Sam: Can you hear me?
Ivan: I can hear you. I'm using my other buds that I have that don't have a good battery life.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Which is their biggest problem.
Sam: Okay. Well, I'll do our best. Okay.
Sam: Shall we just go then? Here we go.
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, January 31st, 2026.
Sam: It's just before 1830 UTC as we're starting to record.
Sam: I'm Sam Mentor, Yvonne Bow is back with us this week. Hello, Yvonne.
Ivan: Hello.
Sam: It's been an exciting two weeks for both of us.
Ivan: Oh, God. Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah.
Sam: Yeah. So anyway.
Ivan: How are you? Well, let's start with you. How are you feeling?
Sam: I am recovering. My energy is still a little bit low.
Sam: I've still got a tube sticking out of my side.
Ivan: Nice.
Sam: They're supposed to call me Monday to make an appointment to get it taken out
Sam: and finish up all the other stuff they have to do to me.
Sam: But I'm basically feeling okay. Just a little low energy.
Sam: Like, you know, I get tired easily. You know, that kind of stuff.
Sam: I've been sleeping a lot.
Ivan: Is it like Jeb style, low energy or?
Sam: Yeah, definitely Jeb style. No, I,
Sam: you know, but basically I'm feeling okay, you know, so I've,
Sam: they, they, you know, I'm still taking antibiotics three times a day,
Sam: you know, fun stuff like that, you know, but,
Sam: But, yeah, like, much, much better than I was.
Ivan: Ah, great.
Sam: So.
Ivan: That's good. Well, that's good. I mean, but what do the doctors say about next
Ivan: steps, I guess, at this point?
Sam: Oh, well, the next step is they take.
Ivan: Aside from getting the tube out.
Sam: They take my tube out. They take out a couple kidney stones that were in there causing problems.
Sam: And then that's it, I guess. They may once again, like, this is a new doctor
Sam: looking at this for the first time, so they may once again, you know,
Sam: give me general advice on, like, you know, hey, maybe just diet a little bit here or there.
Sam: Maybe drugs, like, for, like, kidney stone prevention.
Sam: I don't know. So, I mean, you know, multiple doctors have talked to me about
Sam: this since I was 25 years old and never really given me anything super actionable
Sam: other than deal with them when they happen.
Sam: But we'll see. Another doc will give a shot at it, I guess. Well, I guess my question is.
Ivan: I don't know. I mean, has treatment for this really changed in that time span?
Sam: I gather not really.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: And, you know, but, you know, and this is the first time, like,
Sam: they suspect my kidney and bladder infections, the root cause,
Sam: where there were a couple kidney stones that got caught.
Sam: They weren't too big to pass, but they got caught in a position where they weren't moving any further.
Sam: And they were just causing problems.
Sam: You know, they were actually still in the kidney, but they were in a part of
Sam: the kidney where they couldn't get out and they were, you know,
Sam: just sitting there getting infected.
Ivan: Nice.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Very nice.
Sam: And so, yeah, so they're going to go and fish those things out whenever my next appointment is.
Sam: I don't have the appointment yet. I called yesterday to, like,
Sam: make the appointment. I was like, they said call in a week if I hadn't heard
Sam: from you guys, and I haven't heard from you guys, so I'm calling now.
Sam: And they're like, eh, we'll call you Monday.
Sam: So now I have to go.
Ivan: I wonder, what are kidney stones made out of?
Sam: They come in a variety of different kinds. Often calcium, but there are other types as well.
Sam: So, and I forget. I have had a couple of mine over the years sent to the lab
Sam: and, you know, but I forget.
Sam: Like what? I think I've had some calcium ones. I think I might have had something
Sam: else too. I don't know. It's been years.
Sam: Like way back, like decade plus ago. I see.
Ivan: I'm looking it up. I caught a couple of them.
Sam: Sent them to the lab.
Ivan: Kittany stones are crystallized minerals, mostly consisting of calcium oxalate,
Ivan: calcium phosphate. Yep.
Ivan: It's not like we could mine you for minerals, I guess. We can't use you to make
Ivan: car batteries or something. Fuck.
Sam: No, that would be nice.
Ivan: I mean, I was just hoping we could just milk you for, like, you know,
Ivan: start making, like, batteries for electric vehicles or something.
Ivan: Maybe that's, like, an industry that we could do.
Sam: That would be nice. I am looking for side gigs.
Ivan: Yes. You know, you could just, you know, you could just, you know,
Ivan: spew out rocks that we could turn into, you know, you know, EV batteries.
Ivan: I mean, that sounds like a, you know, pretty good idea, but apparently not.
Sam: There's a plan. No, no, it doesn't work that way.
Ivan: No, it doesn't.
Sam: You know, it's not, it's not like I'm putting out platinum or something.
Ivan: Damn it. Gold, platinum, silver, something.
Sam: Okay, so enough about me. What's the update on your family?
Sam: I did mention to folks, you know, last week that your son had an issue.
Ivan: Here's how this went. Friday night, Manu was going out to our balcony where
Ivan: we have this hammock, which he does all the time. Okay?
Ivan: And I think he was, he just...
Ivan: Was just tripped accidentally on the sliding door frame.
Ivan: So, you know, we have a glass slider that goes out there, but this being Florida
Ivan: and us having upgraded the windows here, it's impact glass slider.
Ivan: So it's meant to withstand hurricane strength winds without you having to cover
Ivan: it with shutters or anything, okay?
Ivan: So one of the things about that is that the frame itself is a lot But it makes
Ivan: it that there is a big threshold step in front of it.
Ivan: Because so if the wind pushes on the glass, so it stays in place. Okay.
Ivan: It won't. Because one of the things that happens with like old regular sliding
Ivan: doors is that the winds will pop it out of the usual rails.
Ivan: The usual rails are there. You know, old sliders, you could just,
Ivan: like, lift up and, like, off the rail and, like, take out pretty easily.
Ivan: But this is meant, no.
Ivan: If you want to take this out of its rails, it needs, you know,
Ivan: you need specialized tools.
Ivan: And it's meant to, like, withstand the force of a Cat 5 hurricane, okay?
Ivan: So, and the impact of a, I mean, it's not bulletproof.
Ivan: But it will take a very large object at high speed, and it'll slam into it,
Ivan: and it will pop out of the frame, and the glass may shatter,
Ivan: but it'll stay in place, okay?
Ivan: So, he was just, you know, going too fast, tripped, and he had his iPad in his arms, and...
Ivan: And I think it was more important to him and his mind to protect the iPad than to protect the body.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: So the iPad was fine. His arm was broken.
Sam: So let me envision. He falls off the hammock. He's heading towards the sliver.
Ivan: No, no, no. He's walking towards the hammock.
Sam: He's walking and he trips.
Ivan: He trips on the sliding door threshold.
Sam: So I was thinking his arm hit the threshold, though. He tripped over the threshold.
Ivan: His arm is just.
Sam: At the floor.
Ivan: Yeah okay quite hard yes and
Ivan: uh i heard the thud and sometimes the thud is he drops something or whatever
Ivan: but then i hear it screaming and i'm like well that's not normal right i you
Ivan: know i was he i've had like a a lot it's not always when people get broken bones,
Ivan: You'll see black and blue marks or something or whatever.
Ivan: Our neighbor who's a paramedic took a look at it.
Ivan: It wasn't swollen. We weren't sure if it was broken or not. And the pain was subsiding.
Ivan: So at first we're like, it might not be broken.
Ivan: Okay? It's not the elbow. He did point specifically to the forearm,
Ivan: to the exact spot where the brake was. Okay.
Ivan: And so we're like, look, let's observe. If it swells, then we got to take some
Ivan: action. Next morning was swollen.
Ivan: So we took him to urgent care and they took an x-ray and it was like i mean
Ivan: it you didn't need a radiologist to figure out it was broken right you could
Ivan: see oh god yeah i was just like playing you know you know plain as day so he
Ivan: said look you need to go to an orthopedic specialist,
Ivan: made some calls i i i was able to get an appointment knowing some people a relative of mine.
Ivan: We were able to get an appointment very quick on Monday afternoon.
Ivan: He saw him and he said, this needs surgery.
Ivan: I thought for sure. I saw it and I'm like, nah, this is going to need surgery. There's no way.
Ivan: The bone is too... It was so moved off where it needs to be that if we just
Ivan: let it heal there, it was going to heal all wrong.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So he needed surgery. So we got out on Monday. They scheduled the surgery. It was Wednesday at...
Ivan: 7.30 a.m. We were there at the hospital and they did the surgery and it was
Ivan: successful. Everything went well.
Sam: So was this like just push the bones back into the right place or did they have
Sam: like metal and all that kind of stuff holding in place?
Ivan: They put a plate. They put a plate to hold it in place.
Ivan: And it's a plate that apparently he could stay for the rest of his life because
Ivan: there are two options. He told me those are a prong or some plate.
Sam: That's going to be the next question. Permanent plate or something they take out later?
Ivan: It's a permanent one. So because he wanted to avoid the one that we had to go
Ivan: back in and do that. So he put a permanent one.
Sam: So you have a bionic kid now.
Ivan: So he's been, you know, resting a lot, sleeping, but his energy has been,
Ivan: he's been reporting very little pain like right now.
Ivan: And, uh, probably he's going to go back to school on Monday.
Ivan: So, but, but he's, you know, he's in a cast. It's going to be six weeks with a cast.
Ivan: And so, you know, but, but he's, he's, he's, he's recovering quite well.
Ivan: So, but, uh, I, uh, I got it, but I, uh,
Ivan: It's a little scary having your child in surgery. I was a little bit like...
Sam: Oh, yeah.
Ivan: I don't...
Sam: I mean, I have not had my child in surgery. I have now had my wife in surgery,
Sam: my mother in surgery, and myself in surgery.
Sam: But so far, Alex has avoided it, and I'm crossing my fingers it stays that way for a while.
Ivan: I mean, I... So I was not... I was a little bit...
Ivan: But everything came out fine. So, you know, he's going back to school on Monday,
Ivan: so everything should be fine. So.
Sam: Wear a cast for a while?
