Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:21]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, December 20th, 2025. It's just after 1815 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam and Yvonne Bose here again. Hello, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[0:36]
| Hi! Hi! Low!
|
Sam:
[0:41]
| Yes, high, low, sideways, up, down.
|
Ivan:
[0:45]
| Sideways! Yeah, it's fine.
|
Sam:
[0:47]
| Okay, well, before I forget and before I do anything else, I am once again going to promote the Google Doc for questions for our 2026 prediction show, which, if I look at the calendar, will probably be next week.
|
Ivan:
[1:05]
| Well, yeah, we got to.
|
Sam:
[1:07]
| Work out some scheduling, right? It could be two weeks from now if Yvonne has to do the show the 29th, 30th, or 31st, instead of the 27th. This is going to get complicated. Yvonne and I will figure it out offline. I meant to do it before we got to recording, but I didn't wake up until 10 minutes before the show started.
|
Ivan:
[1:34]
| And you had some technical difficulties.
|
Sam:
[1:36]
| And I had some technical difficulties, so whatever. We'll figure it out. But the last show of the year will be predictions, and the first show of next year will be reviewing our last predictions. And as of this moment, nobody has put in even a single suggestion into that Google Doc. So let me give you the URL again. It's tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026. If anyone has any problems getting into it, please let me know.
|
Ivan:
[2:08]
| And it's not a curmudgeon's corner predator. No, it's predictions.
|
Sam:
[2:12]
| Predictions.
|
Ivan:
[2:12]
| Because it sounds like, yeah, because CC Pred sounds like it's some kind of predator. To me. First thing I think.
|
Sam:
[2:19]
| So don't be scared of it. The doc is not going to come out of your screen and eat you or something.
|
Ivan:
[2:23]
| Well, try not to do that. We're not that technically capable.
|
Sam:
[2:27]
| Now, I remember the last couple of years. So I'm not surprised that there is nothing in this doc. The last couple of years, there was nothing in this doc until a couple days before we were going to do the recording. And then all of a sudden people put it.
|
Ivan:
[2:43]
| People are consistently, we seem to have a group of procrastinators.
|
Sam:
[2:51]
| Yes. Yes. And I guess that comes from the top.
|
Ivan:
[2:57]
| As most cultural things do.
|
Sam:
[3:01]
| So anyway, we got our sections in this doc. Politics, international, economy, technology, hodgepodge. For some reason, I have politics in a different font than the others. I should fix that. Fixing it now. You know, the whole thing is an aerial. But, you know, let's fix that, too. You got Calibri? Ah, man. You know, it's not a choice in Google Docs. Calibri's not a choice in Google Docs.
|
Ivan:
[3:30]
| Google Docs sucks.
|
Sam:
[3:32]
| We could do Comic Sans.
|
Ivan:
[3:34]
| There you go. That's probably more appropriate.
|
Sam:
[3:38]
| Comforta.
|
Ivan:
[3:40]
| Comforta.
|
Sam:
[3:41]
| Comforta's... Let's put it in Comforta Normal. It is now in Comforta Normal.
|
Ivan:
[3:48]
| You don't have, like, engravers Old English or something like that there. you know, one of those.
|
Sam:
[3:52]
| Like, let's see, let's see what looks closest to that. We've got Impact.
|
Ivan:
[3:58]
| No.
|
Sam:
[3:59]
| No, it's not the same. We have Trebuchet MS. We have Verdana. Times New Roman. We could go for the traditional Times New Roman.
|
Ivan:
[4:10]
| Oh, Courier. What about Courier?
|
Sam:
[4:13]
| We have Courier New.
|
Ivan:
[4:15]
| Yeah, it works.
|
Sam:
[4:16]
| I'm going to stick with Comforta. Comforta. Comforta.
|
Ivan:
[4:21]
| Sounds very comfortable.
|
Sam:
[4:23]
| Anyway, please, if you add something, sign your name so we know who to thank during the show. It doesn't have to be your real name. Just sign it by something that's consistent that we can, you know, use to identify, you know, blah, blah, blah, contribute to this question, you know. So anyway, that's the most important thing. I'll try to remember to mention it again at the end of the show. URL again is tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026. And yeah, so we'll figure, we'll figure out when that is and we'll get it done. In the meantime, as usual, we'll do like the less serious stuff here at the beginning of the show and then more newsy stuff towards the end. I've got two movies racked up to go. What do you got, Yvonne?
|
Ivan:
[5:12]
| Well, a couple of little tidbits. One is I exercise today for the first time since surgery. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[5:23]
| First real full workout that I've done since early August, okay? Because, you know, because of the pain, because trying to figure out whatever, blah, blah, blah. And because I had tried to do a workout sometime in September, and that turned painful before I figured out that I needed surgery. But I did, and so far, so good. Now, I did go very, very, very easy. I did not i did not push myself at all i i just you know i did i did power walking i didn't do any running just just you know at a relatively you know but but use the inclines like it did a 12 incline at max you know stuff like that and and whatever weights i did not use any weights over 10 pounds i mean which i i i mean that's way lighter than what i normally use i just but i i I was doing that. I avoided certain exercises as well, which I've been told to avoid. Like, for example, they were supposed to use rowing machines, and that's a no-no, like for now. But everything went fine. So, you know, I didn't feel anything untoward. I just try to get to start working out again. I'm going to go again tomorrow. I'll just go a few times this week now. I got some... I'm using my...
|
Ivan:
[6:46]
| I know that a lot of people, love to hate on Unlimited Vacation. But I've had this for eight years and I can't, I don't see how, the only people that hate Unlimited Vacation, the people that hate, or not the only, the people that I think for the most part hate Unlimited Vacation, I think are in part people that have trouble taking vacation. I think that having a finite amount makes them take it. But I never had such an issue with taking my damn vacation. Okay? What had suited me. So, to me, like, I marked myself, I'll be out from the 19th until the 7th of January. So, I've marked myself out for almost three fucking weeks. I don't have a problem. If I did that with a limited amount of vacation, I probably would be using up all my vacation. No, it's pretty pointless for me to be working those days. Part of the time, the company's going to be closed. There is a company shutdown that they do for a few days. The other part, it isn't, but the two markets where I do business, almost all of my business.
|
Ivan:
[8:03]
| Both celebrate Christmas But they also celebrate Three Kings Day Three Kings Day is the 6th of January And Three Kings Day In Puerto Rico when I was growing up Was bigger than Christmas, Because you actually got You actually got gifts on both Okay, And, you know, and we were actually for, you know how people leave cookies and milk for Santa? Well, this is supposed to be the arrival of the three kings to Bethlehem to, you know, for baby Jesus. Okay. So we were supposed, we left hay. We left, we left overnight. We had to go and pick up hay and we had to put hay under the tree and water, I guess. But I remember we had to get, we had to put, we had to get the hay.
|
Sam:
[8:50]
| For like the camels and stuff.
|
Ivan:
[8:51]
| For the camels. Yes.
|
Sam:
[8:53]
| Right. Okay. Yes.
|
Ivan:
[8:54]
| Yeah. Yeah. The camels that the Three Kings rode on. So we have to leave them. Hey, that's the important part. And most of the gifts for the holidays you actually got on Three Kings Day. Okay? I don't know. I think in Puerto Rico it's more tilted now towards Christmas than Three Kings Day was celebrated. But I know in the Dominican Republic they also celebrate it very much as well. So, look, a lot of people are just not – there's just – my customers? A lot of them are taking off for those days, too. So it doesn't make any sense for me to be doing much of anything anyway. I got nobody I can talk to, okay? So, so I'm, you know, I'll take my time off, you know, and then I'll take my regular vacation sometime during the year. I just, I, I, it just, I find it that most of the people, you know, cause I usually will take this time off, take Thanksgiving week off. I'll take the spring break week off. I'll take some summer vacation off. So I, I, you know, and it, you know, I mean, so that's like, what? Seven weeks off during the year. I can't do that with a regular vacation allotment.
|
Sam:
[10:06]
| People have pointed out that unlimited is clearly not unlimited. You couldn't show up on your first day of work ever and say, I'm taking the next two years.
|
Ivan:
[10:14]
| Exactly. Well, yeah, it's not unlimited, but it's not tracked is my point. Okay. It's not like I don't have to like penny, you know, I don't have to penny count every fucking day at vacation. Or like, for example, hey, look, I have to take, hey, in November, I took quite a lot of days off because I had surgery as well. I took about 10 days off. I have to be fucking penny pinching my fucking days to take off for shit.
|
Sam:
[10:43]
| Yeah, because like in a normal place where you have a fixed amount, if you took your 10 days for surgery, that's 10 days you don't have for something like that.
|
Ivan:
[10:50]
| Oh my God, now I would have to work.
|
Sam:
[10:52]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[10:53]
| No, I took my 10 days off, and now I'm taking three weeks off. But here's the one thing, Sam. People are always afraid, oh, my God, my bus is going to be pissed off or whatever. I have never, ever had a bus pissed off because I took vacation in 25 years. Well, the main reason is I usually left everything all ready, whatever, you know, whatever had to be done. There was nothing like, you know, I made sure that in advance everything's set. There's nothing pending. I notified. I had a backup. You know, everything is all ready to go. So, yeah. So, you know, nothing blows up. I will say that the people that usually what happens is that they, well, they, you know, you do get asshole bosses. Yes, I've seen that. Other people also, maybe they had a bad. I know one that I was hearing about. They had a terrible relationship with their boss. So every time they would go and take vacation, the boss was like, this motherfucker hasn't done anything all year, and now he's taking two weeks off. You know?
|
Sam:
[11:54]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[11:55]
| You know, usually I see that. But I've had... I've had... I haven't done the count yet, but up until recently, I had more bosses than years that I've worked. Okay? And I think that may still be the case. Okay? All right? at this point that i have.
|
Sam:
[12:13]
| You know i i i had a i had a spreadsheet for my last job tracking all of the all of the organizational changes i did i didn't i i didn't update it in like the last year so uh and now i probably won't remember because but i sent myself notes so i could probably reconstruct it but like the the point is the first half of the 20 years i was at that employer was very stable like you know it would only change like every few years the second half you know it seemed like i could barely ever go six months without a change damn that's crazy so yeah.
|
Ivan:
[12:51]
| Well but the one thing is that but a lot of times my my job didn't change so it's not like i.
|
Sam:
[12:58]
| Got reordered.
|
Ivan:
[12:59]
| To something it's just that my bosses kept changing and changing and changing okay over that span. You know, I... You know, so... But... But think about this. 27 years that I've worked in corporate jobs, I've had more bosses than I've had, you know, years of work. I've taken vacation like this almost my entire career. Never had I had a boss complain about it.
|
Sam:
[13:31]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[13:32]
| Which my point is that people take your fucking vacation. plan it properly, talk with your boss, take the damn vacation. And no, you know, this thing that people, and, and I've been at companies where it's happened that my peers were like, Oh my God, I can't take a vacation bus. Take the fucking vacation. They're more scared of it. It's like, they're more scared of asking for it than, than there is an issue with it.
|
Sam:
[13:59]
| Yeah, I can't, they're in, in my entire working career as well. I can't remember a single time where I wanted to take time and it was an issue. Now, obviously, this varies based on the type of job you have, like, and whether, you know, hourly jobs are a bit different, jobs where, you know, there are really fixed schedules where certain things are happening at certain times and then you're not going to want to take time then, you know. So it varies by job as well, but, you know, I've never had a problem either.
|
Ivan:
[14:32]
| But let me tell you something. I think I have this conversation with other managers and executives where we kept like not understanding. I have to go into one job and I have to force people to take their take fucking vacation. I literally had to say these guys, I'm like, just fucking go. I don't care if you're sitting around drinking beer for a week. Stop fucking coming to work.
