
Just Two Good Old Boys
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Just Two Good Old Boys
122 Suppressor Tax Redux: The Senate Showdown and Political Realities
The political pendulum continues to swing as we examine the recent setback for Second Amendment advocates in what was supposed to be a legislative victory lap. After the House included provisions to remove suppressors and short-barreled rifles from NFA registry in Trump's "big beautiful bill," the Senate parliamentarian threw cold water on these plans. This episode dives deep into why the Senate operates so differently from the House, with Gene offering a perspective that cuts to the core: "Senators aren't people, they're senators."
Beyond firearms legislation, we assess the first six months of Trump's term through a critical lens. While some celebrate wins like the massive arrest of Medicare fraudsters (over 350 people in the largest healthcare fraud bust in history) and significant cuts to ATF staffing, others question whether these accomplishments match the bold campaign promises. We explore this tension between political rhetoric and governing reality, with perspectives that will resonate regardless of your political leanings.
The conversation takes fascinating detours through recent Supreme Court decisions limiting nationwide injunctions, the mysterious market shift away from Pride Month promotions by major corporations, and even a hands-on review of cutting-edge AR glasses technology. Throughout it all, we maintain our signature blend of informed analysis and irreverent commentary that our listeners have come to expect.
Whether you're concerned about political promises being kept, curious about the shifting cultural landscape, or just want thoughtful conversation about current events, this episode delivers insights you won't find in mainstream coverage. Join us for a journey through America's evolving political reality and what it means for our shared future.
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Oh, howdy Ben, how are you today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great Gene you.
Speaker 1:I'm doing pretty good and I will apologize up front for any noise you may or may not hear. Hopefully you won't hear it, but if you do, I've got a half a plate that I'm trying to finish from lunch yet Okay.
Speaker 2:How about you? You?
Speaker 1:eating at all or any fun facts.
Speaker 2:Dude, I had a CT scan this morning.
Speaker 1:Hmm, okay, and they find the brain in there after all.
Speaker 2:Ha, ha ha. No, this was of my pelvic and abdomen region.
Speaker 1:Oh, Due to the priapism I'm sure they couldn't find a damn thing then.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we were just trying to make sure there wasn't lymphoma right, right, um, and luckily no lymphoma on the CT, so that is a good thing, that, uh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Is there a but?
Speaker 2:well, we just did without knowing a root cause for this. You know, who knows how we're going to resolve it, but, uh, who knows how we're going to resolve it? But so we'll see. Anyway, so all the known causes. Not a direct link, I did find one medication.
Speaker 2:I did find one medication that I had been prescribed when I was in my 20s. It's an anti-seizure med that they put me on for my heart stuff because I have WPW Wolf Parkinson White and that anti-seizure medication was linked to this condition in an 11-year-old boy. Boy, but it's so. I mean it's one case, so you can't draw anything, and this is years later and he was actively on it. But I don't know.
Speaker 1:There's lots of stuff, man. This is the first you've experienced this year.
Speaker 2:Was what.
Speaker 1:This year was the first time you experienced it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've never had this before. I don't like being a medical mystery. Like can we do something else here, anyway?
Speaker 1:Well, if you were a house, they would probably try and remove part of your brain just to test to see what that would do yeah, they, they would think it was lupus. Yeah, yeah, anyway exactly, so yeah, good enough with me.
Speaker 2:The world has kind of uh, done some stuff since we've been off. I'm kind of glad we waited to do the show and didn't do it till today, with everything that's happened.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, I mean, we're definitely running a couple days late.
Speaker 2:Yes, mm-hmm. So where do you want to start? Do you want to start with the big beautiful bill? Do you want to start with the arrests, the massive number of arrests? Do you want to? I mean, you can start with the arrests the massive number of arrests.
Speaker 1:Do you want to start with the bill?
Speaker 2:that's fine okay, well, the short act and the hearing act are out of the bill. Yep, um, they did take the uh tax to zero, though, so there's that this is not over, that's true.
Speaker 1:They're going to try and put the tax back into 200. That's true.
Speaker 2:No, the short act and the suppressor off the NFA could end up back in reconciliation, like the House can put it back in and then the Senate can fire the back in, yeah, and then the senate can fire the fucking parliamentarian and throw some balls well, but what would make you think they would ever do that? Um, because I think there's enough of us demanding that they do it and when has that ever mattered to senators?
Speaker 1:remember, senate is the longest single term serving uh in government, so they're the most immune from voters.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean Supreme Court.
