Automated Transcript
Ivan:
[0:00]
| I thought he had his own computer.
|
Sam:
[0:03]
| He does have his own computer. He was frantically moving back and forth between his computer and my computer using both simultaneously. One computer is apparently not enough.
|
Ivan:
[0:12]
| Great.
|
Sam:
[0:14]
| And he was making something for the show anyway. So he, I believe, according to what he said, that he attempted to do what you requested in terms of having one of those dialogues with a cartoon.
|
Ivan:
[0:30]
| Oh! Okay. Was he successful?
|
Sam:
[0:33]
| I have not been allowed to see it. So I do not know. I have uploaded it to Riverside, so I can hit play and put the video on.
|
Ivan:
[0:43]
| So we have something. Okay. All right. Well, let's get started.
|
Sam:
[0:45]
| We have something. But, yeah, let's get started.
|
Ivan:
[0:47]
| I don't know. I thought you were on a tight deadline.
|
Sam:
[0:49]
| I am on a tight deadline. So we'll make this a short show. We'll make this a short show. Okay. Go, go, go. I'll explain once we start. Go, go, go.
|
Ivan:
[0:58]
| Come on. Go, go, go.
|
Sam:
[0:59]
| G-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b, Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, October 31st, 2026. It is, well, 1846 as we are starting to record, 46 minutes after I intended to start today. Oh, well, it is Halloween, by the way. So, yeah, so I have to rush out of here at the end, so we'll probably try to make this shorter than normal because we're starting late. and I got stuff to do because my family does this whole like, prep we've got we set up the whole driveway with all kinds of inflatable dragons and a tent and tables with candy and toys and like hot cocoa and all kinds of crap, and we get lots and lots of visitors so and none of that is set up yet and the first trick-or-treaters will likely arrive here in about five hours, So a little over five hours, five and a half, maybe.
|
Ivan:
[2:22]
| I got to be honest, I'm not going to do anything.
|
Sam:
[2:24]
| You're not going to do anything. And Alex always builds this train thing to be his costume, and it is not done yet either. Now, of course, the last couple of years, it did not get done until pretty much all the trick-or-treating was done. And so we just stuck him in his train and drove around the neighborhood for a few minutes, like after everyone else was done at the end of the evening, like at 11 o'clock or midnight. But I'm hoping not to do that again and have it ready earlier. He, of course, delayed starting. You know, I've been mentioning, hey, Halloween's coming up. If you're going to do the train, you've got to get started. You've got to get started for like the last month. So, of course, when did we start? Like three days ago. Obviously. And this is like what he does is there's like a wagon that then has a frame built on top of it that looks like a train engine. I think I've seen this. And then that frame gets covered. Like the frame needs like a cover to actually like be decorated and look nice and stuff. So there's sort of three layers to it. And for years it was just a regular pull wagon. But then he got too heavy for me to pull the damn wagon with him inside it.
|
Sam:
[3:41]
| So like last year, I think it was last year, we bought like, you know, a battery powered wagon that like can pull like 300 pound loads or whatever. So like I just have instead of pulling him around, I push the little button on the handle and it drives, you know, sort of. but and this year we're able to reuse the the base wagon obviously and also the wooden frame he built from last year but the the sort of skin outside of it which last year was made out of poster board, was not in good shape so we're trying to remake that at and of course it's the last minute and like we have to put it together and paint it and all this kind of crap and anyway so So that has to happen to, this year to try to be more waterproof because it always rains here on Halloween. It's raining right now. It always rains on Halloween.
|
Sam:
[4:34]
| The where instead of poster board, we're using my wife's old campaign signs from previous cycles that that are no longer that are no longer, legal to use because they change the requirements for this little fine print disclaimers that have to be at the bottom. So like these are no longer legal to use as campaign signs and they've been sitting out in the weather for years. So they're not in super great shape, but like they can be painted over and used as the sides of a train. No problem. So we're doing that and cutting them into shape and all that kind of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[5:11]
| Did I mention that I couldn't give a flying fuck about Halloween?
|
Sam:
[5:17]
| Do you have like kids in your neighborhood doing it and you just blow them off? Sometimes they do it. Or are you in a neighborhood that just doesn't have much?
|
Ivan:
[5:25]
| No, some kids do go around to get stuff, but not a lot in our neighborhood.
|
Sam:
[5:32]
| Yeah, we typically get between 100 and 200 visitors.
|
Ivan:
[5:37]
| Yeah, we're not. No. My wife had mentioned I was supposed to go get candy. I went to the supermarket. Well, she didn't even write it down on the dam. We have this list for the supermarket. She didn't fucking write it down. I went to the supermarket. It wasn't there. I forgot.
|
Sam:
[5:52]
| I understand.
|
Ivan:
[5:53]
| I mean, you know, I'm like, I went through the list. I picked up all the stuff. Actually, there's a second thing that I forgot that that one, that one was on the list.
|
Sam:
[6:00]
| Meanwhile, my, my, my wife ordered, ordered candy in bulk plus little toys for kids who don't want candy, uh, which there are a few of actually. She ordered all this in bulk like a month ago.
|
Ivan:
[6:14]
| I mean, like mine, it doesn't give a shit, but it doesn't need candy.
|
Sam:
[6:17]
| Right. So, like, for those folks, we have, like, little light sticks or other little doodads and trinkets.
|
Ivan:
[6:24]
| But Martin doesn't care about Halloween. Right. Either. Okay. So, he's, like, whatever. Cares. So, anyway.
|
Sam:
[6:31]
| It's because you're heathens.
|
Ivan:
[6:32]
| Yeah. That's it. Yes. Anyway. Well, since we have to hurry up.
|
Sam:
[6:37]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[6:37]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[6:38]
| Since we have to hurry up.
|
Ivan:
[6:39]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[6:40]
| Let's get going. Let's do this.
|
Ivan:
[6:43]
| And we have a break that.
|
Sam:
[6:45]
| Yvonne. No, not Yvonne. We have another break that Alex made for the middle of the show. We'll do one in the middle.
|
Ivan:
[6:50]
| So, so just on the non-newsy stuff, because I put it on the list because it's important to not, not forget about this. Patrick Stewart died this week and fuck. I usually don't give a flying fuck about celebrities dying. Not this time. Damn it. That would really hit me hard. I can't believe he's caught.
|
Sam:
[7:15]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[7:16]
| Damn it! It's not like, I mean, it's not like, I mean, he was in public a lot, like, in recent time that I remember. I mean, I'm misremembering it, but damn it, I didn't.
|
Sam:
[7:29]
| I think it's actually, I mean, recent times, the last time he was really doing a lot of stuff was like when Picard was out, and that was a few years ago.
|
Ivan:
[7:38]
| That was like three years ago.
|
Sam:
[7:39]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[7:40]
| It's not that long.
|
Sam:
[7:41]
| It's not, you know. It's not that long.
|
Ivan:
[7:43]
| But it's not like last month. It's not like he was in a wheelchair when he was doing Picard or something, and he was like stumbling around like three years ago. So, you know, you see certain people like, you know, it's struggle, like, you know, but.
|
Sam:
[7:56]
| Yeah. Apparently, according to what his family posted. He had some serious issues towards the end, but it was, it was fairly rapid. Like it wasn't lingering over a long, long time. So, you know, and, ah, you know, it happens to all of us, you know, in the end.
|
Ivan:
[8:18]
| I know.
|
Sam:
[8:18]
| One way or another.
|
Ivan:
[8:19]
| Damn it. I know. But, yeah.
|
Sam:
[8:24]
| And he, you know, he made it a decent amount of time.
|
Ivan:
[8:26]
| I know. I know. Still. fuck shatner's outlived them.
|
Sam:
[8:32]
| Shatner's outlived him of course the other star trek death this week was george takai no yeah not george takai no no no no he's still alive no it's uh koenig koenig koenig sorry george the guy is still, alive and kicking and posting his remembrances yes um you know the the other you got, you of course have all the star trek folks posting stuff, You know, the ones I remember most are, well, I saw Marina Citrus, who played Counselor Troy. She posted two back-to-back videos. Well, a couple days apart. One on Koenig. Koenig. How do you say Koenig?
|
Ivan:
[9:16]
| Koenig.
|
Sam:
[9:18]
| And one on Picard. And she was already a mess after the first one. And then after the second one, she was, you know, barely able to talk and obviously like not in a great place, you know, because apparently, you know, all the Star Trek folks from both casts have been relatively close over time. with notice notable exceptions like Shatner and Takai, have like a feud that's gone on for decades apparently yeah but like other than that they they tend to get along really well and hang out together and you know they do they've done the convention circuit for decades and, And also, I noted Will Wheaton's.
|
Ivan:
[10:12]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[10:12]
| And his initial one was just sort of, you know, a picture of him and from when they were doing the show originally way back when. But then the one I actually remember more, is apparently Stephen Miller from the White House posted something about it.
|
Ivan:
[10:33]
| Oh, God, that bozo.
|
Sam:
[10:34]
| So, and, and so Wil Wheaton basically posted a go fuck yourself, Stephen Miller.
|
Ivan:
[10:40]
| Seriously. Like, like, like, like, like Steve Miller, like actually like understands or cares anything about Star Trek. Fuck him.
|
Sam:
[10:49]
| Right. So, yeah.
|
Ivan:
[10:53]
| And I, I go to my computer today and I was, I don't know, I'm closing some windows. I was going through the photos app and what picture fucking popped up is a picture I took of, I went to the Bondurant racing school like 25 years ago, for God's sakes. And a lot of very famous people went to that school, like Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, other actors like Gene Hackman, people like that. They would train with Bondurant, okay? And me, okay? Of course. And when I was going through, he had this wall of people that had trained with him and had taken pictures with Bob and had signed them. And the fucking picture that came up today, and listen, this was not a search. This is not like an algorithm thing. It was just I was clicked through a screen. It was like this section where for some reason, like now it says, hey, handwriting, screenshots. The handwritten one, the first one I fucking picked is Patrick Stewart with Bob.
|
Sam:
[11:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[11:56]
| Ah, damn. Yeah, You know, it's just that you can tell so many of the people that were work with him, loved them so much. And his passion for the war was whether it was theater or the screen, you could see it. And, you know, you know what? If Shatner could live to nighty, fucking Patrick Stewart should have been able to live to nighty, damn it. fuck this shit.