|
Sam:
[14:59]
| Well, if you remember way back, you know, my whole random trip thing that I did. Let's see. When did I? It went from 1998 to 2003 that I did this thing. Um the whole point of it was i had vacation that i was never using like i was at merrill lynch at the time and i had four weeks of vacation a year and i was not taking advantage of it and so i basically said i'm going to force myself to take one week per quarter and just do something with and what ended up is is my mathematically random trips you can go to applesmay.com slash trip to review them. I haven't taken one since 2003. Would love to start it up again. One of the things I want to do is local ones. Like these are all like, you know, get on a plane and fly somewhere kind of vacations for the most part. There was one I drove to, but like, but I figure I could do something like this for day trips, you know?
|
Ivan:
[16:00]
| And one thing that I did back then at HB, they didn't have unlimited vacation, But the one thing is that HP didn't allow you to borrow against your vacation time. Okay. So you could borrow. Say you wanted to go on vacation. You only had accumulated 15 days. But you wanted to take four. You could go on a negative vacation. Which I did several times. Okay. All right. I was just like, you know, oh, fuck this. I'll just go on vacation. The downside to that was if you got fired. Okay. Then you have to pay it back, okay?
|
Sam:
[16:36]
| Right, okay.
|
Ivan:
[16:36]
| Or, you know, you left the job. That was it. But I kept gaining more vacation days. And the thing is that HP was very generous. So with my years of service, I eventually got to where I had six weeks of vacation, okay? So I didn't, I was never in, I didn't wind up. When I left HP, I did not wind up in a situation where I owed vacation. But I got to a point where I had six weeks, you know, I had six weeks of vacation plus holidays. Six weeks of those holidays. They were very, that was good. So anyway, but I was like, so that was my first thing. Another thing.
|
Sam:
[17:10]
| Oh, another, go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[17:13]
| You know, people have been talking about affordability. You know, now affordability and people talking about how many people are finding themselves that money is tight because incomes are stagnant again. And costs, despite whatever the administration was to tell you, things are more expensive. As a matter of fact, one of the tidbits that came out this week after they said that the inflation report was lower, one of the Fed governors pointed out quickly that, well, you know, there are some things that distorted the data that make it look like inflation is only 2.7, but it's a lot higher.
|
Ivan:
[17:51]
| I don't know if you saw that comment. That was why the New York, the New York president Williams said some technical factors distorted November CPI reading down one. Okay. So, you know, I mean, almost every year I, you know, we hand out, I mean, we make a list of people, we hand out gift cards to people and stuff or whatever, we're making a Christmas list this year. But I do think that, I mean, I do hand out gifts personally, but I haven't had as much of a chance for some people to hand out some stuff. And I made a list this year. And one thing is that I had added, normally I added a couple of people to the list that maybe in other years I had forgotten about. Certain specific people that I had not, I added like a, it wasn't that many. Like I added the garbage guys, okay?
|
Sam:
[18:45]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[18:46]
| Because Manu loves the garbage trucks, okay? So every time that he's here, he visits them and they've been very graceful. Like uh been very nice to him so i i had to give him uh some stuff of of the the guy at my my cleaners that takes that that takes my clothes the guy actually had a stroke a few months ago while he was driving uh and he almost got into an accident somebody recognized that it was a stroke when he was parked over the street and they they took him to the hospital and say and they called 911 to get an ambulance and basically saved his life so the guy had been out of a few weeks and he's very he's he's a nice guy and i i get uh well in in years past well i guess i did give some some stuff but the security guards over at the the condo i'm not the condo president so i don't authorize the bonuses but i gave him some money from my own pocket okay right because i'm like well i don't know if the the the regime right now and they are they deserve to be called called a regime right now based on a number of things I don't want to go into right now because I'm in a little bit of a litigation, right now, which I don't want to really, discuss right now.
|
Ivan:
[20:00]
| So I gave them some money and they were like... And there's this restaurant that I go to for lunch all the time. And the server is always very nice. So I added her to the list. I just added a couple of people that I know they're used. I mean, we give to the teachers. We give some other stuff, whatever. But I hadn't. So I made a list that we added some people. Okay. And I look, I will admit that I pointed out. I went and I'm like, okay, so what are we doing? And I'm like, well, I got I went to the bank, got $100 bills. Okay. Right.
|
Sam:
[20:28]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[20:30]
| Instead of a gift card or whatever. I do think here's one thing I noticed. Number one a hundred dollar bill instead of a gift card has a lot more emotional impact.
|
Sam:
[20:43]
| Interesting. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[20:45]
| When they receive it. Don't ask me why. But I know it's just listen about five of the people I gave those to almost cried when they got them.
|
Sam:
[20:57]
| Hmm. Okay.
|
Ivan:
[20:59]
| Seriously. I mean like literally they they they choked up when they got them i don't know i i do think i really do think that this whole thing with affordability right now i think in part is why those people choked up because they they have been yeah these people are.
|
Sam:
[21:19]
| They're getting squeezed.
|
Ivan:
[21:20]
| They're getting squeezed you're struggling it's near the holidays and i guess somebody they didn't expect to be very generous than I was and I mean I almost start crying I mean like, the server at this restaurant where I go to all the time for lunch you know and I'm like you know I I'm like I went I, I mean I gave it to her and she she almost started crying behind the counter and I was like oh my god and she's like I don't think a couple of them said I don't think you understand how much this means to me I don't think you understand how squeezed I am, how hard it's been to get at I mean, I think at that point, it just... I think, look, I didn't, well, Sam knows me. I fucking give away shit all the time. I give away, especially to people, I give away money all the time.
|
Sam:
[22:16]
| Uh-huh.
|
Ivan:
[22:17]
| So, but I, what I, it's just seeing the reaction. I didn't expect that.
|
Sam:
[22:23]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[22:24]
| Okay? But I think that is a clear sign of how, man, people are really struggling. Okay they're really struggling and how this administration is not taking it seriously as a matter of fact they're trying to do the opposite the new strategy Sam I don't know if you noticed what is the new strategy from the administration regarding affordability have you seen this what the new strategy is.
|
Sam:
[22:50]
| It's all a lie you're imagining it.
|
Ivan:
[22:52]
| Yes that's the new strategy what are you talking about this is great, so I you know That was just a little bit of a, well, I know it's bad, but it's a little bit more eye-opening when you see people's reactions.
|
Sam:
[23:11]
| Yeah okay so not anywhere yeah that i i mean on the one hand like it's like oh yeah you gave people money and happy happy but the fact that it's a stressful thing for people and it is hurting people right now and it's it's it's more worrying than anything else i mean yeah look Like, look, you always have the situation. I mean, look, there's always a significant portion of the population that's under stress no matter what. That's true. But it seems like maybe it is bigger than normal.
|
Ivan:
[23:55]
| Yes, it is bigger than normal. I mean, when you look at the job numbers, when you look at how job creation is stagnated, how costs of prison, how wages have stagnated, all of these things all together at once. And I also think that when you have institutionalized lack of empathy, because that's what we have right now, you have institutionalized lack of empathy combined with a campaign of terror against the population, a significant portion of it, literally.
|
Sam:
[24:31]
| Yeah. Oh, yes. Very literally. It's not even a question.
|
Ivan:
[24:38]
| It's not figuratively. We have an institutionalized campaign of terror against significant portions of the population at the same time.
|
Sam:
[24:47]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[24:48]
| These are terrible times.
|
Sam:
[24:50]
| And by the way, just to be clear, the obvious case is, you know, is non-european immigrants but also you know there's a campaign against the trans people there's a campaign against uh yeah there are all kinds of things where there is clear hostility, and you you could argue for even more groups but uh yeah yeah it's yes if you are a member of a community that is being targeted by the administration, it is not a comfortable time at all.
|
Ivan:
[25:28]
| But there's a lot of people even adjacent to the people that are being targeted that are suffering because of it, okay? Because they're your relatives, they're your friends, they're all these people, and a lot of people are by, they're, you know, are by extension also being terrorized as well. It's their parents being, it's their parents, their cousins, their friends, their co-workers, you know, they're all being targeted by this administration. It's crazy.
|
Sam:
[26:02]
| You know, this first segment is supposed to be like light and frothy and fun stuff. Good job, Yvonne.
|
Ivan:
[26:08]
| Oh, thank you!
|
Sam:
[26:10]
| Okay. Movies?
|
Ivan:
[26:12]
| Movies.
|
Sam:
[26:14]
| Okay. Number one from the AFI Top 100 Movies list, blah, blah, blah, up to number 10 from the 1998 list, which actually moved up to number five in the 2007 list. Singing in the Rain from 1952.
|
Ivan:
[26:34]
| Oh, my goodness. You know what?
|
Sam:
[26:37]
| Another musical?
|
Ivan:
[26:38]
| No, but, you know, I don't know if I've watched Singing in the Rain.
|
Sam:
[26:44]
| You know, this is, I think this is the first time I'd seen the actual movie. Like, I was very familiar with several of the songs.
|
Ivan:
[26:55]
| Of course.
|
Sam:
[26:56]
| And I'd even seen, like, the videos of the clip from the movie where they were singing the song.
|
Ivan:
[27:03]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[27:04]
| They're singing in the rain.
|
Ivan:
[27:07]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[27:08]
| Running around with the umbrella in the streets.
|
Ivan:
[27:10]
| Yes. Yes.
|
Sam:
[27:12]
| You know, and, and, and, and look, I am a big fan of several of those songs, you know, um, the singing in the rain song itself. Good morning is the other one. Like, uh, uh, you know, I, I, I remember when, when I was a teenager and living in the Washington DC area and listening to 50,000 watt AM radio WBZ from Boston, there was an over, there was an overnight guy whose name I can't even know. Even remember anymore who was on from like, I don't know, like he couldn't have had an eight hour show. So it must've been like, you know, four in the morning till eight in the morning. No, no. He ended at like five or something. Cause like the morning news and stuff came on. So it was, he was probably on from like 1am to like 5am or some, some crap like that. But he would end his show with the good morning show, good morning song. And like I, as a teenager in the middle of the night was, would be like, oh crap, the sun's about to come up. I probably should have been asleep already. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, uh.
|
Ivan:
[28:27]
| But I remember the song gets that from as well now, you know?
|
Sam:
[28:37]
| Yeah, it is, it is not. Yes. Uh, it, it, it definitely runs in the family. You know, I, I gather it's also typical for teenagers in general, lots of teenagers, but, but anyway, no, I, I, I'm still more comfortable up in the middle of the night than I am in the morning you know like for for recording this show like it was 10 a.m pacific time when we were supposed to start this show and yeah yeah i had to set an alarm and force myself to be up in time for 10 a.m you know so anyway the i i like the songs more than i like the movie as a movie Let's just put it that way. It was fine as a movie. Let me read the beginning of the prompt. Prompt? The summary. The summary from Wikipedia.
|
Sam:
[29:32]
| In 1927, silent film stars Don Lockwood and Lena Lamont attend the premiere of their latest film, The Royal Rascal, produced by Hollywood Studio Monumental Pictures. On the red carpet, Don tells the story of his rise to stardom, claiming to have grown up cultured and highly educated. His words are contradicted by flashbacks showing his humble roots as a hoofer, vaudeville musician, and stuntman, alongside his childhood best friend and longtime collaborator, Cosmo Brown, accompanied by the song Fit as a Fiddle. Don also expresses his admiration for Lima, feeding rumors of a secret romance between them. In reality, the rumors are a publicity stunt and Don barely tolerates Lena, although she believes that he loves her. After the premiere, Don is mobbed by fans and escapes by jumping into a passing car driven by Kathy Selden. Kathy reluctantly gives Don a lift. She claims to be a theater actress and expresses disdain for film acting, particularly Don's hammy performances. Don responds by mocking her acting aspirations, and they part on bad terms.
