Sam: Hold on a second.
Ivan: There we go.
Sam: Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah. All good?
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: Blah.
Ivan: Blah.
Sam: Let's do this. Hold on. I'm booking something in the other window.
Ivan: Booking.
Sam: Booking. Booking.
Sam: Schedule.
Sam: Okay. Did that. I should put it in my calendar.
Sam: you know that's annoying okay there it is plus paste let's see if this does it right,
Sam: sorry give me one second 15 this becomes 23 okay good good good good okay ready
Sam: to go or do we have preliminaries to work out first you're kind of blurry and frozen right now Oh.
Ivan: I, I, okay. I think I know why. Hold on. You see something.
Ivan: Oh, what am I doing? Okay. No, close. Okay. Let's see.
Ivan: Blurry and frozen. I.
Sam: Oh, let me.
Ivan: Okay. I.
Sam: Back to the right window.
Ivan: Well, I, I, I mean, I'm looking at my video. Looks fine.
Sam: Okay. Let me look at what. Yeah. On, on YouTube, you look. Wait,
Sam: now we both look good. We look amazing.
Ivan: It's almost like. It's only. You mean, not that we look good.
Ivan: You mean the signal quality is, the video quality is good.
Sam: Oh, no. I mean, we're horribly attractive people.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. You know, I got to, you know, as I walk through the mall,
Ivan: I'm just like, you know, pushing them away.
Sam: Of course. Of course.
Ivan: That's how it works. Like, look, I'm married. Get off of me.
Ivan: What are you doing? Jesus Christ, you know.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Both men and women. All of them, you know?
Sam: Of course. Of course. And probably the reindeer at the Santa display, too.
Ivan: Oh, yes. Yes. And the dogs.
Sam: And the dogs. Yes. They all love you. Shall we get started before this goes south any further?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Here we go.
Ivan: Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Thursday, December 11th, 2025.
Sam: It's just after 22 UTC as we are starting to record.
Sam: And yeah, that's the thing.
Sam: Before I forget, before I forget, I'm going to give something I promised last time.
Sam: And I will be mentioning this every week until the time comes.
Sam: which is that the Google Doc for making suggestions of things for us to predict
Sam: on our annual prediction show is now up.
Sam: The URL is tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026.
Sam: So I expect all of you out there listening to go in and start dropping in.
Sam: And flood it. Yes, flood it.
Sam: Flood the zone, as Steve Bannon says.
Sam: It is divided up into sections, you know, politics, international,
Sam: economy, technology, hodgepodge, and each one of those sections further has some subsections.
Sam: Feel free to add bullet points with your questions that you want us to predict.
Sam: I do ask that you sign your submissions. Just at the end of the question,
Sam: do dash and your initials.
Sam: It doesn't even have to be your real name or anything.
Sam: Just dash something that's identifiable so we can thank you for the question
Sam: when we actually do the show.
Sam: And put in however much you want. If there's so much there that I'm like,
Sam: okay, we're done. I don't need any more.
Sam: Then we won't add our normal things because they'll already be there.
Sam: But if there's not enough, then we'll sort of fill it in with the stuff that
Sam: we usually make predictions about and all that kind of stuff.
Sam: But anyway, this is all because our annual prediction show will be our last show of the year.
Sam: And then our first show of the new year will be reviewing predictions from that
Sam: we made about 2025 to see how we did.
Sam: So anyway, I wanted to get that out of the way before I forgot,
Sam: because I knew I would forget if I did.
Sam: So again, it's tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026.
Sam: So go there. Add stuff that you want us to predict.
Ivan: Things.
Sam: It'll be exciting. Exiting. Exiting.
Ivan: I mean, I don't understand. How the fuck are you supposed to know the difference
Ivan: between exciting, exiting?
Ivan: Say you're a new person coming to the language. Actually, they don't.
Ivan: This is the problem with English.
Ivan: It's very different. Many times, it's now phonetic.
Ivan: Unlike Spanish.
Sam: It's contextual.
Ivan: Yeah. Well, not even that.
Sam: Well, usually you can tell the difference between exiting and exciting by the
Sam: sentence that's around it.
Sam: Well, the pronunciation isn't automatic.
Ivan: But if you're looking, let's say, but yeah, true. The context helps.
Ivan: But if you're looking at a list of words, say you're new to the language.
Ivan: is I remember we had these quizzes for language to learn new words at school,
Ivan: and they just gave you this list of 10, 20, 30 words to learn for this week.
Ivan: I mean, if, you know, unless you had pronunciation guides, you had no idea really
Ivan: how to pronounce a lot of words.
Sam: Well, yes, and I will point out those two words are spelled differently.
Ivan: They are spelled differently, but the reality is that you could read them in
Ivan: either way. I mean, if you don't know the language that well.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, there's the extra letter in exciting.
Ivan: Yeah, but still.
Sam: So it's the sound. So it's X-citing versus. Or sitting. X-itting.
Ivan: But it's a C.
Sam: It is a C. And Cs can be different things depending on all kinds of different things.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: There are some letters that have like four or five different ways to say them depending on the word.
Ivan: But one thing but the one thing is that what I'm saying it's in Spanish you
Ivan: know we take English and Spanish I mean you just you know all the letters sound
Ivan: the same you learn the sounds and you put them together and you read it and
Ivan: you should be able to you know read the words,
Ivan: so that's the thing which brings me to like my but first Sam you're.
Sam: Go for it yes yes.
Ivan: My son laughing,
Ivan: Appears to know Japanese.
Sam: Now, how did this happen, Yvonne?
Ivan: I'm pretty confident.
Sam: Now, I swear, I saw a TikTok about another little kid who, like,
Sam: was not speaking English, but, like, it turns out, oh, they picked up Japanese from TV.
Ivan: Yeah. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he learned language that way.
Ivan: Look, I learned English by just watching TV as well when I was little.
Sam: Have you had him watching all kinds of Japanese TV shows in Japanese?
Ivan: I haven't, but he has been on YouTube watching a lot of YouTube videos in Japanese
Ivan: about stuff that he likes.
Ivan: He kept finding all these videos about vehicles and things and whatever,
Ivan: and these people playing with toy construction vehicles, all sorts of,
Ivan: you know, all these videos about stuff that he likes in Japanese.
Ivan: and you know i knew he knew words in japanese you
Ivan: know because i had quizzed him on because i know that he saw and you
Ivan: could i could ask him all sorts of construction vehicles and words and things
Ivan: like you know and he he knew the right words okay i i checked the words and
Ivan: i was like oh no so you know what a fire truck is a police car this way so i
Ivan: was like you know but i wasn't I wasn't taking that he knew just the words into full sentences,
Ivan: okay, into just language, into watching a clip from a Japanese TV show and knowing
Ivan: what the fuck they're saying.
Ivan: But the, but the thing is that I recently kept watching them,
Ivan: you know, it came up that I stumbled across a video that visually was funny
Ivan: from, you know, from these crazy Japanese game shows. Okay. All right.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Where they do all sorts of really crazy stuff. Okay.
Ivan: And I saw this, and this was this thing about this person walking into an elevator.
Ivan: Okay. thinking it's an elevator. And then all of a sudden, as she is just standing
Ivan: there, the floor opens and they go down to slide into another room out of,
Ivan: you know, to completely take it by surprise.
Sam: Okay, interesting.
Ivan: Yes. And so it was hilarious. And Manu watches the video and I hear him repeating what it says.
Ivan: And then out of curiosity, because I'm hearing him really pronounce very well
Ivan: what the Japanese announcers say.
Ivan: And I ask him, hey, what is he saying in English? And he went very quickly and
Ivan: translated what he said. And I checked, see if it was correct.
Ivan: And lo and behold, yes, it was.
Ivan: And, you know, just to be clear.
Sam: By checking, how did you check?
Ivan: I found something that there was a translation, subtitles or whatever,
Ivan: where I could see what the fuck the guy was saying and it translated.
Ivan: And it was, you know, it was what the guy was saying. It was right.
Sam: So now what I'm...
Ivan: And I found some other clips, whatever, and I found another clip But I asked
Ivan: him again, hey, what does this guy say?
Sam: Boom.
Ivan: Translated what the fuck the guy was saying, too.
Ivan: So, here's the thing, right?
Ivan: So, you know, I had him watch a lot of videos in Spanish when he was growing up.
Ivan: But I don't think that the material itself was the stuff that he really liked. Okay?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, he found this stuff that he really liked wasn't Japanese.
Ivan: And so his Spanish is far, his Spanish is way worse than the Japanese.
Sam: Now, what I suggested on the curmudgeon's corner slack when you first mentioned
Sam: this is when are you going to find a native Japanese speaker to go have lunch with or something?
Ivan: You know, I have, as a matter of fact, a few weeks ago, not a native Japanese
Ivan: speaker, but I have a, I have a friend who worked with me.
Ivan: I, I, I actually, I, I helped him with his career a couple of times,
Ivan: you know, from Puerto Rico who lived in Japan for a couple of years and speaks Japanese. Okay.
Ivan: I got to go and like get him to say, to, to, to, to talk to him.
Sam: Yeah. Go, go have lunch or something. and like, you know, see how, see how it goes.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. You never know. Like it, it may unlock things that like,
Sam: you know, he may, he may have conversations in Japanese that he's not willing
Sam: to have in English. Right.
Ivan: I'm not fucking moving to Japan.
Sam: Hey, I know you're, you're working on the whole Spain thing,
Sam: but Japan just wasn't on your agenda.
Ivan: No.
Ivan: I don't speak the language. What, now I got to learn Japanese?
Ivan: I mean, I guess I could try.
Sam: Manu will translate for you. You're all cool. You don't have to know it yourself.
Ivan: I could get those AirPods with a simultaneous translation. So I guess,
Ivan: you know, that is a thing.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: So anyway, I, you know, yeah. You know, Japanese.
Ivan: I don't, I, you know, he's struggled with language. a lot it's been hard you
Ivan: know he still has speech regularly.
Sam: You just weren't talking about the stuff that he was he was interested in.
Ivan: Apparently not.
Sam: You know so Japanese it is.
Ivan: Japanese it is.
Ivan: So the other thing I was going to mention I put this down as a topic but I put
Ivan: it down more because I was going to talk about it a little bit like more duh,
Ivan: but first is that I went to this I took my car to the shop that I had worked
Ivan: on it done before for like the, the, the,
Ivan: bullshit that I do to Karst anyway. Nothing really important what it is.
Ivan: This guy is a Colombian immigrant. He's been here for a couple of years.
Ivan: I was waiting for my wife to arrive, and we're talking about what the hell's going on with stuff.
Ivan: I can't remember how this came up, but we started talking about everything that's
Ivan: going on with immigration and health and some other stuff and whatever.
Ivan: One thing that he told me, him as a business owner, He is from Columbia. He is here legally.
Ivan: The thing is, he has a business in it, and it sells a pretty decent amount a month.
Ivan: But, you know, he's telling me that because, you know, it's his own business,
Ivan: health insurance is so expensive that he basically, you know,
Ivan: he had gotten a quote just for himself. Okay.
Ivan: And it's like $1,500 a month, something like that. Okay.
Ivan: So for him and his wife, it was over $3,000 a month, something crazy. Okay.
Ivan: So, but he told me that his solution that he is doing in terms of for a catastrophe
Ivan: or something that he gets, say he gets diagnosed with cancer or something like that, for example.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So how, what's the solution to get treatment? Well, he told me that,
Ivan: look, he keeps paying premiums for health insurance back in Columbia.
Ivan: He has an active health insurance policy in Columbia.
Ivan: And so his plan is, look, if I get diagnosed with something like that,
Ivan: I'm going to go home to go get treatment because the premiums over there are
Ivan: so much lower that I can afford to pay that and be covered just in case I have a catastrophe. Okay?
Sam: Right. Okay.
Ivan: But look at the ridiculous shit.
Ivan: The extent that people have to go in order to get health insurance in this fucking country.
Ivan: Okay. It's crazy. I just, you know, he told me that. And then one of the things
Ivan: he was also talking is that he has as employees, two people that have been granted
Ivan: asylum, I believe from Venezuela. Okay.
Ivan: And the thing is that they have hearings at court next year for their asylum cases, okay?
Ivan: And they entered, they were granted asylum. They came in legally.
Ivan: They got granted. They were granted asylum. They came in legally or whatever.
Ivan: They right now are almost, they're like, they don't want to go to the hearing.
Sam: Right. Because they've been picking up people who have done everything right,
Sam: jumped through every hoop they were asked for, picking them up at hearings and
Sam: or even the naturalization ceremony.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And picking them up and...
Ivan: I haven't heard about naturalization ceremony. What I've heard is more like
Ivan: the final green card interviews.
Sam: They've done the green card interviews, but there was also an article,
Sam: it was in Massachusetts where it happened most recently, where they...
