait, no. Donald Trump will receive 50% of the profits.
Ivan: What are you talking about?
Sam: Europe will add $100 billion to increase the amount of investment available.
Sam: Frozen European funds will be unfrozen.
Sam: 15, a joint American-Russian working group on security issues.
Sam: 16, Russia will enshrine and allot its policy of non-aggression towards Europe and Ukraine.
Sam: 17, United States and Russia will agree to extend the validity of treaties on
Sam: the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Sam: Eighteen, Ukraine agrees to be a non-nuclear state.
Sam: Number 19, the Zafirina, however you say that, nuclear power plant will be launched
Sam: under the supervision of IAEA.
Sam: Electricity produced will be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine.
Sam: Twenty, both countries undertake to implement educational programs in schools
Sam: and society and get promoting understanding.
Sam: Twenty-one. So look, most of these points, by the way, are either just.
Sam: Diplomatic gobbledygook, like we'll have a commission, we'll talk about whatever,
Sam: letter of intent kind of stuff.
Sam: There are a few that aren't, that seem fairly innocuous and potentially positive.
Sam: The key ones about, they're not necessarily mechanisms in place to really enforce
Sam: some of these and distinctly limiting Ukraine's ability to defend itself.
Sam: Anyway, 21. Territories.
Sam: Crimea, Lushank, and Donetsk will be recognized as de facto Russian, including by the U.S.
Sam: Kirsten and Zafiriza will be frozen along the lines of contact,
Sam: which will mean de facto recognition along the lines of contact.
Sam: Russia will relinquish other agreed territories it controls outside of the five.
Sam: Ukrainian forces will withdraw from the part of Donetsk oblast that they currently control.
Sam: Withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarized buffer.
Sam: Number 22, after agreeing on future territorial arrangements,
Sam: both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force.
Sam: Any security guarantees will not apply in the event of a breach of this commitment.
Sam: The key element here is they're agreeing to de facto control, but not de jure.
Sam: So Ukraine is not giving up its claims.
Sam: 23, Russia will not prevent Ukraine from using the Dnieper River for commercial activities.
Sam: Number 24, humanitarian committee will be established to resolve outstanding
Sam: issues like prisoners, detainees, family reunification.
Sam: Number 25, Ukraine will hold elections in 100 days.
Sam: Number 26, all parties involved in this conflict will receive full amnesty for their actions.
Sam: And I'll skip 27 because that's the key one that we were talking about.
Sam: 28, once all parties agree to this memorandum, we'll take effect immediately.
Sam: And back to 27, agreement will be legally binding.
Sam: Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by the Peace Council headed
Sam: by President Donald J. Trump.
Sam: Sanctions will be imposed for violations. And that's all it says on that item.
Ivan: Well, that's all it says, but it doesn't guarantee the term or whatever.
Ivan: I mean, come on, give me a break. I mean, even if he heads it,
Ivan: I mean, somebody else is president.
Ivan: They're going to dump him on that. This isn't exactly what I'm saying.
Ivan: This isn't exactly like, oh, my God, he's been named forever to a fucking council.
Ivan: This is one of those positions, like, you know, the moment the new president
Ivan: comes in, oh, you're ahead of that? Fuck, you're gone.
Ivan: Bye, see ya. You know, so...
Sam: Yeah, yeah. I mean...
Sam: The other things that were in this post.
Ivan: Listen, I think the main thing about this treaty is that it's imposing on Ukraine right now.
Ivan: Just it's this whole thing that they have been adamantly opposed the entire time.
Ivan: That, you know, which is why Russia has been fighting for inches of territory. Inches.
Ivan: Because what they want is, oh, we'll stop the war just where the lines are frozen.
Ivan: That's it. And that's ours.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They aren't, you know, and usually in a lot of these conflicts like this,
Ivan: the aggressors Russia is forced to give back significant parts of territory in order to get the...
Sam: I mean, there's so many conflicts that end by essentially freezing the lines. I mean, look at Korea.
Sam: I mean, how did the Korean War quote-unquote end? It's not officially over yet, is it?
Ivan: It's not officially over, so therefore, what are we talking about?
Sam: But.
Ivan: The thing is that in in other conflict this isn't a compromise in any way that's what i'm saying.
Sam: Right no this this is basically give
Sam: the russians what they've been asking for with the exception of you know the
Sam: de jure versus de facto thing that i mentioned yeah that's it aside aside from
Sam: that everything on this list is this is what the russians wanted along with
Sam: with the possible exception that Clearly,
Sam: when the full-scale invasion started, Putin wanted to take over the whole damn
Sam: country and have Ukraine cease to exist as an independent country.
Sam: So the Russians have clearly given up on that.
Sam: But everything else here is what they've been saying they wanted for years.
Sam: You know, and there's no real concession to what the Ukrainians have said they
Sam: wanted, which is for the Russians to get out of their territory and to join NATO. and the EU.
Sam: That's what they've consistently said they've wanted for years now.
Sam: And by the way, even before the, that's the whole excuse for this invasion from
Sam: the Russian side is we can't let Ukraine go to NATO.