|
Sam:
[30:43]
| One more paragraph. Don arrives at the after party where Monumental Pictures CEO R.F. Simpson shows a demonstration of a talking picture, though his guests dismiss it as a fad. A group of chorus girls then performs, Kathy among them. All I do is dream of you. Furious at Don's teasing, Kathy attempts to throw a cake at him, but he dodges it and hits Lena instead. In the confusion Kathy runs away and obviously you know these two characters end up meeting again and intersecting and it's sort of like there's a romantic comedy aspect of it there's I've noticed there's a theme like there are several of these movies that have been on this list from the 1950s that are about sort of the end of the silent era and the beginning of talkies for movies this is one of those sure yeah it's got a little bit of how they What year exactly was it again? 1952.
|
Ivan:
[31:40]
| Okay, okay.
|
Sam:
[31:41]
| You know, and, you know, it's got, like, how these people get, you know, how they get together and write a movie and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And how does it go? And anyway, I did like the movie. I'm not, like I said, I like the song. I'm going to give it a thumbs up. I liked the songs better than the movie as a movie, but it was still fine. I enjoyed watching it. It was good. I understand why it is on a list like this, but I'm not sure like top 10 or even top five. I'm not sure that the reason it would be in top 10 or top five is sort of, you know, it's not that it's objectively really the best in the best five or 10 movies of all time. It's because of sort of the historical importance to like the development of movies or something like that. Like it's a, it's a well-remembered movie, but yeah, it could, I don't know. I would not put it in my like top 10, but it was a fine movie. It was a fine movie.
|
Ivan:
[32:56]
| I'll give it the thumbs up. But can you see why others might put it in the top ten?
|
Sam:
[33:02]
| Like I said, the only reason that I feel like I could justify it is sort of the historical or nostalgic aspects of it. There's a difference between best movie and important movie. And I could see this being in the important movie list. And look, there's a criteria on the AFI list that I'm looking at. So they actually do it. One, it has to be feature length, which they define as at least an hour. It has to be American in English. And has to have critical recognition at the time. Has to have won major awards. Has to have enduring popularity over time. Historical significance and cultural impact. And I think this one ranks high because of historical significance and cultural impact. You know, and it probably hit a... I'm sure, you know, it won awards and blah, blah, blah. You know, let's see. Scroll down. Critical response. Compounded generosity of music, dance, color spectacle, blah, blah, blah. Yes, it won. Well, it was nominated for Academy Awards, British Awards, Directors Guild, blah, blah, blah. It won a Golden Globe for Best Actor.
|
Ivan:
[34:25]
| So it was the significance of something like that? Yeah. Okay, so it got a lot of awards in its time. Okay.
|
Sam:
[34:31]
| Or it was at least nominated for, I mean, you know, it's a well-known movie. Like, everyone knows those songs, right? Well, I shouldn't say that. Like, if I asked Alex if he knew those songs before we watched the movie, he probably did not. Well, no, he might have known the Good Morning song because I used it to wake him up sometimes. So.
|
Ivan:
[34:51]
| Ah. So there you go.
|
Sam:
[34:54]
| But, you know, like, look.
|
Ivan:
[34:55]
| Oh, my son wouldn't know those songs.
|
Sam:
[34:57]
| You have not played the Good Morning song to wake him up in the morning?
|
Ivan:
[35:02]
| Usually for to wake him up the song is get up stand up by bop marley.
|
Sam:
[35:07]
| I have used that as well i have used that song for that purpose as well so.
|
Ivan:
[35:12]
| That's been the that's been the go-to song to get him to wake.
|
Sam:
[35:15]
| Up and even when i'm not actually using the song sometimes i will catch myself saying get up and then i immediately follow up with stand up stand up for your rights you know or whatever you're.
|
Ivan:
[35:27]
| Right yeah yeah.
|
Sam:
[35:29]
| Exactly and he usually doesn't immediately stand up even when i'm saying that i don't know why you know.
|
Ivan:
[35:36]
| No mine doesn't either i just start just ripping off his clothes to get him ready.
|
Sam:
[35:41]
| Okay because that didn't sound good there yvonne you just start ripping off his clothes.
|
Ivan:
[35:47]
| Ripping off all he's supposed to put on is school clothes, okay? You got to take off the shirt. You got to take off the pants. I'm like, if he's not going to start getting ready, I start, you know.
|
Sam:
[35:56]
| Okay, we don't have to call Child Protective Services on you or something.
|
Ivan:
[36:00]
| Nope.
|
Sam:
[36:01]
| Nope, okay. Okay, enough of that thumbs up. It was good, you know, but I'm not sure really top 10, but whatever. Okay, next up, from 2010, a sequel to a 1987 movie. Wall Street Money Never Sleeps.
|
Ivan:
[36:19]
| You know what? I just...
|
Sam:
[36:21]
| Okay. Yes. Okay, you got excited about those years before I said the name of the movie. What were you going to say?
|
Ivan:
[36:28]
| I mean, you watched it. I mean, had you watched this movie before?
|
Sam:
[36:32]
| What? No. Like, both...
|
Ivan:
[36:35]
| Is this the first time you watched either of these movies?
|
Sam:
[36:39]
| I believe so. Yeah. Like...
|
Ivan:
[36:42]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[36:43]
| And this... I watched the sequel in February. the original years previously probably but not that long previously so but.
|
Ivan:
[36:52]
| Yes wall.
|
Sam:
[36:53]
| Street money never sleeps from 2010.
|
Ivan:
[36:55]
| The thing is that to me look that movie well no you give your take first i mean i i you know what are you what are your thoughts um.
|
Sam:
[37:08]
| You know, I was entertained. I'll give it a thumbs up. It was not an outstanding movie. I think the first one was probably better by a decent amount. I had some believability issues at certain parts of it. I'm like, yeah, come on.
|
Sam:
[37:26]
| And it also, you know, I don't know. I feel like these are movies that perhaps feel more dated than they might otherwise. They are very much a movie of their times, I think. But I think, I shouldn't say more dated. It's not in the sense of, like, this movie doesn't stand the test of time, like sometimes happens. It's more that they very much embody their period, like, of when they were from. Like you know you you know the original is a 1980s movie like it's it's like about the 1980s and it makes sense it it it's very time period specific you you have to set it in that time period i don't know let me let me give the the plot thing and then you can give your thoughts too. I was not, just to be clear, I was not super impressed but I was not like, I didn't feel like it was a waste of my time. I didn't feel like, eh, which is like, my thumb sideways and I save thumbs down, For, like, I'm tearing my hair out and wish I had never seen this movie and, like, am resentful of the fact that I watched it. Thumbs Sideways is sort of like, eh, it's completely nothing. It's not objectionable.
|
Sam:
[38:51]
| You know, this is like, you know, it was an okay, you know, what, 133 minutes. That seems a bit long for what this was, but whatever. Okay, plot. First couple paragraphs. In 2001, former corporate raider Gordon Gekko is released from prison after serving time for insider trading and securities fraud that happened in the first movie. By 2008, Gekko has begun promoting his new book, Greed is Greed Good, warning about a possible 2008 financial crisis. His estranged daughter, Winnie, runs a small nonprofit news website and is dating Jacob Jake Moore, a top prop trader at Keller Zabel Investments, KZI. Jake, a protege of KZI managing director Louis Zabel, has been raising money for Dr. Masters and his fusion research project, which might create abundant clean energy. Jake is also financially assisting his mother, Sylvia, who has quit nursing to speculate in residential real estate. In the early stages of the downturn predicted by Gekko, KZI's stock loses more than half its value. Louis Zabel tries to arrange a bailout from KZI from other Wall Street banks, but is blocked by Bretton James, head of rival firm Churchill Church, which KZI had refused to help during the dot-com bubble years earlier. Despondent, Zabel kills himself by jumping in front of a subway train. A distraught Jake proposes marriage to Winnie.
|
Ivan:
[40:20]
| Who accepts. A lot of this is taking certain real events that happened in the 2008 financial crisis that actually just, you know, turned out because there was a... There was a firm that almost went down like that, that didn't get help, that their executive actually did commit suicide in the 2008 financial crisis.
|
Sam:
[40:41]
| Okay, give me your thoughts on this thing.
|
Ivan:
[40:44]
| Okay, the movie was nowhere nearly as good as a person. Okay, all right. It's just not even close. Okay, it's not even close. Was it a bad movie? No. But it was disappointing and I will tell you that the biggest mistake that the movie had the biggest mistake is that I don't know what the hell happened in Oliver Stone's head. The first movie did not have a happy ending in any way, shape, or form. Okay? And this movie all of a sudden turned, you know, ended in a happy note that made no sense whatsoever. Even in reality, it was bullshit. It turned it into a Hollywood ending.
|
Sam:
[41:30]
| And it was a rapid turn at the end, too. It looked like everything was going south. It looked like it was heading towards the bad ending that would actually make sense. And then, like, in the last couple minutes, it's like suddenly everything wraps up happy.
|
Ivan:
[41:44]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[41:44]
| Spoiler.
|
Ivan:
[41:45]
| That was, it was, they really, up to that point, actually, the movie was good. And then they turned it mediocre by just slapping on a standard Hollywood ending.
|
Sam:
[42:04]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[42:06]
| That was just a catastrophic mistake.
|
Sam:
[42:12]
| Yeah, just as I'm skimming up and down.
|
Ivan:
[42:14]
| The good guys win! The bad guys lose!
|
Sam:
[42:18]
| Yes, and just scrolling up and down the Wikipedia page, I do see mentions of the ending, and the ending sort of screwing things up.
|
Ivan:
[42:30]
| Yeah!
|
Sam:
[42:32]
| So I'll agree with that. I mean, you can see I'm hemming and hawing between Thumbs Sideways and Thumbs Up. You know, it was, you know, it's sort of.
|
Ivan:
[42:43]
| I will give it a thumb sideways because they completely, because it wasn't a bad movie up until they completely fucked up the ending.
|
Sam:
[42:53]
| I can see that. I can see that.
|
Ivan:
[42:56]
| You know, if they would have really made it a really, truly sinister ending, then that movie would have been way better received. I think so.
|
Sam:
[43:10]
| Yeah I mean that's really just I mean it really is literally like the last five minutes of the movie.
|
Ivan:
[43:18]
| Yeah you.
|
Sam:
[43:19]
| Know because there is this sudden turnaround.
|
Ivan:
[43:22]
| I'm wondering if somebody just told Oliver Stone and just what he said no no no this isn't going to sell well you know because you get these things right where you know you do a movie right and then the producers come in and they do these notes and they do a screening and they look at it and then they get you know, they get all this, you know, they get all this feedback and they do this test audience thing and they go, no, no, no, that's terrible. No, no, no, you gotta change it. No, we need a happy ending. Fuck this shit.
|
Sam:
[43:56]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[43:57]
| And then you're like, wait, but the other one didn't have a happy ending. Why the fuck you want me to have a happy ending that well? because, you know, it didn't screen well. The test audience didn't like it.
|
Sam:
[44:09]
| Yeah, I'll give you the.
|
Ivan:
[44:11]
| Um, the last, you know, over the years, I mean, he was always kind of fucked up, but now he's been sucking up to Putin and all this other shit stuff or whatever. I don't know what the fuck is in his head because, you know, now he likes dictators and stuff and whatnot. So I'm like, I, I, maybe that's part of it too.