Sam: They I don't think they actually picked them up at the naturalization ceremony,
Sam: but they canceled the naturalization ceremony at the last moment and then issued
Sam: orders for them to be deported.
Ivan: That's no that's that's that's wait.
Ivan: But but I don't mean that's not even legal. You know, the reality is the ceremony
Ivan: is more formality than anything else at that point. They've already been granted citizenship.
Ivan: They've got papers that say they're granted citizenship. You go to the ceremony,
Ivan: it's like, you know, you know, we talk about going to, you know,
Ivan: when you go to that the president is president, even if he's we don't swear.
Sam: Even if they haven't. Yes. Yes.
Ivan: I mean, what I understood is the ceremony is basically kind of like that.
Ivan: You already been granted fucking citizenship. It's not, you know.
Sam: This was this was a couple of weeks ago where I saw an article, so I don't have it handy.
Sam: But yeah, no, they were they were rescinding at the very last possible moment
Sam: of someone who was like about to do the last legal steps, including the ceremony and and.
Sam: Torpedoing it at the last second.
Ivan: So, yeah, I mean, and the one thing that he told me was like,
Ivan: OK, if I can't, if these guys can't stay here legally, OK, he's struggling to
Ivan: figure out how the fuck he's going to hire people for the business.
Ivan: He said it's like, I mean, I'm sorry, but it's not like I've got like,
Ivan: it's not like I'm turning away U.S.
Ivan: citizens for this job.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know, it's the kind of work that U.S.
Ivan: citizens really are going out there and really, you know, banging at the door to get.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And so, yeah, that was just like my morning convo with, about that. It's just how, you know.
Sam: What industry are we talking?
Ivan: It's in the car detailing industry. Car, you know, they do car detailing,
Ivan: they do car treatments and stuff or whatever. It's just aftermarket stuff.
Ivan: You know, they work on expensive cars and things and they just do stuff to them.
Ivan: But just, but it's just, it's...
Sam: It feels like that, like, I mean...
Sam: It feels like you could get Americans in that job.
Ivan: You could. But there's not as many, is my point.
Sam: No, yeah, I understand.
Ivan: It makes it far more difficult to recruit and keep.
Sam: Well, in a lot of these things, the answer, of course, is you probably could,
Sam: but you'd have to pay them so much that it becomes uneconomical or something.
Ivan: Well, the thing is that a lot of people, look, these were legal immigrants,
Ivan: okay, that are doing this work, okay?
Ivan: And it's just, it's one of those things that, it's one of those things that
Ivan: people that, especially if they're struggling still with the language,
Ivan: you're struggling with getting acclimated to the country, they don't,
Ivan: they maybe not, don't have the right certifications, education or whatever.
Ivan: It's the kind of jobs that a lot of these people go for. And it's like what we're talking about,
Ivan: you know, we're talking a little bit about how they go and they try to say that,
Ivan: you know, that these people this week, they were talking about how these people
Ivan: are coming in and why is the price of houses so expensive?
Ivan: Oh, because they're coming in and buying the houses. Look, let me tell you something.
Ivan: None of these people are coming in and buying $700,000 houses.
Ivan: You know, they can't get mortgages. They don't grant mortgages to non-U.S.
Ivan: citizens. It's one of the requirements of fucking getting a damn mortgage is
Ivan: you've got to show citizenship or legal.
Ivan: You know, you have to have, you know, you need legal status.
Sam: I'm sure your illegal migrants are just paying cash for them.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. And that was the funny thing. We're saying they're paying
Ivan: cash. But at the same time, somehow they're all on welfare, too.
Sam: Right. Oh, of course. Yes. You know, they're using their welfare checks to buy to.
Ivan: Go buy the $700,000 houses.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: In cash.
Sam: In cash.
Ivan: And it's just, you know, and, you know, and what he said is he was talking about, man,
Ivan: you know, him as an immigrant himself, okay, just talking about these fucking
Ivan: people talk like we're a whole bunch of lazy fucks coming over here,
Ivan: just leeching, mooching off the government.
Ivan: It's nothing even remotely, not even remotely close. They can't even get health care, Sam.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: They can't even get fucking health care.
Sam: So, yeah, as I've said many times when we end up talking about immigration,
Sam: the people who actually have the
Sam: motivation and fortitude to pick
Sam: up their entire lives and move across the world to a whole different country
Sam: where often they don't know the language and are starting from scratch are the
Sam: people who show the kind of qualities that you want.
Ivan: They are the guys that really believe in the American dream.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Like, I mean, they really believe in it, you know? And it's an American dream,
Ivan: you know, on the back of hard work.
Ivan: Not, you know, not giveaways. Hard work.
Ivan: you know but this guy
Ivan: i'm not you know well i
Ivan: am actually he's here legally nobody did johnny who i was talking
Ivan: to today and you know he's built
Ivan: up a business with him his wife you know his kids sometimes work there you know
Ivan: because it started from a smaller shop built it into a bigger shop he's got
Ivan: to be doing like right now like you know over a million dollars in business
Ivan: over there you know, doing work on cars and stuff or whatever,
Ivan: you know, hard work every day in the shop every day. Yeah.
Ivan: And you know, what I hear from these people, you know, you hear how they're,
Ivan: they're taking their jobs, taking our homes or taking our whatever every fucking day.
Ivan: There's nothing, nothing even remotely of the sort. There's people just coming
Ivan: over to go break their backs, doing jobs that most Americans don't want.
Ivan: Simple as that. Simple as that.
Ivan: So, yeah, so that was my morning convo after I jumped my son off to lunch,
Ivan: you know. So, I mean to lunch.
Sam: To school. To school. To school. Lunch school.
Ivan: Well, yeah, there was lunch afterwards. Yeah, I took him lunch bag.
Ivan: I sent him, well, because of his food allergies, we sent his food.
Ivan: That's one of, so he'd pack his lunch.
Sam: There you go. So meanwhile, my son is not at school right now because he decided to stay up all night.
Sam: Like we all fell asleep. He was up all night.
Sam: He was still awake at eight in the morning, you know, and then he finally like
Sam: went to sleep around eight, eight 30 in the morning and there was no getting him up again.
Sam: So school did not happen today. I sent in a note to school.
Ivan: Oh, wow. So anyway, we got more movies, Sam.
Sam: We got more movies.
Ivan: All right.
Sam: Let's let's let's first stop that I watched at the end of January.
Sam: Oh, of course. Now my son's waking up.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: He's here now. Anyway, first up watched at the end of January from 1977.
Sam: Oh, God.
Ivan: Oh, my God.
Sam: There you go. Exactly. With George Burns.
Ivan: George Burns.
Sam: George Burns.
Ivan: I remember watching that movie.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Wait, back when? I'm pretty sure I haven't watched it since then.
Sam: Yeah, I think this is one of the ones where I had probably seen parts of it, like, over the years.
Ivan: Well, I know that I watched the whole movie.
Sam: I don't know that I'd seen the whole thing.
Ivan: This one, I'm positive I watched the whole movie. It was on HBO.
Ivan: That's where I watched it.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And?
Ivan: That was when we had the little HBO.
Sam: Do you have thoughts about the movie?
Ivan: By the way, the one thing that we had, this is at the time, where HBO was like
Ivan: on channel like three, something like that.
Ivan: But you needed this little decoder thing that you plugged into.
Ivan: The cable came in and you plugged it in.
Ivan: And then you, the cable coming down from that went to that little Y splitter thing.
Ivan: You remember we had that little box thing that was like the little Y things
Ivan: that went into the back of the TV, you know, because you were used to plug in an antenna.
Ivan: So that was how that went into the TV. And so this box, all the sole function
Ivan: of this box is when you tune to the channel where HBO was, it was kind of fuzzy.
Ivan: So you turn the box to on and it unscrambled the signal. Okay.
Ivan: Right. So that was like how you got HBO back then.
Sam: Right. Right.
Ivan: At least in Puerto Rico in the late 70s. Okay.
Sam: Yes. Okay.
Ivan: And so I watched the movie and what I remember, I remember it was funny.
Ivan: Okay. All right. a whole bunch of things happened to what was his name uh the
Ivan: the blonde guy the whatever uh oh god was what was the guy's name the the john denver it.
Sam: Was john denver uh.
Ivan: Yes i thought you were reaching for the character name no no no no for john
Ivan: john denver all the stupid follies that happened to him like during the time
Ivan: and everybody thought that he was completely crazy and you know the movie is
Ivan: what i remember the movie was funny,
Ivan: For my memory, I would give it a thumbs up, but I haven't watched it in like
Ivan: 40 years. Holy shit. Almost 40 years.
Sam: Yeah. I think my thought, I'm not going to give it a thumbs up.
Sam: I mean, it was okay, I guess, but it really did feel very dated. It did not feel like.
Ivan: Also 1977.
Sam: I know it's 1977, but like some old movies really hold up and some don't.
Ivan: It wasn't an Academy Award winning movie from 1977.
Sam: Well, no.
Ivan: Did it get any awards by any chance?
Sam: Did it get any awards? Let me scroll down.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: It received an Oscar nomination for best adapted screenplay.
Ivan: Oh, look at that. Holy shit. I didn't realize that.
Sam: A Saturn Award for Best Writing, the Writers Guild Award for Best Comedy Adapted
Sam: from Another Medium. So I guess like.
Ivan: Okay, shit. So, okay. So it was more regarded than I recall. Okay.
Sam: And it was adapted. So like what? Was it a book?
Ivan: Or a play? What was this?
Sam: A play? What was this? Based on the 1971 novel by Avery Corman. So, okay.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So it was a book at some point. Yeah, like, I just felt like,
Sam: I don't know. Like you could see where some of the stuff might've been funny
Sam: or whatever, but like, I felt like it was.
Ivan: The one scene that I remember was funny was the one where the car got flooded where he wanted Ray.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: There was a scene in his car.
Sam: Yes. Yes.
Ivan: That was funny.
Sam: I, you know, and you know, the other thing that got me and this,
Sam: this is coming from me as a very secular, non-religious person.
Sam: the fact that it actually took sort of
Sam: the religious part of this somewhat seriously like
Sam: the you know god came down and was giving a
Sam: new message to the people and all this kind of stuff so it was a comedy and
Sam: all but you know it it treated the religious aspects with i don't know i'm sure
Sam: it was controversial anyway for not like being not treating god as seriously
Sam: as they could But at the same time,
Sam: it was sort of like,
Sam: I don't know, if they tried to make this today, it would be different, I think,
Sam: you know, in a variety of different ways.
Ivan: Well, I don't think you could get the movie made today. I got to tell you that right now.
Sam: Probably not. Yeah.
Ivan: In large part because they didn't take that, even though they did include the
Ivan: religious aspect, they didn't really take God that seriously.
Sam: Well, because here's what you had back then. You had a significant part of the
Sam: population that were quote-unquote mainstream Christianity,
Sam: whereas you still have some of that, but the percentage of the population has declined.
Sam: And what you've had is a divergence into either folks that,
Sam: Or are sort of the crazy right-wing Christians. And the people who are in the middle.
Ivan: So nobody would be happy with this movie. Right. None of them would be happy.
Sam: This was aimed squarely at folks who were sort of religious in the sense of
Sam: going to the church all the time.
Sam: and sort of had the general beliefs but weren't dogmatic about it and weren't
Sam: wanting to impose their beliefs on everybody necessarily and weren't the literalists
Sam: or, you know, or whatever.
Sam: You know, it was sort of—and that group, it still exists. I mean,
Sam: the denomination my mother is a part of is that kind of, you know,
Sam: mainstream sort of liberal-ish Christianity or centrist Christianity even.
Sam: But those groups have declined relative to conservative Christians and the secular
Sam: folks who aren't religious at all.
Sam: And and so, like, this kind of thing, I think that that might be part of the
Sam: reason it feels dated, in fact, like that it represents this sort of this view
Sam: of religion that is something that just.
Ivan: Really doesn't exist that much anymore. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to. It does still exist. It's just it's declined since the 70s.
Ivan: It's declined a lot, Sam, a lot.
Sam: And, you know, and I don't know, like maybe it's just I didn't appreciate the
Sam: specific types of humor as well.
Sam: I mean, I'm not saying it was bad, so maybe I'll give it a thumb sideways,
Sam: but not a thumbs up. I wasn't like coming out of it.
Sam: I wasn't laughing out loud. I wasn't like, oh man, that was awesome. I want to see it again.
Sam: You know, the sequels are now on my list. Of course, there are two sequels.
Sam: Oh God, book two from 1980.
Ivan: I remember the sequels were not.
Sam: And Oh God, you devil from 84.
Ivan: The sequels were not.
Ivan: None of those sequels are very good. I mean, that I recall, compared to the
Ivan: original one, look, if you didn't like this one, you're not going to like the sequels.
Ivan: I got to tell you that right off the bat.
Sam: Oh, and I've neglected reading the beginning of the plot summary from Wikipedia, so I should do that.