|
Sam:
[12:33]
| Yeah yeah and you know it's it we're we're we're at the age where the people who were in shows that were popular when we are young, are are.
|
Ivan:
[12:49]
| Passing away dying.
|
Sam:
[12:51]
| Right because you know when you know actors who were in their 40s when we were in our teens or.
|
Ivan:
[12:59]
| 20s now they're in their 80s yeah so uh, anyway well yeah i mean when you look back in the in the annals not anals somebody the other day what had said, in the annals and i'm like excuse me the what no they're not annals annals annals.
|
Sam:
[13:23]
| There's a difference.
|
Ivan:
[13:24]
| Yeah very much uh of the people that were in star trek i mean after spock, i argue that even above shatner yeah it was you know john luke okay, i mean spock is by by definition of character number one leonard nimoy number one that that I don't think anybody can dispute that. I mean, Nimoy is number one. But after him... He was, he was, he was number two in my book.
|
Sam:
[14:00]
| Mm-hmm. Oh, well. Yeah. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[14:06]
| I mean, of course it wasn't fucking Trump. Why the fuck can't fucking Trump die instead? Fuck this shit. What the fuck? You know, seriously? You have just a fucking stroke or something. Heart attack. I don't know. Something. Blood clot. You know. People are something painful.
|
Sam:
[14:29]
| Every couple months, people keep talking more about like, hey, there's this thing that makes it look like his health isn't doing great. He made blah, blah, blah. And then, but he keeps chugging along.
|
Ivan:
[14:41]
| Yeah. But of course, now I have anti-aircraft missiles nearby.
|
Sam:
[14:46]
| All right. Right.
|
Ivan:
[14:47]
| That makes me feel so safe. Yeah, that makes me feel so safe.
|
Sam:
[14:53]
| I'm sure. You know, and, you know, I, yes.
|
Ivan:
[14:59]
| You know, nobody has ever felt really safe when they have to deploy, those kinds of weapons around.
|
Sam:
[15:10]
| Well, and the question, of course, especially when you're putting them someplace like that, is which is more likely. an actual threat happens and they shoot it down or, they accidentally shoot down something completely innocent.
|
Ivan:
[15:30]
| Well that's my that's my bigger concern too the fact that yes they are worried about the most like right the.
|
Sam:
[15:35]
| Most likely thing is nothing happens at all just to be.
|
Ivan:
[15:38]
| Clear but you know we have so much commercial traffic and like regular private aircraft traffic around there right that it's like the worst idea, that you can have is to have fucking anti-aircraft missiles like there.
|
Sam:
[15:54]
| But of course that also makes it presumably vulnerable right you know for a 9-11 style attack you know but it doesn't.
|
Ivan:
[16:00]
| Even have to be a big plane it could be like.
|
Sam:
[16:03]
| Somebody diving their Cessna into.
|
Ivan:
[16:05]
| Uh Mar-a-Lago but that's that's well that's the main reason why it's such a terrible idea that he comes down here all the time in the first place. I mean, that's the reason why usually, you know, like even, you know, he comes down here so often. Okay. It's not like over like when Bush went to his ranch in Crawford. That ranch is in the middle of fucking nowhere. Okay. You know, I guess a Bush senior went to kind of bunk port, but I don't think that he went there that often. It wasn't like him, like basically like Here all the time, yeah.
|
Sam:
[16:43]
| Obama sometimes went to his house in Chicago, which was like in the middle of stuff.
|
Ivan:
[16:47]
| But he didn't go very often. He didn't go very often. Instead, we have him down here all the fucking time. Anyway.
|
Sam:
[16:57]
| Speaking of, you know, 9-11 style things, Trump also scared people this week.
|
Ivan:
[17:02]
| Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. By diving the fucking, apparently, you know, the air grift one.
|
Sam:
[17:09]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[17:10]
| Air bribe force one. I don't know. How do you want to call it?
|
Sam:
[17:13]
| The bribe version of Air Force One did a flyby of the White House at low altitude. And apparently they tweeted or they did some sort of notification less than an hour before it happened saying there will be a flyby without specifying what it was. So, of course, all kinds of people on the street see a low flying 747 heading towards the White House.
|
Ivan:
[17:39]
| Right. Which, by the way, if you don't remember, that was like the whole, the main plot, the movie Debt of Honor. That was like the thing that happened at the end. Well, they were going after the Capitol, right? Yeah. In a 747.
|
Sam:
[17:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[17:55]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[17:56]
| So, anyway, apparently a whole bunch of people on the ground were freaked out, because they had no idea.
|
Ivan:
[18:02]
| No, really? You don't say! Fucking idiots, I.
|
Sam:
[18:09]
| Swear to God. Thank you.
|
Ivan:
[18:10]
| But apparently, it seems that there, and I'm guessing that this is related to the story that came out a few days ago, we jump into the news, we got a short show, is that apparently, Trump's brilliant idea, I guess, he's waiting until after the bit turns, is to apparently quadruple down in Iran?
|
Sam:
[18:31]
| Well, apparently there was a couple conservative think tank type folks who started lobbying the administration several months ago to basically just put things on pause, and then go at it full strength again immediately after the election. Because basically it was like, hey, this is unpopular. People don't like that you're doing this. And so let's just wait a couple months. and then we can get back at it.
|
Ivan:
[19:02]
| No, no, no. But the thing is, and more so. But my understanding is from what I was seeing, it's not that it's just going back to the way they were. No.
|
Sam:
[19:10]
| Oh, no. My understanding is- They intend to escalate for sure.
|
Ivan:
[19:13]
| Yeah. They intend to do some kind of a massive escalation. Okay.
|
Sam:
[19:21]
| The thing was, they were thinking about doing a massive escalation months ago, but intentionally decided to postpone it till after midterms. But yes, we're potentially talking about a massive escalation. There have been various leaks on what it might be. I imagine the actual situation—.
|
Ivan:
[19:38]
| My understanding is that basically they were planning all sorts of war crimes. That was their plan. They were planning to go and target civilians, okay, specifically. I mean, just target—you know, basically use the civilians as a pawn by basically just murdering a ton of them.
|
Sam:
[19:58]
| Well, and certainly civilian infrastructure.
|
Ivan:
[20:00]
| No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. For what it's rigged, it's the actual civilians, Sam. It's not the buildings. No, they wanted to target civilians.
|
Sam:
[20:10]
| Here's the thing, and let's be clear. There are just leaks here, leaks and rumors, and the most reliable of which is a Democratic senator who attended a classified briefing on the possible plans, and his statement was basically just—he didn't give specifics because he couldn't, because it was a classified briefing. But he said, if they do anything like what we've been briefed on, it is insane. It is. First of all, all of this is illegal. All of it was illegal from the beginning anyway. But beyond that, they are talking about doing things that would be war crimes. And they're talking about things that would do nothing but escalate and make the situation worse. Nothing that could bring the situation to a crime. to a crime, to a close.
|
Ivan:
[21:11]
| To a close. It is a crime. Not bring it to a crime. It's already been brought to a crime.
|
Sam:
[21:18]
| And in the meantime, yes, they'd be doing all kinds of wanton destruction that, according to this Democratic senator anyway, is not something that would lead to any sort of resolution that makes sense. It would just be like, destroy the country as much as you can, basically. And, you know, this has led some people to speculate, are they talking nukes? Are they talking tactical nukes? Then somebody asked Donald Trump that specifically. And he said, no, no, no, no. Just really, really big bombs, but not nukes. So people are bringing up the term Moab again, mother of all bombs that, you know, was coined originally in the first Gulf War, I guess. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[22:11]
| I mean, a Moab is a specific bomb.
|
Sam:
[22:13]
| I know it is.
|
Ivan:
[22:14]
| I know it is. You know, there is a bomb that is a specific bomb that is a massive in size.
|
Sam:
[22:22]
| It was called that because it was given that nickname.
|
Ivan:
[22:25]
| Well, it is the largest non-nuclear weapon that we have in the arsenal, basically. You know, it's massive. Okay. It's insane. I don't, I mean, what? We're going to just drop a few of these, like, in different cities, you know, just annihilate as many hundreds of thousands of people? Is that what we're planning on doing? Is that what they want to do? Maybe even millions? Who cares? Who knows? I don't know. Who cares?
|
Sam:
[22:52]
| And they also apparently, part of the plan, again, rumored, leaked, whatever, we don't know anything for sure until it happens, is another round of decapitation strikes on leadership. Basically, you know.
|
Ivan:
[23:10]
| They because those already worked out so well.
|
Sam:
[23:14]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[23:15]
| You know, yeah, that those already worked out so well. I mean, let's start worked out so well, which I say that. Look, this entire thing was idiotic. OK, from the start, everything about Trump's Iran policy has been idiotic since its inception. that the entire premise upon which it was based was idiotic, okay? I mean, the whole thing was just stupid. There's only, you know, the premise supposedly was that Obama's nuclear deal sucked, okay? And that they were doing, you know, nuclear weapons. The reality is that the nuclear deal that Obama did was excellent, okay? And the only reason he has done any of this is because he wanted to one-up Obama. That's it. There is no other reason why this entire thing has happened other than his desire to one-up Obama. Okay?
|
Sam:
[24:12]
| And I will add the reason why the entire conservative establishment seemed to be against the Iran deal from the beginning, back when Obama was still president, was basically that they believed it didn't do enough. They were not happy with anything short of the Iranian regime is gone, basically. They didn't want a deal that was just on the nuclear stuff.
|
Ivan:
[24:40]
| Unrealistic, but again, a completely unrealistic goal.
|
Sam:
[24:44]
| Right. So they wanted basically a situation where it was clear for them to try to do the kind of attack they did last year. Because the goal was obliterate the Iranian regime and any sort of deal. This year, Sam.
|
Ivan:
[24:58]
| Not last year. This year.
|
Sam:
[25:00]
| It was this year?
|
Ivan:
[25:01]
| It's this year, yes.
|
Sam:
[25:02]
| You're right. It was still this year.
|
Ivan:
[25:03]
| It's still this year. Yes.
|
Sam:
[25:05]
| It's still this year.
|
Ivan:
[25:05]
| What are you talking about last year? What last year? What are you talking about?
|
Sam:
[25:08]
| It was like February. Yes. There were some attacks last year.
|
Ivan:
[25:11]
| Yeah, yeah. But no, no. It's this year.