|
Sam:
[44:34]
| Let me read the—I usually don't do this because of spoilers, but let me read the last two paragraphs of the plot description to give you an idea how this goes. Jake pieces together all the details of James' dealings, from KZI's collapse through to the unnecessary government bailout of church. He gives the information to Winnie, telling her that revealing it will bring her website publicity and credibility. When Winnie runs the story, James finds himself under intense government scrutiny and is fired by his company's board, who then turned to Gecko's firm for a partnership, which recently posted a $1.1 billion return on investment. Late one night when jake fails to make amends with winnie gecko appears apologizes and tells them that he has anonymously deposited a hundred million into the fusion research account convincing her to give both him and jake another chance one year later gecko sylvia and other family and friends attend the first birthday party of lewis jake and winnie's son so like Everything had fallen apart. Gecko had screwed everybody. Which is what you were expecting. The fusion project was destroyed. And then all of a sudden, he shows up and apologizes and gives them $100 million and everything's good.
|
Ivan:
[45:50]
| It's ridiculous. It's fucking ridiculous. It's ridiculous. These people don't do this. In real life.
|
Sam:
[45:59]
| I don't know. I'm, I'm waiting for somebody to show up and give me a hundred million dollars. You know, you're waiting for.
|
Ivan:
[46:05]
| Uh, you're waiting for what's it, but call it a fucking, uh, what's his name? Uh, Oh God. I don't even, I don't even, you see, I'm trying to tune out his name now. So I can't even say you weren't waiting for Elon Musk to show up one day and like, you know, put several billion dollars, you know, to fight anti-Semitism and, you know, and, and, and go and, like, take down all the right-wingers. I'm not, no, that's not happening. And, like, to make amends with his trans daughter and, like, apologize for all the bullshit, you know. You know what? Not happening, Sam. Not fucking happening.
|
Sam:
[46:44]
| Not happening?
|
Ivan:
[46:45]
| No.
|
Sam:
[46:45]
| I don't know what you're talking about. Anyway, you've almost convinced me to go thumbs sideways. But, you know, like, I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[46:56]
| It was entertaining, but it was just the stupid thing fucked up the ending.
|
Sam:
[47:01]
| Yeah. Okay. I buy that. Okay. Before we take a break, one quick note. We did have someone pop briefly into the live stream, leave a comment, and then leave again. So I just wanted to... What's the comment? So this was very early in the show. They were only on for a couple minutes. This is Pete, who is a regular on our Curmudgeon's Corner Slack. He said, he said, I was going to procrastinate today, but I've decided to put it off. He left that comment and then left.
|
Ivan:
[47:36]
| Okay, there you go.
|
Sam:
[47:38]
| Okay, now with that, let's pop into the first break. And we'll be back and we'll talk more about lovely, serious, amazing things when we come back. Here we go. There we go.
|
Ivan:
[48:13]
| Short. Sweet.
|
Sam:
[48:15]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[48:16]
| All right.
|
Sam:
[48:17]
| All right.
|
Ivan:
[48:19]
| So what are we going to start on? I think that we have to start on.
|
Sam:
[48:23]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[48:23]
| Okay. It's your turn to pick. I just want to make this. I just want to. Because I don't think there is discussion that can be had around this. So I'll just make a brief mention. And then we can talk about the real stuff, what I really want to talk about. The stupid Kennedy Center thing is so idiotic, it's not even funny. Okay?
|
Sam:
[48:44]
| And this is another thing. Like the War Department, the name is mandated by law.
|
Ivan:
[48:51]
| By law.
|
Sam:
[48:52]
| But they are changing what they call it and changing the labels on the buildings and all this kind of stuff anyway. Right.
|
Ivan:
[49:03]
| Okay. It's just idiotic. Okay. So.
|
Sam:
[49:07]
| Yvonne, it's the Trump and Kennedy Center now. What are you even talking about?
|
Ivan:
[49:11]
| Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. as I think it was Kennedy's niece said that she can't wait three years, the fucking moment that he is out of office, that she's going to climb up on a fucking ladder and rip off the fucking name of Donald Trump off. And I can't wait myself either. Because I want to cheer that on.
|
Sam:
[49:35]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[49:35]
| Okay.
|
Sam:
[49:37]
| Okay, next.
|
Ivan:
[49:39]
| Hey, Sam, we finally got the Epstein files. How's that going? How's it going?
|
Sam:
[49:50]
| So people aren't happy for some reason. You know, it's hard to understand.
|
Ivan:
[49:55]
| No, they aren't?
|
Sam:
[49:57]
| So they've actually done two tranches now. They did one on Friday and one on Saturday morning. So there have been more.
|
Ivan:
[50:03]
| It's not an open book?
|
Sam:
[50:05]
| So there are multiple things.
|
Ivan:
[50:07]
| Let me give a quote over here that I got on one. There was one violin where there was... Basically, it was an FC Files, 119-page grand jury document, entirely redacted. They posted 119 pages. Everything blacked. Every single word blacked out. Every single word, Sam.
|
Sam:
[50:33]
| What the fuck? Look, the summary of what's out there so far. First of all, like something like 95% of everything they released was previously public. So it's just re-releasing stuff that we already knew. Of the 5% or so, maybe even less, that was new stuff, almost all of it was highly redacted. Not all of it was 100% redacted, like you just said, but a lot of it was. But a lot of it was. And so people are complaining. now apparently they have two additional weeks to explain the redactions because the law says that you can only redact for a very specific list of reasons and that you you have two weeks after the release to explain every redaction so we'll see what happens with that but from reporting that we've had so far, one of the things they have apparently done is, you know, the law allows for redaction of information related to victims, but the law specifically says you can't redact things for, to preserve the reputation of other people beyond victims.
|
Ivan:
[51:53]
| But they did anyway.
|
Sam:
[51:54]
| And apparently what they did was very specifically apply the same standard that was defined for victim redactions to people with political exposure.
|
Ivan:
[52:10]
| So, Sam, why would they do that?
|
Sam:
[52:15]
| I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[52:16]
| Except, except, except, except.
|
Sam:
[52:18]
| Except Bill Clinton.
|
Ivan:
[52:20]
| Except Bill Clinton.
|
Sam:
[52:21]
| Yes, and also, of course, they are allowed to redact things related to...
|
Ivan:
[52:26]
| And all they had on Bill Clinton, as far as I can tell, is a couple of pictures.
|
Sam:
[52:28]
| Is a hot tub picture.
|
Ivan:
[52:29]
| One of them in a hot tub, one picture of him with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross... And that's it.
|
Sam:
[52:37]
| And some kids, which someone found the original of the picture with Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and the kids. And they're actually Diana Ross's kids and Michael Jackson's kids, you know, in the picture.
|
Ivan:
[52:52]
| That's it.
|
Sam:
[52:53]
| That's it. So, yeah. And also, of course, the law said that all of the documents had to be released by Friday, December 19th. And by the estimates I've seen what they released was maybe 10% of the documents they announced the morning of that they were going to be spacing out the release over the next few weeks, so by the way they're in clear violation of the law the.
|
Ivan:
[53:20]
| Searchable database doesn't even work Sam.
|
Sam:
[53:26]
| So apparently you can.
|
Ivan:
[53:29]
| Type by the way first of all they actually put at the top of it Oh, the search may not work. Sam, the guy from MidasTouch tried to search for the word obscene.
|
Sam:
[53:41]
| Yes, and it wasn't there.
|
Ivan:
[53:42]
| Pop up as a search result.
|
Sam:
[53:44]
| Now, apparently, over the course of the first 24 hours, the search has improved slightly, but it's still bad. And part of this is, of course, like the, you know, these are, many of these are photographs of documents that have not been properly OCR'd. Like, so, you know.
|
Ivan:
[54:02]
| Sam, that doesn't, I'm sorry. but as one that does this stuff.
|
Sam:
[54:07]
| Yes, I know.
|
Ivan:
[54:07]
| Scanning and OCRing documents, this is not that hard to do. They basically just stalled. They basically just did it on purpose. They did not want the documents to be easily searchable. It is the only reason why they would be posted in this manner.
|
Sam:
[54:24]
| Mm-hmm. Yes. That's it. Like I said, apparently... When they first launched it, the search was completely broken. By the end of the day, it was working a little bit.
|
Sam:
[54:39]
| But yeah, no, they're in clear violation of the law. The question is, what does anybody do about it? They did already, by the time we're recording, release a second tranche of stuff.
|
Sam:
[54:50]
| I have not had the time to read anything about the second tranche, because like I said, I woke up like minutes before we started recording this show. But but apparently they did release second tranche has some transcripts has some other stuff one thing i saw that was included was apparently the very first report to law enforcement about epstein was in 1996 by a photographer who was approached for first of all epstein stole a couple of her pictures that were of her underage relatives and then apparently epstein was approaching her asking her to to take more pictures of teenagers and she were and she says the whole approach was very creepy and implied you know sexualized pictures of the underage and she reported him wait wait let me finish she wait wait let me let me finish she reported him to the police and and the and the fbi and nothing ever happened of it and not only that but for decades now when she's brought this up people have denied that she ever made a report and said she was lying and it's and it's in the files it's in the files the proof is there and she was contacted by a reporter and basically broke down crying and was like, finally.
|
Sam:
[56:17]
| They can stop saying I was lying. I was telling the truth all along. And she said, and I only wish that they'd actually done something when I reported this because thousands of victims came after that. And apparently there's a number now. The number I've identified, I said thousands, but apparently 1,200 is the number, including both victims and a few of the victims' relatives who were also redacted.
|
Ivan:
[56:47]
| Jesus.
|
Sam:
[56:47]
| 1,200.
|
Ivan:
[56:48]
| Fucking Christ. 1,200?
|
Sam:
[56:51]
| 1,200.
|
Ivan:
[56:55]
| Fuck you know the one thing i always the one thing that i was going to mention when you said that it was he was creeping or whatever i mean yeah just look maybe it's just that i already know who epstein is but i don't think so the guy in every picture always looks creepy man the guy had just this creepy vibe there was this one picture i i think this wasn't like a photoshop Showing him at this Disney This is a Disney resort restaurant At Walt Disney World Where he was in a picture with some guy That they blocked out his face With Winnie the Pooh in him It looks just so Fucking creepy His expression It's just always his expression There's just something Off the wall creepy About this guy that he gave off.
|
Sam:
[57:49]
| Yeah, I don't know. I mean, this brings up one of the themes here is that, first of all, the redaction of people who might be politically, you know, exposed or whatever. Just the whole point of this whole exercise is to put those people under scrutiny.
|
Ivan:
[58:10]
| Yes!
|
Sam:
[58:11]
| Yes. Bill Clinton, Trump, anybody else. Yeah. The whole point. Yeah. Except Clinton. This is the whole point is to put it under scrutiny. And like, you know, and some of these, some of these men, like a lot of the pictures that have come out are of like just abstinence standing with somebody. Okay. Like, just because you stand with somebody doesn't mean. Yeah, well, but it doesn't necessarily mean you've done something wrong, right? Right.
|
Ivan:
[58:44]
| That's the thing about those pictures. A lot of the pictures where he's just standing somewhere, you know, with some guy, that doesn't add anything. However, if you're talking about pictures of stuff that is backed up by, there is testimony that something happened at this time, and there is a picture of him standing next to this person with a victim.
|
Sam:
[59:08]
| And you have a couple teenage girls behind them. You know, yes.
|
Ivan:
[59:12]
| Then that went, yes.
|
Sam:
[59:13]
| And look, there was one comment. See if I can find it. But it was by, I think, Ben Collins, the guy who— he's been a journalist for a long time, but he now also runs The Onion. Yeah. And he basically, I'm not finding the exact, oh, here we go. I found it. Ben Collins, gotta stop looking at the Epstein files in a second, because I'm frankly way too skeeved out to keep going. But I will say this, the CSAM, which is, you know, child sexual abuse stuff, isn't blacked out nearly enough, while the faces of guys in ties are obscured by Vanta black rectangles the size of the sun.