Sam: God appears as a kindly old man to Jerry Landers, an assistant supermarket manager.
Sam: He tells Jerry that he has been selected to be his messenger to the modern world,
Sam: much like a contemporary Moses.
Sam: Landers tells his wife, children, and a religious editor of the Los Angeles
Sam: Times of his encounters with God and becomes a natural icon of comedic fodder.
Sam: Jerry appears on television with Dinah Shore. Yes, national icon.
Sam: and describes the look God takes when he encounters him the next day after Jerry
Sam: is stranded from a car break down.
Ivan: Yeah, and they do a sketch on the show. Yeah, and then they showed a movie,
Ivan: and then the audience is like, burst out laughing because nobody believed him.
Ivan: They all thought he was nuts.
Sam: God appears as a taxi driver to take him home where they are met by a bunch
Sam: of chanting religious nuts.
Sam: Before he disappears, God consoles Jerry that he has the strength that comes from knowing.
Sam: Landers finds his life turned upside down as a group of theologians attempt to discredit him.
Sam: They challenge him to answer a series of questions in Aramaic while locked in
Sam: a hotel room alone to prove God is contacting him directly.
Sam: After an agonizing wait, God delivers food to Jerry and answers the questions, dot, dot, dot.
Sam: It continues, et cetera, and, you know, adventures ensue.
Sam: Yeah, so thumb sideways for Oh God.
Sam: And one more, one more movie, because I'm trying desperately to catch up.
Sam: From 1946, this time from the AFI list, 1998 rank number 11.
Sam: For the 2000 list, it has slipped to number 20.
Sam: Oh, and by the way, updates on the 2000 list, or the 2007 list,
Sam: Alex and I are already up to, or down to 93.
Sam: And I'll also give another update.
Sam: We're working our way through Law and Order as well. We just finished season five.
Sam: So we're working our way.
Ivan: Jesus Christ. Only season five. Okay. Well, that's not bad, actually, considering.
Sam: Yeah. I think we're going faster than one season per year. Yeah. So.
Ivan: Well, I guess maybe, you know, you have some extra time lately to catch up.
Sam: Well, and also right now, at the moment, three of the shows we were watching, we finished.
Sam: But because I'm behind in logging my stuff, we haven't replaced them yet.
Sam: So there are fewer shows to pick from when we're picking shows.
Sam: So each one of them is moving faster as well.
Sam: So anyway, this movie from 1946, ranked 11 on the 1998 list,
Sam: is It's a Wonderful Life.
Ivan: You know what? I'm not sure I've watched It's a Wonderful Life.
Sam: This is another one where I'm going to answer. You don't think so?
Ivan: Probably I've seen, I've been like with you, where I saw clips, but not the movie.
Sam: Right. And I think that was my case with It's a Wonderful Life 2.
Sam: I'm pretty sure I'd seen bits and pieces of it.
Sam: I'd probably seen the ending after flipping through channels and I watched the
Sam: end. And, you know, I may have seen little bits back and forth,
Sam: but I don't think I'd seen it end to end.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah.
Sam: Anyway, classic Christmas movie. Let me start this time with the plot summary, the beginning of it.
Sam: On Christmas Eve, 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey contemplates suicide.
Sam: The prayers of his family and friends reach heaven, where guardian angel second
Sam: class Claris Oddbody is assigned to save George in order to earn his wings.
Sam: Clarence has shown flashbacks of George's life.
Sam: He watches 12-year-old George rescue his younger brother Harry from drowning
Sam: in a frozen pond, leaving George with deafness in his left ear.
Sam: George later saves pharmacist Mr. Gower from accidentally poisoning a customer.
Sam: In 1928, George plans a world tour before college. He is reintroduced to Mary
Sam: Hatch, who has loved him since childhood.
Sam: When his father dies from a stroke, George postpones his travel to settle the
Sam: family business, Bailey Brothers Building and Loan.
Sam: Avaricious board member Henry F. Potter, who owns most of the town,
Sam: seeks to dissolve the company, but the board of directors votes to keep it open if George runs it.
Sam: George works alongside his uncle Billy, giving his tuition savings to Harry
Sam: with the understanding that Harry will take over the company when he returns.
Sam: One more paragraph. Harry returns from college married and with a job offer
Sam: from his father-in-law, and George resigns himself to running the building and loan.
Sam: George and Mary rekindle their relationship in Mary, but abandon their honeymoon
Sam: to use the savings to keep the company solvent.
Sam: During a run on the bank, dot, dot, dot, things continue.
Sam: And spoilers, it does have a happy ending.
Sam: Anyway, you know, this is a classic Christmas movie. I think it's a classic
Sam: Christmas movie for a reason.
Sam: It's good.
Sam: It's definitely like we're talking about dated movies. This is dated, but in a different way.
Sam: This is dated in that, oh, okay, this is obviously set in the 1940s.
Sam: You know, it's not a modern movie. It's a little bit slower in the style,
Sam: you know, etc., etc., etc.
Sam: But it still hits the emotional strings it's supposed to.
Sam: You still feel sympathetic to the characters.
Sam: This one has a little bit of a religious undertone, too. I mean,
Sam: there are angels in it, for God's sake.
Sam: But, you know, it's not overwhelming.
Sam: And, you know, it basically...
Sam: Again, spoilers for anybody who hasn't seen this movie from, you know, 80 years ago.
Sam: It's, this guy is all down on himself because he didn't get out,
Sam: get what he wanted out of life.
Sam: But then, you know, he's basically shown the positive effect he's had on the
Sam: life of so many other people.
Sam: You know, and teaches a little lesson, makes you feel like a little warm inside.
Sam: The guy, like, you know, feels better about himself at the end, etc.
Sam: You know, it's and it is stylized like movies of that time.
Sam: But, you know, it's a fine movie. Thumbs up. Thumbs up.
Sam: OK, I will make one other note. There is a point where there are two characters
Sam: talking to each other that are not the main character.
Sam: They're sort of side characters, but they're talking to each other and they're named Bert and Ernie.
Ivan: Ah!
Sam: And they're bantering back and forth and you realize that, wait a second,
Sam: this, like, some of how they interact with each other quite possibly was an
Sam: inspiration for the Sesame Street characters.
Ivan: Interesting.
Sam: Okay. And then I saw recently a clip of a Sesame Street holiday special,
Sam: where Bert and Ernie walk past a TV in the shop that is playing the scene of
Sam: Bert and Ernie in this movie talking to each other.
Ivan: Nice!
Sam: Anyway, so, fun stuff.
Ivan: I loved Bert and Ernie. I remember they were one of my favorites when I was
Ivan: growing up, I must admit.
Sam: They're they're they're good.
Ivan: They're good hilarious love to watch burton ernie.
Sam: Yeah i i'm definitely like yes and
Sam: and of course there are other you know you you can you can you can map them
Sam: towards the odd couple as well yeah yeah yeah there are a variety of other sort
Sam: of characters you can map into and then of course there's been the age old you
Sam: know are burton Ernie gay? Are they a couple?
Sam: And of course there's a whole, you know, there are people who like,
Sam: you know, give all the evidence for.
Sam: Now, Sesame Street's official position is that they are puppets.
Ivan: Right!
Sam: Thank you very much. And that you don't need to think quite this deeply about
Sam: this question. Yes. But, anyway.
Ivan: Let's just say the odd couple. I was watching it the other day for some reason. It was on TV.
Sam: Now, there have been many versions of the article.
Ivan: Too. Well, I'm talking about the Walter Matthau, Jack Lepp.
Sam: Oh, the movie version, not the TV version.
Ivan: Yeah, the movie version. I got to say that if Sam and I had lived together,
Ivan: that may have been us. Oh, my God.
Ivan: Oh, my God. It would have been.
Ivan: I mean, that would have been. Yeah. I was like, what the hell? Jesus Christ.
Ivan: But look, I was wise. I saw how Sam lived on his own.
Ivan: Unless I was in poverty in some way that I could not afford my own place.
Ivan: And I'm sure that Sam would not have let me sleep on the streets. I'm pretty sure.
Ivan: I'm pretty confident that, you know, that that would have happened.
Ivan: That, you know, I would not have moved in with him. However,
Ivan: I know that I would have driven him crazy if I lived there because...
Ivan: I would have been, hell, I drive my wife crazy because I'm, you know,
Ivan: I'm constantly like, why the fuck is this thing over here?
Ivan: Why did you, like, just everything must be, by the way, in that,
Ivan: in that note, aside from my son learning Japanese the same way I learned English,
Ivan: he also keeps picking up after his mom.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Also.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: So he's got both, he's like, he got both.
Ivan: She'll forget to close a door in a closet and Madhu was like right behind her,
Ivan: wham, they're closing. What are you doing?
Sam: I will say it would be nice actually to have somebody in the family who was
Sam: a neat freak because while I am not capable of actually keeping things nice
Sam: and tidy, I have come to learn that about myself.
Sam: I do appreciate a place that is and I feel better when I am in a place that is.
Ivan: I will say that Sam, the times that I came into his place and I did go and do
Ivan: cleaning, was not really displeased.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Like, it's not like I hate a clean place.
Ivan: It's just that it doesn't come out of you naturally.
Sam: It does not come out of you naturally.
Ivan: And if I left it for you clean, you would be like, oh, this is nice.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: I like this.
Sam: And it would last for approximately three hours, and then it would be trashed. But, you know.
Ivan: No, no, no. Some of the things I did last a lot longer.
Sam: Oh, yeah. And yes, anyway,
Sam: it's, you know, I, and, you know, a few, and I actually don't necessarily mind
Sam: the physical acts of cleaning either.
Sam: However, what, what I and everybody in this household is missing is the ability
Sam: to do that sort of spontaneously as other things go on.
Ivan: And on a consistent basis, right.
Sam: Right, as opposed to, like...
Sam: If I decide, okay, I am cleaning now, I will go spend some time cleaning.
Sam: I will clean a specific area out.
Sam: But that is an entirely different skill than, you know, I finish something and
Sam: when I'm finished, I put it away instead of just dropping it where it is until
Sam: the next time I actually am cleaning.
Ivan: And it's a thing of like your method of like working through your task list.
Ivan: Look, I realized the other day that you said that you were going to do Wordle. Okay. All right.
Ivan: And that you put it on your task list. And I realized that a number of days
Ivan: have elapsed that you have not done it.
Ivan: And I realized that it's on his task list. And because of the way and method
Ivan: that he arrives at doing things, he may not do Wordle again until 2026.
Sam: Right now, Wordle, and we talked a few weeks ago about my to-do list mechanism
Sam: and the randomization and all that.
Sam: It has been two days, 20 hours, and eight minutes since the last time I did Wordle.
Sam: And if I would roll to pick a task to do right now, Wordle has a .296 chance
Sam: of coming up as the task gets picked.
Ivan: Yeah, so I'm accurate. It's highly likely that I will not see you do another
Ivan: Wordle until 2026, given the few number of days.
Sam: It's only a few weeks away. So, yeah, it's possible.
Sam: I mean, I am picking tasks most days, like, you know, maybe 15, 20 times.
Sam: So, like, something that has, like, a .2, .3 chance can come up.
Ivan: It can come up, but I got a good shot at seeing you at 2026.
Sam: You do. You do indeed.
Ivan: All right.
Sam: Okay, I think that's time for our break.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Than to talk about, you know, other stuffs.
Ivan: Stuff.
Sam: So, stuffs. So I have to pick. Here comes the break. Enjoy. Enjoy, enjoy.
Break: Okie dokie. Here it comes. T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t.
Break: It was just my internet being stupid.
Break: My internet being stupid is a new song we will make.
Break: do believe in the morning balloon,
Break: i'm tired what's wrong i'm i'm really tired you you you it's it's amazing to
Break: get the show on the road there's a road there's a road oh my god there's a road.
Sam: Okay all right here we are we're back we're back so you know up until like an
Sam: hour before we recorded this show there was like,
Sam: almost nothing on our list for this week and then both yvonne and i dropped
Sam: some things in real quick because we're also doing this a little bit earlier
Sam: in the week than we usually do,
Sam: even when we do it thursday night u.s time we usually do it thursday night u.s
Sam: we're doing it thursday well thursday afternoon here for me on the west coast
Sam: it's like after what almost six o'clock there it's almost yeah yeah yeah but
Sam: um east coast west coast north coast south coast whatever you know there could be a.
Ivan: North coast south coast.
Sam: There is a south coast there is a north coast yeah.
Ivan: There's you know it's coast all over the place.
Sam: Go up to hudson bay.
Ivan: That's a good point. Yeah.
Sam: So anyway, what do you want to talk about, Yvonne?
Ivan: Oh, let's see. We did put a whole bunch of things down, but let's see.
Ivan: Talk a little bit about some elections politics kind of a thing,
Ivan: because there's a couple of things in here related to those.
Sam: Election politics kind of a thing.