Ivan: Six weeks.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Yeah. So. I'm getting a little bit really fucking irritated with the.
Ivan: I mean, I had surgery in November. My father had surgery in December.
Ivan: And now my son had surgery in January.
Ivan: He's getting pretty fucking tired of this shit.
Ivan: Everything. It's fucking, you know, these two weeks, everything, you know...
Ivan: You know, and one thing that I, man, I, this entire era of Trumpism and MAGA-ism,
Ivan: one thing that I've noticed in society that it's unleashed is just a lot more general dishonesty.
Sam: Okay. I noticed you'd put this on the topic list. Go ahead.
Ivan: Yeah, I did, because I wanted to mention, it's just, Sam, it's just,
Ivan: I am just flabbergasted at just the overall level of just outright dishonesty
Ivan: that people feel emboldened to engage in now.
Ivan: That it's just so much worse. You know, it's like the other day somebody asked
Ivan: about, I don't understand about all these people that actually use their names on social media.
Ivan: And I realize that.
Sam: Like use their real names?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And I realize that a large part of it is that so many people want to be anonymous trolls.
Ivan: That obviously if you use your real name, then you're exposing yourself, right?
Sam: Well, yes.
Ivan: Just like the masked fucking ICE agents.
Ivan: Like, there was a thing yesterday. Well, if all these ICE agents said that they
Ivan: have to do their job without a mask, then they're going to quit.
Sam: So sad.
Ivan: I'm like...
Ivan: You see what I'm saying, the pattern? It's just everybody wants to be able to
Ivan: be a liar and a con artist and not be accountable for their shit.
Ivan: Or maybe not everybody, but a lot more people than we used to deal with.
Sam: I was going to say not everybody, but at the same time, you're right that there's
Sam: certainly a lot of that. And there's certainly a lot of, you know,
Sam: people wanting to be able to hide behind online personas.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: And look, people have always, like, people in entertainment have always had
Sam: stage names. This is not a new thing, right?
Ivan: Yeah, but a stage name is one thing. You're showing your face.
Ivan: Everybody knows. You know, you go and, like, somebody uses a stage name.
Ivan: Everybody knows that. Most of the time, that's different. That's marketing, okay?
Ivan: You know, because, you know, I don't know, Felix Unger doesn't sound the same as Shakira.
Ivan: Well, actually, Shakira is a real name. So that's a bad example. Terrible example. OK.
Sam: Madonna's a real name, too.
Ivan: Yeah. Madonna's a real name, too. Fuck. So that doesn't work either.
Sam: But there are lots of examples.
Ivan: Yeah. But if I can't come up with one because I'm an idiot right now.
Ivan: But, you know, there's lots of examples.
Ivan: Well, here's one, which actually is kind of stupid.
Ivan: Charlie Sheen, because that's not the real name or nor his dad's.
Ivan: They're, you know, they're Estevez is a real last name.
Ivan: But, you know, back then they thought that that name was too Latin.
Ivan: And so therefore, you know, he went with the Martin Sheen.
Ivan: But everybody, you know.
Sam: Anyway, the point is, yes, like the, there are a variety of places on the internet
Sam: where you can make up names and be, you know, whoever.
Sam: I mean, and we know like, there are all kinds of ones that aren't real too, right?
Sam: They're all the bots and all the people who are running like,
Sam: you know, 50 different like random accounts.
Ivan: It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they have burner accounts and they use fake
Ivan: accounts. And now, in a lot of these apps where you go instantly and you can
Ivan: see their profile, where are they based out of? Nigeria. Yes!
Ivan: Susan Thomas, based out of Nigeria. Yeah, right! You know...
Ivan: I, I, I, it's just.
Sam: It's just, well, I think,
Sam: I think this all ties into something we've talked about multiple times before,
Sam: which is the key thing about Donald Trump starting way back in 2015 is he has
Sam: given the permission structure for people to act up in all kinds of different ways.
Sam: To open racism, open sexism, open fraud.
Sam: Lying is fine. Because basically it's showing from the top down that these behaviors
Sam: have not had any negative consequence for them.
Ivan: Not just that, they have enabled success, Sam.
Sam: Yes, yes they have.
Ivan: They have enabled success.
Sam: Yes. And so why wouldn't everybody emulate that?
Ivan: Why be honest why be empathetic why help people losers.
Sam: Are losers and suckers just like soldiers who went off to war.
Ivan: Yeah I it's just
Ivan: it's just as I encountered this
Ivan: more and more in like regular daily life
Ivan: it's just really very I and
Ivan: it really it really i have
Ivan: to admit that this really gets to me the societal breakdown
Ivan: in general that we have with this
Ivan: shit but also i
Ivan: i should say that the people of minnesota
Ivan: have also shown us the flip side
Ivan: of this where they have stood so hard their ground in mass that it also gives
Ivan: me hope in one sense because so many of them just wouldn't take the fucking
Ivan: bullshit or take the bait.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: So, but this is,
Ivan: I do think that the biggest thing that I see, like right now,
Ivan: that I'm encountering on a regular basis, and it's in so many things,
Ivan: it's just that breakdown.
Ivan: And it does bother me. And look, I can say it translates into many levels.
Ivan: I'm talking about people on the road.
Ivan: Okay. on i i it's just people at stores people not it used to be people like
Ivan: would bump into each other,
Ivan: apologizing whatever now it's like almost like fuck you whatever it feels like
Ivan: it it's just these kinds of like little regular interactions where people now
Ivan: feel it's okay to just be an asshole.
Ivan: And I notice it on a daily basis. I've said that one of the things that always...
Sam: Give some concrete examples without outing anybody or like, you know,
Sam: specifying anybody who could be identified. What are some examples?
Sam: Because I'll tell you, I have not noticed this as much in real life, but also...
Sam: Tend to hide myself away and avoid interacting with other human beings as much
Sam: as possible. So, you know.
Ivan: Well, look, airplanes. Okay? Look, just the lack of general courtesy or politeness
Ivan: to your neighboring passengers. Okay?
Ivan: The rise of so many air rage incidents like right now and how much they happen.
Ivan: I see people offboarding an aircraft and people climbing on top of other people
Ivan: to get ahead of them instead of letting the people in front of you go out,
Ivan: for example, on a regular basis on almost every flight.
Ivan: I mean, it's one of those things where it used to be people will be patient
Ivan: and calm and let's wait until, you know, this person over here and whatever.
Ivan: And now it's like, it's like people like almost like stepping over the people
Ivan: in front of them in order to get out of the damn plane.
Ivan: It's just it's just they are what i'm trying to point out is that they are micro,
Ivan: these are not big aggressions these
Ivan: are microaggressions they're very little but it's just an ever increase in where
Ivan: what you would get before was politeness now you see people just you know not
Ivan: giving a damn about the name about about the neighbors and like they don't expect
Ivan: any backlash from it either.
Ivan: At the supermarket lines, the other day, I don't know, some people, they were too,
Ivan: They were doing some shit the other day at Costco, you know,
Ivan: hopping around people doing stuff or whatever. And I'm like,
Ivan: oh, my love of God, what are you doing?
Ivan: You know, just be patient. Or I'll tell you the one that keeps happening.
Ivan: When I go to pick up medicines at the pharmacy, especially because of how so
Ivan: many people, especially in MAGA, have been aggressive with like health care workers.
Ivan: Oh my god the number of people in front of me like grousing about
Ivan: about the employees and yelling at
Ivan: the employees at the pharmacy counter and i'm
Ivan: just like oh i didn't say anything last time but i know my wife got so pissed
Ivan: off told somebody to shut up because he's yelling at the employees for no reason
Ivan: i mean they were busy or a lot of people and unfortunately it's taking time and well.
Sam: One one thing i've noticed around here in terms of that specifically is people
Sam: being more on edge about it because also they're you know we had we had one
Sam: of the pharmacy chains around here closed completely.
Ivan: Bartels got.
Sam: Like bought and then it was closed down and and then we had like and it converted
Sam: to a cvs or something but everyone's short-staffed and so like there's everything,
Sam: like, you have to wait.
Ivan: You have to wait.
Sam: Like, all the time. Even for the most routine things. Like, and so,
Sam: there's always a line, there's always people waiting, and so,
Sam: you know, people's nerves get, you know.
Ivan: Antsy. But Sam, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when we had lines like that at shit, this didn't happen.
Ivan: People didn't start regularly yelling at employees like that just because they were waiting.
Ivan: This wasn't a common occurrence. And I know it wasn't a common occurrence because
Ivan: I came from a culture where that actually happened on a regular basis.
Ivan: And one of the things that I was pleased about moving to the continental United
Ivan: States was that that didn't regularly happen.
Ivan: And now we've devolved into where that's gone.
Sam: Interesting. I wonder how much of this, you know, is also like regional.
Sam: But I wouldn't be surprised if a lot is nationwide. I mean, just in general,
Sam: the country is on edge right now.
Sam: Yeah, and has been increasingly so for the last decade, you know,
Sam: it does. And so I wouldn't be surprised.
Ivan: And I've always said culturally leadership matters and people say, whatever.
Ivan: But the reality is that people take the example from the top down.
Ivan: And when your leader is acting the way he is, then this permeates every facet of society.
Sam: Well, and like I started saying with Trump, it gives permission.
Sam: Yes. So the people who...
Sam: You know, otherwise might be restrained. If everyone was sort of like,
Sam: no, that's just not how you act in public. Yeah. But keep that to yourself, sir.
Sam: You know, things like that. The people who would otherwise be constrained by
Sam: that are no longer feeling those constraints.
Ivan: Nope.
Sam: And so they feel like, you know, like I said, it's fine to be racist.
Sam: It's fine to be sexist it's fine to be a jackass in public it's fine to lie
Sam: in public because why the fuck not donald trump does and like you said not only
Sam: does it not hurt him it is the secret of his success it.
Ivan: Is the secret of his success exactly yes fuck.
Sam: You know and so fucking ridiculous horse shit and And look,
Sam: there are people out there who are decent people not because they feel constrained,
Sam: not because they feel they would be punished if they weren't,
Sam: but because they actually like internally feel that's the right thing to do.