Speaker 1:Justice is life, but sure well, it is life, that's true, but they actually have to work, unlike these guys. Unlike these guys.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. I think there's a chance that it gets put back in, and that would be great.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. So we'll see. Yeah, I think this was a tease. This is a little bit of a tease just to see you know what it feels like for people to give them something they really wanted for the last 50 years. And oh, I was just kidding, sorry about that. Yeah, people to give them something they they really wanted for the last 50 years and oh, I was just kidding, sorry about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. I don't think they're going to get away with that man, but we'll see, we'll sing. Well, the solution here is to try and sneak it through a tax bill.
Speaker 1:It's to actually have legislation that kills it off. The f, the uh nfa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that would require 60 votes and you're never going to get that well, change rules that would be a bad idea yeah, I think, I think, if you don't do things when you're in power, the other side absolutely will and you're just gonna get fucked okay, I would rather change the rules in a more minor way, like firing the parliamentarian and removing that position, because that position didn't exist until the 1930s and it's a bs position there have only been six parliamentarians in the history of the united states.
Speaker 2:Exactly somebody's got to keep the law well, that position exists because they started admitting non-lawyers to the senate okay, I don't see how that's relevant that that position's job is to explain to the non-lawyers what actually they can and can't do sure, but when they lie, and which I'm sorry, but like these bills were written to get through the dobs, uh, the dobs rule. So for the parliamentarian to say, well, it doesn't pass, pass that obs rule, I think is real BS.
Speaker 1:Well, my question was can they just ignore her, not get rid of her or anything? But just okay. Thank you for advice. We'll just keep doing what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Yes, they can.
Speaker 1:Well then, it's really not on her, it's on the 50 Republicans, sure.
Speaker 2:And then I don't.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:And then I don't know, did you see Corrin's numbers right now?
Speaker 1:No, I assume he's going to lose, but why?
Speaker 2:The sorry, the guy that's running against him has got a 20-point lead over him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the guy who's running against him in the Republican primary is, you know, our ex-attorney general, dan Paxton. But I think obviously people have heard of Paxton. I like Paxton, I always liked him. I think obviously people have heard of Paxson. I like Paxson, I always liked him, me too. But also I think more people are starting to realize that Cornyn's not a Republican.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes and.
Speaker 1:So once again, I point the finger back at a population Everybody's got the government they deserve, Because if people fail to elect people who truly represent them, then they will have representatives who truly don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know, so fantastic if we could just purge half of the House and Senate, like just wipe them off the table. And the way I would like to see that done would be like they did release the epstein files and oh yeah mr senator, you're under arrest, like that would be the best way to do it, because then there's no hope of them coming back, you know, and then you can just vote in new people yeah, I don't think that's likely.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's likely either.
Speaker 2:But I can. I can have a dream gene don't question, that's your.
Speaker 1:If that's your one dream dude, go for it um do?
Speaker 2:I only get one you only get one.
Speaker 1:That's how it works. One per lifetime and it's just going to be repeated over and over and over every night.
Speaker 2:What a nightmare that would be. I know right, Some people live with that.
Speaker 1:Look, at some point you're going to run out of video memory for the AI and the simulation is going to have to just start repeating certain things. Well, my take on that is it's it's sad for sure, because it'd be fun to buy suppressors and you know other things without having to pay any additional money to get them without the background additional paperwork bullshit.
Speaker 2:The background track is the bigger part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's both, it's not just one, I think it's both. But I also didn't ever think that this was likely to stand up and send it, and we talked about it. I said this is great news from the house. Let's see what happens in the senate, cause I'm not confident in the Senate's going to be able to pass it, and sure enough they're not. So it's, it's um.
Speaker 1:Senate operates on a different set of rules. Their rules are we're here longer than the president, so we have to do deals with other people that are here longer than the presidents. Whether we get a Democrat or Republican in Congress, we're going to have basically the same hundred people in the Senate, give or take maybe a couple of changes a year, or a couple of changes every four years or every two years. I guess it'd be every two years, but that's about it. I mean, most senators get reelected for five, six, seven, eight terms. So it's the same drinking club as Adam would say, getting together, outlasting presidents and everybody else, and so for them to want to get all partisan all of a sudden would actually be a shock, and not a predictable one at that, because it's a lot more likely that the Senate is as close to a union party as we have. In fact, they all took vacation the same time, you know, to the same place, to Jeffrey Epstein's Island.
Speaker 2:So Mm-hmm Allegedly.
Speaker 1:When you allegedly vacation together, you know you're less likely to go against your friends, regardless of what side of the aisle they're on, than you are to go against your party. The party doesn't really matter as much as just the people you know. When you're in the Senate the House, on the other hand we get elections every two years you really have to make sure that you're doing what the party wants or you ain't coming back, yeah, yeah. So, and remember senators aren't people, they're senators. And remember senators aren't people, they're senators. So it's a not unexpected.