|
Sam:
[25:13]
| But the whole idea was as long as you have a peace process, then you don't have a good excuse to go into an all-out, let's destroy the regime mode. And even when the Trump folks were pursuing some sort of peace deal, simultaneously they were planning this, and when they started bombing, some of the first people they killed were the people they were negotiating with earlier in the same week.
|
Ivan:
[25:47]
| Of course.
|
Sam:
[25:47]
| You know. Right.
|
Ivan:
[25:49]
| Because the negotiation was never in good faith. It was a sham.
|
Sam:
[25:53]
| Right. Because according to all reports, right before our big attack, the Iranians were giving all sorts of concessions.
|
Ivan:
[26:01]
| Yeah. They were like, look, listen, because again, the whole point of any of this was not a deal.
|
Sam:
[26:08]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[26:10]
| I think that he thought somehow he was going to achieve what those neocons, the neocon wet dream.
|
Sam:
[26:18]
| Right. And that it would be easy.
|
Ivan:
[26:19]
| The complete collapse of the regime. And we would take over Iran somehow.
|
Sam:
[26:23]
| He would do what we did in Venezuela. I mean, that's...
|
Ivan:
[26:26]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah.
|
Sam:
[26:27]
| It's been reported over and over and over again that basically...
|
Ivan:
[26:31]
| He thought it was going to be like Venezuela.
|
Sam:
[26:33]
| After the success in Venezuela, he was like, oh, well, that's how it's going to go. You know, so wherever we want to do this, we'll just do that.
|
Ivan:
[26:42]
| Completely misunderstands how different Venezuela and Iran are.
|
Sam:
[26:48]
| Right. Yeah. So, yes, apparently.
|
Ivan:
[26:55]
| Also, I had said this the best way the other day, that we are all being bullied around by the dumbest fucking people in existence. This is what we are faced with right now.
|
Sam:
[27:09]
| Yes. And so apparently, you know, election is Tuesday. Wednesday, we could be like doing all this stuff. you know or and again trump though is unpredictable you never know he could decide not to at the last minute he could decide to wait a week, he could decide to do it tomorrow before the midterms you know just the hell with it let's do it.
|
Ivan:
[27:36]
| If you're gonna lose lose big.
|
Sam:
[27:38]
| But it sounds like the the plan is quote-unquote right after midterms but i would imagine the situation is that, the plans have been all drawn up, but they're waiting for Donald Trump to say go, and who the hell knows when or if he will say go. Because... He changes his mind on an hour-by-hour basis. You know? That's just part of how he is.
|
Ivan:
[28:02]
| Was he at a rally? I thought he had canceled all the rallies. Was he at a rally yesterday? Was he kind of like bullied into being in a rally, I guess?
|
Sam:
[28:10]
| Yes. He canceled all the rallies for this weekend. And then people kept talking about how he was clearly canceling his rallies because they were ineffective. He was getting heckled. He didn't like being heckled. and they were probably counterproductive. They weren't helping, blah, blah, blah. And so he put them all back on the calendar. And so he's going to them after all. The excuse they had given was they were canceling the in-person rallies so he could do even more rallies virtually. Because it was just so good that they needed more of him than he could do in person. But yeah, he got really upset at the negative coverage of him canceling the rallies, so he put them back on the agenda.
|
Ivan:
[28:56]
| Sounds great. Sounds awesome.
|
Sam:
[29:00]
| But apparently he has been rattled because he's been heckled at almost every one of these events.
|
Ivan:
[29:05]
| I mean, like, and he's been heckled hard. The heckling right now has gotten, whereas before something might happen, you know, his, you know, this is, he's getting really, really, really heckled now. it's just not stopping for now which is great, And, you know, of course, he was so upset about being compared to Saddam Hussein this week, right?
|
Sam:
[29:33]
| Yeah, no, he didn't care about that at all.
|
Ivan:
[29:35]
| He was very upset about being compared to Saddam Hussein. Oh, no, he wasn't. That's right. He was upset that they compared his renovations at the White House, that it looked like Saddam Hussein had a cheesecake factory.
|
Sam:
[29:47]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[29:48]
| He was upset about the cheesecake factory part, not the Saddam Hussein part.
|
Sam:
[29:52]
| And at some of his events, he spent, like, a long time talking about his renovations and why they were good and how the White House was a dump before he got there and all this kind of stuff. Because, you know, this is the most important thing on his mind, as usual.
|
Ivan:
[30:11]
| Which is why Obama was so correct. Why the fuck does it just go and get a goddamn show on HGTV if he is so focused on this shit? Because this is what he's doing. I mean, you know.
|
Sam:
[30:23]
| Obama was completely spot on. And to be very specific as well, according to reports, this was not just, you know, hey, he commissioned a redesign of the Oval Office and they made it more gold.
|
Ivan:
[30:36]
| No.
|
Sam:
[30:37]
| He was going around with glue.
|
Ivan:
[30:41]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[30:41]
| Attaching things to the walls himself.
|
Ivan:
[30:44]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[30:47]
| With the little gold trinkets that he probably bought off the internet somewhere. They're probably plastic. Or maybe knowing him, maybe they are metal. They are not gold, okay? They're not actual gold, I'm sure of it. But, you know, and he's going around with like a little glue gun attaching them all over the place. You know, you know, Yeah. Which, by the way, again, this all ties into each other. This is one of the reasons his popularity is tanking, because people see him doing this shit and talking about the Kennedy senator and a reflecting pool and the UFC match on the White House lawn and the helicopter landing pad. And these are all the things he's talking about.
|
Ivan:
[31:38]
| And meanwhile, and he bragged this week also about how much money the oil companies are making.
|
Sam:
[31:48]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[31:48]
| He also bragged about that.
|
Sam:
[31:51]
| He has got his pulse on the heartbeat of the American voter.
|
Ivan:
[31:56]
| And I'm looking at the heartbeat.
|
Sam:
[31:59]
| I said that completely wrong.
|
Ivan:
[32:05]
| He's got his thumb right on the pulse of America.
|
Sam:
[32:07]
| There you go. There you go. And he's pushing hard to try to cut off the circulation.
|
Ivan:
[32:14]
| Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what he's doing, yes. Jesus Christ. No wonder Kansas is, you know, you're talking about Texas, you know, having, you know, that we could flip blue. The Kansas fucking senator candidate makes Trump look like a genius. When he goes, he went on the interview. They asked him about, hey, you know, farmers are getting killed by this attack on free trade or whatever, blah, blah, blah. What do you say to all of this? Well, I know that bankruptcies in the farms are in records, and I know that farm suicides are in records, but you know what? We're doubling down on everything that brought that.
|
Sam:
[32:58]
| One of the things that is apparently a problem for a lot of the Republicans this cycle, not just Senate, but at House level, too, is none of them have had a competitive general election before. They've been in states or in districts where the primary was the race. You were trying to out conservative the other Republican.
|
Ivan:
[33:22]
| The other guy, right.
|
Sam:
[33:23]
| You know, and you were trying to be more MAGA than the other guy, whatever. And they've never had a situation where they were actually, competing with the Democrat in a meaningful way and so battling over centrists or whatever, and they have no idea how to do it because they've never had to appeal to those people before.
|
Ivan:
[33:46]
| But Sam—, You know, this isn't rocket scientist. This isn't rocket science. Look, the people are upset about A, B, and C. How about you go out and fucking address the concerns about A, B, and C? Not go and, like, gloat about former suicides on live TV and bankruptcies.
|
Sam:
[34:16]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[34:17]
| I mean, for the love of God, the fuck is wrong with you? I mean, I guess they are that disconnected from everything that it just doesn't even compute in their brain.
|
Sam:
[34:29]
| In some cases, they may be that disconnected. In other cases, they are just in what they perceive to be a difficult situation, because many of these problems are directly due, to things Donald Trump is doing.
|
Ivan:
[34:47]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[34:48]
| And so they know that on the one hand, people want them to address that. But on the other hand, if they directly contradict Donald Trump, they'll be getting problems from another direction, including from Donald Trump himself. You know, who who does not get or understand the idea at all. I've heard many people bring up comparisons to previous cycles where the president, was not all that popular and basically gave permission to everybody in his party.
|
Ivan:
[35:21]
| Right. To go. Yeah. Yeah. Don't stay. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't stay away from me. You go campaign.
|
Sam:
[35:26]
| And criticize me all you need to to win.
|
Ivan:
[35:29]
| Right. Right. And of course, Trump will not accept that.
|
Sam:
[35:32]
| No, not at all.
|
Ivan:
[35:35]
| I mean, hell, I found out that the reason why he was pissed off at Alina Habba the other day, apparently she got some $50 million consulting contract. Yeah, I can't remember this. But here's the thing, and I think it also checked in with what happened with Gafoil and the $100,000 Amex thing.
|
Sam:
[35:54]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[35:54]
| It's not that he's upset about the money. It's that he's upset that they're doing these things, and where is his cut?
|
Sam:
[36:05]
| Right. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[36:07]
| Wait, you're grifting off this guy? Where's my, where's, where's my part? Where's my bit? Where's, you know, where's my take?
|
Sam:
[36:16]
| Yes. Also, I will add, I think that's 90% of it. I will say that the other 10% is that they did it in a way that they caught, they were caught in an embarrassing way. Like, he doesn't mind being blatant. It's like, it's not that you're being caught. I mean, like, we know all kinds of corrupt things that are happening with all kinds of members of his family and members of administration. It's when they are caught in an embarrassing way. Yeah, we talked a little bit about the phone last week. But go ahead. Jared Kushner's phone.
|
Ivan:
[36:57]
| Holy shit. I mean, there's been all sorts. He got paid off by foreign governments, to push policy, and it's all there on his phone.
|
Sam:
[37:08]
| Yeah. Which apparently half the governments of the world have access to at this point.
|
Ivan:
[37:15]
| Right. And apparently, you know, that his phone, because this is the other thing, because these guys, security is like whatever. It's like, you know, everybody hacked this asshole's phone.
|
Sam:
[37:25]
| But her emails, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[37:26]
| But her emails. Right. Exactly.
|
Sam:
[37:28]
| I'll see you next time.
|
Ivan:
[37:31]
| Somebody said that Jared Kushner's phone was what every what all Republicans wet dreams were about Hunter Biden's laptop.