|
Ivan:
[59:58]
| Well somebody was equating them to the monoliths on uh on the.
|
Sam:
[1:00:02]
| Movie 2001 well there was one particular picture that was just a beach scene with a black rectangle on it where presumably some teenage girl was standing that looked just like that yeah i i reposted that as well and gave the you know all these worlds are yours except europa attempt no landing there quote you know because it did look like the monolith you know the monolith just standing on a beach you know but yeah no.
|
Sam:
[1:00:32]
| Look this is one of the things too about this and you know the men who are there in pictures that aren't necessarily incriminating in and of themselves as well is that a big part of this story like obviously we want to know if there are other famous or important or wealthy people who also took part in the abuse directly. However, in addition to that, a big part of the story is just all of the people who knew what was going on and did nothing. You know, who attended parties, saw stuff happening, did not report it, or just knew, like, incontroversially that, you know, and like one of the themes that we've seen of the documents that have been shown and are unredacted, including that book that came out, that birthday book from a few months ago, is that everybody was just joking about the fact that this guy liked young girls. They all knew. They all knew stuff was happening.
|
Ivan:
[1:01:34]
| They all knew!
|
Sam:
[1:01:35]
| You know, and whether or not they quote-unquote participated and actually abused young women themselves, they knew. They knew. And they hung out with this guy anyway, and they didn't report him, and they didn't do anything about it. They knew. and so you may like in the grand world of things here maybe you have like another half dozen people who actually participated directly in the abuse but it certainly sounds like you have hundreds of people who knew about it and did nothing and and i think that's that's a big part of it too and i don't think that like those people should be treated like you know oh it's no big deal you Oh, yes, I was at an Epstein party, and yes, there was some teenager getting raped over in the corner, but I didn't rape her. I was just at the party. I was having hors d'oeuvres in the corner, you know, in the other corner, not the corner where the thing was going on.
|
Ivan:
[1:02:36]
| You know, it's this thing where you have people that knew and still hung out with them regularly. And I, you know, I, you know, sometimes there are these social circles where there are certain people that are, that are in it. And Epstein was one that was like very, was very mixed in those circles. And I have been to like certain situations and events where there is somebody that you're like, I don't, I don't like this dude. But obviously I'm not going to their house for a party either. But some people, a lot of people obviously did. Okay. And there are times that I've you suspect something about somebody but you just can't like.
|
Sam:
[1:03:23]
| You don't know for sure there are rumors you think this and you.
|
Ivan:
[1:03:28]
| Give them the benefit of the doubt and then there are the guys that knew, and there was obviously a lot of people in that group that had to know for sure especially a lot of the guys that were writing that shit in the fucking birthday book right, I You know, you recently had this whole thing with Sean Diddy Combs, who got convicted and sent to jail over all these, like, parties where he was basically trafficking women.
|
Sam:
[1:03:59]
| He was doing the same kind of stuff Epstein was doing.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:03]
| He was basically doing the same shit, bottom line. But, you know, there were a number of people that had been saying it out loud, the same thing. But also not, he wasn't, wasn't happening. And there were like a number of people, like, you know, the one that, the one that I, the most who actually, I know he had been saying this for a long time about him and people hadn't taken it seriously. And so all of a sudden he got prosecuted. And then, by the way, I don't know if you saw this, that rapper 50 Cent hated Sean Combs for a long time. 50 Cent, you know, you don't know what he is. The one song that makes you remember is a song, hey, it's your birthday.
|
Ivan:
[1:04:49]
| It's your birthday. That's his song, okay? By the way, for those of you who don't know these people. So he's pretty famous. You know, he did a Netflix documentary recently, basically just to go and like torpedo Sean, you know, Sean Diddy Combs. And the one thing is that Combs being such an idiot, okay, all right, Before he got sent Before he got arrested He had hired a videographer To follow him around Okay And recorded everything Including what would have been Privileged discussions with his attorneys Related to the investigation Okay And the thing is That after he had this person Follow them around They refused to pay him for the work Okay They didn't pay him Somehow 50 Cent figured out Who the videographer was or whatever And bought the footage And so There is this documentary now On Netflix which Sean tried to Challenge oh this is illegal Or whatever and then everybody Said we can completely assure you That we legally obtained this Footage and the whole damn Reason they did is because Sean You know Diddy Combs was such a cheap bastard and he used to welch on people not paying him.
|
Ivan:
[1:06:11]
| 50 Cent kind of knew that he had this reputation so he just went and said, oh, he didn't pay you? Here, I'll pay you. Give me the footage. So they legally got the, and so this documentary is completely devastating to him in a way that I think he's trying to appeal like whatever and like say that it was all bullshit or whatever. Hell, that documentary actually shows that there were parts of, that he got, that he wasn't convicted on and if they went back to if they went back to trial on those, all you need is a documentary. You can send him up to jail for everything that he was accused of. These guys all operate the same. But look, all these people like Sean Giddy Combs have been trying to raise the alarm for years. You know, 50 Cent of been trying to raise the alarm on him. Nobody listened. Ice Cube said the same thing. There have been people saying it. Look, this guy is bad news. This guy is bad news. Well, and apparently in the.
|
Sam:
[1:07:08]
| In the, in the.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:09]
| In the, in the.
|
Sam:
[1:07:10]
| Well, in, in the Diddy case also, like apparently, you know, going to a Diddy party was a well-known thing that people at Hollywood talked about, you know, a freakout. Yes. Okay. And you were comparing it back to Epstein. Sorry. I drew up.
|
Ivan:
[1:07:28]
| Yeah. So no. So the whole thing is that, yeah, I mean, it, this was like, it took for whatever the hell reason it took forever. For him to get caught.
|
Sam:
[1:07:39]
| I mean, I don't even think we have to speculate on, like, well, what is the reason? I mean, over and over and over again, he was protected. You know, that, you know, he made, he made deals and people were like, oh, he's, he's an important, famous person. We can't go after him. We'll let him off light. We'll do this. We'll do that. We'll, we'll look the other way intentionally. And people in the positions that could have gone after him explicitly did not because he was connected, you know, and that's the story here that I think, you know, like I said, there are two aspects that are people are looking for out of these files if they weren't redacted completely. One is, are there more perpetrators that we should have gone after? But two is exactly what are the details of how this guy was protected over the course of 20 to 30 years? Like, why? Why did we just not nail this guy in 1996, the very first time he was reported?
|
Ivan:
[1:08:55]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:08:55]
| Or at the very least in the early 2000s when he was reported again and he made a sweet deal with the prosecutor who ended up in the first Trump administration.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:06]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:09:06]
| And instead, we only got him on third shot once a Miami Herald reporter dug all this stuff up again and provided a whole bunch of evidence and basically made it impossible to ignore the third time around.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:20]
| We think the government's work for them, yes, basically.
|
Sam:
[1:09:23]
| Yes. And I think that's the story people want to get. You know, like the two stories, like I said. Yeah. If more people were involved in abuse, we obviously want to know that. But beyond that, there was a whole thing protecting this guy for decades. And there was a conspiracy of silence, at the very least, with all these people who knew about this and apparently thought it was fine or just something to joke and laugh about.
|
Ivan:
[1:09:53]
| But let me tell you something From personal experience I find so repeatedly How people will stand by Looking at people doing criminal acts And do nothing Yeah Do nothing Nothing, They just stand there and do nothing. And I will tell you that 90 plus percent of the people, that's how they react. They do nothing.
|
Sam:
[1:10:14]
| Well, and look, it is a hard barrier. Like, if you have something where you think you're sorry.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:21]
| It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. Sam, it shouldn't be 90 plus percent of the fucking people. I mean, I'm sorry.
|
Sam:
[1:10:27]
| Yeah, no, I don't.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:27]
| But people sit around and, you know, somebody's getting abused. Somebody's getting beaten. Somebody is, a victim is suffering. You know, like I mentioned this one fucking time. I'm at the gym, some old guy falls.
|
Sam:
[1:10:38]
| Yeah, and I was going to say, there's a difference here.
|
Ivan:
[1:10:40]
| And nobody picks, nobody, but it's the same, these are victims, they're hurt, they're dead, and they're just sitting there and they do nothing, Sam, nothing, 90, Sam, 90% of the people stand around, see a crime, see somebody getting abused, and they do nothing. Why? I don't get it.
|
Sam:
[1:11:01]
| I mean, and look, look, you can, you can almost understand the situation where you see something and you're not quite sure what's going on, and you're like, maybe I'm misinterpreting what's happening. And even in those cases, by the way, like if you have partial information, your partial information in conjunction with several other people's partial information might make a case and might prove something. So it might be worth talking. But in the cases where you have witnesses who are unambiguously seeing things, and the rumors are at some of these Epstein parties, there literally were large rooms of people milling around, having their hors d'oeuvres, having drinks, and off in one corner, some girl is getting abused. There's no excuse in that kind of scenario for doing anything other than trying to stop it and calling the fucking police.
|
Ivan:
[1:11:53]
| That's fantastic. People just stand around and they will see whatever the fuck it is. And they just do nothing.
|
Sam:
[1:12:03]
| Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:04]
| Maybe they want to be liked. Maybe they don't want to be, they don't want to be. It's too much work. It's too much of a burden. I don't, I don't want to piss them off. I don't want to whatever. There's the list of excuses goes on and on and on and on.
|
Sam:
[1:12:18]
| But well, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:20]
| Unfortunately.
|
Sam:
[1:12:21]
| And look, these people are being threatened to some of them like that. That one photographer who made the report in 1996, apparently Epstein specifically told her he would make sure her house was burned down if she followed this up any further.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:36]
| But again, you know, that 90% of these accusations, you know what they are? They're bullshit. What I mean is the threats are bullshit. Those threats are idle threats. Yeah, the threats are just idle bullshit. But you see, the thing is.
|
Sam:
[1:12:56]
| These guys, they operate.
|
Ivan:
[1:12:57]
| They operate, you know, I guess, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:13:04]
| You got a wealthy, powerful person threatening to do stuff to you. You believe they could do it if they wanted to.
|
Ivan:
[1:13:11]
| I get it. I get it. No, I don't get it. You know what? No, no. Listen, I get it. I know. I understand it, but I don't get it. Because you know what? during my entire fucking life. I've had, you know, more than once some wealthy rich asshole that thinks he can get away with everything where I just stood in front of the guy and just say, fuck you, try me. Guy that's richer than I, you know, and more money than I do. I'm like, my attitude is, fuck you, try me. I don't care. Oh, yeah, oh, you're going to do that? Call me and threaten me with death. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going back and saying, oh, yeah? Go fucking try, dick shit. Because I know that 90 plus percent of the time, these rich idiots, they just get away with the intimidation because they are rich. And I don't know why I know that so easily, but I know they're just talking out of their ass. And that's how they do it. They get away with intimidating people, saying shit that has no teeth. Why? Because they're rich. That's it. Period. And they'll just scare people. They just scare people to do what they want.
|
Sam:
[1:14:22]
| Well, and that's apparently a big part of this Epstein story over the last 30 years.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:26]
| Yes. Yes. And if people hadn't been so scared about it, this would have been over a long time ago.
|
Sam:
[1:14:35]
| Okay. Anything else on Epstein? Or shall we take our second break and find something else?
|
Ivan:
[1:14:41]
| No, as we continue to more happy subjects today, we've just been a barrel of laughs.
|
Sam:
[1:14:49]
| Okay. Here comes another break.