Sam: But like what I've been learning over the last few years is there are a lot
Sam: of people who the only possible reason to be good that they can imagine is that
Sam: they might be punished if they're not.
Sam: And so if you take away that threat of punishment, then there's no reason to behave well anymore.
Sam: There's no reason to treat other people nicely. There's no reason to like just
Sam: generally be a good member of society, you know, because if no one's going to
Sam: beat you down for not doing that,
Sam: then why the hell would you do any of that? And, you know.
Sam: I don't know. I don't know. It's discouraging.
Ivan: I've noticed that people have no convictions. A lot of people.
Ivan: Or morals. Of any sense. And like you said.
Ivan: That they're very malleable. And, you know, they will show themselves in one
Ivan: way just because it's convenient. But the reality is that deep down they're very dark people.
Ivan: And that's one thing I said about money. That for a lot of people I said,
Ivan: no, money changes people. Nope.
Ivan: Most of those people were complete assholes the entire time.
Ivan: But they felt that they had to behave that certain way because it would jeopardize their.
Ivan: Their their income their jobs or
Ivan: whatever but it's like elon musk
Ivan: has shown now that he could be a nazi racist and it doesn't jeopardize his wealth
Ivan: you know um whereas before these people would be ostracized instead his stock
Ivan: keeps going up you know i i don't know look i'm somebody of,
Ivan: that has a series of convictions in one way or another and certain things about
Ivan: myself that I am, that is who I am.
Ivan: It doesn't really make a difference, like what is happening to me in terms of life.
Ivan: One thing that I'm consistent is that if you look at a picture of me like from
Ivan: 30, 40 years ago, I pretty much dressed the same as I did 30, 40 years ago.
Ivan: There's very little difference, you know? So I could say the same as Sam.
Sam: There have been some changes over the years.
Ivan: Yeah, no, there are some changes, but there is a consistent.
Ivan: And the other day I saw your former boss. Basically, I saw there was a picture of him in the 90s.
Ivan: And now he's dressing like a Bond supervillain.
Sam: Oh, that former boss. Okay, yes, yes.
Ivan: And I'm like, what the fuck? What is this shit?
Ivan: And I'm like who does this transformation I don't,
Ivan: it's really weird it's so weird
Ivan: I don't but it shows that so many of these people have no actual like,
Ivan: compass in their life of what the heck is supposed to be what they do what they
Ivan: are why they do it it's so malleable it's so weird.
Sam: Yeah and you know i i i always you know i i remember thinking about like you
Sam: know because every once in a while you hear like these you know religious folks
Sam: especially right-wing religious folks,
Sam: who are like, you know, well, if you don't believe in God, why wouldn't you
Sam: kill everybody who you wanted to?
Sam: You know, if you don't think you're going to go to hell.
Ivan: They do everything out of fear.
Sam: I heard one reply to that, which I think was the perfect response, which was, I do.
Sam: I already kill everybody I want to, which is nobody.
Ivan: Nobody!
Sam: I don't want to kill anybody. What are you even talking about? You know?
Sam: You know, the idea of having, you know,
Sam: morals that are internal, that are because you believe certain things are right
Sam: and wrong, and therefore you will do your best to do right and to avoid doing wrong.
Sam: You may fail sometimes, but you will try. You will do your best.
Sam: Absolutely. To so many people. I will fail. To so many people.
Ivan: I will fail.
Sam: But to so many people, that's alien. It's like, you know, no,
Sam: morals come from outside. It comes from somebody telling you what you're supposed
Sam: to do or what you're not supposed to do.
Sam: And the reason you do it is because of their authority over you and the fact
Sam: that something bad will happen to you if you don't.
Sam: And that's what morality is.
Sam: Morality is constraining yourself to avoid harm from the external authority,
Sam: whether it be human authority or God or something.
Sam: And, you know, and the idea of just internally, like, yeah, no, I do this.
Sam: I do things that are right because they're right to do, not because something
Sam: bad will happen to me if I don't.
Ivan: You know, the other day I, I, I, so I was on this business trip two weeks ago,
Ivan: not even not two weeks ago.
Ivan: It was like last fuck it was last week.
Ivan: It feels like it was eternity, but it was like the week before.
Ivan: So somebody that works, one of our pre-sales engineers, he came,
Ivan: he came with me to Puerto Rico. He's, and he was, he's not from Puerto Rico.
Ivan: Uh, and I, I am, he's very young.
Ivan: Okay. He's 28. Okay.
Ivan: So even, I mean, yeah, exactly.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, this kid's been working like six, seven years.
Sam: A kid.
Ivan: Corporate. He's a kid. Dude, he's 28, for God's sakes.
Ivan: So, he started working at HP first as a pre-sales engineer there,
Ivan: and then he's been working over here with us for a few years.
Ivan: You know, and I met him, and I started working with him.
Ivan: And I spent a lot of time, just because I knew he was young,
Ivan: and I'm like, hey, let me coach you about how,
Ivan: how to do these things let me help you now you
Ivan: know sometimes he wasn't look this is the this is a better
Ivan: way to do it you know and i've been like doing some
Ivan: coaching and mentoring and sometimes about life situations he's felt the uh
Ivan: you know questions and i i guided him you know some through some personal situations
Ivan: and other stuff and he asked me some questions i said look this i'll give you
Ivan: some advice you know like if you you know and so here's one thing that he told Spent six,
Ivan: seven years in corporate America Well,
Ivan: corporate, global Not America And he said that That nobody,
Ivan: That he has interacted with And I'm not even his boss Better or whatever Has
Ivan: taken the time to Care about him personally like I have,
Ivan: And that I didn't realize that he lost his father when he was five years old.
Ivan: And he said that right now he feels like, do you realize that you're the closest that I've had?
Ivan: I'm working for a few years. Are you the closest I feel like I've had to a dad?
Sam: Aww.
Ivan: But here's the one thing that kind of like, well, I felt very touched by that.
Ivan: But the one thing on the flip side, what I thought is, fuck,
Ivan: this kid's very good. Nobody, nobody take the time to care for this kid. Nobody. Anybody.
Ivan: I mean, apparently his stepdad also was a douche.
Ivan: But it's the one thing I'm like, geez, just nobody cares about people anymore.
Sam: Well, that's all very exciting.
Ivan: I'm saying nobody. I'm exaggerating. But that very few people seem to care about others anymore.
Ivan: Or won't take the time.
Sam: Should I do a couple movies?
Ivan: Yeah, let's do the movies. Come on.
Sam: Okay. First up, continuing on the AFI list, the 1998 version of the AFI list.
Sam: And by the way, I continue to give an update on we have now actually started
Sam: the 2007 version of the list.
Sam: And we started at 100 and are already back to number 89.
Sam: So we've gone 100 and back to 89 in the 2007 version of the list.
Sam: But in the 1998 version of the list, we actually just started,
Sam: that movie last night. We're 10 minutes in. We're going to continue to do it.
Sam: Anyway, but today, today I'm going to talk about the number eight list from
Sam: 1980, 1998, which was On the Waterfront from 1954.
Sam: Ever seen this movie, Yvonne?
Ivan: No.
Sam: This is Marlon Brando, and I'll rather, rather, start the plot as I usually
Sam: do. First two paragraphs from Wikipedia, the plot.
Sam: New York prizefighter Terry Malloy's career was cut short when he purposely
Sam: lost a fight at the request of mob boss Johnny Friendly.
Sam: Terry now works for Friendly's labor union as a longshoreman,
Sam: while his older, more educated brother Charlie is Friendly's right-hand man.
Sam: Terry is coerced into luring fellow worker Joey Doyle onto a rooftop where he
Sam: believes Friendly's henchmen want to talk Joey out of testifying to the Waterfront Crime Commission.
Sam: When they instead murder Joey by throwing him off the roof, Terry confronts
Sam: Friendly but is threatened and bribed into acquiescence.
Sam: Joey's sister Edie and priest Father Barry try to inspire the dock workers to
Sam: stand up to Friendly. Terry attends the meeting as a snitch,
Sam: but when it is violently broken up by Friendly's men, he helps E.D.
Sam: Escape and misses Father Barry, convincing one worker to testify.
Sam: After the testimony, the worker is killed in a staged workplace accident, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.
Sam: And then things continue. So basically...
Sam: You know, it's a mob movie, and it's about one guy who, you know,
Sam: ends up going against, you know, the mob authorities and what happens to him.
Sam: And, you know, it's number eight on the top movies list. I'll give it a thumbs up. It was fine.
Sam: It was fine. It was fine.
Ivan: You sound so thrilled. It was fun.
Ivan: You know, hey, how was the meal? Well, it was fine. It was edible.
Sam: Let's see. Somebody mentioned to us. It won all kinds of things.
Sam: It won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress,
Sam: Best Story, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing.
Sam: It won, you know, other awards from other folks, Golden Globes,
Sam: Directors Guild, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It won lots of awards.
Sam: And look, it was a good, well-crafted movie.
Sam: You know, it was very much sort of the 1950s style movie, but,
Sam: you know, it was enjoyable. I will give it a thumbs up.
Sam: I will, you know, if I was doing my own ranking, would it be top 10?
Sam: No, but it was a good movie. It was a good movie. It was worth the watch.
Sam: And I watched this back in, what, February? Almost a year ago?
Sam: No, March. March. We're in March now. So, you know, still almost a year ago, but not quite as close.
Sam: And, you know, like, do I remember tons and tons of it? No.
Sam: Did I need to remind myself with a Wikipedia page? Yes.
Sam: But, you know, it was good. It was fine. I keep saying fine.
Ivan: It was fine. The ringing endorsement. It was Siskel and Ebert ringing endorsement.
Ivan: How was the movie? It was fine.
Sam: So let me do a second fine movie. This was not on the AFI Top 100 list, which was from 1999.
Sam: Star Wars episode one, the Phantom Menace.
Ivan: Uh-huh.
Sam: So, of all the Star Wars movies, this is the weakest, I think,
Sam: you know, even in, even including like things like Solo and things like that.
Sam: I, I will, I will actually move towards giving this a thumb sideways.
Ivan: Really?