Sam: But NATO had actually been slow walking it and saying no.
Sam: Right you know before this all happened anyway but you know if you if you go
Sam: through a point by point which i'm sorry that took a long time because there
Sam: were 28 damn points but you most of them you can go.
Ivan: And what you can do is like when you.
Sam: Actually finish.
Ivan: The process yes you will you'll go and put that section at 1.5 like for everybody
Ivan: so that way you can go through all the points yes so.
Sam: For those of us who already listened to it sped up it's gonna be,
Sam: yes i won't do that however anybody who is bored by it i'm sure skipped ahead
Sam: or increase the speed on their own.
Ivan: Okay you know.
Sam: If i'd thought about saying it.
Ivan: Before no no no that's what you got okay so now what you got to insert is and
Ivan: if you got to go back and post or insert this saying bing bing bing i am about
Ivan: to read a very long list of things if you don't want to hear them all read,
Ivan: please, you know, or want to hear faster, please accelerate your podcast client. Thank you.
Sam: Maybe I'll do that.
Ivan: Maybe I'll do that.
Sam: I'll consider it. I will think about it. You know, I got other things to do
Sam: other than spend time editing.
Ivan: No, you don't. No, you don't. What the fuck are you talking about?
Ivan: No, you don't, you asshole.
Ivan: I got a whole bunch of other things to do. I got a job and shit or whatever.
Ivan: What the fuck are you talking about? No, you don't. You got plenty of fucking time.
Sam: I have other things I want to do.
Ivan: Oh, okay. All right.
Sam: You know, I'm getting a haircut tomorrow, for example.
Sam: You know, I've got a haircut scheduled tomorrow.
Sam: So, you know, if I spend all this time editing, I might have to miss my haircut.
Sam: Or I might have to do it myself.
Ivan: Oh, my God. You know, heaven forbid.
Sam: Get out the flowbie.
Ivan: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Anyway, no. No, what I was saying is, in isolation, a bunch of these points
Sam: actually do sound reasonable.
Sam: Together as a package, it's essentially a complete capitulation of Ukraine to
Sam: everything Russia wants.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: You know, and so we have yet to see what, Zelensky has not given an answer yet.
Sam: So far, everything you said is we'll consider this, blah, blah,
Sam: blah, because he's under extreme pressure about this.
Sam: But on the other hand, if he agrees to all this,
Sam: he was probably going to be done internally in Ukraine, too,
Sam: because the population is very tired of the war, but I'm not sure that they're
Sam: ready for complete capitulation like this.
Sam: But, you know, you've got a war-weary population. It's been years.
Sam: Lots of people just want it to be over.
Sam: And, you know, and you can understand that.
Sam: On the other hand, there is a complete,
Sam: There is not trust that Russia will live up to one iota of anything it agrees to.
Sam: And also, there's not a lot of trust in the security guarantees either.
Sam: Will they really come through? Especially the U.S. under Donald Trump.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, is he really going to come through or is in the end he's going to
Sam: be like, well, you know, I remember
Sam: you wouldn't investigate Hunter Biden when I told you to. You know.
Sam: It comes up, comes back to that. Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, okay.
Sam: Okay. Let's take, let's take a third break and then, then we'll do two more and wrap it up. Okay.
Sam: Two more quick ones. Let's, let's make a lightning round. Actually lightning this time.
Sam: This last one is an Apple dream, but it is an Apple dream that I have actually
Sam: used on the podcast before. I pick from all the Apple dreams and I did publish
Sam: a new one on Tik TOK this last week.
Sam: Apple dream 74 came out this last week.
Sam: So, but you have to find that on Tik TOK on my personal Tik TOK.
Sam: Not the curmudgeons corner Tik TOK.
Sam: You will see Apple dream 74. It's a brand new one, but no, this one is Apple dream 12.
Sam: Cause I randomly picked out of all 74 Apple dreams, which one,
Sam: and this has actually featured on the show before, but probably a long time ago.
Sam: So here's Apple dream 12. Enjoy everyone.
Sam: That was it.
Ivan: Okay, then. My wife had a dream yesterday where apparently she kept trying to
Ivan: pack a bag, but she kept packing and packing and packing and she couldn't.
Ivan: It's like she could never finish packing.
Ivan: Because the packing kept going on, like, endlessly. As it does.
Sam: So that was her.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Okay, last topic from you, Yvonne.
Ivan: Last topic from me. Okay, let's talk about, because I didn't watch a lot of this.
Ivan: Mondami went to the White House, met with Trump. How did it go, Sam?
Sam: How did it go? It was a love fest. It's like, what the hell?
Sam: Both of them were saying positive things about the other.
Sam: You know Mandami was very civil, very polite, which you kind of expect when
Sam: you go to the White House but like, you know he was.
Ivan: Working very hard to talk about their points of agreement,
Ivan: you've had times when even if you're going polite to the White House,
Ivan: or you've had shit that happened to Zelensky for example, where all of a sudden
Ivan: he was berated there or whatever, and I thought maybe that's what they were
Ivan: planning on doing But no.