|
Sam:
[37:42]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[37:44]
| Because the guy that is is making it has been, you know, publicly and we know now more details privately has been getting payoffs and making money everywhere to the point where it's even collapsed governments when it's come out. OK, we you know, I don't know. We talked about the fact that the Serbian government collapsed.
|
Sam:
[38:05]
| We have not talked about that on the show.
|
Ivan:
[38:08]
| Because of a deal that was found out from some land deal that was found out, that the leader was making with Kushner. And what it was found out basically is it drove his government to collapse. This happened in Serbia. This happened in Albania. You kept thinking, oh.
|
Sam:
[38:27]
| No, no. The Albania situation, the government hasn't fallen yet, but there have been all kinds of demonstrations and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[38:33]
| But there's been all kinds of demonstrations. And you kept thinking, no, no, no, no, no, this is Albania. I'm like, no, no, no, this is another government.
|
Sam:
[38:40]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[38:42]
| And I understand the confusion because you're like, wait, no, no, no, this can't be. Oh, wait, no, no. Oh, it's another government. It's not, you know, I guess Albania, Serbia, they're kind of close, actually. you know let's be fair they are but they are i mean neighbors they are pretty close yeah but no it's it's two governments in the same area, both you know the same shit i mean kushner is out basically just just grifting off of every fucking government in the world.
|
Sam:
[39:12]
| Well and the the other one And as we go through the implications of all this corrupt behavior, the one that's really active right now is, of course, Ukraine and Russia, where it looks like basically what is actively happening right now is, again, Kushner. Basically, he is trying to make deals with Russia and Russian companies for things that will help him and other Trump family members, etc. And the Ukraine war is an obstacle for that. So any motivation for what they're doing has nothing to do with a fair resolution to whatever's happening in Ukraine. it's a yeah yeah yeah let's push this to the side so we can go ahead and make deals with russian companies because these these sanctions are just getting in our way, and are ridiculous and we want to make so the deal we want to make is okay russia we'll tell you what, if you give us a big enough deal, we'll basically push ukraine even further towards just let russia have what they want, right you know so russia can by the way and we.
|
Ivan:
[40:35]
| Know and kushner obviously is making trump money which.
|
Sam:
[40:39]
| Is why.
|
Ivan:
[40:40]
| He's got no problem with this because somewhere that money is making itself, making its its way to trump.
|
Sam:
[40:49]
| Right and and yeah so people have been talking that as well well well, Look, I think it's been obvious for a while, but it's being discussed more explicitly in wider circles. Like, for Trump's first term and even part of the second term, whenever there was, like, Trump made statements about Ukraine, you could tell the approach that a lot of world leaders were taking was basically, Donald Trump just doesn't understand the situation fully. He's misinformed. He's made some bad decisions. We just have to get it through to his head somehow that he understands what the situation really is and all this. And no, no, it's not that. It's not that he misunderstands and so therefore is doing bad things that don't help Ukraine the way that you might want. It's no, he's on Russia's side.
|
Ivan:
[41:54]
| He's on russia's side 100 he has been from the beginning from the beginning yes correct, and he may have been sometimes talked into a it's better for you to be on ukraine's side but the reality is that the default in his head he is 100 vlad's bitch.
|
Sam:
[42:17]
| Ah, yeah. So, anyway, since we started talking about elections, let's do—we, of course, have midterms coming up. And then we've had—you mentioned Serbia briefly. We've had election results in Brazil and Israel as well.
|
Ivan:
[42:38]
| Oh, I didn't even talk about that.
|
Sam:
[42:40]
| Well, let's do this. And I'm skipping my movie for this week, just to be clear. We moved right on past that. We don't have time. We don't have time. We don't have time. It's whatever. It would have been the last picture show from 1971 and X2 from 2003. So, but another time. Let's talk about those foreign elections real quick and then come back and talk in the last segment about, whatever midterm stuff we got. Because by the way, I had mentioned last week maybe trying to arrange some sort of we'll do a live stream for election night like we did for the presidential election.
|
Ivan:
[43:22]
| Not going to work.
|
Sam:
[43:23]
| I don't think we're, well, yeah, I don't know. I mean, look, here's the thing.
|
Ivan:
[43:27]
| Look, I have a problem with the schedule right now. It's just, you know, my wife is working the elections.
|
Sam:
[43:33]
| Yeah, that's good.
|
Ivan:
[43:34]
| And my son's school now starts at fucking seven. You know, we have to be out of here, you know, out of the house by 7-8, me doing a late live stream is not going to work, okay?
|
Sam:
[43:44]
| Well, and on my side, basically, my wife's a candidate in this election. Right. There are likely to be, like, election night-like parties, and apparently there's two that she's considering going to. I'll tell you the truth is.
|
Sam:
[44:03]
| She does not enjoy the election night parties all that much and, you know, would much rather just stay home and watch the election results in the privacy and, you know, not be around other people when the results come in. Now, she's expected to win. Like, I think the times that she's most nervous about that kind of thing is when you really don't know. Like, you know, and but she's probably going to win, probably going to win handily. if the primaries were any indication it would be a big shock if something different happened, which would suck by the way so crossing my fingers no big shocks, but yeah so i i get the feeling that she doesn't really want to go to any of these parties but she feels like she probably will go to at least one of them, maybe even put in an appearance at two i don't know and i and she's going back and forth and, hasn't been willing to make a commitment one way or another to me. So like, I couldn't plan. I'm like, look, if you're going to one, I'm going to one. I will go with you to whatever you go to. But so I, at this point, I have no idea. Am I going to be at election night parties on Tuesday night? Or am I going to be sitting at home with the four up news channels on my screen watching election results come in? I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[45:20]
| I'm pretty sure you're going to be out.
|
Sam:
[45:22]
| You think i'll be out.
|
Ivan:
[45:23]
| Yep probably.
|
Sam:
[45:25]
| In which case i will have one of the news channels in my ear on headphones while i'm at whatever.
|
Ivan:
[45:31]
| That's fine i mean and that's acceptable especially with this is you're not, it's not like you're listening to a game while you're at a political party you're listening to what's happening live in the news when you're going to, So that's fair.
|
Sam:
[45:48]
| Yeah, I think so. That works.
|
Ivan:
[45:50]
| No, no, no, I totally agree. I think that's totally fair.
|
Sam:
[45:53]
| Yeah. So anyway. Yeah, so I was going to say, let's talk about domestic election after a break. You mentioned Serbia briefly. What happened there was there was an autocratic party. You mentioned there were some corruption issues with the Kushners.
|
Ivan:
[46:10]
| They've been in power for a long time.
|
Sam:
[46:12]
| There were some corruption issues with the Kushners, but generally speaking, they were autocratic and corrupt and had been for a long time. And apparently a student movement rose up that was basically young people creating, effectively a new party. And from what I read, they recruited like a whole lot of professors to run in the elections.
|
Ivan:
[46:36]
| That's great. That's awesome.
|
Sam:
[46:39]
| And have been, you know, in the streets, rallying, organizing, doing all of this kind of stuff. and they actually won. They won. The autocratic regime is out and conceded. Sometimes in these situations, the autocratic regime will at that point declare martial law or something and refuse to hand over power.
|
Ivan:
[47:01]
| Right, right, right, right.
|
Sam:
[47:01]
| But apparently they are saying, okay, you got us. You won, at least for now. And so this is another place. We've had a number of elections that have gone in scarily right-wing directions in various places, including the U.S. in 2024. But we've had a handful now. We've had Hungary and now Serbia go in the opposite direction, where there has been a democratic, renunciation of the previous autocratic regime. And I'll point out, these are, These are places that were called—the term is illiberal democracies, which is that they go through the motions of elections, but they try to construct things so those elections are never actually competitive. And the ruling power stays in power all the time and consolidates huge amounts of power over society. And in both of these, corruption has been a big part of what let an opposition actually gain the ground they needed to, to win anyway. And, and that's, that's one reason the Democrats are starting to concentrate more and more on, on, on corruption here as well.
|
Sam:
[48:31]
| But yeah, so go Serbia.
|
Ivan:
[48:33]
| Go Serbia, yes.
|
Sam:
[48:34]
| Of course, in all these situations... Now you have to see what the new government does with it. Because this is also one of these cases where the unifying factor was not policy positions. The unifying factor was let's get rid of these goddamn autocrats. And then we...
|
Ivan:
[48:54]
| You know what? Listen, Mamdami has given me a lot of hope for a lot of these guys that are up and coming that have different ideas. Because the one thing that Mamdami has done is be effective. because he hasn't just gone in with a lot of blah, blah, blah. A lot of these people, the issue is their lack of effectiveness. Best example I always give is Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders would talk a lot, but he had almost zero ability to carry out a lot of the stuff that he talked about.
|
Sam:
[49:25]
| And, to be clear, part of that is the difference between being a senator and being in an executive office like a mayor.
|
Ivan:
[49:36]
| I disagree because the reality is that a lot of us, if you look at how many bills he had authored, sponsored, pushed, whatever, historically compared to some of his peers, he was terrible.
|
Sam:
[49:46]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[49:47]
| So it's not his legislative record for being at the Senate for such a long time was very, very bad. So, no, I don't think that's it. And look, there's been mayors and leaders and governors who are very ineffective that go in who are very ineffective. And I'm sorry, but Mondami has gone in and is ineffective. It is not just he doesn't just talk. He's a very effective leader and a great communicator, both at the same time.
|
Sam:
[50:18]
| One of the quotes I've seen on social media, and I can't remember who said it, but it was really perfect, is Mondami comes in there. And says, oh, you know, we've had this problem for decades with this machine crushing orphans. And, oh, I looked and, oh, there's just an off switch. I flipped the switch. It's off now. We fixed the problem. It took five minutes. I don't know why they didn't fix it before. I just took care of it.
|
Ivan:
[50:49]
| Look, let me tell you about shit being ineffective. Look, I'll tell you, Sam, of course, is going to roll his eyes. But as I took over as president back of the association.
|
Sam:
[51:01]
| You're right here. There goes the rolling eyes.
|
Ivan:
[51:03]
| There goes the, look, 18 months, they had not been able to make financial statements. Okay. You know how much, how much time it took me to produce financial statements for the entire 18 months missing?
|
Sam:
[51:12]
| I believe you said two weeks.