Sam: Yeah. Like I, you know, This was last March.
Sam: Watched it again. Don't.
Sam: Look, you can't watch Star Wars without watching episode one.
Sam: But at the same time, I mean, I guess you could. Some people do skip it. But.
Sam: So, but I think of all of them, it is the one that is clearly the weakest.
Sam: It's got the least rewatchability. I know last year you mentioned you'd watched it with Manu.
Sam: You know, what's his name? The stupid Jar Jar Binks is really annoying and stays annoying.
Sam: Like, he hasn't grown on me over the years or anything.
Sam: And I feel bad for the actor who like got so much shit for Jar Jar Binks that
Sam: he was like suicidal for a while.
Sam: He's doing better now. But, you know, it's just like I remember watching it
Sam: when it first came out and coming out actively disappointed.
Sam: Now, we have talked on this show before about how one of the things with the
Sam: prequels specifically for people
Sam: of our generation is George Lucas specifically did not make them for us.
Sam: He was not making movies for the people who watched Star Wars,
Sam: The Empire Strikes Back, and Return
Sam: of the Jedi when they were new and had grown up and were now adults.
Sam: He was making them for the kids of that era.
Sam: And one of the things I have seen is over the years,
Sam: like the, the, the, the prequels in general, but I think even more so for two
Sam: and three, but even for one, the, the actors and such in them who got,
Sam: got a lot of crap at the time from people of our generation.
Sam: Have now felt they feel much better because now people who were kids in 1999,
Sam: and the early 2000s when the first one came out,
Sam: come up to them and tell them how important the movies were to them and how
Sam: much they liked them and how they were great and how they made their childhood, etc., etc.
Sam: Because again, these movies when they came out in, you know,
Sam: 1999 for the first one and early 2000s for the later ones were intended for
Sam: people who were, you know,
Sam: age 8 to 13 or something like that.
Sam: That was who George Lucas was really aiming at the whole damn time with the
Sam: original Star Wars and with the prequels.
Sam: Newer Star Wars since then has morphed in a variety of different ways.
Sam: And so it, it, it wasn't aimed directly at nostalgia bait for Gen Xers or whatever.
Sam: And, and, but, but still.
Sam: I think one was still kind of weak.
Sam: It was, you know, there were whole portions of it that you were like,
Sam: the whole pod race, for instance, was like, okay, this is about selling toys.
Sam: This is about selling video games.
Ivan: I like the pod race. I don't know. You guys are really seriously hard on this stupid movie.
Ivan: I like this damn movie.
Sam: Although even you admit it, it's a stupid movie. But yes.
Ivan: But they're all stupid movies in a certain sense. Come on, man.
Ivan: It's a fucking, you know, it's an entire story is, you know, it's ridiculous.
Ivan: But, you know, it's entertaining. I liked it.
Ivan: I don't know. I think it gets too much shit. Like you said, I think,
Ivan: and I think that you hit the nail on the head why you get so much shit.
Ivan: It's because of how George Lucas designed it. And I think that so many,
Ivan: it's really polarizing because of that, because the, the, the old fans expected it to be made to them.
Ivan: And it really, he was like, no, I'm making it for people right now because it's
Ivan: been 30, 40 fucking years.
Ivan: And I'm targeting, you know.
Sam: At the time, I believe it had been 16 years since Return of the Jedi.
Sam: So not 30 or 40 years. Wait, wait, wait.
Ivan: Yes, I'm... Hang on, I'm looking up the list.
Sam: Phantom Menace was released in theaters May 19th, 1999, almost 16 years after
Sam: Return of the Jedi, which I believe was 84.
Ivan: Phantom Menace was out in 99? Fuck, man. It's that old?
Ivan: It's 27 years old? The fucking hell?
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It's 27 years old?
Sam: Yes, it is.
Ivan: Jesus fucking Christ.
Sam: The other thing I'll say about Phantom Menace is it was also very obvious,
Sam: like, that George Lucas was playing with his new CGI toys.
Ivan: Well, yeah.
Sam: Yeah, so.
Ivan: But, you know, here's the one thing, though. For all the criticism,
Ivan: it really didn't impact box office at all.
Ivan: Because it did do over a billion at the box office.
Sam: Mm-hmm. So, I mean, I went. I went on opening day, I think.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: You know, I lined up for the damn thing with the whole family.
Sam: And we went, and it was a big event. Maybe not opening day. Maybe.
Sam: We usually, for things like that, like, wait just a little bit.
Ivan: Wait, what whole family? What are you talking about? You weren't. I wasn't married.
Sam: You weren't married. I went with Brandy and Amy. I went with Brandy and Amy.
Ivan: Dude, dude, dude. 99? 99?
Sam: Oh, wait. the fuck are you talking about.
Ivan: You didn't know.
Sam: Them okay maybe it was one of the other prequels maybe it was episode three
Sam: that i'm remembering i remember the one we went to in florida it's.
Ivan: Not it's not that.
Sam: You're right nine you're right 99 was before i
Sam: met them like i met so i met them in
Sam: 2003 2004 so
Sam: around there yeah yeah you didn't even
Sam: know them so who who where did i
Sam: see episode I don't I remember seeing episode you were in New Jersey not with
Sam: them you I know I was in New Jersey you're right I was in New Jersey but I don't
Sam: remember who I saw it with okay now my memories are all scrambled because because
Sam: I specifically remember waiting in line with Brandy and Amy but it must have
Sam: been episode three it had to be episode three.
Ivan: It had to be episode three no fucking.
Sam: Way it.
Ivan: Couldn't have been this one you didn't know them.
Sam: You're right. You're right.
Ivan: Jesus Christ, Sam, your memory is...
Sam: Let's see.
Ivan: Revenge of the Sith was 2005. I do realize now, like I said,
Ivan: listen, that if I ever get accused of a crime, the two alibi witnesses I need
Ivan: is you and my wife because you guys would be so all over the place,
Ivan: the investigators would be like, the fuck?
Ivan: But their stories... Wait, this guy says he was on a business trip in Spain.
Ivan: The other guy says he was with him in a movie.
Ivan: And we've got a cell phone record to show him is he in Atlanta.
Ivan: What the fuck is all these? What are they talking about? Yes,
Ivan: now I know who the alibi witnesses I'm bringing.
Sam: Anyway, I'm giving thumbs sideways. You give thumbs up to episode one.
Ivan: I give a thumbs up. I think it's a good movie. I think it's too much crap.
Sam: Okay. Okay. With all that, let's take a break.
Sam: And then I was going to say we'll switch to serious newsy stuff,
Sam: but we kind of did some serious newsy stuff already.
Sam: But, you know, and I will say for two weeks now, or three weeks now,
Sam: the next break is supposed to be an Apple Dream, but I still haven't prepped
Sam: it yet. So you get like a regular old break.
Sam: And, you know, maybe next week I'll get to it in time. Like,
Sam: cause I, cause I have to go grab the right thing and make an audio and put it in and blah, blah, blah.
Sam: Anyway, here's a break. We'll be back after this.
Break: You're listening to this podcast do you
Break: like it no do you want
Break: to support the show no well after
Break: you have subscribed to the show followed us on facebook and told all your friends
Break: they should be listening to what else can you do i won't subscribe you can help
Break: fund our patreon at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner.
Break: Patreon is a way you can throw us a few bucks a month to help out with the expenses of the show.
Break: You know, web hosting, equipment, a little bit of advertising to promote the
Break: show, and maybe every once in a while, some much needed sedatives for Yvonne.
Break: At different contribution levels, you can get a mention on the show,
Break: our curmudgeonscorner postcard, or even a curmudgeonscorner mug.
Break: Fun stuff. Not fun!
Break: In any case, the contributions help tell us that you enjoy and appreciate the show.
Break: I really, really hate Curmudgeon's Corner!
Break: Are we worth a buck a month? No!
Break: Five bucks a month? No!
Break: Or if you are nuts about us, maybe even more.
Break: One hundred billion! Billion dollars!
Break: Even though you don't have anywhere near a billion dollars! If we're worth anything
Break: to you at all, send it our way at patreon.com slash curmudgeonscorner.
Break: Alex hates, really, really hates, curmudgeonscorner!
Break: That's really mean, isn't it? But I hate curmudgeonscorner. But I really do!
Ivan: Oh, hey, here's a very interesting thing, Sam.
Sam: Okay, we're back.
Ivan: Yeah, I just went to the door to get...
Ivan: A package. And the reason I was, like, trying to figure out what the hell this
Ivan: is is because I got a call from our headquarters office.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: No, I think it was a caller. It was an email.
Ivan: I had notified from our official address in California saying, hey, you got a package.
Ivan: Like, I got a package. I'm a home office.
Ivan: Would you like us to forward you the package?
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: And I'm like, sure. Send it to my house. Okay. So I just got the package.
Ivan: It's a book. But I don't know who's... Why?
Ivan: It... This is the book. I'm showing you this here.
Sam: Okay. Agent-powered growth.
Ivan: Deploy AI agents that build your marketing pipeline 24-7.
Ivan: But I... Well, but it doesn't say who sent me the book.
Ivan: It says here sold to a gift for you. Apple Valley, Minnesota.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Please enjoy a copy of Stu Joe Werman's new book and visiting Visit readingminds.ai
Ivan: to put AI-powered agents to work for you.
Ivan: Did somebody go and like just...
Sam: I'm sure you'll get right on reading that. Yeah.
Ivan: To be fair, I am selling this kind of stuff, okay, to customers.
Ivan: The one thing that I've had an interest,
Ivan: and it's something that actually we've done successfully with certain customers,
Ivan: is actually doing these kind of AI agents for customer service calls and stuff and whatnot.
Ivan: But I'm just curious as to, did somebody decide that I'm going to get like,
Ivan: just for some reason, I'm trying to figure out who the hell would send us all
Ivan: these free copies of this book.
Sam: Someone who wants to spike the sales of their book? I guess.
Sam: By buying and selling free copies.
Ivan: Weird. Okay. All right. I was just very curious as to what the hell the package
Ivan: that came into corporate was, that it's just a book.
Sam: Okay. Just a book. Okay.