Sam: He was like, Donald Trump was talking about how we both love New York and how
Sam: we agree on lots of things.
Sam: And he's got great ideas about affordability and, you know, and how,
Sam: like, he ran a great campaign and he beat a lot of people and,
Sam: you know, all this kind of stuff.
Sam: And, you know, Donald Trump was was glowingly positive about Mandami.
Ivan: And this is like bizarre, this whole fucking thing.
Sam: And, and like at one point, like Mandami was asked, you know,
Sam: Hey, you, you've caught Donald Trump fascist.
Sam: Do you, do you still believe he's fascist? What do you think here?
Sam: And, and Mandami starts to say, well, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And Donald Trump is like, it's okay. You can just say yes. It's cool.
Sam: It's easier than trying to explain it.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Of course, there are a couple of ways to interpret that one.
Sam: He was just laughing and friendly. The other is like, yeah, I don't mind being
Sam: called fascist because like, you know, I am, it's okay.
Sam: But, but it is all, it was all very congenial. It was all very, very happy go lucky.
Sam: They were all talking about places where they want to work together.
Sam: And, and, you know, look, I understand. And Donald Trump kept saying like,
Sam: all my policies are going to be great for New York.
Sam: So like, it's going to help you succeed, you know, stuff like that.
Sam: And, and every time something was brought up where they disagree,
Sam: Mondami was very much, you know, Hey.
Sam: Of course there are areas where we disagree, but I want to concentrate on the,
Sam: the places where we can work together and where, and he's like,
Sam: look, one of the things, lots of, lots of people in New York moved over to vote for Donald Trump.
Sam: And when I talked to him, the reason was affordability, cost of living,
Sam: affordability, cost of living.
Sam: And that's one thing where I think we can agree that that's a problem and we'll
Sam: work together and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And that's basically how the conversation went.
Sam: Now, people also point out that as usual, Donald Trump's view of the world tends
Sam: to be driven by the last person he talked to. And this was right after he had
Sam: his meeting with Mandami.
Sam: And Mandami is very charismatic and very personable.
Sam: And so Donald Trump probably came out of a meeting, having had a great conversation
Sam: and liking Mandami personally, and so was all positive about him.
Sam: And probably 10 minutes after this press conference was over,
Sam: he goes to talk to Miller or somebody, and he probably has a different tune by tomorrow.
Ivan: Did he bring him a clock, maybe? Or a gold little plaque or something? You know, I mean...
Sam: A key to the city.
Ivan: Yes, a real... That's it! He brought him a real gold key to the city!
Sam: You know Trump probably Trump probably has four or five of those already from
Sam: previous mayors but you know not a real gold not.
Ivan: A real gold one.
Sam: Ah maybe,
Sam: Giuliani might have sprung for the gold, you know?
Ivan: I don't know. They didn't seem to be that friendly back then when he was mayor.
Sam: Well, they did that, like, skit where, like, Giuliani wore the dress, remember?
Ivan: Oh, yeah, that's right. But, listen, but back then, you know, I don't...
Ivan: Well, what's another... I mean, listen, do you think Trump would not turn away
Ivan: another gold key to the city?
Sam: No, he would not. No, he would not.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: He'd be wondering what door it actually opened.
Ivan: Especially if it was engraved with 45, 47 thing.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, that sounds like, you know, hey, bring him gifts, flatter him,
Ivan: and he'll do whatever you want.
Sam: And, you know, I'm sure Mandami is fully aware of that dynamic,
Sam: just like anybody else who meets him these days.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: That if you, you know, and there probably was some sort of, I don't know,
Sam: you know, it doesn't even have to be a really expensive gift.
Sam: It just has to be one that tickles his fancy in the right way.
Sam: Expensive helps. Expensive helps. yeah okay however
Sam: gold gold colored helps gold
Sam: colored yes yes from spray painted from home depot yes um but yeah but yeah
Sam: i'm sure mandami flattered him and and said some nice things and i don't know
Sam: i i feel like the trump tower looks fantastic.
Ivan: It's such a great building we want to make sure that it's taken care of very
Ivan: well under me as mayor blah blah blah there you go easily boom.
Sam: Well and yeah i mean and part of what you know people have been reacting to this is like,
Sam: the republican party as a whole had been
Sam: salivated at using mandami as like the new face of the democratic party to paint
Sam: them all as like radical socialists yes yes and and now And now we've got Donald
Sam: Trump being all chummy with him and talking about how great he is.
Ivan: Oh, tell me how you're doing, buddy. Yes.
Ivan: You know, and all the Republicans in the House are going, what the fuck just happened?
Sam: Exactly.
Sam: Now, that's not necessarily going to stop them, just to be clear.
Sam: But it just, he's not helping.
Ivan: Not helping. Not helping.
Sam: Anyway, I was listening to this while I was driving my son to school.
Sam: And I was like, what the hell am I listening to? This is just bizarre.
Ivan: I kept hearing you say it I'm like because I don't know what the hell I was
Ivan: so I was busy whatever you know and I'm like what is going on I don't understand
Ivan: because I fully expected this to be a shit show.