Ivan: Yes. So, well, the reason I mentioned both, I'll talk first. Well, we just had this.
Ivan: This just happened as we were just before we started recording that Indiana
Ivan: rejected the redistricting that that Trump was pushing and rejected it by fairly substantial margin.
Ivan: I saw over here that the vote was 19 to 31 to defeat it.
Ivan: So it wasn't even like it's not like it was close to passing.
Ivan: It was quite a wide margin.
Ivan: And so I did see that Trump was using his usual charm to try to get the people
Ivan: in Indiana to vote for him.
Ivan: I pulled this up on one that says President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders.
Ivan: If the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state.
Ivan: Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close.
Ivan: Major projects will stop. There are stakes and every no vote will be to blame.
Ivan: It sounds really democratic.
Sam: Is that not how things are supposed to work, Yvonne?
Ivan: I mean, I guess it depends where, I guess it's how things are supposed to work
Ivan: depends on where you're, where you've lived for all your life, I guess.
Sam: Well, I'm thinking Indiana for this. Yeah. Is it not how things are supposed to work in Indiana?
Ivan: It's not how things have worked in the past. This is kind of like the,
Ivan: this is kind of like the Trump's administration requirement that people provide
Ivan: with no details how this is supposed to happen.
Ivan: But five years of social media history when they are doing their electronic
Ivan: visa application, which is like something that is like for people that are that
Ivan: already, you know, they have like visa free access.
Ivan: You do this ESTA form, which is just electronic like thing that you submit to do that.
Ivan: And, you know, it says that you're supposed to do it with no explanation as to how.
Ivan: You know, right. How do you provide five? I don't. How do I provide five years? So what do I, I would.
Sam: You print it out, Yvonne.
Ivan: You print it out.
Sam: You take it with you to the airport.
Ivan: Yeah, you show up and I'm like, here you go. Okay, here is, you know,
Ivan: there's a crate, I guess, in cargo that has five years of my printed social media history.
Ivan: So go knock yourself out, start looking through it.
Ivan: Anyway, but yeah, I mean, this has been the threat that it really seems like
Ivan: from what I was reading that.
Ivan: Basically, the threats just pissed off people.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: This wasn't like any encouragement. It was just, you know, this is what you're
Ivan: threatening. You know, we need to, you know, do this.
Ivan: And I guess that it seemed that they were only going to be able to pick up.
Ivan: Did I understand that basically that they could have maybe picked up like one seat?
Sam: Two from Indiana. There are two Democratic seats in Indiana right now.
Sam: And our goal was to wipe them both out.
Ivan: Yeah. But I saw I was seeing that maybe they thought that even like with this,
Ivan: maybe they could get realistically in the end, like one.
Ivan: But but I'm just, you know.
Ivan: I do think that this is part of a little bit of Donald Trump is turning into
Ivan: a little bit of a lame duck.
Sam: Oh, a little bit. I think that's accelerating very quickly, you know,
Sam: because people are starting.
Sam: You know, the whole thing about Donald Trump capturing the Republican Party
Sam: was that everybody was afraid of him and afraid of his supporters.
Sam: Right. OK, but what's happening so far in this second term, I mean, a couple of things.
Sam: I mean, one, he's becoming increasingly unpopular, even among Republicans.
Sam: Now, to be clear, he's still got a lot of support among Republicans,
Sam: but it's less than it was by a decent amount.
Sam: And and two, he's showing himself more and more to be less effective.
Sam: And when people have gone against him, they haven't necessarily suffered the
Sam: same sort of negative consequences.
Sam: Now, you do have even like MTG is resigning Congress. She's not fighting there.
Sam: She's not trying to stay. so there
Sam: you could say there are still negative consequences but
Sam: his endorsement hasn't meant as much as it has
Sam: in the past he's endorsed people who have lost he has not endorsed people who
Sam: have gone on to win and it's just showing his weakening power and you expect
Sam: that as you approach the lame as you approach the second half of a presidential
Sam: of a second presidential term anyway but i think.
Sam: There is more and more of the Republican Party who's starting to actively think
Sam: about, well, what's next after him and are starting to position themselves for that.
Sam: And so, yeah, 100 percent lame lame duckness is increasing as time goes on.
Sam: And it doesn't help that like half the time these days he's looking confused
Sam: and like he doesn't know where he is and he's falling asleep in cabinet meetings
Sam: and all this kind of crap.
Ivan: He went on this like to do this speech somewhere that apparently like it was
Ivan: in a tiny place that not a lot of people actually showed up to do something on affordability.
Ivan: And then they decided, oh, we're going to bring a working person to show over
Ivan: here how this whole affordability thing is a hoax.
Ivan: And the person that they brought up on stage basically just ripped them to,
Ivan: I mean, it was, they, they basically came up and just said, I just get a paycheck
Ivan: and I, all my money goes out to pay bills and I can't afford anything.
Ivan: So it looked very well planned.
Ivan: Indeed, what the hell they did like this week was just, you know,
Ivan: ridiculous, you know, this entire thing, you know, and but but the fact nobody showed up.
Ivan: This was just I this is the the contrast versus how it used to be whenever Trump
Ivan: went somewhere or whatever and how this thing just,
Ivan: you know, he went off the rails as usual, but that's not unexpected. I mean, whatever.
Ivan: He was just talking like meandering and whatever, whatnot. That is a big deal.
Ivan: But the fact that very little, very few people showed up and,
Ivan: and, and look, in a demonstration of how, uh, the, he is a lame duck and he
Ivan: is struggling with support and aligning people.
Ivan: Well, what happened here in this, in the city of Miami? So let me start first
Ivan: by explaining what the hell the city of Miami is.
Sam: Which is not Miami-Dade County. Because we had yet more elections.
Sam: We had yet more, like we had elections a few weeks ago. We got even more now.
Ivan: In Florida, there were like three state Senate, you know, state legislature
Ivan: seats that, by the way, they all swung heavily Democratic.
Ivan: Right. I mean, by my substantial margins.
Ivan: Like, I mean, they, you know, Florida last election cycle, all the places that
Ivan: I knew that were heavily blue, they really, really, really had been a lot redder
Ivan: than they ever had been, ever. Okay.
Ivan: But that apparently has self-corrected quite quickly with everything that's
Ivan: been going on, especially because they talk about affordability and whatever,
Ivan: and it's a blue state problem.
Ivan: Look, Florida is the epicenter of shitty affordability. OK, all right.
Ivan: I mean, this is this is ground zero to this right now, especially because there's
Ivan: never any Medicaid expansion. This is the reason why I was talking earlier about
Ivan: the guy I talked about and health insurance and how nobody can afford fucking
Ivan: health insurance in this state, okay?
Ivan: If you're earning 60-some-odd thousand dollars a year,
Ivan: Which, by the way, is not enough to live in this state. Basically,
Ivan: when median rents are $2,000 a month, all of a sudden, we have the worst housing
Ivan: affordability right now in the nation, in this state.
Ivan: This is just the reality.
Ivan: One of the things that happened also is with the city of Miami.
Ivan: And look, the city of Miami, which is not Miami-Dade County.
Ivan: Miami-Dade County is 3 million people, has a lot of cities. City of Miami Beach is a separate city.
Ivan: City of Miami Lakes or City of Doral, where Doral has his fucking golf course.
Ivan: City of Miami itself is the downtown Miami area. It includes a little Havana and whatever.
Ivan: It's got about 600,000 people, OK, out of three million plus.
Ivan: That is the entire Miami-Dade County. And by the way, the reason they changed
Ivan: the name from Dade County to Miami-Dade County is people didn't know where the
Ivan: fuck is Dade County for a while.
Ivan: So many years ago, they changed it to Miami-Dade County. So you knew what the hell it was. OK.
Ivan: Right. City of Miami had not elected a Democrat to the mayor.
Ivan: 30 years, Sam. 30 fucking years, okay?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And they elected a Democrat, and it was by an overwhelming margin that they
Ivan: elected a Democrat, okay?
Ivan: Not just that, the one thing that happened with this last cycle,
Ivan: there was a series of Cuban Republican family dynasties that were in government
Ivan: both at the county level and at the city of Miami level.
Ivan: There are the Carollos, OK, number one.
Ivan: OK, these guys are awful people. OK, Joe Carollo is mayor of Miami.
Ivan: He was in the he was the city council in Miami. He had been in power there for 30 years.
Ivan: This is a guy that that, you know, did so much corruption and never.
Ivan: I mean, he had been tried in federal court.
Ivan: He lost the case, a civil suit that a bard had against a ball and chain for
Ivan: abusing city resources. to basically try to shut down a business that annoyed
Ivan: him personally. That's it.
Ivan: There's nothing else. He lost a lawsuit. They were foreclosing on his house.
Ivan: They were trying to take everything. He figured out some fucking way.
Ivan: I think Trump also and their DOJ helped and him not being able to have taken all his stuff away.
Ivan: But he had been, you know, he had, you know, this guy wound up being back in
Ivan: government every time. It's like you could never get rid of him, okay?
Ivan: And so they set a new term limit thing so the thing that the Corollos would
Ivan: do oh I'm not running I'm going to put my brother,
Ivan: They would keep flipping back and forth, okay? His brother or him.
Ivan: Well, guess what? They all lost.
Ivan: Term limits got put in. His brother lost. He lost.
Ivan: The Suarez's, there was this guy who kept appearing with Trump recently.
Ivan: He was the mayor of the city of Miami who was a crypto bro, okay?
Ivan: All right? He was the son of the old fucking mayor, okay?
Ivan: And if you go with Francis Suarez, this guy, look, you looked at him as the
Ivan: prototypical slick-haired crypto bro that you see these days.
Ivan: That guy, the Suarez's, also, they got booted out.
Ivan: They lost their power as well. There's another one I'm forgetting,
Ivan: like right now, that also, but the thing is that they also put,
Ivan: finally, in the city of Miami, for the first time, okay, real term limits.
Ivan: Lifetime term limits. Not that you can't, you know, forget about this thing
Ivan: because the way we do is, oh, two terms or whatever.
Ivan: Now it's like, yeah, because then, oh, well, I skipped one term because I put
Ivan: my brother and then I can come back, right? No, that's it.
Ivan: Done. No more fucking term limits. OK. All right. They're done.
Ivan: They're over. Finally, for fucking once. OK.
Sam: The opposite. Not no more term limits. We have real term limits.
Ivan: I mean, no. Yeah. I mean, yeah, the opposite. Yeah. No more.
Ivan: Yeah, exactly. No more. No more lifetime terms for these people. They're done. OK.
Ivan: They finally were able to pass the term limits in a real way that their lifetime
Ivan: term limits that you can't find some loophole or to get get get a turn around.
Ivan: You know, there was this family, the Escalonas, for example.
Ivan: Okay. Well, actually, the Escalonas got a broke Corolla streak.
Ivan: The Corolla family had a 16-year streak occupying the District 3 seat in the city council.
Ivan: 16 years. Okay.
Ivan: That they were there. And this guy's also mayor and whatever.
Ivan: Mayor Francis Suarez, who was the guy that I told you, the crypto bro,
Ivan: he came in sixth where he was running. Okay. Okay.
Ivan: And so under Regalados, Regalado was also a guy that was a mayor of Miami and
Ivan: his brother was also running for something and he lost the special election as well.
Ivan: So these were like families that had, you know, the Regalados,
Ivan: the Suarez's, the Corollos.
Ivan: They, man, you know, they had power in Miami that had transcended decades and decades.
Ivan: And these guys were all Cuban. They were Republicans. OK, that's the main thing.
Ivan: And all of them, finally, all gone in one fell swoop, completely. So...
Ivan: For that to happen, when you got rid of those three dynasties in Miami,
Ivan: and how the margin for the Democratic— Man, this has been like razor-thin margins
Ivan: there, you know, all this time.
Ivan: The margin was so overwhelming for the Democrat that— I think you're getting—I
Ivan: think that the people in Miami, with everything that's happened,
Ivan: especially with— Listen, especially with the affordability crisis, okay?
Ivan: All right. Because the city of Miami is in Miami-Dade County is the place of the state.
Ivan: The affordability is just just gone like off the deep end because you had so
Ivan: many of these people from Wall Street and other places that came in and,
Ivan: you know, and started bidding everything up.
Ivan: OK, and all these people that were following Trump's coattails because he's down here in Doral.
Ivan: He keeps spending all this time down here, whatever. where all these people
Ivan: fall in his coattails. I mean, there were tens of, they came in with a lot of money.
Ivan: And a lot of them were selling from higher property states that come down here.
Ivan: They bid up everything. They've made everything unaffordable.
Ivan: Salaries don't go up because this state doesn't believe in like raising people's salaries.
Ivan: Fuck the healthcare or whatever. So they can't afford to live.
Ivan: They don't have enough wages or whatever. Man, they all got fed up.
Ivan: And they just voted all these people out.