|
Ivan:
[51:13]
| Two weeks.
|
Sam:
[51:14]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[51:16]
| Look, and a lot of times people talk, don't do. Okay. It's just, you know, they, they can't carry out the bullshit. Trump talked about how many things that Trump promised that he hasn't done, like all of them. I've got to replace the affordable, you know, Obamacare. You're going to have a very good big deal. Infrastructure week. You know, the Korean War will be over on day one. Prices will come down.
|
Sam:
[51:46]
| Did you just say the Korean War?
|
Ivan:
[51:48]
| Ukraine War. It sounded like I'm a Korean. No, no. It kind of sounded like a little bit no, but I said Ukraine War. You know, he has delivered on jack shit.
|
Sam:
[51:59]
| He'll take care of Korea after he finishes dealing with Iran, Ukraine, and Cuba. Right. Right after Cuba.
|
Ivan:
[52:07]
| Right after Cuba. Right. But look, reality is that Trump has been, the only thing, I guess the only campaign promise that he has actually effectively carried out is being...
|
Sam:
[52:21]
| Mean to immigrants.
|
Ivan:
[52:22]
| Yes. That's it.
|
Sam:
[52:24]
| Yes. Yes. And mean is, of course, a very light term for what he's been doing.
|
Ivan:
[52:30]
| Yeah, being cruel to immigrants and just, you know, turning our immigration policy into, a corrupt and just absolute inhumane policy. Yes, that he did. Because it's corrupt. Because whoever is his friend that needs a visa, they can get a visa.
|
Sam:
[52:55]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[52:56]
| Right. Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, for example. I don't know if his country clubs, like they all depend on like foreigners to get visas. You think that any of his country clubs have had any issues getting visas for the foreigners coming in? Do you think that they've struggled? Do you think any of his friends that need visas have struggled to get visas for their stuff? At least if you're donating money with Mar-a-Lago.
|
Sam:
[53:27]
| I was going to say.
|
Ivan:
[53:27]
| If you're going over there, you're doing your golden orb.
|
Sam:
[53:31]
| Being a friend helps. handing over the dollars helps more.
|
Ivan:
[53:36]
| Helps more exactly yes so here we are, okay and by the way the one thing that's amazing i don't know if you've seen on almost every poll no we keep talking about, people don't care number one thing that they are pissed off about right now in the polls aside from the high prices above that is the corruption right, i mean look at that depending on the poll it's number.
|
Sam:
[54:02]
| One or number two but.
|
Ivan:
[54:03]
| Yeah it's right up there but but look this is something that they didn't care and i don't know why now all of a sudden i think it's because of the epstein files thing with this it just it just crystallized it to everybody that, this son of a bitch is the most corrupt motherfucker there is.
|
Sam:
[54:20]
| Also i've heard it pointed out too that it's the connection between the two things if you feel like you're doing well and he's delivering benefit for you, then, oh, okay, he can get some, too. No big deal. But people feel screwed when you give them a comparison with, he's doing great.
|
Ivan:
[54:38]
| Great. Look at Bribe Force One.
|
Sam:
[54:41]
| Look at all the gold.
|
Ivan:
[54:43]
| Look at all, look at that. Blah, blah, blah. You know, he's talking about how he's making all tons of money, and I'm fucked.
|
Sam:
[54:49]
| Yes. Like, if you're doing fine, too, then maybe you don't care so much. You're like, we're all getting some.
|
Ivan:
[54:54]
| Look, that happens in a lot of societies. Look, that is the biggest thing that I saw in Russia, okay? People over there in Russia would turn a blind eye to Putin for the most part because they felt they were doing a lot better than they were when he wasn't there. So let him get rich.
|
Sam:
[55:11]
| Right. Okay. We were supposed to be talking about Serbia. Let's talk about Israel real quick. They had elections there, too. Netanyahu's party and coalition lost a whole bunch of seats, but the opposition did not end up with enough seats to have a majority either, although they have more than Netanyahu's group, I believe. But what's interesting is the balance of power is currently, I mean, the medium section, the Arab parties have gotten more seats than they've ever had before. and have enough that the only way anybody gets to a majority is coalitions with the Arab parties. Now, this apparently had happened before, many decades ago. There were a couple Arab parties that were in coalition governments in Israel. But it's very rare and hasn't happened in a long time. But.
|
Sam:
[56:12]
| They may not be able to do that because both coalitions, Netanyahu's and the opposition, are fundamentally Zionist parties, and one of the bigger Arab parties that they would have to make a coalition with is anti-Zionist. And in fact, one of the parties has explicitly refused to denounce Hamas. And so they're like, well, nobody's going to make a coalition with government with them. And but the Arab parties are basically trying to feel out, like, can we make a deal with somebody and what could we get in exchange for our support, etc.?
|
Sam:
[56:57]
| But it's sounding like there are other possibilities that would involve either a coalition government with Netanyahu and the opposition, which has also happened before, a unity government, they would call it, or either Netanyahu or the opposition forming a minority government where some of the Arab parties don't join into the coalition to become part of the government, but lend them support in the initial vote to form the government and there there's complicated things here another possibility is they don't work out anything at all and we have another election in a couple months, And so it's just, you know, Israeli politics is always so complicated because of the way their parliament works and the way the coalitions work and the fact that nobody ever has a majority. So it's hard to tell exactly what's going to happen at this point. Apparently, they were surprised by the showing for the Arab parties, which was driven, you You know, let's be clear here. This is not like, you know, Jewish folks voting for the Arab parties more often than they used to.
|
Ivan:
[58:15]
| No, this was turnout by Arabs that live in Israel.
|
Sam:
[58:19]
| And apparently this was higher turnout than has ever been seen before for the Arab parties. And a lot of people were surprised by it. But at least in retrospect, you've got to look at it and say the current Netanyahu government has made explicit that their goal in not only, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but to some degree within Israel itself, is ethnic cleansing. They want these folks to leave. They want these folks to leave, and they're doing everything possible to make their lives miserable. And hey, guess what? That boost turned out.
|
Ivan:
[59:00]
| No shit.
|
Sam:
[59:03]
| Unreal. So we'll see what happens there. Anyway, let's take our break, and then we'll do the rest of the show on the U.S. midterms, which are coming up soon. Now, I am going to attempt—what Alex has created is a video dialogue of Yvonne and I this time. Okay. Not just an audio. And I've got it uploaded into our Riverside software.
|
Ivan:
[59:30]
| And you have not seen it.
|
Sam:
[59:32]
| I have not seen it. I see a thumbnail on my screen right now. That's all I can see. And I'm not close enough to the thumbnail to really understand what I'm looking at. But I'm going to hit play on this. I've also, by the way, never played a video in Riverside before. So I don't know how this works. I think maybe I tried it once. A year or two ago? I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to hit play. This is a little, this is seven minutes and 14 seconds long. So it's long for a break, but this will be our only one this show. And then we'll come back and we'll talk U.S. politics. And you guys who are listening a couple weeks ago know what kind of thing this is. This is a fake version of Yvonne and I having a discussion about something. I have no idea what our topic is this time around, what we'll be talking about. It probably continues on from the previous ones, but I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. And this time, video has been added. For those of you listening on the, who are just listening.
|
Sam:
[1:00:35]
| I will upload the actual video onto the Curmudgeon's Corner YouTube channel, along with a couple of the simulated Curmudgeon's Corners that I mentioned on last week's show but didn't play. I'll upload those onto the curmudgeons corner youtube channel and you can go see those, the ones not the one i'm hitting play on now but the ones that are the simulated curmudgeons corner with the two phones talking to each other that i'm going to upload by the way the highlight there is not, the two phones talking to each other although that is entertaining, what is more entertaining is the fact that the two phones were placed on top of my stomach while I was falling asleep.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:18]
| Oh, that sounds great.
|
Sam:
[1:01:19]
| And so you get me semi-awake with every once in a while something happens that startles me and wakes me up again. And that's kind of amusing. Anyway, I will upload those three videos sometime in a day or two after this episode goes out. Okay, here we go. I'm hitting play. Let's see what happens.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:39]
| Let's see what happens.
|
SamClone:
[1:01:41]
| Okay, next movie.
|
IvanClone:
[1:01:44]
| Oh, God.
|
SamClone:
[1:01:45]
| This one is a Doctor Who spinoff movie.
|
IvanClone:
[1:01:48]
| What?
|
SamClone:
[1:01:49]
| Called King Kong Escapes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:01:51]
| What?
|
SamClone:
[1:01:52]
| From 1967.
|
IvanClone:
[1:01:54]
| Sam, stop. Stop right there. How in the f*** is King Kong Escapes a Doctor Who spinoff?
|
SamClone:
[1:02:01]
| Well, it has Doctor Who in it.
|
IvanClone:
[1:02:03]
| It has who?
|
SamClone:
[1:02:04]
| Doctor Who.
|
IvanClone:
[1:02:05]
| There is no f***ing Doctor Who in King Kong Escapes.
|
SamClone:
[1:02:09]
| Spinoff, September 1916. Right now, on the Old Sam and Ivan Dialogues. Doctor Who is the villain.
|
IvanClone:
[1:02:38]
| Doctor Who is the villain?
|
SamClone:
[1:02:40]
| Yes. He's trying to get Kong to dig up Element X.
|
IvanClone:
[1:02:43]
| That's Doctor Who. H-U. He's not a f***ing Time Lord.
|
SamClone:
[1:02:48]
| Well, that's confusing.
|
IvanClone:
[1:02:50]
| It's not confusing. They're completely unrelated.
|
SamClone:
[1:02:53]
| Anyway, as usual, I watched it in the original language.
|
IvanClone:
[1:02:57]
| Japanese?
|
SamClone:
[1:02:58]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:00]
| Oh, no.
|
SamClone:
[1:03:01]
| I thought it would be useful practice.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:03]
| You've been doing Duolingo Japanese for, what, two weeks now?
|
SamClone:
[1:03:06]
| Something like that.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:07]
| How much of the movie did you understand?
|
SamClone:
[1:03:09]
| There was a monkey.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:11]
| F***ing excellent.
|
SamClone:
[1:03:12]
| A very large monkey.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:14]
| We're making progress.
|
SamClone:
[1:03:16]
| And a robot monkey.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:17]
| Did you understand any of the dialogue, Sam?