Sam: More like the Zelensky meeting yeah.
Ivan: Right I expected a Zelensky style meeting not all of a sudden like them standing
Ivan: there like all grinning and happy yes and joking Are you positively kidding?
Ivan: I'm like, what the hell? What happened?
Sam: Now, again, I have confidence that, like, in this, like, Mendami can probably
Sam: get the better of Trump in terms of manipulating him at this point.
Sam: Like, whatever skills Donald Trump has had in the past in that area have been
Sam: slipping. And now everybody knows how to get what they want out of Donald Trump.
Ivan: Look, I, Mom Dami is quite charismatic. So you mentioned her.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I mean, he is quite, you know, from what I've heard, executives in New York,
Ivan: business executives that were really afraid of him, that have sat down and met
Ivan: with him, walked away with, oh yeah, we can work with him.
Ivan: We can figure stuff out, you know.
Ivan: Once they got past all the... We'll pay for the damn free buses.
Ivan: Yeah. Oh, I'm going to bet you that that's something that will happen.
Sam: Yes, the chase one bus line or whatever, you know.
Ivan: Listen, let me tell you something. There is nothing that Trump really likes
Ivan: once more than flattering in some way.
Ivan: And credit for something, whatever.
Ivan: Okay? Okay, so if you can maneuver it properly, then yeah, you can get whatever
Ivan: the fuck you want out of him.
Ivan: It's just know how to just sweet talk him into it.
Ivan: Look at a Swiss. Listen, I've never seen a more abrupt turnaround than what
Ivan: happened with Switzerland.
Ivan: I mean, because they had been getting hammered with the tariffs.
Ivan: They'd been getting fucked and they had gotten nowhere. And somehow,
Ivan: you know, they went, they decided, fuck this.
Ivan: We're going to get a meeting with Trump and we're going to bring the goods.
Ivan: And the goods being a custom made Rolex desktop clock.
Ivan: OK, but that must be very impressive. And I want to see a fucking picture of this damn clock.
Ivan: Okay i really want to see this okay and
Ivan: a solid i mean think about you know you talked about gold a solid gold bar yes
Ivan: great personally engraved with the 45 47 bullshit audit trump whatever on a
Ivan: solid a solid gold bar this.
Sam: Is what menendez is in jail for.
Ivan: Right now yes geez like and all of sudden tariffs went from 37% to 50%, boom!
Sam: Just like that. People pointed out, like, you cannot get a more literal interpretation
Sam: of what the emoluments clause was designed to prevent than a foreign government
Sam: handing the president a gold bar to get specific policy results.
Ivan: Right!
Sam: Okay, last topic from me. We previewed Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Ivan: Okay, yes. Yeah, we can't skip that one.
Sam: Okay, so here's the thing.
Ivan: Okay, what the fuck? I mean, what the fuck happened? This happened quickly.
Sam: So look, it's been building, but specifically, let's go through the last couple
Sam: months. Couple of months, yeah.
Sam: Specifically the the newest rift and they've had
Sam: a few places where they've disagreed in the past related to
Sam: even like getting rid of the previous speakers
Sam: in those speaker battles right like yeah they were on opposite sides of that
Sam: but recently this has been all about the epstein stuff she was one of the key
Sam: republican defectors that gave them the numbers to do this discharge position,
Sam: and she has been vocal about it,
Sam: and she has talked about it repeatedly,
Sam: and she has not budged from her positions on that, because where she came from was...
Sam: Was QAnon. Right. Marjorie Taylor Greene was all about the QAnon.
Ivan: She is the big QAnon.
Sam: And the Pizzagate and all this kind of stuff.
Sam: Everything we were talking about, about the whole point of this is we have to
Sam: dismantle the Democratic pedophile ring.
Sam: That was a big part of her thought process. The Epstein stuff was important
Sam: to her from the beginning.
Sam: She honestly felt like this was a complete betrayal by Donald Trump and how
Sam: could he possibly be against releasing this stuff? This is one of the things he promised to do.
Sam: And so she was consistent on this from the beginning. She would not give in to any pressure on it.
Sam: And this was a part of it. And she started openly speaking about it.
Sam: And then the government shut down.
Sam: She started going against the Republican line on the government shutdown as
Sam: well, talking about how the healthcare subsidies, the Democrats had a point.
Sam: It was hurting her own family. and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And let's just make a deal and end this thing and let's fix the healthcare stuff.
Sam: And so she started doing a bunch of those things.
Sam: But what happened in the last week is apparently she started getting deluged by death threats. Okay.
Sam: Oh my God.
Sam: By MAGA folks.
Sam: And, you know, she was asked in an interview,
Sam: You know, this goes to what we've talked about before, about like none of these
Sam: things matter to these people until it happens to them.
Sam: She's like, you know, all of a sudden you're, you're really,
Sam: you're worried about this because you're the target.
Sam: You didn't seem to care at all when the target of MAGA death threats were,
Sam: you know, Schiff or other people on the other side of the aisle.