|
Ivan:
[1:14:51]
| I'm looking at the list. Oh, look at the list of happy things that we got. Bondi Beach shooting. Brown shooting. Rob Reiner. Okay. Oh, well, here's some comedy to relief. The Wiles interview.
|
Sam:
[1:15:08]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Ivan:
[1:15:09]
| There you go. Oh, the Trump speech also. Well, that one I already basically talked about, about the affordability. Hey, Sam, you're doing great. And you're going to like it, damn it. Right. It's the truth of his speech, so I just summarized it. Anyway, let's go into a break.
|
Sam:
[1:15:27]
| Well, well, yeah, yeah. Break, break, break, break, break.
|
Sam:
[1:16:31]
| Okay, we are back. So, yes, since you sort of like were like, oh, serious stuff, serious stuff, serious stuff. Oh, Wiles. Let's let's do the Wiles and Trump stuff. But like, widen the aperture a little bit, because I think all of these things, the Wiles interview, the Trump speech, hell, even the Kennedy Center stuff that you missed before. And of course, the Epstein stuff we just talked about is all part of like Trump sort of losing control of the situation and everything's sort of falling apart. And you, I mean, hell, even the like demolition of the East wing and all this kind of stuff. And we see him falling asleep. I mean, just in general, it seems like his ability to control the narrative and impose his will is falling apart rapidly. I mean, we got lame ducks up. We got Republicans jumping ship. We've got these discharge petitions where things are getting passed despite Trump and Johnson.
|
Ivan:
[1:17:43]
| More people jumping ship. I mean, more people quitting. Hey, did you say Oh, we were going to talk about What's his name? The podcaster idiot At the FBI. What's his name? He also quit the FBI Oh, yeah, Boing, whatever Whatever the fuck his name is Fuck him. I don't want to pronounce his name right Anyway, he's an asshole Elise Stefanik, she also Abruptly No longer running for governor And quitting Congress as well, That's got to be a good sign, right?
|
Sam:
[1:18:15]
| Oh, yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:16]
| I mean, I've got sides for the Republicans, I mean. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:18:19]
| Yeah. Everything's going well. Look, congressionally, like, there are a whole bunch of people who are like, we're definitely going to be in the minority in the House next time. Let's get out. Like, that's no fun. Being in the minority is no fun. And, you know, look, we still got almost a year. Like, things could happen. Who knows? But it's not going good for the Republicans at the moment.
|
Ivan:
[1:18:42]
| Well, here's the thing. what? Sam, okay, but okay, you're saying, hey, things could be better than, Tell me what gives them any sign whatsoever that anything that is happening or that could be happening is going to make it better for them at the end of the year. And, you know, so think about it. I'm trying to look at the situation. Hey, you got the positives and your negatives. Do you think that the negatives are weighing anything positive that could happen by the end of the year?
|
Sam:
[1:19:11]
| No, no. And anything along those lines is you gambling on something where there's not direct evidence of it now. Like, for instance, maybe Trump is gone and you have J.D. Vance and his agenda is completely different and people give them a second chance.
|
Ivan:
[1:19:28]
| Exactly. So it's stuff that you're basically just like playing. I mean, anything that you could wish for is basically you're wishing that Trump has a heart attack and J.D. Vance is president. You know, I mean, basically, you're you're you're it's their lottery. It's you know, you're playing the lottery, basically. That's your hope for November, because otherwise, with.
|
Sam:
[1:19:53]
| Everything else that's going on— Or maybe the war in Venezuela goes really well, and we have a remarkable victory, and everybody's happy.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:03]
| But you know what? Even those boosts are short-lived. Look, if you remember, when H.W. Bush won the Iraq War— Oh, I see. So we're basically, we're going to, we got to wait until like September, October.
|
Sam:
[1:20:19]
| Yeah, that would be perfect.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:21]
| Okay. So, all right.
|
Sam:
[1:20:23]
| So, so we can gradually escalate before then, but the big boom has to be in the fall.
|
Ivan:
[1:20:32]
| Okay. That's, that's one thing that you could hope for. Yeah. Okay. All right. You know, because, by the way, somebody made a clip of, like, showing Nutlick on TV, you know, talking about the economy repeatedly. And for the last couple of quarters, promising that the Trump boom, oh, no, no, no, we don't know this. This is the Biden economy. So you're going to see the boom in Q2 of 2025. In Q3. In Q4. In Q1. Oh, wait, wait, wait. It's going to be in Q2 2026. He has gone on TV and literally just basically just said, wait till next quarter, every quarter that's happened. So that's got to be positive, right?
|
Sam:
[1:21:20]
| Yeah. I mean, but yeah, let's look at some of these things specifically. One, there have been, I think, three now discharge petitions that actually, like, got the requisite number of signatures.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:35]
| Sam, how many have we had in history before? How many have we ever had before?
|
Sam:
[1:21:38]
| Well, what I was going to say, the number I heard was the number that we've had in the last two months is equal to the number that occurred in the 30 years prior to that.
|
Ivan:
[1:21:49]
| Holy shit. Oh, yeah, Mike Johnson's got an iron fist on his—he's got an iron grip on his—on Congress, right?
|
Sam:
[1:22:00]
| Basically, at this point, that taboo has been broken, and everything that is happening in the House is happening that way. With, like, the Democrats plus five to ten Republicans. You know?
|
Ivan:
[1:22:14]
| Jesus Christ. Basically, he is no longer in charge of the house.
|
Sam:
[1:22:21]
| Not effectively. The one thing he was able to do, though, for instance, the latest discharge petition was on those ACA subsidies. And what he did is the second the discharge petition got the last signature it needed, rather than take it up, he let the house go on purpose vacation early.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:43]
| Right. He adjourned early.
|
Sam:
[1:22:46]
| Yeah, so they won't pick it up until January when the changes have already gone into effect.
|
Ivan:
[1:22:53]
| That's got to be politically positive for the Republicans.
|
Sam:
[1:22:56]
| Right? Now, apparently on this particular issue, it had already been filibustered in the Senate, so it's unclear even if the House did something whether they could get something through. But, you know, it would clearly have momentum coming from the House that way.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:09]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:23:12]
| So who knows the Senate might look at it again and blah blah blah but at the very least we punted that for January.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:19]
| Listen they decided to stick it to everybody, They don't care.
|
Sam:
[1:23:24]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:24]
| I mean, there is this group, like we've mentioned before, I was reading something, you know, Pete had actually mentioned this. Our Republicans have been trying to kill Social Security, dating back forever, right? You know what?
|
Sam:
[1:23:39]
| Yep.
|
Ivan:
[1:23:39]
| And so any of these programs they think are evil, okay? You know, that is actually the standard Republican belief, okay? This is not a magma. This is a Republican. Because the reality is that when you go out and you pull mad at people, they love all these programs. Okay?
|
Sam:
[1:24:01]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:01]
| The thing is, their whole thing is, I deserve this program. But not that Latino guy across the street. He doesn't deserve it.
|
Sam:
[1:24:13]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:14]
| But I do. That's the whole thing. It's not that they don't believe the program.
|
Sam:
[1:24:19]
| They don't want their... Yeah, no, this is an ongoing theme going back many, many decades here. Back to like, you know, cities that closed their public pools rather than desegregate them.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:32]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:24:33]
| You know, things like that. It's the same kind of thing. It's like, it's absolutely, you know, they're not opposed to the policy in general of helping people with health care or whatever. They're opposed to the idea of helping them with health care or whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:24:52]
| That's right. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:24:54]
| You know, and so if they can't discriminate on that and only help the people they like and not the people they don't like, then they'd rather just not have it at all. Even if everybody gets screwed.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:04]
| Yep. That's the thought. That is the thought of a significant group of people. I'm not going to say all of them, but a significant group of people. You know, so. And so, if you're like these guys.
|
Sam:
[1:25:19]
| Who have the traditional Republicans now— I just want to say for the record, there is a group who is sort of philosophically opposed to government involvement in those kinds of programs, period, end of story, and are philosophically consistent about it, and blah, blah, blah. But that is a very small group. The sort of inconsistencies that we were just talking about is much larger.
|
Ivan:
[1:25:42]
| But Sam, the thing is that all of this is political suicide Look, what they're doing What they are doing is Somebody explained to Ronald Reagan back in the early 80s Where he wanted a taxer security And they told him, look, back then And they told him, Ronnie, that is political suicide Go with tax cuts instead Because otherwise you're not going to make it to a second term.
|
Sam:
[1:26:10]
| As people of the third rail of American politics, as people have always said. But, you know, but, you know, at certain points, people decide that it would be nice to not only touch the rail, but maybe lick it and see what happens.
|
Ivan:
[1:26:26]
| Well, they've started doing that now with a lot of things is the problem. And so, and so, I mean, people are pissed. People are pissed. There is, I mean, there is just, you know, the sentiment is bad. You know, did you see that in a rally a few weeks ago that, that, that, that Trump went that nobody went to, okay, doing this affordability thing? Then in Pennsylvania, there was like so few people. And they went and they marched up some person to go on stage, supposedly to talk about how this is a lie. And the person went on stage and basically ripped them and said, hey, I just get my paycheck and all my money goes out on bills and I can't afford anything. This is the person they supposedly vetted to go up screen on stage to go and support their view. And they just went up there and basically told them they're all full of shit.
|
Sam:
[1:27:21]
| Yes. Well, and also, yeah, I mean, this is all part of the look that the Trump Trump and his folks have always been undisciplined. But in the first term, at least he had a few professionals. Now, the professionals also slowed him down. So second term, he doesn't have those people. He has all incompetence surrounding him, pretty much. And and so.
|
Ivan:
[1:27:48]
| Which brings us back to, you mentioned Wiles. Why in the world was she talking, To this reporter in Vanity Fair saying all of this, basically shitting on everybody.
|
Sam:
[1:28:02]
| 11 separate one-hour interviews over the course of many, many, many months, speaking apparently freely, talking about negative opinions of all kinds of other people in the administration.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:14]
| Did I mention that my wife went to get her hair done some months back? I don't remember if I mentioned this specifically, but she went to get her hair done over here at the salon. Here in Boca, and that Susie Wiles is getting her hair done at the salon at the same time.
|
Sam:
[1:28:30]
| Oh, no, I do not remember hearing this.
|
Ivan:
[1:28:32]
| I might have forgotten about it. Yeah, but my wife goes, and she's over there, and for whatever reason, because I didn't think she lived this far south. Like, I know she, as I asked in Palm Beach, I didn't think it was this far south, but she was over at the hair salon. My wife goes to get her hair done, and she had her hair being done over there. My wife did not go up to her. That's it.
|
Sam:
[1:28:55]
| There was no confrontation. There was no hair pulling. There was no little battle. No hair products thrown.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:05]
| No, not that I'm aware of. No, there were just some black, you know, the standard, substandard black SUV caravan and security people.
|
Sam:
[1:29:14]
| Okay. Well, apparently the story with the Wiles thing is she was assuming this would be a nice puff piece talking about how wonderful she was.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:24]
| How was the photo shoot, Sam?
|
Sam:
[1:29:27]
| People have been talking about how great this photographer was because he managed to, like, capture, you know, the incompetence and evilness of these people right in front of their faces. Like, with their faces. You know, just with pictures that made them look bad that they apparently were happy with. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:29:51]
| They're just going to be thrilled with the pictures. They're all thinking, you know.
|
Sam:
[1:29:56]
| People even pointing out little things, like when they took the picture of the one person in front of a background in one of the rooms in the White House and how everything was disheveled behind them, like lampshades out of kilter and random cords lying around. Now, I look at my surroundings. Everything is disheveled around me. But if I was doing a magazine photo shoot, maybe I'd clean some stuff up. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:21]
| If you were a magazine photo shoot, you'd want it to look like my background. So if you look on video, I'd buy it instead of yours, basically.