Speaker 1:I'm not happy about it, but also I'm not really surprised that this happened. I wasn't sure how it was going to happen. This is not the way I would have predicted that they would end up getting shut down, but I guess this way they found a way to blame somebody else and still shut it down and shrug their shoulders and say, oh, not our fault. You know, I'd love to vote for this thing. I'd, you know, love to have it back in there. But sorry, can't. Parliamentarian spoke. That's it, we're done well, I again.
Speaker 2:It's not done. I think the house can and will add it back in and it'll get subtracted back out again. I mean it's well then, trump's big bit of big, beautiful bill may be doa I, I said that to you I think two days ago.
Speaker 1:I sent you a text message says okay, so bills doa.
Speaker 2:All right, that's so what is trump going to regroup and do then?
Speaker 1:that's a good question, because trump was going to end the ukrainian war day one. We're now nine months in still going on. We're still paying, and what I mean by it is we're still paying the bills for all of ukraine, the us taxpayer. We're just not talking about it. It's not publicly on TV that you know we should send more money, but we're still sending more money. Nothing's changed, nothing's stopped. He bombed Iran, which is something I talked to your mom about. Neither one of us is happy about.
Speaker 2:Well, so we talked about it too. Yeah, we did. I'm not a huge fan of the bombing of iran. I think it's dumb in a lot of ways, but I will say he got away with it. Like iran did not retaliate, the ceasefire is holding. He got away with it yeah, that's the analogy.
Speaker 1:I like this. Uh, a video that um freedom tunes did where it's basically yeah trump driving the car and you got a couple of kids in the back seat slapping each other and it's and the kids were the ayatollah and yeah, bb yeah, so it's is it's Israel and Iran sitting back there and he's like knock it off, you guys, don't make me turn around and you know, slap both of you or whatever the hell.
Speaker 1:He said it was cute, it's a cute cartoon. Freedom Tunes probably does about 80% cartoons I think are funny and then 20% of them are just they miss, don't hit the mark. But a good 80% of them are just they miss, don't hit the mark. But good 80 percent of them are genuinely funny. One of the things he used to do that, the freedom tunes dude there's a raging catholic, by the way, but um, oh yeah he's an uber catholic.
Speaker 2:Uh, one of the things he used to do shameless.
Speaker 1:Yes, one of the funny things he used to do is have a fix your meme. So he would take lefty memes, which generally are stupid, and then he would fix them for them to make them actually funny. I don't know, I haven't seen one of those in a while, so he probably doesn't do those anymore, but I always enjoyed them. I always thought they were pretty damn funny. So I don't know, dude, I mean's like, well, nothing's really changed. And this is this is always something that everyone's known on both sides of the aisle about trump is trump is all about loud rhetoric, it's all about talking loud and everything's huge, everything is going to be the greatest and blah, blah, blah, yeah, yeah. How's those Epstein files coming around? Make any headway on the ATF?
Speaker 2:I mean, yes, actually they did fire a whole bunch of ATF agents. I mean a huge number of ATF agents got fired. We just had these arrests where over 350 people were arrested.
Speaker 1:It was 15%, it was not that huge a number 15% of all the ATF.
Speaker 2:yes, but this was like 30-something percent of the field agents.
Speaker 1:Okay, I guess, if you look at it that way, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's after.
Speaker 1:Biden hired an additional. How many of them?
Speaker 2:This goes to pre-biden levels. It cuts even further than pre-biden levels yeah that's good. And what about the arrests that we just saw against the medicare medicaid fraud?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean that's good fantastic, but that that's very non um, I mean, it is political. I don't want to say non-political, it is political. I don't want to say nonpolitical, but it's nonpartisan. Like everybody ought to be happy about arrests for fraud, especially medical fraud, wow. So I don't know. I'm just saying that there was a lot of talk about how much he's going to be able to do, and what he's doing right now is, I think, seeing a lot of what he saw in his first term, which is the establishment.
Speaker 2:the machine that is washington dc is very, very difficult to make any headway from, because either you're going to get sued immediately, or you're going to be given bad advice and told to do one thing when you ought to be doing something else, or whatever like dude, take the w's 350 people arrested in the largest fraud ring that we've ever caught, like over 15 billion dollars taken away from medicare, medicaid, um, the uh, the officials arrested in pennsylvania over voter fraud. Yeah, um, you know, there there's some pretty good wins here. And we got to remember he's been in there six months, like, like this sort of stuff is going to some of it's going to take some time, um, you know, and I, I, I, just I, I see nothing but wins and progress. I mean, fuck he's, you've got to watch it now because they're uh, they're, you know, uh, denaturalizing people.