Sam: And she actually said, I don't want to give her a lot of credit,
Sam: but she actually said, that's on me, and I was probably wrong.
Ivan: Sam, I have never seen a more transformation occurring faster than this.
Ivan: I mean, top to bottom.
Sam: To be clear.
Ivan: She was a Jewish space lasers lady.
Sam: I know, but to be clear, she's not turning into a Democrat. She's not turning into a liberal.
Ivan: No, no.
Sam: If you read her statement, if you read her statement where she's axing,
Sam: she's got like all kinds of anti-trans crap in there.
Sam: She's got all kinds of standard conservative tropes in there as well.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But all the things that she has backed off on.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: And how quickly she did.
Sam: Well, I mean, I think, and I don't know if this is a canary in the coal mine,
Sam: I cross my fingers, but is this, like, starting to snap out of the cult and realize, like,
Sam: oh, my God, he actually has been fooling me all these years?
Ivan: If you look at the polling data, if you look at all the information that we're
Ivan: getting right now, it's looking like that is what's happening, okay?
Ivan: And that's the one thing that, you know, we could, you know...
Ivan: Add to this you know i had mentioned in one of the topics talking about that
Ivan: trump right now is at all-time low for this term okay well he hasn't hit the
Ivan: low an approval for no he on.
Sam: Some of the.
Ivan: Poll he has.
Sam: He has hit the net approval lowest of both terms.
Ivan: Oh he's hit for both terms okay for both terms okay now now this depends this
Ivan: depends a little bit because that includes COVID.
Sam: Right. That depends a little bit on the, on which average you use. Cause it's close.
Sam: Okay. But there, there are several factors. The first thing was just the low for the second turn.
Sam: The next was below where he was at the exact same time, eight years ago.
Sam: And then the last milestone was the lowest of both terms.
Sam: And on some poll averages, he did hit that a few weeks ago, he's bounced up a little bit since then.
Ivan: But it's crazy. But then on top of that, Sam, and I think what MTG was looking
Ivan: at, that fucking generic ballot, okay, alright?
Ivan: The margin that the Democrats have right now is for a wipeout of epic proportions,
Ivan: okay, for the Republicans, okay?
Ivan: You know, forget it. I mean, right now, here's the thing that's happening.
Ivan: The gerrymandering that they wanted has been stalled.
Ivan: A whole bunch of states that they want, they thought that they would get on
Ivan: board to doing stuff. I refuse to do it. They've just refused to do it.
Ivan: Then you've got the problem that the Texas maps have been blocked, like, right now?
Sam: Well, SCOTUS just unblocked them a couple hours ago, but yes.
Ivan: Oh, what?
Sam: Yes. SCOTUS has allowed the maps to remain in effect while the appeals process continues.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: As of, like, just a couple hours ago.
Ivan: Okay. But, okay, fuck, fuckers. Anyway.
Sam: But the thing is that— That's one of the things that just one justice can do
Sam: that, and it's just until the process plays out.
Sam: Okay, but bottom line is that— I wouldn't be surprised at all if SCOTUS backs
Sam: up Texas in the end, but go ahead.
Ivan: But the thing is that it's gotten—they thought that, you know,
Ivan: Trump had asked all these states to do it.
Ivan: The reality is that they're not getting anywhere as far as they thought they
Ivan: would with the maps. But then you add the fact that the ballot looks that bad,
Ivan: that it may not fucking matter, okay?
Ivan: If the polls aren't that bad, even the gerrymandering isn't going to save their asses anyway.
Sam: Right.
Sam: Yeah. And this was the summary that I believe it was DDHQ put out an analysis
Sam: of this, but also the gerrymander project out of Princeton also did something similar.
Sam: Basically, if you net out all of the gerrymandering efforts,
Sam: both Republican and Democrat, blah, blah, blah,
Sam: it gives perhaps a mid-to-high single-digit additional advantage to Republicans.
Sam: But in a way of election, the movement can be like 20, 30 seats.
Sam: And that completely swamps the like seven or eight seats that the Republicans
Sam: may be getting. Exactly.
Sam: Now, it still makes it seven or eight seats harder. But if there really is a
Sam: way of election, then that gets blown away.
Ivan: It doesn't matter. And that's what it's looking like. I mean, at this point.
Ivan: So, I mean, I think MTG is just reading the tea leaves also.
Ivan: You know, she's an asshole. I don't think she's a stupid asshole.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I think.
Sam: Wow.
Ivan: No, no, no. No, no, Sam. No, no, no, no. She's a fucking grifter.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: She's an asshole. This is all fucking grift. That's all you got to remember.
Sam: I think she's a true believer in some places as well.
Ivan: I think there may be a thing here or there that she's a true believer,
Ivan: but for the most part she's just a fucking grifter.
Ivan: I really do. Because I'm sorry, you can't switch positions on that much shit
Ivan: like she did in two months unless you're that much of a grifter.
Ivan: Sorry, but it just doesn't happen. Not if you're a true believer.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So I just think that she saw the tea leaves. She said, we're going to get fucked.