Ivan: So I didn't see what happened in other states, but I was paying close attention
Ivan: to what happened down here.
Ivan: It was just quite surprising given the swing that happened from just a year ago.
Ivan: It was, it was, it was a swings over 10 plus points in a lot of places. And, um, right.
Sam: So I, I, I had given a summary from, from Tanneel, who is at,
Sam: I have mentioned him before, it is a publication called bolts does a lot of
Sam: local coverage of local politics all across the country.
Sam: Anyway, the summary of his huge nights, huge night for Democrats,
Sam: starting with what you mentioned. They flipped Miami's mayorship.
Sam: They flipped a state house district in Georgia that had voted for Trump by 13%.
Ivan: Jesus.
Sam: And this was posted right after Tuesday. I haven't looked at the follow-up.
Sam: They were on track to keep the Albuquerque mayorship while a liberal faction
Sam: flips the city council there.
Sam: And big overperformance in the two Florida specials you mentioned,
Sam: plus 17 and plus 22 in the two.
Sam: And this is one of the themes as we go through these specials is even if the
Sam: Democrats don't win, they're doing huge amounts better than the Democrat is
Sam: quote unquote expected to do in regions all across the country.
Sam: And it's one where if you translate that same amount of movement into all of
Sam: the races that are supposed to be in 2026,
Sam: you're talking a big blue wave if this continues.
Sam: Now, we're 11 months out yet from that election. Lots of stuff can happen in 11 months.
Ivan: Here's the one thing. But the stuff that's happening as we're recording,
Ivan: the fucking Senate basically told everybody, fuck you, it told everybody,
Ivan: oh, your health premiums, fuck you, they're going up and we don't care.
Sam: So why don't you start talking about that? What's...
Ivan: Well, in the Senate...
Sam: I will start. I will start. Remember the Democrats' deal to end the government
Sam: shutdown was that they would get a vote on these health care premium things.
Sam: Well, the vote happened today. And as expected, nothing passed. nothing.
Ivan: It was, it was a 50, you know, 54, they got 54 votes if I remember correctly, 53 or 52 votes. Okay.
Sam: This is why when you make a deal, you don't,
Sam: The cost of the deal shouldn't be you get a vote on something that you don't
Sam: think you're going to win.
Sam: If you actually want that thing, you have to make that part of the deal in the
Sam: first place, not, oh, we'll have a vote a few months from now. Yeah. Come on.
Ivan: And so, yeah, this was not good. But, I mean, politically, who's getting killed are the Republicans.
Ivan: Are the Republicans regardless. And this is honestly.
Sam: Honestly, that was part of the justification for the deal was like,
Sam: look, this is just going to be bad for the Republicans anyway.
Ivan: So but I didn't want people to get killed without their health insurance premiums.
Ivan: You see, my thing is, and I get it, that politically, strategically,
Ivan: yes, this was better. But the reality is I'm not into this.
Ivan: I'm not into a lot of this shit for the just for the politics,
Ivan: just for that. I mean, I, you know, I really wanted people not to have their
Ivan: insurance premiums soaring.
Sam: The calculation was the Republicans were never actually going to cave on that.
Sam: And so the question was just how long the government stays closed.
Sam: Now, having said that.
Ivan: The final vote was 51 to 48. So they presented both the Democrats,
Ivan: which is extend the health care subsidies for three years. and the idiotic fucking
Ivan: like Republican proposal, which basically did nothing.
Ivan: It gave you like, oh, here, I'll give you $2,000 now so you can try to afford
Ivan: your $3,000 a month premiums.
Ivan: Not really exactly that helpful.
Sam: Yeah, no, I was just going to say, back to the government shutdown ending,
Sam: the thing that got me about it is the timing because at the moment they capitulated,
Sam: it looked like the Republicans actually were on the ropes and were starting to crack.
Sam: And that was the moment they decided to like.
Ivan: But but OK, but but here is the thing. If if what we're talking about is a one year cost.
Ivan: Because we think we could turn this back later, but I don't know.
Ivan: The Senate really map isn't changing that much. You know, is the problem.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, well, the the best case scenario.
Sam: Well, I'd say at this point with the numbers we're seeing, rather than the Senate
Sam: being a lost cause for the Democrats, is at least a chance. but they're certainly
Sam: not favored in the Senate.
Sam: I think the, and we'll have our prediction show coming up very soon.
Sam: And I'm sure one of the predictions is what's going to happen to now in the
Sam: Senate, but it's looking like the Democrats have a very, very good chance of flipping the House.
Sam: The Senate is still a long shot, but they've got a better chance now than it
Sam: seemed like they would have a few months ago.
Sam: So, and of course, even if they flip both the House and the Senate,
Sam: it, you know, Donald Trump's going to veto anything they want to do anyway.
Sam: So it's not like they'll be able to legislate and get things done necessarily.
Ivan: Well, exactly. It's not like they're going to get 60 votes in the Senate is my point.
Sam: And they probably won't have enough. Even if they get a majority,
Sam: they're probably not going to have enough to kill the filibuster either.
Sam: So because, you know, lots of Democrats don't want that anyway.
Ivan: I mean, it's just there are so few here that is even possible.
Ivan: It's just, yeah, I mean, all you've got is a little bit where you can get,
Ivan: just get a little bit over 50, but that's it.
Ivan: I mean, it's not like, I mean, they're not going to get, well,
Ivan: but no, it's just not, they're not enough seats to, you know,
Ivan: there's just, you know, you're not going to get, well, I mean, we did get Alabama once.
Sam: Once.
Ivan: I say that.
Sam: There were special circumstances.
Ivan: There's one Kentucky Open. There's an Alabama Open one.
Sam: It looks like the Democrats have the best shot at Maine that they've had in a long time. Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, it's one of those things where I guess it's possible,
Ivan: but it's highly, highly, highly, highly, highly, highly unlikely.
Ivan: Unless, you know, it's just, I mean, I don't know. But it's just,
Ivan: basically, I'm not putting money on it that we could get to,
Ivan: we could turn the clock back to 2008.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: But the way, you do realize the way that, you know, of course,
Ivan: which, again, because I don't like people getting hurt, I'm not advocating for this.
Ivan: The way that we got to 60 votes in 2008 was because basically the Republicans
Ivan: finished destroying the academy.
Sam: Mm-hmm. And they nominated a few real clunkers for their Senate races as well.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: I mean, you mentioned Alabama. They nominated somebody who then,
Sam: who was revealed, was like molesting children or something.
Sam: And so you never know.
Ivan: Let's face it. I mean, I don't know. We've got a child molesting president right
Ivan: now anyway, as far as we was, you know, it's pretty clear.
Ivan: So not like that's been a showstopper.
Sam: Ah, yes.
Ivan: So anyway, anything else that we got in politics like right now,
Ivan: I don't know. Anything else that happened, let me see.
Ivan: I mean, Venezuela is not. I mean, I don't know what the fuck. Are we going to war, Sam?
Sam: Are we talking Venezuela? If
Sam: we're going to talk Venezuela, let's take a break and then do that. Okay.
Ivan: All right. Let's take a break. Let's talk about whatever the fuck else is on
Ivan: here. Okay. All right. Okay.
Sam: Ah, here we go.
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Sam: Okay, we are back. So, you know, there were a couple things I was trying to
Sam: decide between for a topic for the last segment. But since we brought it up,
Sam: let's talk about Venezuela.
Sam: you know we've had first of all we've had my question is simple.
Ivan: Are we going to war.
Sam: I, you know, I am torn at this point between.
Ivan: I'm not saying if you like the war. I ain't going to war.
Sam: I'm not answering what, you know, do I want to go to war?
Sam: I'm not answering like, you know, if I was president, would I go to war?
Sam: I'm your question is, will we? And I'm still torn about that because on the
Sam: one hand, you have Donald Trump.
Sam: You know, as we mentioned, there are all kinds of reasons where it's seeming
Sam: like he's more and more ineffective.
Sam: Well, the one place where he can sort of just do stuff and,
Sam: well, it's not the only place, but like he could decide to do this as a way
Sam: to show his manliness and to show he's in charge and to, you know, make them stop me.
Sam: I mean, we've got that little controversy over that double tap.
Ivan: I gotta be honest, I'd rather have him like pull out his pee-pee in public in
Ivan: order if he wants to do that instead of going to war.
Sam: But on the other hand, we've got taco from Always Chickens Out. That's true.
Sam: And so, you know, we apparently, like, what was the most recent thing?
Sam: We boarded a tanker and took over a tanker that we said was sending oil to Iran or whatever.
Sam: We've got these continued attacks on boats.
Ivan: Is that something about, it was a sanctioned... Sanctioned, it had sanctioned oil, they said.
Sam: Yes. Well, the story is that it was intended to deliver oil to Iran,
Sam: which is not allowed under the Iranian sanctions, and that's why they boarded it.
Sam: I don't know what proof they do or do not have on that.
Sam: Who knows? It might be. They might be telling the truth. I don't know.
Sam: But, and then they keep attacking these boats that they say are drug boats,
Sam: and we've got The whole thing about
Sam: the killing of the two survivors that Hegseth ordered, that has been,
Sam: you know, I think that had already happened by the time we talked last week, I forget.
Sam: But, like, it has not gone away in the intervening time.
Sam: People are still talking about it and the circumstances and will they release
Sam: the video. At one point, Donald Trump said they would, and then they sort of
Sam: seemed to back down from that. And you've got Republicans saying that,
Sam: oh, it was completely justified anyway.
Sam: They were still a threat. And then the Democrats saying that when they watched
Sam: the video, it certainly didn't look like that to them.
Sam: You know, they were two barely alive survivors hanging on to the wreckage and
Sam: trying not to drown and then went back for a second attack and killed them.
Sam: It's a mess. And if there is a Trump always chickening out moment, I don't think it's yet.
Sam: I think we escalate further before we back down.
Sam: And Donald Trump has been saying he's like all four going in,
Sam: not just boats, but attacking on land, using the Air Force, going after the regime.
Ivan: Well, apparently one thing is that with U.S.
Ivan: help, it has been claimed, the lady that was a presidential candidate that actually
Ivan: got the Nobel Peace Prize, they helped her escape to, I guess she was in Oslo.
Ivan: Is this what they were showing her like today? So, yeah, they helped her escape
Ivan: from Venezuela. And she said that it was like the U.S. helped her escape.
Sam: Right. Yes, I had heard that.
Ivan: So, I mean, so that was a, but obviously that's another action that seems to
Ivan: insinuate that we have infiltrated the country. That's what I'm saying.
Ivan: Physically with like people somehow.
Ivan: Not sure what kind of.
Sam: I'm sure. Donald Trump publicly signed an authorization for CIA covert action
Sam: within Venezuela like almost two months ago.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah.
Sam: And normally, you sign an authorization for covert action. It's supposed to
Sam: be covert, and you don't announce that you've done so.
Ivan: Oh, so that's the way that works. You don't go and say, hey,
Ivan: people, I'm doing covert actions over here.
Sam: Yes. Now, I suppose the individual actions are still, they're trying to do it
Sam: undercover and stealth and all that kind of stuff.
Ivan: Still.
Sam: But it's been acknowledged that we are doing that. So, yes, I'm absolutely sure
Sam: there are covert CIA agents and quite possibly covert military of various sorts
Sam: operating within Venezuelan borders.
Sam: The question is, what exactly do they do?
Sam: And do we escalate to overt?
Sam: Do we have the Air Force explicitly bombing targets?
Sam: Do we have ground troops going in specifically to try to take over pieces of territory?
Sam: Do we do that kind of escalation or no? Yeah.
Sam: And like I said, I feel like this is one of those cases where Donald Trump can
Sam: still make that call in the end,
Sam: but Donald Trump is unstable. And what he does.
Ivan: Wait, Donald Trump is unstable? So wait, they're going to hold a 25th Amendment?
Sam: No, of course not. But they will. Well, yeah.
Sam: And a lot of stuff is going to happen because like, you know,
Sam: we all know, we've talked about for years how like it's the last person who whispers in his ear.
Sam: So they're going to try to control very carefully who's the last person who
Sam: whispers in his ear and have it be the one who does the things that whoever,
Sam: you know, whether it's Miller or who, whoever, like there are people.
Sam: Well, it seems fairly obvious at this point that the folks in the Trump administration,
Sam: in the various zones of the administration, are basically running their own
Sam: areas because they can whisper in Trump's ear,
Sam: say what they want to say, and he'll just say, yeah, go ahead.
Ivan: Well, but I'm sure that everything will be solved by the switch in fonts at the State Department.
Sam: You know, I figured you would save that for the what's something we talked about
Sam: on the Slack that we haven't talked about on the show.
Ivan: I thought that was a critical thing for a nation's security.
Sam: This is how Rubio is making his big mark on the State Department.
Sam: Because we have to go back to using Times New Roman instead of the sissy font
Sam: they decided to use instead. Like, you know.