Speaker 1:I gotta watch it. Denaturalizing people, I mean I gotta watch it, I don't have to watch shit.
Speaker 2:Well, you sure you do. You're a naturalized citizen. Yeah so you could be denaturalized.
Speaker 1:No, I can't Go back to Russia. No, no, no.
Speaker 2:That's not the word. They have already denaturalized a guy.
Speaker 1:They may have denaturalized a guy. They probably should have done that with a lot more guys.
Speaker 2:And they are. They just put out a memo saying that that's what they're going to do, and the guy they denaturalized was a former UK citizen who came over, served in the US military and had a bunch of kiddie porn, so they got rid of him.
Speaker 1:These are good things, dude. I'm not saying, these are not good things.
Speaker 2:These are just not the things that Trump was talking about when he was running.
Speaker 1:Okay, he wasn't running on. I'm going to reform Medicare. I'm going to stamp out the corruption.
Speaker 2:That's part of the way you cut the budget. It's part of the way you get to that doge number.
Speaker 1:Except that the budget is going to be going up in the big beautiful bill, which is why Elon Musk is against it. So let's not talk about the budget getting cut, because it's not. There are savings, but those savings are gobbled up by additional spending. We're not going back to the days of actual balanced budget. I mean, say what you will, but uh, during george bush senior, uh, the country actually lived within its means. No, it didn't it did.
Speaker 2:No, it looked that up.
Speaker 1:The last time we had a balanced budget was clinton, not george hw bush well, so that was after bush, correct, okay, fine and that was newt gingrich's doing yeah, my point is, trump's not even trying to do that I understand that okay, so I guess the from the things that I I was.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing. Trump's view on this is the CBO numbers are wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard that.
Speaker 2:And that this is going to create enough growth that this will balance out. Yeah, and he may very well be right. There's a lot of really good stuff in there that is very pro-business. So you've got to look at it. You can't just say, oh well, the CBO says it's going to add $2 trillion to the debt over 10 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay well a lot can change in 10 years. Well, I don't care about 10 years. What's it going to do in the next year or two? What's it going to do during his term? Going to add to the debt?
Speaker 2:or subtract from the debt. During the remainder of his term it will be fairly neutral. That's assuming no additional growth from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how often do we do budget bills?
Speaker 2:Every year.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. I don't like politicians on either side.
Speaker 2:How do?
Speaker 1:they do, a continuing resolution for forever, but having this tendency to basically stretch shit out into way past their term, call it a win, call it a savings, having never need to actually live with it. Caught a savings, having never need to actually live with it. It's like, eh, you know, claiming 10 years worth of savings because of something you did right now in the vacuum. Maybe you can justify it. But, realistically speaking, focus on this year, focus on next year. Don't don't worry about what happens 10 years from now. We might be living in a, in a completely communist country by that point in time, where the spending will be completely disconnected, uh, from tax gathering. So I don't don't try and claim a win of something that hasn't yet happened, because there's a chance it'll never happen.
Speaker 2:That hasn't yet happened, because there's a chance.
Speaker 1:It'll never happen. Okay. So I don't know. I'm not super happy about what's going on right now, because I feel like more could be done. That's not being done, and what would you like to see? Well, I would love for us to start immediately saving money by cutting off all funding to Ukraine today. Okay, that's a spending that does not need to happen. I'm totally good with that. Okay, how about we do the exact same thing for Israel? Do it? Cut off all funding?
Speaker 2:Yes, Don't need it. Cut off all funding to any foreign source.
Speaker 1:All funding for all foreign sources. Talk about a savings that'll last 10 years or longer. I mean Jesus, anybody. We start funding. We just never stop funding. I'll bet you we're still sending money to Afghanistan, even though we left the country, gave up hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gear had. China, come in and take over and we're probably still sending money to some program or other to Afghanistan. Guarantee you that?
Speaker 2:Okay Again, Gene, I agree with you. Let's cut it all.
Speaker 1:Why do you want to spend all this money, ben? Quit spending money, ben. Let's cut it all. Why do you want to spend all this money, ben? Quit spending money, ben. I'm kidding, obviously. No, I'm just venting frustration at the fact that it's been six months and what I've seen is not a whole lot of actual promises that Trump was talking about happening and it could be. I'm not even saying that it's necessarily his fault. I'm just saying he talked the big game and there's no big game happening. The biggest win for Trump that's visible, I think, to everybody is ICE and the complete turnaround and actually doing their jobs. After sitting on their hands for the last four years, after sitting on their hands for the last four years, ice is finally doing what they were designed to do, which is apprehend and export people that are in this country illegally. But that's like the one win that I see. Everything else just kind of like dribbling in. Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I you got anything else in the bill the, the two things I care about.