Ivan: I got to get off this train before it crashes into the station.
Ivan: So let me just jump off now.
Ivan: And let me let, you know, Johnson and all these other idiots go and crash into
Ivan: the station. You know, I'm off. Bye.
Ivan: So I think that's what she's doing.
Ivan: I think the death threats don't help.
Sam: No. And I think that's one of the...
Sam: Look, I honestly think that's a big part of this. The quote from her that I'm
Sam: going to read real quick.
Sam: And, of course, I brought it up. And then I, like.
Ivan: Of course, changed the screen.
Sam: Okay, from her statement, I do not want my sweet district to have to endure
Sam: a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president.
Sam: I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better.
Sam: There's no plan to save the world or a 4D chess game being played.
Sam: You know, I think she basically, the president was going to war against her
Sam: for her being an insubordinate.
Sam: And she's just like, I'm out. I'm not playing that game.
Sam: Now, does she come back playing another game? I mean, there's lots of speculation
Sam: of her running for Senate.
Sam: She has said she's not going to run for president, but who knows?
Sam: But there's lots of speculation that she wanted to run for Senate.
Sam: And one of the reasons for this rift was Trump was not backing her for Senate.
Ivan: Here's the other thing. she likes money okay all right so she's been very and
Ivan: so there is a lot of grifts that you can carry out like right now with all these people of.
Ivan: Far more, not being in the house and being this person that's out there that
Ivan: talks, she'll get paid to be on Fox and this, that, and the other thing.
Ivan: She'll get paid appearance fees.
Ivan: I had shared this thing about this, this swimmer, Riley Gaines,
Ivan: this video about how she's being, you know, how she is the one that really launched
Ivan: this entire anti-trans movement.
Ivan: She was the, she was the, the lightning rod for this.
Ivan: Okay. and how she is just getting paid left and right to go and like spew this
Ivan: shit all over the place. It's a moneymaker.
Ivan: How she realized all of a sudden that she could turn this into fame and money
Ivan: and all of a sudden she's just out there as the fucking champion of whatever
Ivan: talking about the swimmer that supposedly, by the way, that didn't even...
Ivan: Tied her for fifth place. That's all that happened. By the way,
Ivan: tied her for fifth place. Okay.
Ivan: And, and oh, by the way, you know what? Didn't say anything about the coach.
Ivan: It was supposedly talking about how that person like caused her trauma,
Ivan: but not talk about the coach.
Ivan: That was her coach that got, you know, into trouble and fired for sexually assaulting
Ivan: the other swimmers on her team. while she was on the team.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, nay, let's not go against the actual fucking sexual assaulters.
Ivan: Let's make up a story about somebody who didn't do anything.
Ivan: Because that one makes money. Because, by the way, the other story,
Ivan: just like the Epstein victims, does that make money?
Ivan: Guess what? No!
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, on that happy note.
Sam: Yes. Let me give one last analysis related to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Sam: Somebody put out, this is Lisa Desjardins, who's a journalist who's been in
Sam: a couple different places. I forget where she is right now.
Sam: Folks, MTG just cranked up the stakes in the Tennessee 7 special election on
Sam: December 2nd. And here's why.
Sam: Currently, we have 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats.
Sam: On December 13th, if the Democrats win in Tennessee, it becomes 219 to 214.
Sam: January 6th, once Marjorie Taylor Greene is gone, it drops to 218 to 214.
Sam: In January 31st, there's a special election in Texas's 18th,
Sam: which is expected to go to the Democrats, which will make it 218 to 215.
Sam: And then in April, there's another special election in New Jersey's 11th,
Sam: which the Democrats are expected to potentially hold, which would make it 218 to 216,
Sam: which means that only one
Sam: defector from the republicans on
Sam: any given bill makes it to 217 to
Sam: 217 tie which fails to pass wow so we take an already close house and potentially
Sam: make it much much closer in a couple months now apparently the new jersey one
Sam: isn't an entirely given for the democrats,
Sam: and the one in Tennessee is not a given for the Democrats. This is a scenario.
Ivan: Here's another thing that you might get. By the way, given how MTG resigned,
Ivan: you got a couple of other resignations from Republicans that pretty much think
Ivan: that they're going to lose and they wanted to get ahead for this and this fucking
Ivan: thing, this is game over.
Sam: Potentially. I think there'd be a lot, a lot of pressure for folks.
Sam: If you were the one vote that kept the Republicans in the majority,
Sam: they're going to do everything they can to keep you from the side.
Ivan: Yeah, but if you're that pissed off about shit that's happened to some of these,
Ivan: they're just, you know, they're not going to care.
Ivan: It's a very tight, it's a very, very, very, very tight situation.
Sam: Yes, it is.
Sam: And we're going to have, by the way, we're going to have another,
Sam: like, government funding thing in January, you know, because they only kicked
Sam: the can down the road a few months.
Sam: You know, so.
Ivan: I don't know. Hey, Sam, how's the economy doing? It's doing great.
Ivan: Any layoffs that you're worried about or any stuff like that?