Ivan: I'm sure they said it was woke and gay. they did say it was woke oh they said
Ivan: it was woke oh shit okay I was only half right well.
Sam: The whole yeah,
Sam: On the one hand, who gives a shit about the stupid font?
Sam: On the other, it actually was changed for a specific reason,
Sam: which is that it's easier to read.
Ivan: Yes!
Sam: Which, by the way, it's easier to read for everyone, but it specifically makes
Sam: a difference for people who have trouble with things like dyslexia.
Sam: But it's easier for everyone, including the dyslexics. But it was done to make
Sam: it easier for people to read who had, like, reading impairments of various sorts
Sam: and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: And so, of course, we need to undo that.
Ivan: Of course.
Sam: To bring back Times New Roman.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Because Times New Roman, it's the Romans.
Ivan: It's a real manly font.
Sam: It's manly. It's the Romans. It's got those twiddly little serifs.
Ivan: Yes. Yes. Yes, of course.
Sam: And that's, of course, very manly when you have the little twiddly font.
Ivan: I mean, you want a real manly font. You don't want like the sissy, you know, woke...
Ivan: Font at the State Department. Yeah, when you're getting a letter from the State
Ivan: Department, it needs to not be woke.
Ivan: It needs to be, you know, it needs to have Department of War vibes,
Ivan: not Department of Defense.
Ivan: It needs to be war, Sam. You understand?
Sam: You know, given that, you know.
Ivan: You're in the fucking dumbest timeline, Sam.
Sam: Yeah, it should it should be like one of those fonts that looks like the old military stencils.
Ivan: I mean, if they wanted that, they should have gone to Courier.
Ivan: Honestly, fuck this shit.
Sam: No, I'm thinking more like, you know, the logo for the A-team.
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That, you know, damn it. That would have been.
Ivan: Let's not say this too loud because all of a sudden.
Sam: For everything, not just the titles and stuff.
Ivan: Right. Why are we giving ideas? because this is like, you know,
Ivan: they'll hear this. They're like, oh, yes.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Anyway, this is the dumbest fuck.
Ivan: I mean, every fucking day, these assholes take their time to attend to the dumbest,
Ivan: most useless shit just to make some kind of score, some kind of points with,
Ivan: you know, I don't know. incels.
Sam: I don't know.
Sam: It's all, you're right. It's all dumb. It's all performative. Well, not all.
Sam: Look, the problem is the performative dumbness is done in a way that actively hurts people.
Ivan: It's made to hurt people. Yes. It's made absolutely, absolutely.
Sam: It's not just, like, if they were just changing the font and that was all the
Sam: stuff they were doing, then, okay, whatever.
Sam: Change the damn font. but it's everything. And it's like, even the font change
Sam: is specifically like, Oh, people who have trouble reading, fuck them.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, but everything else. Oh, let's, let's attract, attack random boats near Venezuela.
Sam: You know, let's, let's do,
Sam: The most.
Ivan: But Sam.
Sam: Let's do deportations in the most harmful way we possibly could.
Ivan: Trump said that they're full of drugs. Oh, yes. Coming to the U.S.
Ivan: You know, with all these terrorists.
Sam: I mean, you know.
Ivan: They check they check the boats, you know.
Sam: Well, and I was talking to you. I was mentioning harmful things that I keep
Sam: thinking in between shows like the we've talked about the the harmful way.
Sam: they're doing deportations and stuff.
Sam: But I think it does not get enough attention that we've got tens of thousands,
Sam: getting close to hundreds of thousands, of people under detention because they
Sam: can't deport them immediately.
Sam: We're just pulling people off the street who don't have their papers 100% in
Sam: order and putting them into really...
Ivan: And people who... Wait, wait, wait. We're pulling people who have their papers
Ivan: in order, but they decided that they don't want them on the street anymore.
Sam: That's true. And even occasionally rounding up American citizens in the process.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: But from all reports, these detention centers are absolutely horrid in terms of the conditions.
Ivan: Oh, so they're not the Ritz-Carlton, Sam, is what you're saying.
Sam: They're not the Ritz-Carlton. They're not even close. They're worse than most
Sam: prisons. And prisons are bad.
Ivan: And prisons are bad.
Sam: You know, and— I mean.
Ivan: Actually, you know what? It would be a favor to send him to a regular federal prison.
Sam: In many cases, yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And we, because...
Sam: Because we can't keep up with everything and we can't maintain a continuous
Sam: level of outrage over everything all the time, I feel like some of these atrocities
Sam: that are happening on a regular,
Sam: everyday basis sort of fade into the background.
Sam: And I don't know the right way to combat that, but I feel like some of these
Sam: things aren't getting enough attention because the new shiny thing gets attention
Sam: instead. But, like, I mean, we've got fucking concentration camps, essentially.
Ivan: Yep.
Sam: You know, and, you know, I've heard some stuff recently.
Sam: You know, I guess I have not listened to it, but Rachel Maddow put out a new
Sam: podcast in the last couple weeks about the history of the Japanese internment
Sam: camps during World War II and some of the debate and back and forth that went on with that.
Sam: And I'm actually listening to an audio book right now that covered some of the
Sam: same ground in some of the chapters I was listening to recently in terms of
Sam: the debates that happened over that and how basically the folks that were against
Sam: it just lost out completely.
Sam: And we're 100% there again right now. You know, it's atrocious.
Sam: And the problem is there's so many things that are atrocious. What do you do?
Ivan: Uh but i i mean it
Ivan: it look it it's it's hard other than
Ivan: what we do and talk about you know i i think
Ivan: that we're we're trying to keep the visibility of this every week where we talk
Ivan: about it in our tiny little podcast and but but also it's difficult to have
Ivan: people look it's it's what happens to everybody in general when look if you're
Ivan: being subjected to to miserable conditions every day.
Ivan: Eventually, at some point, you start actually getting used to the miserable
Ivan: conditions. Okay? All right?
Ivan: It's just, you turn numb to it, to a certain extent.
Sam: I mean, this is what people were talking about eight years ago with, like, normalization.
Ivan: Right. You know? And, you know, we spend time here,
Ivan: every week and we keep pounding
Ivan: the pavement on it because i don't want people to feel that this is normal people
Ivan: shouldn't feel that this is normal and i see you know like i said today look
Ivan: i had my time that i spent today talking to people that for real are getting really hurt by this shit,
Ivan: Yeah, and I do spend my time talking to people that are getting hurt by this
Ivan: regularly, unfortunately.
Ivan: You know, people that are scared to drive around. They're just scared to drive
Ivan: around. They don't want to go to events. They don't want to do anything.
Ivan: Even though, again, in many cases here, these people are here legally.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: But they don't have a green card. They don't have citizenship.
Ivan: And they are scared to go and live their normal lives.
Sam: Which, by the way, seems to be a significant part of the goal.
Sam: That's exactly what they want.
Sam: They want folks to become less visible.
Ivan: I know. And it's horrible.
Sam: This applies to immigration. This also applies to the trans issue.
Sam: They just want these people to go back into hiding.
Sam: They don't want this to be visible as something you see.
Sam: they you know whether whether it's gay
Sam: and trans people or whether especially trans
Sam: they've sort of seems like the republicans are almost used to gay folks at this
Sam: point but you know they feel like they can still win on trans they they don't
Sam: want that to be a visible part of what they see when they go outside and they
Sam: don't want to see not people who aren't white either you know yeah They.
Ivan: Definitely don't want people that are not white or to speak another language, for that matter.
Sam: Oh, yeah. That's not acceptable. You've got to speak American around here.
Ivan: Yeah, you've got to speak American, yes. Very American.
Sam: Okay, so let's see. What else do we have on the list here? I think we've—oh,
Sam: well, what do you think is going to happen in Venezuela?
Sam: You asked me, but you didn't. What's your own thought?
Ivan: I keep thinking that Trump is going to get tempted into bumping off Maduro.
Ivan: And by the way, here is one thing. In terms of, I would like to see Maduro gone. Okay?
Sam: Because you don't like him either.
Ivan: It's not just that I don't like him either. He's made millions of Venezuelans suffer.
Ivan: I mean, the massive exodus of Venezuelans to places around the world because
Ivan: of how his regime has made conditions in Venezuela untenable.
Ivan: Forget about even if you're aligned with him politically.
Ivan: Venezuela, violence that went through the roof.
Ivan: Venezuela has had shortages of everything possible. The economy has imploded.
Ivan: Safety is not there. you know,
Ivan: they went through this process of destroying all the institutions and Maduro
Ivan: violently attacks anybody who expresses dissent as well.
Ivan: So it's not like Maduro is some kind of benevolent dictator.
Ivan: Look, Maduro has been holding on to power illegally for a long time.
Ivan: and so if you ask me in an abstract what do i want maduro gone yes i want maduro gone,
Ivan: i would like it to see if it could be done through diplomatic channels there
Ivan: had been some indications that he had been willing to leave given the pressure
Ivan: that had been put on but my concern is that,
Ivan: What Trump is doing isn't in
Ivan: any way really inclined to do something good because he never does that.
Sam: I'll just say you're absolutely right about Donald Trump. But even more generally, the U.S.
Sam: has such an amazing record over the last, you know, 50, 60 years.
Sam: Listen, the last time that we do interventions for regime change,
Sam: whether it's in Latin America or the Middle East or anywhere else.
Ivan: Here's the thing.
Sam: We don't have a good record.
Ivan: No, we don't, which is a problem. But the last time that we did one in Latin
Ivan: America, it actually turned out positive, okay, which was in Panama when we arrested Noriega.
Ivan: If you ask the Panamanian people, are they better off without Noriega,
Ivan: their resounding answer is a yes, okay?
Ivan: They thank God that the U.S. got rid of Noriega, okay? Okay.
Ivan: So, so, so do you have that, but at the same time, a couple of times we tried
Ivan: to do an intervention in Haiti, it never really, never really worked.
Ivan: Nothing really positive came up, came of that.
Ivan: Haiti is still in crisis. Actually, the crisis has gotten worse.
Ivan: I don't think it really had to do with any intervention. So it would have been
Ivan: just as bad if we had intervened, Whatever.
Ivan: I think that that one, whatever we did had no effect.
Ivan: But then you think about what's happened in Iraq, for example,
Ivan: and, you know, all we did was chaos.
Ivan: But the reality is that there has been no country.
Sam: I'm just going to give you one quick comparison in terms of if you want somebody
Sam: to have a chance of not completely screwing up a foreign engagement.
Sam: Who would you prefer, Donald Trump or George H.W. Bush?
Ivan: Fuck, I'm voting with Bush. H.W. or W?
Sam: H.W. We were talking Panama. That was H.W..
Ivan: Right? Exactly. Well, yes, H.W. did that. Exactly right.
Sam: And look, I'm not saying that I approve of everything George H.W. Bush did.
Sam: However, like, put on a comparison.
Ivan: There's no comparison. I mean, there's no fucking comparison.
Sam: I mean, frankly, with his son, either. I mean, George H.W.
Ivan: Fuck, I'd say W. probably still over Trump doing this.
Ivan: Because even W. in his misguided idiocy.
Ivan: Wait, wait, wait. But here, W. in his misguided idiocy actually wanted something positive.
Ivan: It was just misguided and stupid and naive as all hell.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, look, we've said before. I mean, pick any random person off the street.
Sam: You've got a 95% chance they'll do better than Donald Trump.
Ivan: Donald Trump, yes.
Sam: You know, could you find worse? Yes, but you'd have to work at it.
Ivan: You'd have to work at it, yes. You'd be hard-pressed. Yeah, so that's my problem.
Ivan: The problem is it's so much to go.
Sam: You've been going around in circles. What do you think is going to happen in Venezuela?
Ivan: I think he's going to do it. i think the bastard's gonna do it you know i think
Ivan: the bastard's gonna do it because this is trump 2.0 unchained unchained right
Ivan: so right now his popularity is in the shit what what but what do you think though.
Sam: Are you predicting sort of targeted assassination or are you talking like full.
Ivan: Out right no i think he's gonna do the decapitation thing okay just knock you
Ivan: know just just fucking like,
Ivan: You know, take out Maduro.
Sam: Maybe he learns from his mentor and he falls out a window.
Ivan: Maybe. There you go. That could be. Yes.
Ivan: Because that always keeps happening. Trump signs executive order for single
Ivan: national AI regulation framework.
Ivan: What the fuck? Does he even know what he's talking about?
Sam: I saw something about that happening like a day or two ago. Did he actually sign it just now?
Ivan: Apparently, he just signed it just now.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Does he even know what he's signing?
Sam: I'm sure he doesn't.
Ivan: Yeah, I'm sure he doesn't either.
Sam: You remember that, what country was it the former president of that he just
Sam: pardoned for drug charges?
Ivan: Oh, my God. The Honduran guy.
Sam: Jesus Christ. Now, when asked about the specifics of that scenario,
Sam: Donald Trump very, no qualms whatsoever.