Speaker 2:Uh, or you know what's been removed, but otherwise I, I don't see this like I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm normally the one this is funny because I'm normally the one um who like says I don't compromise right, I stand on principles and I, I don't like, from my principal standpoint, I don't like the big beautiful bill, I don't like the way it's being done. But at the same time, even right now, even if all we get out of it is the removal of the tax on the suppressor and the SBR, that's still a step forward and would I have liked to have gotten more? Sure, but you know what? At the same time, I'll take the fucking W and say thank you. At the same time, I'll take the fucking w and say thank you like. We have to push the politicians to do the right thing, but we have to record reward them when they make incremental changes that are positive for us, because if we don't, well, I I can't ever do anything right for you people is going to be the attitude yeah, you're assuming they care about doing things that are right, which I I think.
Speaker 1:So I think we need to break the system. This is where I'm on the side with the anarchists and you're on the side with the. Uh, you know, let's just I'm all for just burn it all down yeah, I don't think that what I, what I've come to see clearly as a result of what's happened in this senate where we have a, a mandate by the people in the elections.
Speaker 1:We have the house, we have the senate and we have the president. They're supposed to be all aligned. What I'm seeing in the Senate more than anywhere else, obviously is that we don't have the Senate, we have the ours, but we don't have the people. We just have the little letters behind their names that don't actually mean jack shit.
Speaker 2:Sure, again, I think we need to purge the Senate and the house. Yeah, greatly we, we need to.
Speaker 1:I think like lindsey graham why the yeah, exactly, exactly. He should have been gone a long time ago yeah, okay and when his girlfriend retired. Uh, mr mccain, it should have been the end of lindsey. So, um, I mean, and now completely out of left field, supreme court actually acts. Conservative for once, a little bit yes well they they effectively put a stop to all of these low level federal judges being able to over over over.
Speaker 2:Well they, they stopped. What you're talking about is the ruling that stopped a nationwide injunctions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So what's your take on that? Um?
Speaker 2:so I think. So what's your take on that? So I think I'm a little bit of a mix here, because there are nationwide injunctions that we like. There are nationwide injunctions that we don't like. So, for instance, the the pistol brace rule, national injunction. Um, I think when the issue is nationwide and one of the plaintiffs is the government or the president, I think there is room for a lower court to have the ability to do a nationwide injunction. However, it is not in the Constitution and basically what the Supreme Court said was nope, lower courts don't have that power.
Speaker 2:They can only do an injunction for those who are uh, who are plaintiffs and parties case. Now what you'll see is you're going to see shift to uh class actions and that adds a step. It adds the step of having to certify a class, but that's certainly doable and I don't know how much it's really going to change things.
Speaker 1:Well, what it's going to have the net effect of doing is exactly what the intent here is for the current administration, which is to not have the courts get in the way of nationwide policy. So I think it'll have that effect, but they still can if they can certify a big enough class Gene.
Speaker 2:That's my point.
Speaker 1:But only for the class.
Speaker 2:Correct Right. But look at what the ACLU is already starting to do with Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. And Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship I think is fantastic because I think it's very well written, I think there's a lot of great legal opinions behind it and that's what led to the Supreme Court ruling.
Speaker 1:But what his executive order does is say hey, if your parents aren't at least a permanent resident here and have some status.
Speaker 2:You don't get citizenship, which I think is a reasonable middle ground actually. But what ACLU is already doing is they're going in and they're saying any person born after the effective date and you know those persons who are not yet here, right there, they're basically trying to represent fetuses and or babies that haven't even been conceived yet.
Speaker 1:Well, thank God somebody who's trying to represent fetuses, cause they don't get much.
Speaker 2:Well, it's going to be pretty interesting to see what ends up happening, because how can you represent them? Does that? I mean that goes to is this, is that a person right? It goes to the abortion question almost immediately, and if a conservative group was trying to certify that same class in an abortion case, people would be freaking out. So so I don't know. It will be very interesting to see what happens, depending on how the classes end up forming.
Speaker 1:Yep, I agree, but I also don't think a class is going to be half the population, or certainly not the whole population. You know, at most you're going to have maybe large groups of a few million people as a class. And I've been a bunch of these classes. Um, I've never been, you know, the one guy being pushed forward or whatever. But I I probably, multiple times a year, get notifications of, like something where I'm going to get some money back because of class action lawsuit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not much, but it's it's routine, yeah well, I don't know, man um I I thought the reaction to katanji brown jackson's dissent oh, yeah, that was hilarious, I agree. I agree, that was pretty damn funny mean, there's a lot of people saying that AI wrote her dissent, mm-hmm, but the way she wrote was just so terrible, man, like full stop. Let me tell you Like, this is not a, this is a justice on the Supreme Court. What?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. It's hard not to even, I think, for centrist liberal types it's hard not to see the fact that the only reason she's on there is because of the color of her skin.