Sam: I don't know. I've heard there might have been a few layoffs.
Sam: Yeah, I've heard about that, right? I don't know who might have been affected there.
Ivan: Jeez, I don't know. We're going to have to look up the records. Okay. All right.
Sam: Well, and there have been more since the one I was involved in.
Sam: There have been more, you know.
Ivan: There's been layoffs everywhere. It's fucking crazy. I mean, look, I keep.
Sam: Today was Verizon, right?
Ivan: Yeah, but look, HB Enterprise, where I was working, look, I had a friend of
Ivan: mine that worked there 28 years. They got laid off, too.
Ivan: They had announced the big layoff. They were one of the first people that got laid off in the layoff.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: It's really bad out there.
Sam: And I don't know. I am pessimistic. I'm expecting it to get worse before it gets better.
Ivan: But Trump is doing all these things to improve the economy with the tariffs.
Ivan: We're going to get those tariff refund checks.
Sam: Indeed.
Ivan: Dividend checks or whatever. I don't know. What do they call them?
Ivan: What do they want to call them?
Sam: The important part is his signature will be on them.
Ivan: Ah, I see.
Sam: That's what matters.
Ivan: I mean, the tariff dividend check or the part where it's like my tax refund, I guess.
Ivan: It's kind of like that. That's all it is.
Ivan: He's just so stupid.
Sam: Anyway, let's wrap this thing up. It's time.
Ivan: Yeah, let's wrap this thing up.
Sam: It's past time. It's past time. Go to curmudgeon-corner.com.
Ivan: The tide is high.
Sam: Are you going to sing some more? Sing, sing more?
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no.
Sam: I'll assist. Why don't you sing the whole bit about going to the website to
Sam: find all our information?
Ivan: I don't think, I don't know if I can, I don't know if I can swing that one that quickly.
Sam: No, no.
Ivan: Go to our website. Do, do, do, do.
Ivan: Curmudgeon.corner.com It's a fabulous website. Do, do, do, do.
Ivan: It's got all our podcasts in there for many, many, many years.
Ivan: Do, do, do, do.
Sam: That's lovely. Go to curmudgeon-corner.com not curmudgeon.corner.com or whatever the hell you said.
Ivan: I said curmudgeon-corner.
Sam: Dash works.
Ivan: Dash.
Sam: I guess dash.
Ivan: Dash works.
Sam: You know i say hyphen but yes it's a dash
Sam: it's a dash anyway because that damn domain squatters on curmudgeonscorner.com
Sam: without a hyphen um anyway anyway yeah yeah they wanted like thousands of dollars
Sam: for it we're not we're fine with the we're fine with the hyphen dash thing whatever,
Sam: anyway go go to our website curmudgeons-corner.com for our archives to see all
Sam: our old episodes transcripts all the ways to contact us.
Sam: And of course, a link to our Patreon, where you can give us cash money.
Sam: And at various levels, we will mention you on the show, we will ring a bell,
Sam: we will send you a postcard, we will send you a mug.
Sam: And importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask, we will invite you
Sam: to the curmudgeons corner slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of others are on there all the,
Sam: Emily and Sammy from the UMSUR podcast, join us on the Slack.
Sam: And oh yeah, I'm on their podcast this week as well. The last two weeks I've
Sam: been on their podcast. Go check out those episodes.
Sam: And yeah, join our Slack. It's a lot of fun. The more the merrier.
Sam: And so Yvonne, what's a highlight from the Slack that we have not mentioned
Sam: on the show and will be so exciting and compelling. people will want to join
Sam: the Slack and tune in every day to see what we're talking about.
Ivan: I just shared this almost right before we went to record. Serious question for the millennials.
Ivan: My older cousin said she used to burn CDs for her crush, like with fire?
Ivan: Was that a ritual? Did it work?
Ivan: You guys were dot, dot, dot.
Ivan: So, Sam, is that how you burn your CDs and you use fire?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Yes? Oh, nice.
Sam: Really good with marshmallows.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. Just do a little campfire with, okay.
Ivan: That sounds good. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah.
Ivan: Here's the thing. I realized that that question was not that unserious.
Ivan: I think that was a real question. I don't think somebody made that up.
Ivan: The reality is that if you're a young person and you hear about,
Ivan: you know, when's the last time you burned a CD?
Ivan: I don't remember. I don't remember the last time I burned a DVD.
Sam: I was about to say, I'm not sure I ever actually burned a music CD. I burned data CDs.
Sam: But I don't remember if I actually burned an actual regular music.
Sam: I might have done it once at a request for somebody else. I'm not sure.
Sam: I know I burnt data onto CDs a few times. but that's a, that's different.
Ivan: You burned a CD, maybe not for music, but you burned a CD.
Sam: Yeah. But, but even then it was rare. I remember, I remember.
Ivan: I, I, I did a lot.
Sam: I did.
Ivan: I burned a lot of, I did a lot of like CDs, MP3 CDs.
Ivan: I even burned, I did not as many, but I did burn a few DVDs video,
Ivan: you know, recorded video that I transferred onto a DVD to give to somebody.