Sam: So now, I figure maybe we can squeeze in. We're already an hour into the show almost.
Ivan: And I will tell you that here's one thing, because I mentioned to Sam,
Ivan: I couldn't find my AirPods. I'm using some other headphones.
Sam: Your batteries are going to die at any moment.
Ivan: Well, okay. No, we're not doing too bad. It says that we're at 70%.
Ivan: So we're not doing terrible. Okay. All right. We're, you know. So.
Sam: Okay. Yeah. So just to lay out some of the things that have happened in the last couple of weeks.
Sam: So first of all, last week I did a 15-minute show. I only talked about my health
Sam: issues. So yeah, whatever. No real topics.
Sam: Sorry about that, everybody who doesn't care.
Sam: But we have from last week that we never got around to talk to.
Sam: We had Greenland, Smith, the Board of Peace, ICE claiming their memo on they
Sam: don't need warrants to enter houses, protests.
Sam: This week, we had apparently, sorta, kinda, sorta,
Sam: a retreat in Minnesota from ICE and Border Patrol, although I've heard in the
Sam: last 48 hours that that is less of a retreat than it looked.
Sam: We've got Don Lemon being arrested.
Sam: We've got more Epstein files being released. Oh, and by the way,
Sam: last week, we also had some more accusations that weren't from the Epstein files
Sam: against Trump and others.
Sam: We had the raid on Georgia elections. We had a new Fed chair nominee.
Sam: There was some talk on our conventions corner slack about some announcements out of Tesla.
Sam: So we got a whole bunch of stuff, Yvonne. Where do you want to start?
Ivan: Thinking, thinking, thinking. Look, let's start with Minnesota,
Ivan: because we haven't talked about anything of what's happened in Minnesota. So, yes.
Ivan: Well, I heard, you know, like right now, since we are two weeks,
Ivan: you know, we're late right now after the last fucking murder and stuff.
Sam: Yeah, that had happened right before I recorded last week, and I mentioned it in passing.
Ivan: I mean, you're saying that there seemed to have been a significant step back in operations.
Ivan: But now you're saying that that's
Ivan: not exactly the case because it seemed that it was, but I don't know.
Sam: Yeah, well, they sent what's-his-name packing. What's-his-name?
Ivan: Bovino.
Sam: Bovino. They sent Bovino packing. The pseudo-Nazi. Yeah, because,
Sam: I mean, he was literally cosplaying as a goddamn Nazi, wearing like a jacket
Sam: that looked like an SS jacket and all this kind of stuff. And he was one of...
Sam: He was not the only one by any means, but he was one of the loud ones in the
Sam: administration, basically saying, well, if these people had just behaved and
Sam: done as they were told, they wouldn't have been shot.
Sam: And it's 100% their fault and they're agitators and whatever.
Sam: They got rid of him. They brought in the other guy, you know, names.
Sam: Me and names are bad. but
Sam: and he sort of initially in
Sam: the first couple days was like okay i'm gonna talk to walls
Sam: we're gonna work something out we're blah blah blah walls had a call with donald
Sam: trump donald trump was saying some you know was also talking about sort of relaxing
Sam: a bit and then just in the last 48 hours they've ramped up the rhetoric again
Sam: donald trump has been talking about them as agitators again.
Sam: There have been, I just saw on social media,
Sam: like since we've been recording video of another incident where,
Sam: you know, the, the, the, the federal
Sam: agents were getting in front of an observer car and harassing them.
Sam: So it's like, things calm down for a couple of days, but it looks like they're
Sam: getting, getting antsy again.
Sam: But also we keep hearing that, okay, they're going to move their emphasis.
Sam: And I've heard a variety of places. The most recent that I've heard is Ohio,
Sam: that they're going to basically pull people out of Minnesota,
Sam: put them in Ohio instead.
Sam: Yeah, there were other cities mentioned in between. I heard Phoenix once.
Ivan: Yeah, I heard Arizona.
Sam: Right. Yeah, I heard Arizona, heard Philadelphia, heard a couple other places.
Sam: But the most recent is, oh, Ohio will be next.
Sam: And so it's unclear.
Sam: But what, you know, as you said, the folks in Minnesota are not backing down.
Ivan: No.
Sam: They're in the streets. They're organized. I've heard people talking about how, well, first of all,
Sam: you know, again, with the right wing having a hard time understanding what's
Sam: going on, they keep talking about like, well, who's bankrolling this?
Sam: This is organized at the highest levels, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Sam: blah. because they can't even imagine the fact that people are self-organizing
Sam: at the grassroots level because they're actually outraged by what's happening.
Sam: And I think this is one of the things where Miller and all of these folks just
Sam: don't understand. They expect that really everybody agrees with them.
Sam: Really, everybody wants these foreigners out.
Sam: And it's just these weird liberal provocateurs who say anything else, right?
Sam: But no, like, apparently the
Sam: reports on the ground are practically like every business and shopping,
Sam: every like coffee shop or small business you go into, there are people sort
Sam: of organizing and being like, okay, who's going to be the lookout?
Sam: Who's going to do this? Who's going to do that? and people in
Sam: neighborhoods self-organizing on how to like try to
Sam: provide groceries to people who
Sam: are afraid to leave their home right you know try to get kids to school where
Sam: they can you know things like this and it really is just neighborhoods self-organizing
Sam: to protect their neighbors and and and the,
Sam: The administration-type MAGA folks apparently just can't comprehend this.
Sam: But this is continuing. You know, ice raids have not stopped.
Sam: They might have slowed down a little bit, but they certainly have not stopped.
Sam: And the protective details and the ice watchers are still out in force.
Sam: And so it's still a potentially explosive situation that could blow back up again at any moment.
Ivan: But here's one thing, right? Right. And I'm not having clarity on the impact
Ivan: right now because we are in a government shutdown right now. OK.
Sam: Yes. Officially, officially it started at midnight last night,
Sam: Eastern Time, because the what the Senate passed something to extend for two
Sam: weeks. Only two weeks, by the way.
Sam: But the House is like, oh, we'll get to it early next week. So we are officially
Sam: in a partial shutdown because some portions of the government have been funded at this point.
Ivan: Right. And the thing is that part of it is that the shutdown includes DHS, okay, at this point.
Sam: Well, but here's the thing. The actual on-the-ground agents are considered essential blah.
Ivan: Blah, blah. I know. But it's impacting operations. But the one thing is that
Ivan: I guess the key thing here is that Senate Democrats are like,
Ivan: And people have a line behind either there has to be significant changes based
Ivan: on on what DHS is doing or we're not funding or we're not continuing with the funding.
Ivan: And that's, you know, now I know that we have had this issue before where we
Ivan: have just buckled over and not gotten much of anything.
Ivan: But I mean, this this is the only way to stop this.
Ivan: They need, you know, like but even Trump is saying that he is open to negotiating about this.
Sam: One key element to watch in these negotiations is that the massive increase
Sam: in ICE funding was done by the Big Beautiful Bill.
Sam: It is, in effect, separately from what is being talked about for DHS now.
Sam: And so you have to look at not just, there's a separate conversation about undoing
Sam: some of the increases from the big, beautiful bill.
Ivan: Exactly.
Sam: That is separate from the, what, do we put restrictions on? Do we do this?
Sam: Do we do that? And you've got to watch all of these announcements about what
Sam: is up for negotiation and what is not.
Sam: I think the key is we have to pay very close attention as to...
Sam: What really is included and what is not.
Ivan: I agree.
Sam: And it's not clear right now. Because there is a lot of opportunity here for
Sam: them to potentially make a quote-unquote agreement that sounds good but has limited actual effect.
Sam: So you have to look for, you know, are we actually doing something meaningful?
Sam: And that is both... And look, to do something... We've got the same situation
Sam: where the only thing the Democrats can do by themselves is filibuster in the
Sam: Senate and stop things entirely.
Sam: To actually make a meaningful change, you need to have a decent number of Republicans on board, too.
Sam: And you have had a handful of Republicans express discontent with what has been going on.
Sam: But it's unclear if they're enough.
Ivan: Right.
Ivan: And I just saw that a judge in,
Ivan: you know, that the state had filed a suit to block this surge in Minnesota,
Ivan: and the judge did not grant the—,
Ivan: I think that also the petition may have been a little bit too broad, but I don't know.
Sam: Look, one thing, I think that actually was a good sign, whether or not it ramps back up again.
Sam: The temporary back down by the administration, I think, was a good sign because
Sam: it meant they were feeling the pressure here.
Sam: They were feeling the fact Trump's poll numbers, specifically on immigration
Sam: in general, but also specifically on immigration, have been absolutely tanking.
Sam: So they've been going through the floor.
Sam: The the the minnesota folks i
Sam: think the intention i donald trump
Sam: has been telegraphing his desire to use
Sam: what is it the insurrection act right and i i think they had been telegraphing
Sam: that they essentially wanted to put more and more and more pressure on minnesota
Sam: almost i'm gonna say almost but not really almost in the hopes they haven't
Sam: said this explicitly but i think it's fairly clear,
Sam: in the hopes that violence would break out.
Ivan: Yes. That's been the goal. That's been the goal. Absolutely.
Sam: The goal has been that these protesters would end up,
Sam: Beating up, shooting something, an ICE or Border Patrol agent or other federal agent involved in this,
Sam: or they'd start like riots and be burning things down and all of this kind of
Sam: stuff, and it would get chaotic.
Sam: And they could blame the protesters on this, and they could then invoke the
Sam: Insurrection Act and start really
Sam: cracking down and bringing in even more military force into the area.
Sam: And as you said earlier, the bait has not been taken.
Ivan: No.
Sam: The folks have been judiciously nonviolent and have been, yes,
Sam: they've been getting in the way.
Sam: They've been obstructing. They've been warning people.
Sam: You know, they're blowing the whistles and the apps and signal groups and everything
Sam: else to sort of warn people where to stay away from.
Sam: Basically, they've been trying to follow these people around in such a way that
Sam: makes it impossible for them to act as a, quote-unquote, secret police.
Sam: Because everyone knows where they are all the time, and someone is always watching
Sam: them and videoing everything they do.