Speaker 2:Oh, I loved. What was it? The post-millennial Ketanji Brown, jackson's DE dei, is showing you know, oh jesus yeah, yeah, it's um.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, I'm not, and I mean, talking about going against 200 years of of history is one thing, but it's it's just. It's been pointed out that it appears like it was written by AI, so you know.
Speaker 2:So you know what. Are you going to finish that sentence? Or did you take a bite?
Speaker 1:No, I took a bite.
Speaker 2:Well, try not to do it mid-sentence, because it's pretty hard to fill in for you when you're taking a bite and it's mid-sentence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get my point answered for me. Damn it, dude. No, I just I think that it shows the hopefully pinnacle of ineptitude that we experienced during the biden administration that would be nice, but I mean realistically. That's really a hope like I have.
Speaker 2:No, you know for those who don't know her dissent no one signed on to. No, not a single other justice signed on to her dissent. Yeah, the, the majority opinion called her out by name in the opinion, which is like you're an idiot smackdown, um, and I think that there's a lot of the way she wrote that that earns that. But again, I'm of two opinions on how much power I think that actually should be there. So at least I'm trying to be honest about that. But uh, anyway, it was. Uh, it was pretty shocking that they smacked her down the way they did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, publicly, not just in private, which probably means they smacked her down in private as well.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, and I guarantee you, even the liberal justices are going to start ostracizing her to an extent because she's acting the way she is. Mm-hmm yeah so it'll be very interesting to see if uh, like, I can't even see if there's a democrat president elected, that she's pushed to step down even though she's so young uh, has that ever happened?
Speaker 1:have we ever had that historically?
Speaker 2:um, yeah we, we've had uh, we've had justices step down early because they wanted so-and-so to. I mean they don't say the exact reason, I guess. I mean, I think the Democrats have learned their lesson, after Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you know, died in the seat, as it were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a possibility she died before she was, oh, absolutely done actually ruling on things, and you gotta wonder who's doing that on her behalf well, I mean same person who's doing biden's auto exactly. We had obama both running the country and sitting in the supreme court, because you know, he was a constitutional lawyer constitutional lawyer so yeah, yeah, it's, uh, it's pretty nutty out there.
Speaker 1:I again, I I probably sound more, like you know, negative about shit than I actually am. It's's just, I think that the, the constant rah rah and seeing only the bright future ahead, the starting also get old to me. Like for a while it was the opposite that got old and that's like, eh, sick and tired of hearing all the horrible shit that's going on. But now it's kind of like we've had about a year of rah-rah going on and I'm kind of starting to get tired of that.
Speaker 2:Either one matches reality right, I think you're a little off, it's okay okay, all right like again, trump has been in office six months and we have had some pretty good wins and I just, I guess I don't understand why we don't want to take the win and say, hey, yeah, this is a good thing.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's. I don't either. I mean, I think that part of it could be because people were revved up to see much bigger wins.
Speaker 2:Sure, but maybe that's a little naive, since we, you know, we are fighting a pretty ingrained deep state here and it's going to take some time. I mean give it a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I just keep. I think back to Vivek and how it definitely surprised me I think it surprised a lot of people when he exited out of Doge very quickly. But I think now, looking back, that probably is yet another example of him being extremely intelligent, because he's likely saw the writing on the wall and the fact that, no matter how you start a program that's meant to cut government spending, you're never going to be able to do it. It's not going to happen. You're going to have a few little bits and pieces here that you can point to, but ultimately government moves in only one direction and it grows, it doesn't shrink. And so if you get into, if you're in Doge, and your job is to cut spending, to find inefficiencies, it sounds great. But what you also have to then realize or maybe you shouldn't realize, maybe you should not think about this, even though it's going to happen is that any money you find is going to instantly be grabbed up by some other piece of pork of the currently controlling party. So there is no way.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like the reason that I got out of InfoSec originally. I've talked about this before. Why did I kind of move towards business consulting and away from InfoSec. It's because I was working with very large clients and I just started realizing more and more that these things, these large projects that take me six months to 12 months to execute, have millions of dollars in budgets and a lot of people working on them that they are literally meaningless. There's not going to be one iota of change with attitude about security in these companies. All they're doing is checking off a checkbox that says, yeah, we brought in some specialists, they're taking care of it. That's all they want. They don't want actual change.