Ivan: So I did do all of those. Yeah. I mean, I definitely did.
Ivan: A lot of burning. I mean, I got rid of, I had a lot of blanks because I did
Ivan: regularly burn so many of them that at some point then with MP3 players and
Ivan: whatever, iPods or whatever, then obviously that practice stopped.
Sam: There are plenty of places on YouTube and TikTok where you can get really hilarious,
Sam: videos of Gen Xers like us or even older millennials with younger generations,
Sam: trying to get younger folks to use old technology.
Sam: You stick them in front of a VCR and say, see if you can make this play. Or a rotary phone.
Sam: Like, how would you make a call on this thing?
Ivan: Now, I can see how that one, I mean, would stump quite a lot of...
Ivan: I mean, that one's fucked up.
Ivan: I mean, for the... Yeah, they've never seen anything like this.
Sam: You know, all this kind of stuff And just asking for references of things that,
Sam: you know, anybody in our generation would be instantly familiar with.
Sam: But, you know, someone who's in their 20s right now, what the hell are you even
Sam: talking about? This is ridiculous.
Sam: You know, and I'm sure the, you know, to some degree the same was true,
Sam: you know, comparing what we were familiar with with folks from 30 or 40 years previously.
Sam: But the pace has accelerated, I think.
Ivan: The pace is way accelerated.
Sam: Of course, everybody, every generation thinks that, right?
Ivan: Like loading a dot matrix, loading paper on a dot matrix printer.
Ivan: Can you imagine trying to get a millennial, hey, you need to print something
Ivan: on a dot matrix printer. Go load paper on a dot matrix printer.
Ivan: That probably just completely just, they're like, what? What is this?
Ivan: That would be, and that was one that was common that we have to do all the time.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: Floppies.
Sam: Yeah. I've seen TikToks within the last week about people like being,
Sam: you know, comparing the looking at the three and a quarter floppies and are
Sam: like, or three and a half and are like, this isn't floppy.
Sam: What are they talking about? And then people being, well, you see the,
Sam: but the bigger ones are floppy and there's still a floppy thing inside it.
Ivan: There is a floppy thing inside.
Sam: Yeah. Right. Right. You know, but it, you know, So,
Sam: when we first did Curmudgeon's Corner in college, it was a little bit ironic
Sam: because we were like 20, 21 years old, and Curmudgeon is like a cranky old guy.
Sam: But now, decades later, we earned the title.
Sam: We are, in fact, cranky old guys.
Ivan: The reality is that we were already cranky at age 20.
Sam: We were always Curmudgeon's. Yeah.
Ivan: We were already cranky by then, anyway. so you know.
Sam: Yes exactly we we we we embodied we may have been 20 but we already had the
Sam: mind of like 70 year olds yes okay what the fuck is.
Ivan: This you know anyway stuff like that yeah.
Sam: Kids these days goddamn fuckers yes
Sam: anyway we're out of here uh thanks
Sam: everybody for joining us have a great week oh
Sam: this i guess the this coming week is thanksgiving for those
Sam: of you in the u.s who celebrate so enjoy your your turkey or whatever else you
Sam: have for your your thanksgiving meal if you have one we we had i i didn't tell
Sam: the story here but we we had a we had a kitchen accident,
Sam: that caused significant damage to our stove about a week and a half ago.
Sam: And we are getting it repaired, but it won't be repaired until after Thanksgiving.
Ivan: Oh, my God.
Sam: So it involved an exploding can of corn that hit brandy in the face when it
Sam: exploded and broke the glass cooktop on the stove.
Ivan: Oh, jeez. Oh, so, well, Oh, okay. Wow.
Sam: Everyone's fine. Everyone's fine. It was scary when it happened,
Sam: but everything's fine. Yeah.
Sam: We're having to like, you know, pay to get that fixed. And our refrigerator's
Sam: failing at the same time. So we're also having to get a refrigerator.
Sam: All good timing to happen right after I get laid off, of course.
Sam: But, you know, whatever.
Sam: We'll deal with what we have to deal with. Okay.
Ivan: All right. Good.
Sam: Yeah. Is your refrigerator supposed to be almost 60 degrees? I don't think so.
Ivan: Right? No, no, no.
Sam: And we could get that repaired too, but it's a piece of shit.
Sam: So we're getting a new refrigerator. No Samsungs.
Ivan: Yeah, no Samsungs.
Sam: Samsung sucks. Yes. Sorry.
Ivan: You know, I got a GE to replace the Samsung that basically that was problem
Ivan: after problem after problem after problem.
Sam: Exactly.
Ivan: The GE, 10 years, not one service call.
Sam: Not one anyway the point of all that was happy Thanksgiving enjoy your Thanksgiving
Sam: happy Thanksgiving everybody yes and that's it here comes the goodbye music
Sam: stuff thing thing here you go bye,
Sam: There was corn everywhere. The entire kitchen covered in corn.
Ivan: It was fun.
Sam: Okay, hitting stop. Bye.
Ivan: All right. Bye.