|
SamClone:
[1:03:20]
| I recognized hi several times.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:22]
| Jesus f***ing Christ. Did you at least have subtitles?
|
SamClone:
[1:03:26]
| Japanese subtitles.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:28]
| Why?
|
SamClone:
[1:03:28]
| Immersion.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:29]
| That's not immersion. That's drowning.
|
SamClone:
[1:03:32]
| Anyway, I give it a thumbs up.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:34]
| You didn't understand the f***ing movie!
|
SamClone:
[1:03:37]
| I understood the broad strokes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:39]
| Monkey! Robot monkey! Hi!
|
SamClone:
[1:03:41]
| And Doctor Who.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:43]
| Who!
|
SamClone:
[1:03:44]
| Right.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:44]
| Where did you even find this thing?
|
SamClone:
[1:03:46]
| Oh, I pirated it.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:48]
| Of course you did.
|
SamClone:
[1:03:49]
| I couldn't find the Japanese version on any of the services I have.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:52]
| So rather than watching a legally available version in a language you actually understand...
|
SamClone:
[1:03:57]
| That wouldn't have been the original language.
|
IvanClone:
[1:03:59]
| You went looking around the internet for a pirated Japanese copy of a 1967 King Kong movie because you've done two weeks of Duolingo.
|
SamClone:
[1:04:08]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:09]
| And now you're reviewing it. Correct. All right. What's your insightful critical assessment?
|
SamClone:
[1:04:15]
| Kong Escapes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:16]
| Fuck you.
|
SamClone:
[1:04:18]
| Indulging v. Dolbath, BCUNV. Hang on, I'm Googling this.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:23]
| Oh, good. We're fact-checking the monkey movie live.
|
SamClone:
[1:04:27]
| No, you're wrong.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:28]
| What?
|
SamClone:
[1:04:29]
| It actually is Doctor Who. W-H-O.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:33]
| Bullshit.
|
SamClone:
[1:04:34]
| No, I'm looking at it right now. The character is literally named Doctor Who.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:40]
| You're telling me that in 1967, somebody made a Japanese King Kong movie with an evil scientist named Doctor Who?
|
SamClone:
[1:04:48]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:48]
| And this has absolutely nothing to do with Doctor Who?
|
SamClone:
[1:04:52]
| Apparently not.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:53]
| What the f***?
|
SamClone:
[1:04:55]
| So I withdraw my correction.
|
IvanClone:
[1:04:57]
| No, I reject this. There is no f***ing way that King Kong Escapes has a character literally named Doctor Who.
|
SamClone:
[1:05:04]
| It does.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:05]
| So when you called it a Doctor Who spinoff...
|
SamClone:
[1:05:09]
| I was still wrong.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:11]
| But for an entirely different reason than I thought.
|
SamClone:
[1:05:14]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:15]
| F***. That's worse. I confidently corrected you from something stupid to something also wrong.
|
SamClone:
[1:05:20]
| In fairness, Doctor Who was quite plausible.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:24]
| Plausible. Google says Doctor Who.
|
SamClone:
[1:05:27]
| And he's played by Aisei Amamoto.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:30]
| Does he have a TARDIS?
|
SamClone:
[1:05:31]
| No.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:32]
| Two hearts?
|
SamClone:
[1:05:32]
| Not that I'm aware of.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:34]
| Sonic screwdriver?
|
SamClone:
[1:05:35]
| No.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:35]
| Giant robot gorilla?
|
SamClone:
[1:05:37]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:38]
| Okay. So basically, Japanese Doctor Who had a Mechanicong instead of a TARDIS.
|
SamClone:
[1:05:43]
| I don't think that's the conclusion.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:45]
| Too late. Canon.
|
SamClone:
[1:05:47]
| Secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret, secret. Wait, wait, wait. Ivan, you're wrong again.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:55]
| What the f*** did I do now?
|
SamClone:
[1:05:57]
| Doctor Who has a page on the TARDIS wiki.
|
IvanClone:
[1:05:59]
| The what?
|
SamClone:
[1:06:00]
| The TARDIS wiki. The Doctor Who wiki.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:03]
| No!
|
SamClone:
[1:06:04]
| Yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:05]
| You're telling me the f***ing evil scientist from King Kong Escapes who built a giant robotic monkey is on the Doctor Who wiki?
|
SamClone:
[1:06:13]
| Apparently.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:14]
| Why?
|
SamClone:
[1:06:15]
| Well, there's actually a connection. The character is referenced in a 2001 Doctor Who novel called The Adventurous of Henrietta Street.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:24]
| What?
|
SamClone:
[1:06:25]
| Yes. The movie King Kong Escapes exists as a fictional movie within the Doctor Who universe, and its villain is mentioned.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:32]
| So let me get this straight. He's not the Doctor.
|
SamClone:
[1:06:36]
| Correct.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:37]
| He's not a Time Lord.
|
SamClone:
[1:06:39]
| Correct.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:39]
| He doesn't have a TARDIS.
|
SamClone:
[1:06:41]
| Correct.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:42]
| But he's in the f***ing Doctor Who Expanded Universe because somebody mentioned a King Kong movie in a book?
|
SamClone:
[1:06:48]
| That's basically the connection, yes.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:51]
| Jesus in Christ!
|
SamClone:
[1:06:53]
| So technically, I wasn't completely wrong when I called it a Doctor Who spinoff.
|
IvanClone:
[1:06:57]
| Yes, you were!
|
SamClone:
[1:06:59]
| Well...
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:00]
| The movie came out in 1967! The reference was made in 2001!
|
SamClone:
[1:07:06]
| Yes, but...
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:07]
| You can't retroactively turn a f***ing King Kong movie into a Doctor Who spinoff because some writer made a reference 34 years later!
|
SamClone:
[1:07:16]
| I mean, franchises have done stranger things.
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:18]
| Sam!
|
SamClone:
[1:07:19]
| Anyway, I'm giving it a thumbs up.
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:22]
| Of course you are.
|
SamClone:
[1:07:23]
| And I'm adding it to my Doctor Who watch list.
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:26]
| It doesn't belong on the ing watch list.
|
SamClone:
[1:07:29]
| It's on the wiki.
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:30]
| F*** the wiki.
|
SamClone:
[1:07:31]
| That's not very respectful of the fans.
|
IvanClone:
[1:07:34]
| I'm going to need a Duolingo course just to understand your ing logic.
|
Sam:
[1:08:47]
| Okay well uh.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:49]
| If anybody still left.
|
Sam:
[1:08:50]
| That was something.
|
Ivan:
[1:08:52]
| If anybody you know if anybody hasn't shut off the podcast by now, anyway we're back so uh for anybody who couldn't see the video there was a that's that that was not anything remotely there was a stuffed octopus thing Which I guess the red side is me, and the black side is...
|
Sam:
[1:09:16]
| Yeah, so you can turn it inside out and flip it between two versions. And he was flipping it back and forth between the two when he kept talking. And there were...
|
Ivan:
[1:09:26]
| You know, red was me, black was you.
|
Sam:
[1:09:29]
| And there was something like that. Yeah. And then there were some introductory and accident graphics as well. So that was it. Thank you, Alex.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:40]
| Thank you. Hollywood is right now quaking in their boots.
|
Sam:
[1:09:45]
| Yes. And it wasn't quite the animation that Yvonne described, but it was something.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:56]
| It's something, all right. Anyway, let's kick out.
|
Sam:
[1:09:59]
| Okay, talk election, midterms, final thoughts. As we are recording this.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:05]
| We've got like three days left. All I'm going to say is that, It looks optimistic for the Democrats, but obviously we've been burned before we've been burned before. I'm not celebrating anything.
|
Sam:
[1:10:23]
| We got the Texas Charlie Brown football again.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:26]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:10:27]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:27]
| Look, everything is set up for a proper blowout.
|
Sam:
[1:10:33]
| I mean, people are talking about Mississippi, for God's sake.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:37]
| And the numbers back up the talk. I mean, but the reality is that everything is set up for a blowout, but, you know, we'll know when the numbers come out. Yeah, but the reality is that, as we spoke before, the Republicans a lot, as you mentioned, they haven't been competitive in a whole bunch of these races before. all of a sudden they're faced with a democrat there but also at the same time maybe their instincts would be, to do as you mentioned as some other presidents have done when they've been in the situation they said just go away you know you you talk you know ignore me but the reality is that if they did that and they ran against trump, then trump would be running against them because trump doesn't give a fuck and trump has done this already trump there was there is a reason why you have candidates that suck in certain places. There is no reason why Cornyn shouldn't be running for re-election and why you have Ken Paxton as the candidate in Texas.
|
Sam:
[1:11:44]
| And Cornyn would probably be winning easily.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:46]
| Exactly. But Trump went and pushed Cornyn out in favor of Paxton, and that's why that seat is in jeopardy. End of story. There is no reason why Ramaswamy should be fucking running for Governor of Ohio. OK, I mean, aside from the fact that the guy is is as charismatic as as as would. The guy also, by virtue of who he is and his, you know, his ancestry, I saw the other day there's a there's a video on it in which I think it was Ann Coulter to his face said that he would never vote for him because he's Indian. And this stupid son of a bitch continues to be a Republican in the face of the fact that so many of the people that he is courting say that flat out to his face.
|
Sam:
[1:12:45]
| Yeah. I... Now, to be clear, Republicans have elected some minorities in some states.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:55]
| Some.
|
Sam:
[1:12:56]
| Yeah. It's not like it doesn't exist.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:00]
| Yes. But how many are there, really, that are not white male? Well, you know, now I went and I'm like, fuck.
|
Sam:
[1:13:09]
| You've got two. All right.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:10]
| So now I got to pick this. Now I got to pull this down.
|
Sam:
[1:13:12]
| You've got two effects at play here. one is just.
|
Sam:
[1:13:18]
| They're less non-whites in the republican party period end of story that's part a because most, folks in those demographics recognize that that party does not have their interests at heart but so there's a smaller pool of people to start with then when they do run, they have to overcome the racism within their own party as well. Now, that does sometimes happen. And, you know, there are times and there are certainly cases where, you know, you have even the white racists accept the minority person because of X, Y, Z of the policies that they agree with or whatever. It does happen. It's just rarer. It's just rarer. And the same thing is true to a lesser degree with women, but it's there too. I mean, the Republican Party is a very white male-oriented party. And even when people who aren't white male end up in positions of power there. It's because they are willing to sort of realign themselves in that white male world. I don't know what the right way to say it is, but that's what's going on. They they they sort of I don't know. It does happen. So you're looking it up. What have you found?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:47]
| It does happen. Well, I'm trying to pull the statistics. I'll let you know when when when the information is tabulated. But the reality is that I know off the top of my head that if you look at the Senate, for example, and compared to the Democrats and how many are, you know, white men versus the rest. It's really, it's a blowout to white men in the Republican Party versus the mix that you have with the Democratic Party. And also for governors, also for just about any other role.