Speaker 2:they want actual fixes they just want to be pretty cynical view well, this is why yeah, it's cynical.
Speaker 2:This is why I left the industry, dude yeah, but like, I mean, I'm working on some of these big projects for companies right now and we're moving the needle, uh, significantly like architectural changes, things like that. Now, ot is a little different because you, you have a box that you can put it around, right, um, so I, I guess there's that, but I, I, I just I don't. I, I don't see that in cyber security at all. I see us moving the needle well, give it a few years well, I've been doing this for a few years.
Speaker 1:Dude, it's not like I'm spring chicken, no, I know, I know, but hey, one of the things that changes as you get older is your perspective on the same things starts to change. Uh-huh and um. I did for me at least, and I assume it does for everybody else, you know, I guess I technically can't talk for anybody else, but I will definitely say that things that looked one way when I was in my 30s they started looking differently in my 40s and even more differently in my 50s. And the only real difference, I think, think isn't that those things changed, it's that my attitude changed as I got older.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I don't know. I don't know either well, I, I think that we, I I'm hopeful, like I am still hopeful, so yeah, I guess, and I like, I like hanging around you because you are, you're less depressing than me so what do you think? All right, next steps then. What would bring some hope to you, like what would need to happen for you to go? Okay, we got a big enough win. I'm somewhat satisfied.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it wouldn't hurt if Jesus came back right.
Speaker 1:But no, I think that what I'd love to see is take some of these things which I think are totally achievable, like making the Epstein files public and actually doing them and just saying I know that a lot of people will lose face and maybe lose their jobs and maybe go to prison, but we have to do this because we can't run a country like this. But we have to do this because we can't run a country like this. Based on everything I've seen so far relating to Epstein I think you and I have talked about it. I don't know if we talked about it on the podcast or off but my current best theory is that he was actually working for the US government and this is why we can't do it.
Speaker 1:If it was a foreign government, it's really easy to make that shit public. Even if we get a few senators and a few rich people, that'll kind of be seen in a negative light. But what you can't have happen is say come out, have documents that come out to say that Epstein was running a government sanctioned operations run by the cia, nsa, you name it that was authorized by multiple presidents and reauthorized and the goal of that program was to blackmail people I think you absolutely could, and there'd be a great argument for why you should dismantle the cia, which trump is pushing that pretty good too yeah, but the problem is the cia isn't just operating based on its own brain.
Speaker 1:The cia is doing the work that the government wants to do but doesn't have any other groups to do. It it's the. It's the guys that do the dirty work, but it's not random dirty work that somebody just wants.
Speaker 1:It's dirty work that the president wants, or the senators want, or the Congress wants in general, so it is still driven to those results by people that want them. We still have a FISA court. Why do we still have a FISA court? Because the law hasn't been changed. Yeah, exactly, which means that there is no interest in changing that law by both Republicans and Democrats. And likewise, I think that both parties were happily signed on to this idea that we've got a guy who's using sex with youngsters and you know, we talked about just how. At what point, at what age do they stop being youngsters? But the point is doing something that probably most americans would find at best distasteful and at worst atrocious, and doing it for the us government, for reasons. That's why you can't disclose it. That's why I don't believe it'll ever come out, because I think this is the most likely scenario of what Epstein's whole thing was. This is why he got out of um. You know his first conviction. It wasn't because oh there, there's some rich dude that's. You know.
Speaker 1:The Israeli lobby called and told the, the AG, to not do it. No, because this was coming from much higher than that. This was coming down from don't fuck with a US government program, and I don't think that Trump or any of the people working for him, that Trump or any of the people working for him, I don't think any of them think that American citizens are ready to hear that this was all sanctioned, and I suspect that you know. When Musk said Trump is in there, I don't think that what people instantly thought of is what he meant. I don't think it means he went to Epstein's Island. I think he was aware of Epstein's program, having been a president already, being a US government program. I think he was aware of that Okay Well, but that's total conspiracy theory. I think he was aware of that? Okay Well, but that's total conspiracy theory. I have nothing to back this up.
Speaker 2:But Trump. You know Epstein, epstein got. When did Epstein die? What year was that?
Speaker 1:I would need to look that up. I don't remember off the top of my head.
Speaker 2:And 2019. Yep, so during Trump's presidency? Yep, okay, like he was arrested under Trump, wasn't he Not under Obama?
Speaker 1:I think so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so, and charges were being brought. So if that is true, I would even say okay, but Trump made moves to change that, so why would that be a bad thing, even if he knew about it?
Speaker 1:I think it it's. The problem is everything that happened since then, like immediately after he died. Why wasn't the official response from the trump administration? I was like, and here's all the shit he's been doing.