|
Sam:
[1:30:30]
| Yeah, well, you know, it depends. Maybe some organized disheveledness in order to, like, emphasize my quirky nature or something. But, you know, I wouldn't necessarily have the dead plant behind me.
|
Ivan:
[1:30:42]
| Exactly. You know?
|
Sam:
[1:30:47]
| Which is in fact behind me at the moment you know and so and it has been for a while well it probably has only been dead a few months but like you know anyway yeah no and and she you know she she said trump has an alcoholic personality even though he doesn't drink alcohol he has an alcoholic personality uh she said her.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:14]
| Father of being an alcoholic or an alcoholic even though a whole bunch of people actually have been disputing this by the way.
|
Sam:
[1:31:22]
| I saw i hadn't heard that part yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:31:25]
| Yeah yeah yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:31:26]
| Well and apparently whatever reason bottom line she said negative things about practically everybody in the administration but they all came and defended editor anyway, you know, like, and including Trump, Trump talked about the alcoholic personality is saying like, well, you know, that's, I've said this myself, it's well known. Like, you know, my family has addiction issues and it's one of the reasons that I don't drink alcohol is because I know if I did those kinds of things, I'd probably be a mess. And that's what she meant. You know, but but she also said she well, one other thing she said that I think was important. And, you know, I'll be honest, I did not have time to read the actual interview. I read summaries and highlights. But she she mentioned that she very much, unlike the people in the first administration, in like the chief of staff position and others who felt their job was to. Like most chief of staffs of most presidents to control access to the president to make sure he sees the right things to make sure he's concentrating on on the right stuff and not wasting his time blah blah blah instead of any of that she views her job as enabling the president to get whatever the hell he wants whenever he wants it period end of story.
|
Ivan:
[1:32:50]
| She did say that Yes, that's correct.
|
Sam:
[1:32:53]
| You know, and...
|
Ivan:
[1:32:54]
| Which is not... Which honestly, you know what, is not helpful.
|
Sam:
[1:32:58]
| Right. And like, you know, healthy chief of staff... Like, if you talk to previous presidents, you know, of both parties, they will tell you that they actually appreciate having a good chief of staff who is trying to keep them focused in the right areas. And making sure they're using efficient use of their time. That's what they want in a chief of staff.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:25]
| They don't want somebody who's just— And not do shit that is, you know, not just a yes man, because you've got to be told when you're doing shit that is going to fuck you up.
|
Sam:
[1:33:35]
| Yeah. But Trump doesn't believe any of that. Trump wants 100% yes man.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:41]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:33:42]
| And I suppose the occasional yes woman.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:45]
| Well, actually, a lot of yes women, if you think about it.
|
Sam:
[1:33:48]
| Yes.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:48]
| Especially if they have, they pass the double D test.
|
Sam:
[1:33:55]
| And there are particular things he wants to answer yes to.
|
Ivan:
[1:33:59]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:34:00]
| Yes. But, yeah, okay. What else we got here? We got anything else here? Like, oh, his speech also seemed, again, I did not watch it. I listened to commentary about it. the commentary basically said the commentary basically said one one you know first of all what you said it's like it's just like hey you're all imagining it it's not true but he spewed whenever he said things that were quote-unquote facts they were almost 100 lies none of them were true. Like, like he said, not only do you, you know, on inflation said Trump, Biden handed him, the worst inflation in the entire history of the country, you know? So he can never, he can never just say, maybe it was a little higher than we would like. He has to say, you know, and some people are saying it was the very worst ever, you know, whatever.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:02]
| And Um, no.
|
Sam:
[1:35:05]
| Yeah, no, not even close.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:08]
| No, not even close, not even remotely close. I mean, not even in the, not even the same universe is close, no.
|
Sam:
[1:35:15]
| Right. And also just that it reeked of desperation, the whole fact that he was doing the speech at all. And you've got people talking about the networks, whether they'll take the next speech he wants to do. Because usually these kind of primetime Oval Office speeches that preempt network programming, people were saying it was like it preempted the season finale of Survivor. you know i i.
|
Ivan:
[1:35:45]
| Was not even they went and they they they went and they i mean there were i you know somebody was showing that like some years back obama went to try to do a primetime speech on immigration a lot of networks didn't preempt preempt for that right and i'm like you know are you fucking kidding me they all i don't know they preempted for this shit they.
|
Sam:
[1:36:06]
| Did and usually.
|
Ivan:
[1:36:07]
| Like when you have.
|
Sam:
[1:36:08]
| This kind of thing, it's like, we just killed Osama bin Laden, or we invaded a country, or, you know, somebody attacked Pearl Harbor, you know, something along that magnitude, right? Or, you know, some major, major thing that the president is making a significant announcement about, or there's been a national trauma or whatever. Instead, this seemed to be like normal Trump campaign rally crap. And so who knows if they'll take it again. But also apparently things even like, you know, he had the teleprompter going really fast and was talking quickly. And, you know, people are speculating they don't trust him to do anything else.
|
Sam:
[1:36:53]
| You mentioned the rallies he's gone with increasing or decreasing attendance. They've also been decreasing coherence as you and, you know, he's always not been great along those. He's always said like, oh, what's the word he uses when he bounces from topic to topic? Anyway, he has a word for it, but, As time goes on, the level of incoherence in these things is just increasing and, you know, people are getting bored of it too. So like, and look, it's, it's hard not to give credence to all the people who are saying, look, this, this guy's clearly sundowning, or even if it's not technically like dementia, He's clearly doesn't have even the mental capacity he did a few years ago and which wasn't great even a few years ago.
|
Ivan:
[1:37:49]
| It was great. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:37:50]
| And he doesn't care about this stuff and he's bored and he doesn't really want to be involved in all this. So they're sort of, you know, they're propping him up and pushing him through the motions. And he's, you know, he's showing up to these press conferences and falling asleep. He's standing there, not seemingly engaged in what's going on around him in many cases. And, you know, so this is the speculation that, yeah, he's not really in charge of jack shit. Like, you know, you got the other people there who are actually making decisions, different people in different policy areas. But, you know, there are only a few things Donald Trump cares about. And the number has been reducing. Like, you know, he cares about screwing immigrants. He cares about, you know, the ballroom thing. people have been saying like oh that's just they're handing.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:48]
| Him a toy.
|
Sam:
[1:38:49]
| To be distracted with so that he can like worry about that while other people worry about things that matter you.
|
Ivan:
[1:38:54]
| Know but even the whole ball grump thing is a fucking disaster because it's a disaster like in general but but here's the reality they went and he ordered demolishing the you know the east you know the east wing no it's not the east wing okay alright, And they don't have a point. They still haven't never finished the plans. He already fired the first architect, and he had to hire a second architect to try to do this because they have not agreed on the design of what's going to replace it and demolish the fucking thing before he finalized the goddamn design, right?
|
Sam:
[1:39:35]
| Well, and look, this is, I mean, you can use this as an exemplar of everything Donald Trump does. You know, it's, it's, it's half ass. It's on the fly. He doesn't necessarily know what he's doing. It's all about like the visuals of it without actually caring about substance, without caring about history, obviously. And and and this and he doesn't care what the collateral damage is yeah it's but the point of all this is i i think all of this i i think donald trump's own mental and physical state is clearly deteriorating over time and seems to be accelerating and you know oh what what a shame like we ran Biden off the stage for much less whatever right um but but way less yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:40:34]
| But as he is deteriorating and as it is more and more clear that his ability to extract retribution on people is lessened, his control over everything is lessened as well. And Republicans are deciding they can be more independent and they can go off and do stuff and they're not as fearful as they were before. They're still a bit fearful. they're not going completely off in a different direction but I think we're seeing.
|
Sam:
[1:41:08]
| A couple months ago even we were talking about cracks the cracks are getting bigger and bigger and bigger over time in terms of the cohesion, of the MAGA coalition it's breaking apart you know we've talked about how these things often don't survive the death of the original personality cult leader, he hasn't died yet but he's diminishing and you can already see things start to crack apart as people are trying to position themselves for what comes after look.
|
Ivan:
[1:41:42]
| What's happened to turning point usa with the death of charlie kirk okay all right i was just seeing how they just had this conference recently and that basically the conference conference had devolved into almost open warfare amongst factions at Turning Point.
|
Sam:
[1:41:58]
| USA.
|
Ivan:
[1:42:00]
| In large part because Charlie Kirk, despite being a completely intolerable asshole, he would reject people like Nazis, like Nick Fuentes, for example, that were even more extreme. There are people like that that they were completely unacceptable. As a matter of fact, I was hearing recently how, I mean, he would not even entertain his presence at an event it was just he was this guy had a complete you know, He flat out said, this guy is totally unacceptable. Never be with him there. And now at this conference, all of a sudden, people are all like, remember, Charlie Kirk was Turning Point USA, bottom line. It's just kind of cult of personality, just like him. And now all of a sudden, all these people at the conference were trying to say, oh, no, Nick is our friend. Nick is our guy. We want him here. And people on stage were basically repeating what Charlie Kirk said, and they were getting booed by the crowd.
|
Sam:
[1:42:59]
| Right.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:00]
| And so this is the kind of You know, infighting that is happening amongst these people and is only getting worse and worse. And you saw with MTG, you know, doing the infighting. Now you see with Elise Stefanik going out. Yeah, I mean, it's, accelerating right now at this point.
|
Sam:
[1:43:23]
| Okay. Shall we wrap it up?
|
Ivan:
[1:43:26]
| Are we done? Yeah, let's go.
|
Sam:
[1:43:28]
| I think so. I think it is. It is time. It is time. Okay, so curmudgeons-corner.com. Do the thing. Like, go there. See all the ways to contact us. See our archives. See transcripts. All that kind of stuff. Buy mugs. I added the damn button to buy a mug. Nobody's bought a mug. I know. Most people listening probably already have a mug. I don't know.
|
Ivan:
[1:43:58]
| But at least not the next time somebody wants a mug, they're going to be able to click on it.
|
Sam:
[1:44:03]
| There you go. There you go. You know, I added this stupid button because people were complaining there was no button. So I added the button. Buy some damn mugs. You know, Christmas is coming up in a few days. I'm sure a few people would love some additional curmudgeon's corner mugs. Right? An amazing Christmas present for all. You know, a mug with a picture of Yvonne and I, like, staring out at you while you eat your breakfast. You know, anyway. also of course there's a link to our patreon it doesn't sound that great.
|
Ivan:
[1:44:36]
| To be honest with you.
|
Sam:
[1:44:39]
| Yes this is where the line of like t-shirts and sweaters and hoodies and stuff will be coming on next with like the giant picture of us yeah, because I'm sure people will be all over that hats you know mouse pads you can do all these things it's good stuff, anyway way. Also our Patreon, where you can give us money at various levels. We will mention you on the show. We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you one of those mugs. And importantly, at $2 a month or more, or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the Curmudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and all kinds of other folks, are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, all of that kind of lovely stuff. So, Yvonne, what highlight do you have this time for something from the Curmudgeons Corner Slack, that we have not talked about on the show but is so exciting and so interesting that it will make people feel bad that they are not on the Slack and want to come there more often or come there for the first time?
|
Ivan:
[1:45:55]
| Okay, so making it more funny, There was a post where, asking Grok, you're sitting next to Elon Musk's AI agent. You're sitting next to Elon Musk.
|
Sam:
[1:46:08]
| Wait, wait, wait. You're saying this a little bit wrong. They asked a whole bunch of people this question and then asked Grok to summarize the answers. Go ahead.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:20]
| Well, okay. So you're sitting next to Elon Musk, only three words. What would you say to him? So Grok went and said Based on the top engagements on X The most popular response is Kill yourself now 92,000 plus likes Hit a quote post Other common ones include Go fuck yourself And pass the ketamine.