Sam: And maybe they haven't succeeded 100%. I'm sure they've done some things that
Sam: have not been videoed. but that's the goal is to make it very,
Sam: you know, make it wide open where they are.
Sam: And if, if that's a problem, you get away from them.
Sam: And so, but they've been meticulously nonviolent.
Sam: They have not been causing problems. And so far, every single violent incident,
Sam: has been the feds killing or beating or otherwise going overboard.
Sam: There was the video of the kid in the rabbit hat who was abducted along with
Sam: his father and shipped off to Texas.
Sam: There was an elderly man who turned out to be completely legal, whatever.
Ivan: Dragged out in his underwear. Dragged out in... In the freezing temperatures.
Ivan: I mean, these people have no fuck. I mean, I'm sorry.
Ivan: You know, even like a police department going in to arrest a murderer,
Ivan: anybody, doesn't do that.
Sam: Right. And so you keep hearing, and, you know, I still have very little sympathy,
Sam: but you keep hearing from MAGA folks being like, this isn't what I voted for.
Sam: I just wanted them to get rid of the violent criminals.
Ivan: By the way, I just saw one report that one of the things that the Minneapolis
Ivan: police is like really fed up also with them.
Ivan: It looks like a lot of the police officers are getting fed up.
Ivan: So they have started now ticketing ICE agents for traffic violations.
Sam: I had seen one report of that, but I hadn't seen it confirmed.
Ivan: Yeah. I saw it from somebody else that looks like more credible.
Ivan: Yeah, it seems like the Minneapolis PD is like fucking like, OK, all right.
Ivan: OK, fuck. Listen, this is something that can happen. I've seen this happen.
Ivan: I remember still a story about Miami-Dade police officer being ticketed by state
Ivan: police, OK, for speeding, like on the turnpike that apparently they kept calling.
Ivan: Because apparently there were a few certain people like that work for Miami-Dade
Ivan: police that, oh, well, I I live very far. I want to get to work real fast.
Ivan: So they were doing 120 miles an hour regularly on the fucking turnpike to get to work. Okay.
Ivan: And the state troopers basically just said, had enough of this shit.
Ivan: They started ticketing them all.
Ivan: So this isn't, this is entirely legal.
Ivan: I mean, you can't just violate, just because you're a federal officer,
Ivan: that you have no right to violate all traffic laws.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: Okay. There's no such immunity.
Sam: No, no.
Sam: So, I don't know. I feel like this is, like I said, I think it's a good sign
Sam: that they backed off because they were feeling the pressure.
Sam: They were feeling very specifically that this wasn't going the way they expected.
Sam: They didn't get the violence oh i i
Sam: should also this is an important point that should not be left unsaid the protesters
Sam: who were getting shot or roughed up or whatever i mean we added two killed but
Sam: we had more as well suburban white folks,
Sam: You know, I guarantee you, the administration was hoping that there would be
Sam: conflict with black and brown people.
Sam: And that would be the headlines.
Sam: Instead, you get like middle-aged white folks.
Sam: You know, you get an ICU nurse who cares for veterans who was killed.
Sam: You have a mom who had just dropped her kid off from preschool.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, and you have other examples.
Sam: Like there was video that went viral of a really angry old white guy who was
Sam: upset, who is a local business owner, runs a bookstore.
Sam: And you have the face of this is not your, you know, a brown immigrant with an accent.
Sam: Or, you know, an angry black person.
Sam: No. Which is the stereotypes they were hoping for.
Sam: Instead, no, it's suburban white
Sam: folks who are extremely angry and putting themselves on the line and who,
Sam: to put it bluntly,
Sam: look sympathetic even to MAGA folks when they see them getting beat up or killed.
Sam: And, you know, so it has not been going the way they hoped.
Sam: They have not gotten the violent backlash. They have not gotten to crack down in the way they did.
Sam: They've got sympathetic folks who are winning the PR war.
Sam: When you poll people about, did they do the right thing when they shot these people?
Sam: The overwhelming result is no.
Sam: The percentage saying yes is tiny.
Sam: And so they're at the very least they're backing off to figure out what to do
Sam: next but I think there will be a what to do next you know they're you know whether
Sam: it's Ohio or Philly or Phoenix or here.
Ivan: In Seattle or whatever here is the interesting thing the one thing because they
Ivan: sent Tom Holman right to go and like that's.
Sam: The guy whose name I couldn't remember.
Ivan: Supervise this and one of the things is that it seemed like from some of the
Ivan: internal things that were discussed,
Ivan: that Tom Holman was basically advocating strongly for returning to the Biden-era
Ivan: policies of how they were handling a lot of these cases.
Ivan: Which means, you know, none of this stupid shit like this.
Sam: Because the reality is that in terms of deportations— I feel like that was ascendant
Sam: for a few days, but now they're retreating again from that.
Ivan: You think that they're retreating from that again?
Sam: Yeah. Because I think that the folks in the administration...
Sam: I mean, this is the same, like, who talked to Donald Trump last thing, right?
Ivan: No, it's Steve Miller. Let's be clear.
Sam: It's Steve Miller.
Ivan: Steve Miller is focused on maximum cruelty. He doesn't really care.
Ivan: So he thinks that, you know, we need this Gestapo confrontation.
Ivan: But the problem is, you know...
Ivan: Last week, the leading candidate for governor in Minnesota from the GOP basically quit the race.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: And he quit the race because he's not an idiot.
Ivan: He saw the reality of what they are doing right now in Minnesota.
Ivan: And literally, the analysis was that basically that this is destroying the Republican
Ivan: Party in Minnesota. that after this, there is not going to be anything left
Ivan: of the Republican Party in Minnesota.
Sam: So the one special election that happened this week was interesting because
Sam: it was a very blue district.
Sam: The Democrat was going to win no matter what. However, it was so blue already,
Sam: that they expected the Democrat couldn't do any better.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know, I believe, like, it was one where I'm not going to remember exact
Sam: numbers, so these are ballpark.
Ivan: It was a 70-point margin the last time. And this time the margin was like 90-something points.
Sam: It was close to—the Republican got 4%.
Ivan: Percent. The Republican got 4%.
Sam: Whereas last time they got close to 20.
Sam: So, you know, this is still like, again, very blue district,
Sam: but it was so blue, no one figured it could go more blue. But it did.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, but like, I mean, basically that it literally,
Ivan: I mean, almost no, I mean, the Republican support got down to 4%, Sam. Four.
Ivan: Four. I've never seen anything like that.
Sam: So, anyway, I feel like they are, I don't know, like, you mentioned Miller.
Sam: He was apparently posting again today. The latest post from a few hours ago.
Sam: From Stephen Miller. Plenty of countries
Sam: in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class.
Sam: The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class
Sam: that is granted full political rights, including welfare and the right to vote.
Sam: All visas are a bridge to citizenship.
Sam: In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically
Sam: benefit from moving to the U.S.
Sam: Can do so, exercise the franchise in the U.S. and their.
Sam: Are born will be full you full american citizens with
Sam: all the rights and benefits therein now of course i hear
Sam: this and i'm like awesome this is what makes america great
Sam: uh but miller people are interpreting his statement is basically like this would
Sam: be fine like we want to go back to that where we import people as slaves or
Sam: indentured servants or at the very least second class non citizens,
Sam: like is done in many parts of the world today.
Sam: And it's like, this is one of the core elements of Millerism and what MAGA is
Sam: right now, is this, it's plain,
Sam: flat-out white nationalism that the only true Americans are European Americans,
Sam: and everybody else doesn't really deserve to be here, and it's a shame we ever
Sam: let them be citizens, let alone let anyone knew it.
Sam: And this is the exact opposite.
Sam: I mean, I'm like, didn't you guys like watch Schoolhouse Rock?
Sam: The melting pot, like the, you know, I mean, everything.
Sam: And I don't know. I know this is like not a universal experience,
Sam: but my indoctrination into what was great about this country was specifically.
Sam: That it was a country of immigrants, that we took the best from all over the world.
Sam: And it was the land of opportunity and people would come here.
Ivan: The Statue of Liberty.
Sam: The Statue of Liberty. Well, the Statue of Liberty originally was an anti-slavery
Sam: thing and only later got the immigrant connotation. But yes.
Ivan: Still.
Sam: Anyway.
Ivan: I mean, still works both ways. Yes, against everything that this asshole's saying.
Sam: Yeah. Anything else about this? I feel like it's...
Sam: Keep watching. We're not done. I feel like people got a sense of relief that,
Sam: hey, we won in Minnesota.
Sam: We're a long ways from done.
Ivan: But I think that the one thing that it's showing to me and why it makes me long-term optimistic.
Ivan: Okay? Not talking about short-term.
Ivan: Is the resolve of the people. Because I do think, and I think many of us may
Ivan: be feared, that the people were going to just, you know, buckle and just give
Ivan: up against this aggression.
Ivan: And the reality is what it has shown to me is completely the opposite.
Ivan: That they are not backing down. That they are not going to be intimidated by
Ivan: agents murdering, you know, citizens.
Ivan: That they're not going to be intimidated by all these, you know, oppressive tactics.
Ivan: That as a matter of fact, it's the opposite.
Ivan: The oppressive tactics have made people get more enraged against this whole thing.
Sam: Well, and I think that this is also a question of, like, the Trump administration's
Sam: strategy on this. because they've got competing goals, right?
Sam: Like, one is the theoretic, let's get rid of all the immigrants goal.
Sam: And frankly, like, if that was the number one goal, they probably wouldn't be
Sam: starting in Minnesota. Right.
Sam: It's stupid. It's ridiculous.
Ivan: I mean, it's just, you know, yeah.
Sam: And obviously, they didn't start in Minnesota. They've done other things.
Sam: But the key is, they've been going after blue states and blue cities.
Sam: Because this is not just about the immigrants. It's about showing it to the damn lips.
Ivan: And, you know, the lips have basically given them a big fat middle finger and
Ivan: said, fuck you, we're not going to stand for it.
Sam: So one approach that the administration could take, I don't think they're going
Sam: to, but they could take, is like, look, let's do this in parts of the country
Sam: that are more supportive of us doing this anyway.