Sam: He said, like, oh, I don't know about the details of the case,
Sam: but people I trust told me he was railroaded just like I was railroaded.
Sam: And it was weaponization of politics and the people who, you know,
Sam: his opponents didn't like him. And that's what this was.
Sam: And that's why I pardoned him. but it didn't even pretend to know any details
Sam: whatsoever about the situation or even who the guy was.
Sam: Same thing. He pardoned some crypto guy, uh, like last month or whatever.
Ivan: Just criming. Like, you know, well, actually no, the one that last month, right.
Ivan: But, but there's a guy that he pardoned like about, you know,
Ivan: I can't remember when it was like recently that you just went back to fraud, like right away. Yeah.
Sam: Is there another reason you'd pardon them? You want them to do that,
Sam: right? I don't know. Like.
Ivan: Well, by the way, here's one thing. Honduras itself has issued an arrest warrant
Ivan: to go and throw this guy in jail.
Sam: You know what would be really amusing? The guy apparently, the Honduran president
Sam: who was released, was released for a prison in Kentucky or whatever.
Sam: So I guess he's just wandering around in Kentucky right now or something like
Sam: that. But it would be really hilarious if ICE picks him up now.
Ivan: That would be great. That would be hilarious.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: And they deport him to Honduras.
Sam: What is exactly his visa situation at the moment?
Ivan: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Sam: Does he have a work permit?
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no. You know what he's going to do? He's going to,
Ivan: you know, they opened that Trump gold card thing this week.
Sam: Oh, yes, yes.
Ivan: So he's just going to buy a Trump gold card and that's it. Problem solved.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: There you go. Listen, here's the amazing thing. Right now, we won't give asylum,
Ivan: we won't do anything, whatever, but, but, but, if you buy a Trump gold card
Ivan: and you go to Mar-a-Lago and buy a membership,
Ivan: damn it, we're going to give you citizenship, Sam.
Ivan: Right away.
Sam: Of course. Yes. Of course, one of the things that there were new stats and polls
Sam: on this recently, but it's been building for a long time.
Sam: The number of people who actually want to come is, of course,
Sam: plummeting, which is, of course, what these guys want.
Sam: Right. They don't want people to want to come. They want them to stay away.
Sam: But it's working like tourism is down dramatically.
Ivan: Oh, my God. Tourism. We have lost so much money. We've lost about $30 billion.
Sam: People don't want to go to university. People don't want to go to university here anymore.
Sam: People don't want to visit here for tourism. People aren't wanting to come for
Sam: jobs, you know, because we're making it a hostile place.
Ivan: Well, look, there is a reduction in demand. It's not like nobody's coming. Okay.
Sam: Well, yes, there is a reduction. It's not going to zero. No.
Ivan: But there is definitely...
Ivan: I mean, we're driving people away. We're driving money away. Okay?
Ivan: We're driving students away. And it's just, my whole thing is that they're all
Ivan: framing this somehow as a positive to the economy.
Ivan: And it never has been.
Ivan: All the nations that we know around the world that have low immigration,
Ivan: their economies have been in the shit. Okay? Okay.
Ivan: Immigration, almost everything you see has been a net positive for the economy.
Ivan: And so, you know, when they try to, you know, now they're trying to blame immigration
Ivan: for all the problems when they, now that they deport all the people to make
Ivan: economy worse, what are they going to blame it on now? Well,
Ivan: they're going to blame Biden.
Ivan: Obviously, that's the first person they're going to blame. It's just going to
Ivan: blame Biden. But you still got to blame Biden.
Sam: No, you blame Biden, but then you start blaming the internal folks who don't
Sam: fit the mold that you want.
Sam: You're going to blame non-white people. You're going to blame the gays.
Sam: You're going to blame the trans.
Sam: You're going to blame non-Christians. You're going to blame,
Sam: you know, whatever. And of course, the liberals.
Sam: Anybody who's liberal, progressive, you're obviously a traitorous third column,
Sam: right? You know, and yeah.
Ivan: But my point is, yeah, yeah, but, but, but, okay.
Sam: This is how these kinds of regimes work, right? Like they, the,
Sam: the, the universe of who's the enemy grows.
Ivan: But I hate to break it to you, Sam, that doesn't make you a lot more popular.
Sam: No. Which is why it is often paired with increasingly brutal crackdowns as you
Sam: narrow that universe of who the good guys are.
Sam: And then one way or another, hopefully you snap out of it at some point.
Ivan: One of the things that I'm starting to see,
Ivan: like, it's just that for one of our advantages in these scenarios,
Ivan: because even as they spend all this money and whatever,
Ivan: because you've seen how they're struggling to hire competent people,
Ivan: like for this massive budgetary expansion for ICE and whatever.
Ivan: I mean, like right now, they're basically just hiring. I mean, they're hiring.
Ivan: They're down to hiring, like, you know, just totally unqualified people.
Ivan: They can't even do the job. No training whatsoever.
Sam: Yvonne, I am job hunting.
Ivan: Nice. Hey, they got $50,000. You know, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what.
Ivan: They got that $50,000 bonus. Okay. All right. Find out what you got to do to
Ivan: get the $50,000 bonus and then quit.
Sam: And then immediately quit.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: I do like this thought. Yeah.
Sam: I disrupt from within by like intentionally being incompetent and unable to
Sam: do the things they want you to do.
Ivan: You know, I think, you know, the problem is, Sam, that they're not struggling
Ivan: at fighting those people. Can I be honest?
Sam: They're already nicely incompetent. No, I don't think that that is something
Sam: I could consider. It's just like morally Republican.
Ivan: The thing is, what I'm saying is that because the United States doesn't really
Ivan: have like a lot of other countries—,
Ivan: Police, the largest law enforcement is a federal police, a national police. Okay. All right.
Ivan: Russia has a national police. Okay. This is not in control of like individual
Ivan: like states, governments, or whatever, whatnot.
Sam: By comparison, like the FBI is small.
Ivan: The FBI is tiny. Okay. The FBI is like, you know, I think total employees like
Ivan: 10,000, something like that.
Ivan: It's not a hell of a whole lot of people. Okay.
Ivan: FBI is a tiny organization, okay?
Ivan: So whereas, you know, you go to like, I'm going to look up like,
Ivan: say, Russian National Police.
Ivan: I mean, that's got to be larger than Army, you know, for example.
Ivan: And so the one positive thing that you have is that we don't have that structure, okay?
Ivan: They have 900,000 people in the Russian National Police, for example.
Ivan: 900,000, almost a million people.
Ivan: And national police forces are of that kind of a size, you know,
Ivan: a million people, 2 million, you know.
Ivan: And so he doesn't have that, okay, at his disposal.
Ivan: And so that's the benefit of, so it makes it more difficult.
Ivan: He is obviously trying to inflict pain from all the points that he can to make
Ivan: it miserable for people. But it's difficult in the U.S.
Ivan: as a president, as much as you want to try.
Ivan: And, you know, that's one thing that the Constitution didn't fuck up,
Ivan: to be honest, that it does make it difficult for a president to be as repressive
Ivan: as they are in other countries.
Ivan: They just don't have the scope of the control that's all the way down.
Ivan: Obviously, it's not like they haven't made it miserable so far. but I do think.
Ivan: These guys, they're trying all this shit. A lot of people are not happy with them.
Ivan: Even with all the threats that he did to Indiana, they went and they said,
Ivan: no, we're not doing this.
Ivan: And like we talked about, we talked about the lame duck thing.
Ivan: The lame duck thing has an effect. So, you know, he can go and like there's still.
Ivan: Listen, I'm not saying that he is not going to continue to inflict misery on us because he will.
Ivan: Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future. But it's just his,
Ivan: you know, he is not, thankfully, I think that his effectiveness at doing this
Ivan: is weakening to a certain extent.
Sam: Right. Okay. Anything else we want to cover here before we start wrapping things up?
Ivan: Let me see. Anything? Well, I'll mention one thing.
Ivan: They couldn't reindict Letitia James, huh? No matter how much they tried, huh?
Sam: Well, who knows? They may try again. So far, two grand juries have said that
Sam: they're not going to indict her.
Sam: They tried once, like, last week, and they just tried again today,
Sam: apparently, and the new grand jury backed up what the first one said and was
Sam: like, are you kidding me? No. So.
Ivan: That's pretty pathetic.
Sam: Just in general, the increase of, like, you know, the standard line that people
Sam: repeat over and over again is grand juries will indict a ham sandwich.
Sam: They're just a rubber stamp off whatever the prosecutors want.
Sam: And it's not really an effective step in the process because it's very close
Sam: to a rubber stamp. Over the last few months, this administration has been showing,
Sam: Well, the reason that's true is because, in general, prosecutors do their job
Sam: well and don't even take it to a grand jury unless they're fairly sure they've got a really good,
Sam: unless there's really a case.
Sam: Over and over and over again, over the last couple months, this administration
Sam: has been trying to indict people for one thing or another, and grand juries
Sam: have been saying, no, are you kidding me?
Sam: They wouldn't indict that sandwich-throwing guy.
Ivan: Nope.
Sam: They're not indicting James. And this was after, of course, the first indictment
Sam: where they did get an indictment over both James and Comey.
Ivan: And then those got dismissed.
Sam: Comey, was it?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Well, those were thrown out because the prosecutor was illegally appointed.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Because they didn't even follow the right procedures for that.
Sam: Although apparently I heard today earlier they have actually nominated her officially
Sam: to go through the Senate process.
Sam: So we'll see what happens there. And apparently they did it a while ago,
Sam: but they just didn't issue a press release on it.
Sam: Like normally, whenever the president nominates somebody for some position.
Ivan: They make a big deal out of it.
Sam: They make a press release. They introduce blah, blah, blah. Apparently, weeks ago,
Sam: they sent over this nomination to the Senate without mentioning it in any other
Sam: way other than transmitting the nomination to the Senate committee who needs to receive it.
Sam: That's it. So they, but they are apparently trying to do that at this point
Sam: because, you know, you know, cause, but here's, let's be clear.
Sam: This is not the only person they've appointed illegally.
Ivan: They're, they're not getting, but my point is that look, this is another part
Ivan: of it. Look, it's not getting, listen, he's been trying, he's been trying for months.
Ivan: Okay. To get these people like to, to like court, the closest he got was,
Ivan: you know, to, to show up at court and to have, the case dismissed like right out of hand.
Sam: Right i i'm
Sam: still waiting for the the indictments
Sam: of hillary clinton and and biden
Sam: and obama and all of those kinds for some reason he's being slow with those
Sam: i don't i don't know why yeah maybe maybe he'll skip that part entirely and
Sam: invite them to see if maybe they'll accidentally be on a boat north of Venezuela.
Ivan: They're going to decide to take a cruise on a boat north of Venezuela.
Ivan: That's what you're saying. Hey, we got a little,
Ivan: boat. We're going to go north of Venezuela. The discussion I was having about
Ivan: this, this is something I mentioned when I was over in Guyana.
Ivan: I was talking about people like, you know, they're afraid to go on their fucking
Ivan: boats just to go fishing around there, okay?
Sam: Right, of course.
Ivan: I mean, they're all, like, just freaked out. They're like, well,
Ivan: shit, I might get blown out of the water.
Ivan: This is a ridiculous shit that this president does.
Sam: Well, and so far the administration has not actually provided any proof that
Sam: these boats are what they say they are at all. They just like trust us.
Ivan: You know.
Sam: And of course, they're the most trustworthy in the world.
Ivan: You know, every fucking day that I see these people with a false equivalency
Ivan: saying, well, Obama executed people, you know, with drones.
Ivan: And I'm like, look, in each one of those, there was some kind of process where
Ivan: there was a finding done.
Ivan: Who is it that we're targeting? Why are we targeting? They went through a process.
Ivan: They didn't just go and just randomly shoot some fucking boats in the water.
Ivan: And look, you can still and you may still argue that that was an illegal act.
Ivan: But the reality is that if you go to every single one of those,
Ivan: this was not just, you know,
Ivan: out of pulling out of your ass, deciding, hey, there's a boat over there,
Ivan: looks like drug runners, let me just shoot at it. That's not what was done.
Sam: Yes, they had a process, and they did make some mistakes. They killed some civilians
Sam: that they shouldn't have, but in most cases, they admitted it,
Sam: they apologized, they sent money, blah, blah, blah, you know, et cetera.
Sam: But yes, there was a process. They were criticized that the process was too heavy and too slow.
Sam: And, of course, that's part of the reaction in the Trump administration is against
Sam: some of that stuff. You know, they don't want a process.
Ivan: They want to just be able to do whatever—.
Sam: Exactly. Do whatever the hell we want, and we don't have to follow rules.
Sam: That's the whole point of almost everything they do.
Ivan: Rules?