|
Sam:
[1:46:41]
| There you go.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:43]
| People really love them, huh?
|
Sam:
[1:46:45]
| People do. Even on X. Come on.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:48]
| You're not X. This is not X.
|
Sam:
[1:46:50]
| What's left on X is like, you know, the dregs that didn't leave when it got bad.
|
Ivan:
[1:46:59]
| Right.
|
Sam:
[1:47:00]
| And it's a bunch of Musk sympathizers and, you know, people have compared it to a Nazi bar, you know. Now, admittedly, there are a bunch of, like, reporters and politicians and stuff still on there because they say, like, that's where the most people still are. You know, so, okay, I understand.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:22]
| But all the engagement you're going to get is this.
|
Sam:
[1:47:25]
| Is trash.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:26]
| Basically. Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:47:27]
| And even when they ask about Elon Musk on a place that is full of Elon Musk fans, you get go fuck yourself. And kill yourself now.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:37]
| No, it started out first. No, number one is Kill Yourself Now. That was number one.
|
Sam:
[1:47:43]
| Right. Yes. Yes. Okay, I will add one from the Slack that I actually just dropped in the Slack in the last five minutes.
|
Ivan:
[1:47:53]
| Oh, I had gotten that one. Yeah, that was a good one. Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:47:57]
| As we have been recording, well, no, a little bit earlier, right before we started recording, they were holding a funeral for the penny at the Lincoln Memorial, because they have apparently minted the last penny. Donald Trump, by executive order, said pennies are useless. We're not going to do them anymore. They cost more to make than they're worth, which is also true of the nickel, by the way, apparently. The nickel also costs more to make than it's worth.
|
Ivan:
[1:48:24]
| You know what the problem is with that? You know, by the way, using that argument for a coin, I realize is the dumbest argument against a coin. Because the reality is that you don't use, okay, you don't use the coin once, okay? The coin, you know, okay, so the nickel costs you a little bit more than the actual value of a nickel. But that nickel is used thousands and thousands of times, so it doesn't fucking matter, okay, that the material costs more. It's a medium of exchange, and if you use it many, many times, you got your return on the stupid investment. It's the dumbest fucking argument against minting a coin.
|
Sam:
[1:49:09]
| Well you know i i i'm one who has not used cash of any sort coins or bills in a long time and i'm like bring it on bring on complete electronic currency.
|
Ivan:
[1:49:21]
| It's you know we don't with no no no but i'm listen to pen look so that i i get what there's arguments for against the penny i get it you know it's like i mean fuck i don't want pennies i mean you know i i don't you know i i really don't want pennies and um you know and but but still but, But arguing that it's because of the value of it is not a good reason.
|
Sam:
[1:49:43]
| Yes. Anyway, yes. I'm ready to be done with coins, period. I'm ready to be done with bills, period. Like, you know, and I recognize their souls. I know you got the $100 bills you mentioned earlier. And honestly, I didn't say so while you were talking about it. But my initial reaction was, and honestly, this is true for gift cards, too. It's like when I get like cash, somebody gives me cash my reaction is oh crap now I'm going to have to figure out how to deposit this shit like because the thought of spending it doesn't even come mind.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:19]
| But that is not a common reaction.
|
Sam:
[1:50:22]
| Unfortunately, unlike checks, you can deposit a check on the app on your phone. You can't deposit cash that way.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:31]
| Yeah, but the reality is that there is an emotional attachment to the C note. That's all I can say.
|
Sam:
[1:50:38]
| Okay.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:39]
| People really like to get, people really, really like, especially if you're getting it as a, you know, just getting it out of the blue, people really like getting a C note.
|
Sam:
[1:50:49]
| Well, and like, look, gift cards have the same problem. You have to like remember them. You have to do something. You have to put in the number at whatever place you're going to use.
|
Ivan:
[1:50:57]
| But the other thing is that a gift card many, many times.
|
Sam:
[1:50:59]
| It's limited to a place.
|
Ivan:
[1:51:00]
| If you get a gift card to a store or a place. No, no. You get a hundred bucks. You can use it anywhere you want. Okay, no. You got a fucking like, you know. I got a hundred dollar Starbucks card. Now I have to buy a hundred bucks worth of Starbucks coffees.
|
Sam:
[1:51:15]
| No, I admit giving a gift. I gave a gift card as recently as the last few days. I bought one for Christmas for somebody. But yeah, like, honestly, it's like, if you want to give something monetary instead of a present, I'm like, you know, Venmo it to me or something. I don't know. Like, you know, and even then I have to move it to my real account to then use it. It's like that. And, you know, lots of lots of countries. The U.S. is behind on this. Lots of countries, it's absolutely normal to do bank account to bank account transfer directly from your phone between people for like small bills. Like, you know, we go to a restaurant and we split the bill. I'll give you 10 bucks with my app. You know, it's much less common here in the U.S. Because there are all sorts of services where you can do that. You can do Venmo. You can do Cash App. You can do Apple Cash. You can do all kinds of things. But they're all divergent and everybody has to set up the individual things as opposed to just being automatic with everybody's bank accounts.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:22]
| Well, the one that does work that way, which is Zeely. Zeely works bank to bank.
|
Sam:
[1:52:27]
| I always thought it was Zelle. I've only seen it written.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:30]
| You know, I've heard it both ways.
|
Sam:
[1:52:32]
| It's a pain. Like, I've paid people with Zelle. That's also a pain. It's not just, like, as easy as it could be. I don't know. It's not just built in automatically to everything, you know.
|
Ivan:
[1:52:44]
| Well, true. Yeah. But if I need to send... But, like, I just did something recently where I purchased... Somebody asked me to go to a store to pick up. I'll tell you, here's what I, I have a friend who their son loves Legos. Okay. So the thing is that this was a very, okay. So there is a, a Titanic, uh, uh, Lego set. Something apparently this is a very rare set.
|
Sam:
[1:53:14]
| It's one of the huge ones. Yeah.
|
Ivan:
[1:53:16]
| Yes. It's 10,000 pieces. okay all right yes and their son is the lego fanatic and he will build those massive ones and apparently it's very hard to get couldn't find online at anywhere but they called the lego store that's like here near me and they had it okay so they said for the love of god go over there and get it well i had to go well i had to buy it okay obviously they'll send me the money later but they wouldn't take credit card over the phone whatever they said no no no whoever comes here i have to pay for it we'll hold it until a few hours okay so i i went over there or whatever and got it. And so they made me a Zelle in the morning and came in right away. So that's the way they gave me the money back. Two seconds, boom. It's like right into my bank account.
|
Sam:
[1:54:01]
| Anyway, the funeral for the penny at the Lincoln Memorial.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:05]
| And the Lincolns have brought the coffin.
|
Sam:
[1:54:08]
| Yeah, if you click through on that link, I sent it to Commissions Corner Slack. There's a video. There are a bunch of people dressed as Abraham Lincoln carrying a coffin down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:18]
| I love these guys. These guys are great. I love this. This is fantastic. Honestly, I would have liked to have been there.
|
Sam:
[1:54:25]
| You know, this is the kind of cheesy thing that I actually probably would appreciate too, you know?
|
Ivan:
[1:54:31]
| Yes, yes, yes.
|
Sam:
[1:54:33]
| You know, it's just a little bit silly, a little bit stupid. But on the other hand, you are commemorating the penny has been a part of American life for the entire history of the country almost. And it's going away. Now, we'll still see pennies for years, forever. they're not removing them from.
|
Ivan:
[1:54:54]
| Circulation they're just not minting new ones.
|
Sam:
[1:54:56]
| Yes and they'll slowly become rarer and rarer and then eventually only collectors will have them but you know still you know it's a moment to commemorate so I can see these people doing this and they'll like the whole bunch of people dressed up as Lincoln with the black suit and the top hat carrying the coffin okay, okay that is peak something I don't know what it is peak something What it is peak of, but it's peak something.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:23]
| It's peak something, and it's great.
|
Sam:
[1:55:27]
| So, anyway. Okay, with that, I think we're done. Thank you, everybody, for joining us yet again. So apparently Yvonne and I have some discussion to do the whatchamacallit prediction show will either be next week or the week after, depending on scheduling. Either way, it will be recorded before the 31st or at the latest on the 31st UTC.
|
Ivan:
[1:55:53]
| At the latest.
|
Sam:
[1:55:54]
| At the latest, it will be recorded on the 31st UTC, depending on the exact timing. It'll be either next week's show or the week after. and so again for those of you who want to where where did i put the stupid thing i get the link up the link up the link up it's tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026 please come in there add things for us to predict in all of these categories again the rules on that are they need to be predictions for calendar year 2026, so not like we will land people on Mars in 2031 or something. Nothing like that because it has to be something.
|
Ivan:
[1:56:40]
| That the first week— We need to try to predict that we will land people in 2026 in Mars.
|
Sam:
[1:56:44]
| You could. You could. It will be a special one-shot just for Elon. No, but it has to be something that the first week of 2027, we will be able to objectively determine the truth or false. False? The truth or false? The truth or falseness? The truthiness? I don't know, like whatever. Truthiness. Yes, we will need to be able to determine objectively. Yes, falsiness. Falsies. We will be able to determine objectively whether it's true or false. The first week of 2027. So that is the criteria. Add stuff. We've got all kinds of categories. We've got all kinds of subcategories. The document is still otherwise blank. If nobody fills in stuff, I am going to fill in stuff based on my own preferences and things we've asked in previous years. But if we have questions from our audience, those are preferred and those will be what we start with. So, again, tinyurl.com slash ccpred2026. And as Yvonne helpfully clarified, the pred is for predictions, not for Predator.
|
Ivan:
[1:57:58]
| Correct.
|
Sam:
[1:57:59]
| So, that's a movie I also haven't seen.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:02]
| Oh! Damn!
|
Sam:
[1:58:03]
| Yeah, I've never seen Predator. Or any of the sequels.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:08]
| It's a good movie. The first one.
|
Sam:
[1:58:10]
| Anyway. Anyway we are done here thanks everybody have a great week we'll talk to you next time the next show whether it's a prediction show or not will be out after the christmas holiday so if for anybody who celebrates merry christmas for people who celebrate other winter holidays happy hanukkah happy whatever other winter holidays you have kwanzaa i don't know solstice happy whatever happy winter break regardless of what it's for, Festivus Festivus Festivus for the rest of us yes, I've also never watched all of Seinfeld I've seen Seinfeld episodes obviously but I've never like systematically watched the whole show, anyway I don't know if.
|
Ivan:
[1:58:59]
| I've watched every episode but I gotta guess I've watched most of them.
|
Sam:
[1:59:02]
| Okay I have watched maybe a handful I have not watched I couldn't even say a majority like no I've watched a handful of Seinfeld episodes I was never a regular watcher of that show but I mean I knew enough to know what Festivus is yes I mean that I mean that's kind of grown beyond the show I mean some people actually do that at this point right.
|
Ivan:
[1:59:26]
| I mean every day at the White House seems to be like a Festivus it's the airing of grievances.
|
Sam:
[1:59:32]
| There you go okay well happy Festivus everybody and we'll talk to you next week goodbye bye, Okay. And with that, we are done. Thank you, Yvonne. Get back to me right away with possibilities for scheduling in the next three weeks.
|
Ivan:
[2:00:19]
| I gotta tell you that it may be that we have to do it on the morning of the 30th or sometime during the day 31st because I'm going to Disney from the 26th to the 30th.
|
Sam:
[2:00:30]
| Okay. Whatever it is, text me like the options and then we'll pick dates. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm hitting stop. Here we go. Bye.
| |
|