Ivan: But that's not going to have that. Okay, here's the thing. If your point is
Ivan: to inflict maximum cruelty on your enemies, that's not going to do it.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: That is the primary goal.
Ivan: Because if you look at deportations under fucking Biden and Obama,
Ivan: man, they were the supporting tons of,
Ivan: They were seriously enforcing laws.
Sam: When we did the prediction show, we did identify that it has gone up under Trump.
Ivan: It has gone up, Sam. But think about the amount of money that's been poured into.
Ivan: And what is the net result in terms of deportations?
Ivan: And a lot of the stuff. And are they deporting the people that they said they
Ivan: did? A lot of the shit that they are doing right now, Sam, is they are taking
Ivan: people that are here legally and turning them into illegal people.
Ivan: They are here legally.
Sam: Like the rumor is, for instance, on the Ohio thing for next week is they'll
Sam: specifically go after Haitians.
Ivan: Haitians.
Sam: Because the Haitians who are, as of today, here legally under temporary protective status.
Sam: But that temporary protective status is due to expire next week,
Sam: and the administration is choosing not to renew it.
Ivan: Exactly, because Trump is choosing to make them now illegal.
Sam: Right. So it's people who had been legal were all settling— Because.
Ivan: Oh, Haiti is safe and fine, you know, so we can send them all back there.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: Which is insane.
Sam: And so they will suddenly become
Sam: illegal next week, and the administration will start going after them.
Ivan: Right. Right. But this is what I'm saying.
Ivan: This is not going after criminals. This is terminating people's legal status
Ivan: and then using cruelty to get them out of the country.
Sam: Right. Okay, let's move on.
Sam: I want one more topic, and I am going to make it the Epstein files and what's going on with those.
Sam: So we had another big tranche released, 3 million-some documents.
Sam: But interestingly, apparently the administration signaled, this is 3 million
Sam: out of 6 million, but we're still, we're actually done.
Sam: The other 3 million are all things we think we have right to not release for one reason or another.
Sam: This latest batch has a bunch of additional stuff. People are still going through the 3 million.
Sam: One element, and I know I've said this on the show before, but I think it's
Sam: important to reiterate again.
Sam: There are a number of things here that are,
Sam: super scandalous, directly against Donald Trump accusations,
Sam: direct accusations of him abusing minors.
Sam: There have been other places that have accused him of being present at murders.
Sam: There have been all kinds of things.
Sam: And for the most part, the major media is keeping a very far hands off mentioning
Sam: that they're sort of scandalous things, but there's no evidence to back them up, et cetera.
Sam: And there isn't. These are reports
Sam: of people calling into tip lines with allegations for the most part.
Sam: But what I don't, I keep saying the issue here, no, of course you can't jump
Sam: straight into, is that accusation true?
Sam: You can't start saying, oh, of course this is true.
Sam: But what you should be looking at is, is there evidence the accusation was taken
Sam: seriously and looked into in depth and ruled out?
Sam: Like some of the summary tables they have, have a single line that say,
Sam: the accuser was deemed not credible.
Sam: Okay, tell me more. Why? Why was this not backed up?
Sam: Did you just say, ah, this is a ridiculous charge, click?
Sam: Or did you actually look into it in any sort of way, just try to back it up?
Sam: I saw references to one of these that was apparently not followed.
Sam: Well, one of the things is, in some of the cases, we don't know if they were followed up.
Sam: What if the remaining three million documents shows that they did follow it
Sam: up and then determined that it was false or whatever.
Sam: You know, a big part of the story here, I mean, obviously there's all of the
Sam: abuse itself and it would be nice to get to the bottom of that.
Sam: But a secondary story that is also incredibly important,
Sam: is how for decades this was swept under the rug and not followed up and not
Sam: investigated seriously and people intentionally looked the other way.
Sam: And now, obviously, you know, now 20 plus years later, it may be hard to get
Sam: evidence one way or another that could, like, prove any of these allegations.
Sam: So you do have a lot of unsubstantiated allegations.
Sam: But I think a really important question that people aren't diving into nearly
Sam: enough, I don't think, is what was or was not followed up on and who made those decisions and why.
Ivan: I mean, I think that's a key thing. And obviously, it's such a volume of files.
Ivan: It's such a huge volume of files. But also, look, the reality is that it brings
Ivan: into question, because of what happened before,
Ivan: and because a lot of the stuff was the incredible, because of the sweetheart
Ivan: deal that Epstein got, it brings into question all of those decisions in the first place.
Ivan: That all of these were not credible. when it's been shown that a lot of them were.
Sam: Yes, I think that that's the fundamental thing is the default assumption going back decades on,
Sam: I mean, this goes to the Me Too movement too with just women and sexual harassment
Sam: in general, but very specifically in terms of these, the default assumption
Sam: of the authorities going in was none of these accusations was credible.
Sam: And this is just some random person trying to ruin the life of an important
Sam: person or maybe get some money out of a settlement or whatever.
Sam: And so the default was, of course, they're making this shit up.
Sam: This is ridiculous. This would not actually be happening.
Sam: And so all kinds of things were deemed non-credible and were not followed up
Sam: that clearly should have been.
Sam: And so you see a lot of these things where, look, you read some of these,
Sam: you know, one of the accusations against Donald Trump was that he had Epstein
Sam: procure for him parties with a bunch of underage girls that he would evaluate
Sam: sexually and their details in the accusation.
Sam: And is there any backup or proof of this? No, not right now, but is there lots of.
Sam: Circumstantial. Like, we know there are stories about him doing similar things
Sam: at his own damn beauty pageants.
Sam: This is not that much of a stretch further.
Sam: Is it believable? Yes. Do we know it's true? No.
Sam: The question to me on all of these is, did someone take it seriously and dig
Sam: into it and investigate?
Sam: And I think in most of these cases, the answer is actually no.
Sam: Because the one thing we're not seeing in these damn files is,
Sam: oh, okay, here's the investigation we did that exonerated these people.
Sam: That said, oh, they were accused of this, but we looked into it and actually
Sam: X, Y, Z, Q, it could never have happened.
Sam: He was not in the right city at the right time.
Sam: There were witnesses that put him elsewhere.
Sam: The person in question has a history of lying, blah, blah, blah,
Sam: whatever. We are not seeing that.
Sam: And you'd think they'd be in a hurry to get out that kind of information if it was there.
Sam: And, you know, so we're left in this, like I've said for months and months and
Sam: months now that the probable truth in these files is that there's lots of accusations,
Sam: but very little proof.
Sam: And so when they say there's nothing chargeable here, they're probably correct.
Sam: You know, there's nothing with enough evidence to charge a specific thing.
Sam: But I think that's actually part of the scandal.
Sam: Is why was this let alone and not investigated at the time when these allegations
Sam: were fresh so that something could be done about it?
Sam: And I think there probably are all kinds of people under NDAs who had monetary
Sam: settlements and stuff like that, and there should be an effort to legally break those.
Sam: Because generally speaking, NDAs are not enforceable if they're covering up a crime.
Ivan: That's correct.
Sam: You know?
Ivan: That is correct. And, I mean, the other thing is that if the NDA was executed
Ivan: between Epstein and their state and the party, the Epstein and state can release them from the NDA.
Ivan: And, I mean, the receiver, the signer of the NDA could choose to break it. Period.
Ivan: You know, and, oh, let the Epstein estate try to sue them over it.
Ivan: You know what I'm saying? I mean, and we know.
Sam: I mean, the whole thing with, you know, Stormy Daniels and all was about Trump in an NDA as well.
Sam: Trump has not been a stranger to NDAs to shut up people with embarrassing information.
Ivan: Exactly. So, you know, they can be broken. So that shouldn't really be a consideration at this point.
Sam: But, I mean, the honest situation at this point, though, is if someone was going
Sam: to be doing that kind of pushing, it would be DOJ, and DOJ's not about to do any of that stuff.
Ivan: Oh, no, DOJ, you know.
Sam: So, I mean, if anything.
Ivan: They are further— DOJ's not going to do any to try to get to the bottom of this.
Sam: However— They are further participating in the cover-up.
Sam: Even with the law that was passed, which, as we have found out as well,
Sam: does not have teeth on it.
Sam: Like the fact that they have been in violation of this law for more than a month
Sam: because they have not released everything, they have not followed the guidance.
Sam: And by the way, they've claimed they needed all this extra time to properly
Sam: redact victims' names, but they're not.
Sam: Every single release has been exposing victims' information.
Sam: They're not doing a good job at that either.
Sam: And at this point, I'm not willing to give the benefit of a doubt.
Sam: I figure it's intentional, you know?
Sam: Exactly what they redact or not redact. I'm not like, yes, there are a bunch of stupid people here.
Sam: There are a bunch of people who don't know what they're doing.
Sam: But a lot of this stuff, I'm like, they did that on purpose.
Ivan: Hey, I just realized that you did the movie reviews and you didn't do a movie review on Melania.
Sam: I have put it on my list, though.
Ivan: It is on your list?
Sam: It is on my list.
Ivan: So what, it may be done, you know, in about 30 years?
Sam: 30, 40 years, I'm sure I'll get to it, yeah.
Ivan: That will be quite surprising as we're like, I don't know, we're recording this podcast at age 85.
Ivan: And all of a sudden Sam, oh, movie review!
Ivan: Melania! And I'm like, fuck. Really? Now?
Ivan: Really? You know.
Sam: So, by the way, speaking of Melania, and going back to the Epstein files,
Sam: this latest batch has a bunch with additional people on it.
Sam: So, Melania is in there. We have not yet had,
Sam: a hundred percent validation of what a few people have been saying that Epstein
Sam: actually like was the one who introduced Melania to Donald Trump in the first place.
Sam: But we do have apparently some emails between Melania and Maxwell,
Sam: but we also have other folks too. So let's start out with Yvonne.
Sam: My prediction on the two to 2026 prediction show was that the person other than
Sam: Donald Trump who would be further exposed in the Epstein file, I predicted Bill Gates.
Sam: Is there anything about Bill Gates in this latest drop?