Sam: Yeah. They don't believe that the presidency should be constrained by rules
Sam: or process imposed from outside. At all.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. That's the whole idea behind the whole unitary executive thing that the
Sam: Supreme Court seems to like a lot at the moment.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay. Can we wrap it up?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: Go to curmudgeon-corner.com. You can see all our stuff, all the ways to contact
Sam: us, all our old shows, transcripts of shows.
Sam: You know, I was talking to somebody at one of these Snohomish podcast thing
Sam: events yesterday who said they don't have time to listen to our show.
Sam: It's too long, but they read the transcript.
Ivan: Oh, you know, that I've done that with certain shows that I'm like,
Ivan: well, I don't have time to read, but I'll read a transcript of the show. Yeah.
Ivan: I'll do that.
Sam: So I'm like, okay, cool. I guess I'm glad I added those.
Sam: Thanks to Pete for suggesting it a few years back.
Sam: But yeah, no, I kind of laughed. Like, okay, fine. That's fine. You can do that.
Sam: But anyway, yes, our transcripts are on there, all the ways to contact us,
Sam: old shows, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: and uh alex wants me to tell
Sam: people that at that event i
Sam: did wear an ugly sweater that he made there and
Sam: uh emily from the no serve podcast posted it on her instagram i believe if you
Sam: want to go searching for that but basically i'd been this this meeting was supposed
Sam: to have like an ugly sweater theme for like ugly christmas sweaters and as i
Sam: was getting ready to go i'd been telling Alex, you know,
Sam: I looked through my sweaters and none were sufficiently ugly.
Sam: I mean, I'm not to say that none were ugly at all, but none were sufficiently
Sam: ugly for that kind of theme.
Sam: So of course he pulled out an old ratty, one of his sweaters and decorated it
Sam: by hand in various ways to make it even uglier.
Ivan: I gotta admit that he did a great, he did a great job of painting the Abel's May symbol on it too.
Sam: He did paint the Abel's May symbol on it. And on the back
Sam: of it it had like the pattern from a minecraft
Sam: character i had from the skin and then there were some like some some sort of
Sam: fluffy stuff that looked like a vaguely santa-like blob on it that was all glued
Sam: on it in various ways anyway i won the ugly sweater contest yeah oh god yeah.
Ivan: Well i you should yeah damn yeah if you didn't win.
Sam: With that i mean fuck yeah so anyway
Sam: so yes anyway importantly also on curmudgeon-corner.com you can do what.
Ivan: Oh yes.
Sam: You can give us money patreon.
Ivan: At money yeah at this point and right now we need we sure need it.
Sam: That is right it is important
Sam: give us tons tons and tons
Sam: of cash and let's see there we go and yeah so at various levels get mentioned
Sam: on the show we can ring a bell we can send you a postcard we could send you
Sam: a mug but at two dollars a month or more or if you just ask us we will invite you
Sam: to Curmudgeon's Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners are
Sam: sharing links and chatting throughout the week.
Sam: So, Yvonne, what is something that has been talked about on the Curmudgeon's
Sam: Corner Slack over the last week that we have not mentioned on the show?
Ivan: Woman-hating podcaster admits that he's never slept with a woman.
Ivan: Nick Fuentes addresses intimate affairs as he sparred with conservative pundit Pierce Morgan.
Ivan: So, Nick Fuentes goes on some kind of show with Piers Morgan, not exactly like Mr.
Ivan: Paragon of Journalism guy here, and admitted under questioning that he,
Ivan: by the way, if I remember correctly, he's the first guy that said, your body, my choice.
Ivan: Okay. That was him.
Ivan: So Mr. Your body, my choice, basically.
Ivan: No, no, no. I'm remembering the phrase. I know he's the one that said it,
Ivan: But I was trying to say, yeah, it's your body, my choice. That's what he said.
Ivan: So he said this shit. Well, guess what?
Ivan: Apparently, no, he hasn't had any choice with anybody because no woman will sleep with him.
Sam: Now, is he an incel or is he gay?
Ivan: He said he's an incel. Basically, he said he said he's not gay.
Ivan: He declared that he's not gay.
Sam: Well, do you trust that coming out of these kind of folks?
Sam: So, but he could be both. He could be both.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Now, he did not say he did not have sex with men. He only apparently said he didn't with women. So.
Ivan: Okay. And, you know, so, but yeah, but this is the, this is the, uh.
Sam: And back when, back when that whole Kirk thing came up, like the guy who shot
Sam: Kirk and they were talking about like,
Sam: uh, apparently there, there's stuff that came out about that sub various subcultures
Sam: that I did not know about before, but apparently on the conservative side of
Sam: things, there is a subculture.
Ivan: What do I know about now that you're going to tell me?
Sam: This is the subculture of femboys who are not, they distinguish themselves from
Sam: trans people. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ivan: But that's, okay, but what has it got to do with conservatives?
Ivan: I mean, yeah, those exist.
Sam: No, it's because you have these conservative incels who, because of their positions
Sam: and their attitude towards women, are actually repulsive towards women.
Sam: But they are actually attracted towards women. So there's this culture of femboys
Sam: who will dress up as and act as women to be the sex object of these conservative
Sam: incels because they can't get actual women,
Sam: but they can get men who pretend to be women, but who aren't trans and who aren't
Sam: otherwise identifying themselves that way,
Sam: but who—they will say they're men.
Sam: They will say, I am a man, but I am a man who likes to dress as a woman and
Sam: act like a woman and be as feminine as I possibly can.
Sam: And these conservatives who are otherwise incels feel that, well,
Sam: at least I can get these femboys.
Sam: And I'm not gay either. I'm not gay. I'm not gay at all. But because,
Sam: you know, they act like women.
Sam: And this was one of the things that came up after the whole Charlie Kirk thing
Sam: is that there's apparently this whole subculture of this kind of stuff going on, too.
Ivan: Wait, why does this have to do with Charlie Kirk? Why did this have to do with Charlie Kirk?
Sam: Oh, because they were talking about how the guy who killed him had a boyfriend
Sam: who was trans or had a girlfriend who was a trans woman.
Sam: But then there were people saying, no, no, she was not a trans woman.
Sam: She was a femboy or he was a femboy.
Ivan: Okay, so that's what.
Sam: And that's where the connection comes in and people were talking.
Sam: Now, none of this was necessarily verified at the time, but people got into these.
Ivan: That was the conversation, okay? Came up about these.
Sam: The conversation started talking about this subculture that exists there,
Sam: which, of course, all seems to tie into very highly repressed people who just
Sam: can't admit, like, their actual orientation and preferences because they believe it's wrong.
Sam: So they jump through all these hoops to try to like, oh, I'm I'm not actually gay.
Sam: This is a femboy or whatever, or somehow justify to themselves like,
Sam: you know, whatever is going on.
Sam: And it's just or I'm not whatever, you know, it's just it was a bizarre subculture
Sam: that I had not known anything going through.
Ivan: These are the hoops that they're going through in order to try to say that they're not gay.
Sam: They're not gay they're not trans they're whatever
Sam: instead there are these other subcategories and and look i i'm not denying that
Sam: there may be all kinds of subcategories that people that are valuable and people
Sam: should pay attention to but this just seems like high just like highly repressed
Sam: people trying like somebody.
Ivan: Said that basically.
Sam: I don't know just.
Ivan: Went that like,
Ivan: I mean, are you telling me that
Ivan: the fucking solution is just to get all these people laid in some way?
Ivan: No, apparently not, because the problem is that they feel guilty about it.
Ivan: Because this is the big problem about
Ivan: this and why this entire thing about anti-trans is so bad, okay, to me.
Ivan: One of many reasons, but yes. But one of the big reasons is because how it drives
Ivan: these people into actually questioning their own personhood,
Ivan: into questioning what they like and what they don't like and make them depressed
Ivan: about how they feel because they make them feel like it's wrong. Okay?
Ivan: And this is the reason why, unfortunately, trans people have such a high rate of suicide.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: And it's assholes like this driving this stupid bullshit, you know,
Ivan: narrative, acting like this, talking like this, being the, you know, the whatever macho guy.
Ivan: And all you are is just somebody who has been so fucked in the head,
Ivan: you know, with all these thoughts that you're just lashing out at society and everybody else.
Sam: Yeah. I mean...
Sam: All of this stuff, like, shame-based culture and purity-based culture and all
Sam: of this kinds of thing is just incredibly toxic.
Sam: Just as long as nobody's hurting anybody else or doing something non-consensual.
Ivan: Don't knock yourself out.
Sam: Then let people do whatever the hell they want to do. But you do realize that
Sam: most of the people that behave like this thick cuentas.
Ivan: They're a combination of either these incels. or you've got the other ones that
Ivan: I said or the female abusers.
Ivan: It's one or the other. It's one or the other.
Ivan: This is this group. They're all like Trump, Epstein and all these people that
Ivan: abuse women, treat them like they're less than men or whatever.
Sam: I want to be absolutely clear when I said consensual, fully consensual among
Sam: adults, blah, blah, blah. Right.
Sam: That is not saying go and do whatever the hell you feel like,
Sam: including if you want to rape children. No.
Ivan: No, no, no, no, no. Consensual amongst adults is what I'm saying.
Ivan: Anything consensual amongst the adults, well, consensual against teenagers,
Ivan: because teenagers will do, you know, you know, stuff.
Ivan: I mean, you know, look, I mean, that's a reality.
Ivan: But the reality is that you can't shame these people into what they feel.
Sam: Well, it's a completely different thing with two 17-year-olds doing something
Sam: consensual versus, you know, the 45-year-old and the 17-year-old.
Ivan: You know yeah and and and and and why it's so difficult to explain to people
Ivan: why that is so it's just i just,
Ivan: Oh, anyway. Anyway, I thought I found something more funny. Don't we have something more fun?
Sam: Yeah, I was about to say, can we have something more funny? I mean,
Sam: you were trying to make fun of him because he admitted, yo, but.
Ivan: Well, I was just trying to bring up the fact that the hypocrisy.
Ivan: Well, I will say something more funny.
Ivan: I posted this thing where I put our electric car to charge,
Ivan: and they have idle fees for some reason overnight, which I think is stupid because
Ivan: it's so what I did is in order to not have to pay the idle fee,
Ivan: I can adjust the speed of charging on the car.
Ivan: So I slowed it down. So it was charging slow enough that in the morning it was going to be ready.
Sam: Okay.
Sam: Very clever of you. Get back at the new people in charge, right?
Ivan: Yeah, basically, yes.
Sam: Because they took over from you when you resigned.
Ivan: Right, and I didn't use to charge such kind of fees. So, like,
Ivan: these assholes are starting to charge an idle fee at night.
Ivan: You know, it's like, who the hell is going to go plug in at 2 in the morning? You idiots.
Ivan: You know, why are you charging me an idle fee at 2 in the morning? Okay.
Sam: You never know if someone could.
Ivan: I actually watched a video you know, check surveillance for many reasons no, rarely no, never.
Sam: I will mention one more thing from the curmudgeon score slack and then we can
Sam: shut up I posted an article about Bill Gates' daughter securing $30 million in funding for an AI app.
Ivan: That must have been so difficult for Bill Gates' daughter to secure that funding oh my god.
Sam: Sam. Yes. All I'm saying is if anybody wants to give me $30 million for my to-do
Sam: list thing, for Robin Letter, for Juke Potter, for any of these things, I'm wide open.
Sam: You know, send me the check. I will make good use of it.
Ivan: Listen, I think that your first start is to call Bill Gates's daughter.
Sam: You know, I remember talking to somebody a few years ago, like when When my
Sam: daughter was at a prep school around here,
Sam: she never actually met Bill Gates' daughter, but she had friends that were friends
Sam: with Bill Gates' daughter.
Ivan: So there you go.
Sam: Yeah, so, anyway, she, yeah, but I never got introduced, you know,
Sam: I should have, you know, it would have been a good thing.
Ivan: That's your missed opportunity right there at your funding. I mean,
Ivan: come on, man, you had the golden ticket right in front of you.
Sam: Yeah, yeah. You know, I heard every once in a while Bill Gates just,
Sam: like, goes up to hamburger places and orders a burger in line and stuff,
Sam: and I should just go stalk those places waiting for him to show up.
Sam: right does that work yeah yeah yeah that's what you got to do i'll be i'm sure
Sam: i'm sure if i found him he would immediately hand me a 30 million he just.
Ivan: Exactly he would just pull it out of his pocket no.
Sam: No no.
Ivan: No cash cash.
Sam: Exactly oh yeah cash that'd be awesome like get the big briefcase or or even
Sam: better like the scrooge rick duck money bags yeah.
Ivan: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Sam: Okay 30 million in pennies okay uh okay we're clearly well past done thank you
Sam: every for thank you everyone for joining us have a great week stay safe have
Sam: fun blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,
Sam: and we are out of here goodbye bye,
Sam: Okay. Thanks, Yvonne. We'll talk to you later.
Ivan: Okay. Bye.
Sam: Bye.