|
Sam:
[1:15:19]
| This is core to their positioning, right? The Republican Party is anti-DEI, which is anti-diversity.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:26]
| Exactly. Now, they do have a quarter on white blonde women being spokespersons.
|
Sam:
[1:15:34]
| Okay, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:35]
| That is kind of like you know that is apparently like a core value.
|
Sam:
[1:15:42]
| Lovely at least after they've had their plastic surgery.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:45]
| At least after they've had their plastic surgery yes so yeah that that they you know that that they're very good at but but i don't know i think the data is going to take some time to tabulate but bottom line is, look you you got freaking you know you you put up In Texas, you put up a guy who the Republicans themselves impeached. up in the Senate race, okay? You got that guy over there. You know, I don't know. You've got the Kansas guy. I mean, talking, you know, basically just... By the way, I also saw that... What's her name? Graham's sister, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:16:31]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:32]
| Her polling is coming in. I mean, she probably is going to win, but it sure as hell is not going to be, it's going to be one hell of a tight race. It's looking.
|
Sam:
[1:16:44]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:16:45]
| That's not, you know, that's not coming in like, you know, that's not, that's not look, I mean, again.
|
Sam:
[1:16:53]
| And this is another situation where, first of all, her brother was not actually all that popular anymore in South Carolina.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:00]
| By the way, so for governors, share of governors that are white male. Okay. Republicans. Yes. 80% for Republicans versus 54% for Democrats. In the Senate, 71% of Republicans. In the House, 80% versus, by the way, only 30% white male for Democrats. Look at that mix.
|
Sam:
[1:17:21]
| For which House?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:22]
| For the House.
|
Sam:
[1:17:23]
| How about Senate?
|
Ivan:
[1:17:24]
| For the Senate, it's 71% white male, 53% Democrats.
|
Sam:
[1:17:29]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:30]
| So the Democrats are pretty split. For all three combined, bottom line, 80 percent of anybody in high office or its governors, Senate, the House is white male and only 36 percent for the Democrats when you add up all the, you know, the amount of people overall. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, you've got a party that basically, you know, 80 percent of it, 81 percent white men for the governors. OK, all right. There's 26 total governorships that they've got. Only four are held by women and one by a man of color. Okay. Trying to figure out which ones are they. Let me see. There's Henry Stift in Oklahoma. Henry Stitt in Oklahoma. He's a Cherokee Nation. New Mexico. Oh, no, New Mexico's a Democrat. Oh, hold on. Let me see. Now that's a Democrat. Yeah, but bottom line is, Sam, 80%. 81% for governors, 72% Senate, and 80% for the House. I mean, okay. It's pretty obvious that if you're running, you know, It's not the winning ticket for the Republicans.
|
Sam:
[1:18:42]
| Right. Okay. Let me talk. You were mentioning, hey, it's looking good, but you can never take anything for granted. I'm looking up the odds given currently by Decision Desk HQ. I was the EDHQ. There are a whole bunch of people giving odds. I'm picking this one right now. And I'll give the four different outcomes. Well, first of all, just a straight up.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:08]
| By the way, I wound up paying for the DDHQ product.
|
Sam:
[1:19:12]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:13]
| It's like, it's cheap. Okay. So it's worth it.
|
Sam:
[1:19:19]
| I have an account there. I'm not sure I've paid them yet. I've paid 50 plus one GLE at Morris's site to get access there. But I haven't gone to it a lot yet. I figure I'll go there a lot more once I've got election graphs up and running just to check in. Are there any new polls that I haven't absorbed yet that I should pay attention to? I can't use their API. I wouldn't use their API anyway because I do things my own weird way. But they restrict your... You can't use their API to set up something doing roughly the same thing they are doing.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:54]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:19:56]
| Which makes sense. So I won't use their API. But they will be probably one of like a half dozen sources that I check on a regular basis looking for poll information. Anyway... For DDHQ, first up, House chances. They give the Democrats an 83% chance of taking the House. Now, again, 83 is not 100. That leaves a 17% chance the Republicans could manage to keep the House. And we've been talking about, like, the House is a foregone conclusion. Like, the Democrats will definitely win the House.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:28]
| I didn't say that. Who the fuck said that? I never said that. What the fuck are you talking about?
|
Sam:
[1:20:32]
| Sorry, I said we. A lot of people, the general discourse for months now has moved from the House is competitive to the Democrats have the House. The only real question is the Senate.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:46]
| I mean, I've said, you know, look, I mean, they are favored, but it's not, you know, yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:20:52]
| And you can even say heavily favored. 83 to 17 is heavily favored. But 17 is not zero.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:00]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:21:01]
| Not even close to zero. That's like, you know, we're talking one in five, one in six chances, you know, around there. Now for the Senate, they give the Democrats a 63% chance, which gives the Republicans 37%. And again, this is, yes, the Democrats are favored, but Republicans winning is a real possibility. You know, this is still in toss-up territory. We've talked before, people sort of round things to, when people talk odds, it seems like mentally people often say, there's really only three. You're going to win, you're going to lose, or it's 50-50.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:47]
| I'll tell you what.
|
Sam:
[1:21:48]
| And it's more complicated.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:49]
| I, I, I, they're, uh, they have really done a great job of, of, uh, this product that DDHQ put out compared to any of the others that we had, even like when 538 was up or whatever. This is really good. This is really good.
|
Sam:
[1:22:05]
| And very complete too. Like their, yeah. Information on all kinds. And of course their specialty where they started was just reporting polls. No, no, not even reporting election results. Election results. They were competing with the AP for posting election results on election night. Yep. And they are still really, really good at that. Yep. But they've added over the last cycle. The last cycle, they already added a whole bunch of polling information. But last cycle, the polling information was there. It was one of the places that I checked all the time. But the UX for it really kind of sucked. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:45]
| No, this UX now.
|
Sam:
[1:22:46]
| Now, this is nice.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:48]
| This is nice.
|
Sam:
[1:22:49]
| This is nice. Are there little things I would make do a little differently?
|
Ivan:
[1:22:53]
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no.
|
Sam:
[1:22:54]
| But it's nice.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:55]
| But this is damn. It's really nice. This is really nice.
|
Sam:
[1:22:57]
| Yes. And they've got models and probabilities and stuff like that, too. So the next one, I mentioned House and Senate odds. Here's for the combos at this point. Republicans keep both 15%. Okay. Republicans keep both the House and the Senate. Republicans keep the House but lose the Senate, only 1%.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:23]
| Uh-huh. Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:23:25]
| Democrats take the House but lose the Senate, 22%.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:30]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[1:23:31]
| Chance of a Democratic sweep, though, Democrats taking both the House and the Senate, 61%. So still favored. So, you know, and again, I can't repeat too many times that, there's no guarantees here. This is still close enough. You know, I just gave the Republicans keep everything odds, 15%. That ain't nothing.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:01]
| That ain't nothing.
|
Sam:
[1:24:02]
| That ain't nothing. So we're going to have to pay attention and see where we are. But- But looking at the Senate here, you know, specific states again, and this is sticking with DGHQ because I'm here, toss-up states right now, in order by closeness, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, and Arkansas. Oh, no, sorry, Alaska. AK is Alaska. Dumbass. Okay, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska are all rated as toss-ups, which they put as anything where the win odds are 60% or less for whoever's ahead. Then in the leaning category, which is a little far out, Maine, which is leaning Democrat, South Carolina, which is leaning Republican, Michigan, which is leaning Democrat. And then those are really the competitive ones. If you go out one more out to likely, which is lean goes out to 75% win chances for the winning side. And then looks like the likelies go out to 95%. So we've got Florida, where they give the Republican a 76% chance. But I mean, hey, 24% for the Democrat ain't nothing either. No, not at all.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:22]
| No.
|
Sam:
[1:25:23]
| So Florida's in play. Same thing. Nebraska is likely 76% Republican. Montana, 77% Republican. And then also in those, and that's sort of the next year where we've got 20 to 25% chances of a Democratic upset. You know, that ain't bad. I'm not going to bet on any of those, but those are all ones that Florida and Nebraska and Montana should not be that close.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:50]
| You know, one thing that is crazy is that I'm looking at this map in terms of, like, governor flips, okay, that they're expecting.
|
Sam:
[1:25:58]
| I flipped over to the governor. I was still talking Senate, but okay, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:01]
| I know, I know, but I flipped to the governor one.
|
Sam:
[1:26:03]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:03]
| The states that they're expecting that they believe could flip, three, four deep red ones, really, okay, that—, Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, and Ohio. Think about this.
|
Sam:
[1:26:18]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:19]
| How Trump has been bragging about oil and how Alaska benefits from oil. And how Alaskans are fed up with this shit. That they might wind up with a Democrat both in the Senate and in the governor's house as well.
|
Sam:
[1:26:36]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:38]
| And I guess they've pissed off Georgia enough that I guess, you know, Georgia is going to lose like all sorts of statewide elections. I mean, this is like crazy.
|
Sam:
[1:26:45]
| Well, Georgia is another one as well where, you know, the Republicans have been fighting demographic trends as well. And it sort of finally reached that tipping point and make them mad at Donald Trump as well. And that's enough to overcome. Like they put in, like a lot of these states, they put in a lot of systematic barriers. And so the state, you know, for like the legislature and such, but for the statewide offices, you can't gerrymander away a statewide election. You know, you can make sure that you can keep the statehouse through gerrymandering, but you can't do that with the governor or the secretary of state or positions like that.