Ivan: Well, to be fair, it wasn't about pedophilia. It was, I mean,
Ivan: it was, it was, it was bad, but it wasn't pedophilia.
Ivan: It was apparently he banged some Russian hooker and apparently got an STD.
Sam: Plural, I think, plural.
Ivan: Yeah, hookers, plural. And I guess he wasn't careful. And he got an STD.
Sam: And he asked Epstein for help in getting pills that he could surreptitiously
Sam: give his wife without his wife knowing.
Ivan: Fuck me.
Sam: Fuck it out. You'd think somebody like Bill Gates would have actually lots of
Sam: places he could surreptitiously get pills if.
Ivan: He wanted them. Not ask this monster. God. Okay.
Ivan: Well, you know, I think that, look, let's just say this.
Ivan: It's pretty clear why Melinda got a divorce.
Sam: Yes, yes. She's been open for a while that it was Epstein related.
Ivan: But what I'm saying is, I know it was, but this just provides a fuller picture of that.
Ivan: Oh, God.
Sam: We've also got Elon Musk in there many times. Apparently like asking for what
Sam: the best time to come to the island is for a wild party.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: We got some football owner. I don't even know those folks, but some football owner is in there.
Ivan: Steve Tisch, who is a co-owner of the New York Giants, who is part of the Tisch
Ivan: family that owns Lowe's, that used to own CBS.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Okay.
Ivan: So, yeah, he was mentioned. It was, yeah.
Sam: We've got some other folks, too. And like I said, there was a whole bunch of
Sam: Donald Trump stuff. Abuse of minors.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Abuse of non-minors. Rape. We had that. I saw. Rape.
Sam: We had, and it wasn't part of the Epstein files,
Sam: but I will mention on here, Last week
Sam: going around on the social medias was an interview
Sam: with some guy who claimed to be a male victim of Epstein that also had all kinds
Sam: of additional allegations against Donald Trump and a whole bunch of other folks.
Sam: And again, these are sexual abuse of minors, but going beyond that into murders,
Sam: animal cruelty even, like all kinds of stuff.
Sam: And again, this is all the same scenario where it's an allegation,
Sam: but without any backing information. So the question, again,
Sam: becomes, was it investigated?
Sam: Is anybody going to investigate it? Is anybody going to dig in or not?
Sam: Like, maybe none of it's credible.
Sam: Maybe none of it's credible. But what I want to see is proof that somebody actually
Sam: took it seriously and looked into it at some point in time. Any of these.
Sam: And who else? Any other names that strike you that were in this week's batch?
Ivan: Not that jump out to me, like right now, no, not at this point.
Sam: Well, and again, the administration is apparently now saying that they're essentially
Sam: done releasing these files, even though there are apparently at least 3 million
Sam: more documents unreleased.
Sam: And so the question is, what, if anything, can anybody do about it?
Sam: This seems to be another example where there's a question of who,
Sam: if anybody, has standing documents,
Sam: Do they pass another law?
Sam: Do, you know, who can sue them, if anybody? And if they do sue them, what's the route?
Sam: One of the Congress folks, a couple of the Congress folks went to court trying
Sam: to say, trying to get a special master appointed, said, we can't trust DOJ to do this.
Sam: Let's get a special master in here, do it instead. The particular judge said
Sam: that the specific case they were trying to attach themselves to do this was
Sam: not appropriate. They could not do that.
Sam: They could go try again a different way. But there are apparently all kinds
Sam: of questions about, like, generally speaking, individual Congress people don't
Sam: have standing to sue for these kinds of things.
Sam: They've lost in court for that kind of thing before. So if Congress really wanted
Sam: to do something about it, Congress would have to act as a whole once again,
Sam: which means you need majorities again. You need to be able to pass the law again.
Sam: And they did this, and it passed by an overwhelming majority.
Sam: But it's unclear they could do that again. You know, so I don't know.
Sam: My gut feeling is that the 90% of the worst things that we've heard in these
Sam: allegations are probably true.
Sam: There may be some bit at the top, but, you know, you may have a few folks who
Sam: are in there because, you know, it was pointed out. I was listening to a conversation.
Sam: I think it was on, oh God, I have to say, MSNOW.
Sam: God damn, like, you know, I know they had divorced from NBC, but still, whatever.
Sam: Anyway, there was a conversation on there and they were talking about how in
Sam: the Kavanaugh case, if you remember,
Sam: there was a period of time when they just said, here's a tip line.
Sam: Call in with anything you know about Kavanaugh. And while there were a handful
Sam: of real accusations against Kavanaugh,
Sam: apparently that tip line was full of absolute shit of people calling in with
Sam: stuff that was absolutely 100 percent made up,
Sam: was impossible scenarios at impossible times where the players were not even in those places.
Sam: And it was just people calling in because they hated Kavanaugh making shit up.
Ivan: And I'm sure you have- A tip line like that is not the best way to be gathering really information.
Sam: Well, and a lot of these accusations that we're talking about that are the most
Sam: out there are from a tip line that was set up around 10 years ago on Epstein
Sam: and Trump-related stuff.
Sam: Specifically Epstein-related stuff. Yeah, but here's my point.
Ivan: But, but, but, but, but, there was a difference between what was happening politically
Ivan: with Kavanaugh and, you know, the hearings versus 10 years ago when really the
Ivan: Epstein thing wasn't on most people's radar.
Sam: Well, my point is, though, and like a lot of the calls into there were about Trump stuff, right?
Sam: My point is, there are a lot of people out there who would find it a fun thing
Sam: to do to call into a tip line about that and make stuff up about Donald Trump.
Sam: That is absolutely true. However...
Sam: There is so much that we actually do have evidence about that it's worth following up.
Sam: And my feeling from hearing what we have gotten out is that most of these things
Sam: were just not followed up seriously.
Sam: You know, and there may well be, I would not be surprised in the slightest if
Sam: there was made up shit in there about Donald Trump from people who just called
Sam: in and are like, I hate Donald Trump.
Sam: I'm going to say that he, you know, he raped children and threw babies into Lake Michigan.
Sam: You know, some stuff may be made up, but I would be willing to bet 90% of the
Sam: allegations we're hearing about actually were true.
Sam: They just fit the pattern so damn well with the things that we do know about.
Sam: They just take it a little bit further. And some of the details do line up.
Sam: And so, like, at the very least, again, again, I keep coming back to this.
Sam: At the very least, they deserved a serious investigation where people treated
Sam: the allegation seriously.
Sam: Looked into it, tried to prove one way or another, you know,
Sam: what's going on here? Is this bullshit?
Sam: Or is there something to dig in here further?
Sam: And maybe some of these things could be outright proven to be false.
Sam: Maybe some of the things, you know, there's tentative stuff,
Sam: but we really can't prove a case, but we tried.
Sam: But at least the attempt should have happened. And I think it's very clear that
Sam: the attempt did not happen in most of these cases.
Sam: And that should be looked into as a scandal in and of itself.
Sam: Who made the call not to take these seriously and look into them further. Anyway.
Sam: Okay. I think we're done, Yvonne.
Ivan: We're done. We're done. Yep.
Sam: Okay. As usual, go to curmudgeon-corner.com. You can see our archives.
Sam: You can see all the ways to contact us.
Sam: You got all the stuffs. All the stuffs.
Sam: The stuffs. Importantly, you've also... The stuffs. The stuffs.
Sam: Importantly you've also got a link to our patreon where
Sam: yvonne and i and a bunch of listeners are hanging out exchanging links doing
Sam: all that kind of stuff if you give us cash money wait no i said the patreon
Sam: is where you go to where we're hanging out that's false the patreon is where
Sam: you go to give us money which is important,
Sam: because we need money. Money is amazing. Money is great.
Ivan: A lot.
Sam: A lot. Yeah, give us lots. Lots. Anyway, at various levels, we will mention you on the show.
Sam: We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug. We will ring a bell,
Sam: all that kind of stuff at $2 a month or more.
Sam: Or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the Curbudgeons Corner Slack.
Sam: And that is where folks have been chatting and all of this kind of stuff.
Sam: So, Yvonne, do you have a highlight from the Slack for this week?
Sam: He is unprepared. He is unprepared.
Ivan: Shame.
Sam: Shame.
Ivan: Oh, yes. This one. Elderly lottery winner uses jackpot to build 288 million
Ivan: pound drug empire making pills from his cottage.
Ivan: This guy apparently, you know, we keep hearing the stories about the guys who
Ivan: get a lottery jackpot and roll it broke.
Ivan: No, this guy got a lottery jackpot and decided to invest aggressively.
Ivan: Except it appears that it was a massive drug lab in the stables opposite his
Ivan: cottage somewhere in the UK.
Ivan: A 65-year-old used the facilities to build a sophisticated lab to produce counterfeit
Ivan: medication, estimated to have a street value of up to 288 million pounds.
Sam: I mean, I don't know, Yvonne, if I win the lottery, I mean, what else would
Sam: I do? I mean, this sounds like the perfect plan.
Sam: Like, you know, forget all this other stuff.
Sam: If I can, if I win the lottery, I could become a master criminal.
Sam: And apparently, why would that not be my plan?
Ivan: Yeah, I guess that's, you know, that was, I mean, he was like,
Ivan: look, but look, in fairness, we criticize and we, you know, So many shows cover
Ivan: all these people that take their lottery winnings and basically blow them.
Ivan: And this guy, I mean, Jesus, quite an entrepreneur.
Sam: There you go. Beautiful.
Ivan: So.
Sam: Okay. With that, we're done. Thank you, everybody, for joining us again.
Sam: Hopefully, both Yvonne and I are done with our family medical dramas and we
Sam: can be back normally next week. Right, Yvonne? We're done?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: I mean, I do have some follow-up procedures to do, but nothing that's unplanned,
Sam: nothing that should take me out of commission, you know?
Sam: So, anyway, thanks, everybody, for joining us.
Sam: Have a great week. Stay safe. Have fun. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.
Sam: We're out of here. Goodbye.
Ivan: Bye.
Sam: Thank you. Okay, heading stop. See you later, everyone. Bye.
Ivan: All right. Thank you.