|
Sam:
[1:27:31]
| And this brings to like the question of like, I, okay. Okay. Opening the 2028 door for a minute, even though we don't have our 2026 results yet. But one of the big questions will be how if we see trends like Texas gets a Democratic senator, Georgia keeps Democratic senators, Ohio flips, Iowa flips, Alaska flips. One of the questions will be how much of this is durable versus unique to this cycle? Because we've got Paxton in Texas, as we mentioned, we've got Donald Trump's historic unpopularity. like do we you know do all of these states sort of revert to form in two years, when donald trump isn't on the ballot presumably and there's no and and maybe we get better i don't think the two years.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:31]
| I don't think the two years reverts and i and the reason is because look if trump follows through what we were just talking about.
|
Sam:
[1:28:40]
| In terms.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:41]
| Of his scorched earth.
|
Sam:
[1:28:43]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:43]
| He's not, there is nothing he is doing to help this fucking economy. And as I've mentioned before, We this is going to get worse.
|
Sam:
[1:28:54]
| Yeah, I think it is going to not just economic. I think in everything.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:58]
| Every aspect, it's going to go worse.
|
Sam:
[1:29:00]
| Donald Trump is going to lash out.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:03]
| He's going scorched earth.
|
Sam:
[1:29:06]
| And by the way, we haven't we talked a week or two ago about like possibilities of like shenanigans over the election results.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:15]
| We're probably definitely going to try.
|
Sam:
[1:29:17]
| He's going to try. Like, my position when Ed was on the show, I went over some of this. My prediction is that in the end he will fail, but there will be lots of chaos in the meantime.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:30]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:29:31]
| You know, as every single possible legal avenue they can try, first of all, there are going to be lawsuits all over the place. The Justice Department, I mean, you know, is going to be investigating people, potentially arresting people, trying to do this, trying to do that. You know, in Alaska, the governor this week would not commit to certifying the elections if the Democrat won, you know, and, you know, and legal experts are like, well, he may not want to, but we'll be able to force him. But in the meantime, you've got chaos for some period of time. And and that's only the legal stuff, you know, like, of course, there are going to be lawsuits and they're going to go through the courts. and, you know, they'll probably lose every case or almost every one of the cases, just like they have every time they've tried this bullshit. But then if he gets desperate enough, maybe he'll try illegal shit too. And it's, you know, I feel like, One of the determinants in how much of this we see and how much chaos it causes is, in part, how close is it? If it really is a truly undeniable Democratic blowout, mischief is harder.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:52]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:30:52]
| If, on the other hand, let's say it plays out where control of the Senate is up to the results in one state that is close, then you have rooms for shenanigans to like, get difficult you know because you know if you've got a legitimately close state where the election was decided by a handful of votes, then you know you could have a florida 2000 situation you know well.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:22]
| We're not going to have a florida 2000 situation thankfully because nobody uses chads anymore or any of that stuff.
|
Sam:
[1:31:27]
| However okay all But still, if it's a close enough election.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:32]
| You find other things to dispute. But we can have a situation where... I mean, where the hell is Rudy when you need him?
|
Sam:
[1:31:43]
| Please don't summon that man.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:46]
| Where is Rudy? We could have him over standing at the Four Seasons again this time around. I mean, I totally expect... That he is going to actively try to do as much as possible to muck up this shit.
|
Sam:
[1:32:07]
| Yeah. And I think, like, again, how close it is matters to this. If things are on a knife's edge... then he's going to get a lot of support for his shenanigans. If it's a clear Democratic blowout, he's going to try this stuff and people are kind of going to shrug a bit.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:29]
| Well, look, you got to remember, you're saying a lot of people supported him. You know, his support was higher the last time around in general.
|
Sam:
[1:32:38]
| Yes, it was.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:39]
| So it and looking at all the polling numbers and everything is going on in terms of general popularity for trump i mean i think that people are kind of i mean so many people are fed up, that i don't i think that although he will get his usual support it's nothing like, what he was able to muster the last time around that he caused a lot of shenanigans that's for sure right you know and unfortunately you know we didn't even talk about the brazil election Oh.
|
Sam:
[1:33:06]
| Brazil. I forgot Brazil. I'm sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:08]
| We suck compared to Brazil.
|
Sam:
[1:33:09]
| That was supposed to be at the end of the last segment. Go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:12]
| Do Brazil now. Well, because we suck. We can't do what the fuck Brazil did. We can't go and just re-elect the 81-year-old guy. Because the other guy is going to bring in a fucking, you know, he's going to free his dad from fucking jail. Okay And he attempted a coup So instead they reelected the 81 year old guy Look, Lula is not a saint Okay Lula has been Listen there are there is Audio and he went to jail For bribery okay, This is recorded he went to jail for this Alright But but but, Compared to the other guy, he's a saint, okay? Actually, there's a lot of things positive that he did. One of the things, for example, you know, Lula has been the most effective guy at reducing deforestation of the Amazon, for example.
|
Sam:
[1:34:14]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:34:14]
| You talk about something positive, not just for Brazil, but for the Earth, okay, in general, because how important the Amazon is, okay? Right. I mean, he's been very effective at that when he was president. He was also very effective at reducing poverty in Brazil, like by a lot. OK. And, you know, and yes, there have been certain issues and scandals and things that accompanied him. But nothing compared to having Bolsonaro's son, who fucking Bolsonaro tried and, you know, tried to fucking stage a coup. OK, after he lost the election the last time. But but the Brazilians actually grabbed the guy, prosecuted him and threw him in jail. And for 30 years, if I remember correctly, something like that. And so you reelected his son, he would have gotten out. Now, look, was it close? Yeah, it was awfully close. The first round, they thought that because of how the first round came out, where Bolsonaro was ahead by a point or something, then the second round he was going to win. But the reality is a number of people that voted for others in the first round and they're runoff, when faced with the decision of bringing back Bolsonaro's son or put a Lula back in office, they said, fuck this shit, we're bringing back Lula. At 81 years old. Did I say that he was 81? Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:35:34]
| The other thing that Brazil did right, by the way, is after that attempted coup, they put his ass in jail right away.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:41]
| That's what I said, yes. It wasn't like a long time. They put the guy in jail. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:35:46]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:48]
| He's in jail.
|
Sam:
[1:35:49]
| He's still running in jail. By the way, South Korea did something similar.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:53]
| Yeah, they did.
|
Sam:
[1:35:54]
| You know, it's like.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:55]
| They also put that fucker in jail.
|
Sam:
[1:35:57]
| We have this taboo in this country that of, yeah, the whole we're.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:03]
| We're, this isn't a taboo. The motherfucking Republicans went like chickened out after they impeached him.
|
Sam:
[1:36:10]
| No, no. But I'm talking like starting with Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon. We've had this look forward, not back kind of attitude of like, hey, we don't want to get into a world where we just always, you know, the new administration comes in and prosecutes the old administration. Well, the thing is, what needs to happen is they need to do so if the previous administration deserved it. No, you don't want to do it every time for everything, for whatever. But if the previous administration actually was lawless, then absolutely you should do that. And there are lots of examples. Like, you know, they're... Italy has done this. France has done this. We mentioned Korea. We did mention Brazil. All over the world, there have been ex-presidents that end up in jail, not just because of retribution of the new government, but because they were actually criminals.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:06]
| Correct. The criminals need to go to fucking jail.
|
Sam:
[1:37:10]
| Now, you absolutely don't want a retribution scenario where every administration jails the previous administration. No, of course not. But if they were actually criminals, you absolutely do. And you don't want to shy away from it. You want to do what you need to do and get them. Yeah. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:29]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[1:37:30]
| It's time to close up.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:31]
| Close up.
|
Sam:
[1:37:32]
| We've, yeah. Yeah. Time to close up.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:35]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:36]
| We have failed. Because we started late and then went on.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:41]
| Way late.
|
Sam:
[1:37:42]
| I've only got, what? I'm looking at the clock. Three and a half hours to get all the Halloween crap set up. Okay, so I'm out of here. Thanks. Oh, curmudgeons-corner.com, a transcript, archives, how to contact us, and, of course, a link to our Patreon so you can give us money. We'll send you postcards, mugs, blah, blah, blah, at various levels. And at $2 a month or more, or if you ask and we feel like it, we'll invite you to Curmudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a bunch of listeners are chatting throughout the week. Yvonne, highlight from the Slack. I caught him by surprise.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:22]
| I should have been ready. Now we talked about that. We talked about that. Okay. Well, I guess the one thing I will bring up, it's not that funny, but talk about electioneering. Greg shared, and I checked, and I do have this message, okay?
|
Sam:
[1:38:44]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:44]
| Apparently, the Social Security Administration is doing electioneering for, you know, campaigning for president. Here, we got this email, it was yesterday. Social Security delivers historic customer service improvements under President Donald J. Trump. The SSA is transforming into a model of excellence, one that meets and exceeds customers. It's there for fast, accurate, and secure service. More praise of old dear leader whenever he can get it anywhere.
|
Sam:
[1:39:13]
| You know, I just looked, and I do have this email as well. It was in my junk mail.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:19]
| Ah, well, that explains that.
|
Sam:
[1:39:20]
| Which is probably where it belonged.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:22]
| Yeah, I'm going to guess that this is in, I don't know which mailbox this is in. I had to search for it. I don't know, somewhere in my mailbox.
|
Sam:
[1:39:33]
| Oh, and I had another one from him a couple of weeks ago, too. Last year, President Donald J. Trump signed into law, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so I mean.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:45]
| You want I mean, you want his emails, right? You need his emails. You love his email.
|
Sam:
[1:39:50]
| Need them. Need them. Want them. Thirst for them.
|
Ivan:
[1:39:55]
| More, more, more, more, more.
|
Sam:
[1:39:59]
| Okay, that's it. Thanks, everybody. Have a great week. Halloween will be over by the time you see this. Hope you had a good Halloween if you care, which Yvonne does not, but some people do. Some people get into Halloween.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:11]
| I know a lot of people do. A lot of people do.
|
Sam:
[1:40:14]
| Yeah. So happy Halloween or in the past, whatever. Happy next Halloween. I don't know what I'm talking about.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:21]
| I hope you had a wonderful Halloween.
|
Sam:
[1:40:23]
| There you go. And because I promise I will get this episode out before election results start coming in Tuesday night. But if you haven't voted yet, vote and then have a good election night. hope it goes well for all of us who are on our side. Not for everybody. Okay, that's it. Have a great week. Bye, folks.
|
Ivan:
[1:40:50]
| Bye!
|
Sam:
[1:41:21]
| Okay hitting stop bye yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:24]
| All right let's see.
| |
|