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, he died right as they were going. You know, Trump was heading out of office. He was worried about the election and everything else, so he didn't have time for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know when was he arrested. Do you remember what year that was?
Speaker 2:You can Google it this time. I Googled it last time You're.
Speaker 1:Epstein elected.
Speaker 2:I think it was 2019.
Speaker 1:What that he was arrested? Mm-hmm, let's find out. First one was in 2006. It was July in 2019. Yeah, so First one was in 2006,. Seven one, it was July in 2019. Yeah, yeah, so what are the odds? Trump actually was uh told about what Epstein's day was doing way before his arrest.
Speaker 2:But that whole program, don't know. I mean this is this is the problem with them not talking.
Speaker 1:It's totally speculation. Speculation happens in the vacuum is when they don't provide any information. This is when people start speculating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's how conspiracy theories start.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, because you are effectively speculating a theory about a conspiracy. The conspiracy element is that they're hiding, think they have a reason for not providing actual data. Then what do you got left? You got to start speculating. And I always try to find the most, the most reasonable logical explanation, where you know, incompetence always beats out, malice for sure, but in this, in this one, like if this was some foreign actor, some foreign country that had a guy planted in the us that was trying to, uh, blackmail a bunch of rich people, us that was trying to blackmail a bunch of rich people.
Speaker 1:That's the story. I mean, it seems pretty obvious.
Speaker 2:But let's just take a step back and let me ask you the question again, Gene what would have to happen to make you happy and say, hey, we've got a chance here and we're doing some winning?
Speaker 1:Well, this is why I started down this line is I said that it'd be great if we actually got some of the things that Trump promised to do actually happened.
Speaker 2:Right. So, other than the Epstein list, what?
Speaker 1:Ukraine. Stop funding the war. Okay, what else? I mean? You can't undo bombing Iran, it's a done deal. Why are you so opposed to the actions he took against Iran? Because he ran on the. There were no conflicts. There were no wars when I was president.
Speaker 2:It's like the guy, but how is this any different than when he bombed syria?
Speaker 1:it's not that that was the same thing he didn't get into a broader war, and that was the concern well, it's always easy to justify something in retrospect that you did, because you can point to something that it that's positive, that you can associate that led to I don't know.
Speaker 2:But as long as this doesn't draw us in, and this is all we do, this is a meh thing. No, it's not the greatest thing he's ever done, not what he should have necessarily done, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, fair enough, but there are plenty of meh things that seem to stick around for many, many years, like the uh, the American spy ship that was attacked by Israel 40 years ago. That still is making the rounds. So I I'm just saying I think that there's a there and this is nothing new like we need this from trump's first term. He likes to talk big. Everything's black and white. Everything either is great and super or it's god-awful and horrible, and that's the stuff that we've seen him now flip-flop twice on musk. We've seen him do it initially when musk said I don't like this bill, musk talking about something that is a creation, really, of politicians the people that trump is supposedly there to drain out of the swamp. And now he got agreement on a bunch of things he wanted in there. So it's my big, beautiful bill now.
Speaker 1:But the problem is, exactly as Musk said, things are never big and beautiful. They're either thin and beautiful or they're big and ugly. So in this case we've got a bill full of pork that is being promoted as a great bill. It's going to blow up the budget even more than it already has been and, um, is this what Trump ran on? No, not at all. So I just want to see some things that he ran on, and that's that's why I I already brought one up ICE. I think that's the big success story. I think what's going on with ICE is exactly what people voted for. It's exactly what Trump promised. Okay, I just want like a few more of those.
Speaker 1:Okay, such as Well, I'd love to have the Epstein files come out, ben. I would love to have the stop paying for the war in Ukraine. I don't know do I need to repeat them multiple times, because I think I've said them more than a couple here right, but there has to be more that you would like to see happen.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm getting at abolish the ATF.
Speaker 1:That would be a great. That would be a great one cool cutting a few jobs here and there is better than nothing, for sure.
Speaker 1:But the problem is, who do you think is getting laid off the ATF? Is it the guys that really love working there and have been there for a long time and enjoy being ATF agents? Or is it going to be the guys that are either a year away from retirement, they're going to take early retirement, get an extra year for free of payment, and the guys that were just hired a year ago, because that's the two groups that are actually getting fired, laid off. It's not the guys that you and I instantly think of when we say ATF.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, we will see. Um speaking of some of this that you like, did you see the detention center in florida? That, uh? That trump is sending some of these migrants too.
Speaker 1:Nope didn't that it. It's like alligator traz or whatever oh, I heard about that, so they're building a new facility in the middle of the uh okie pinocchio swamp there yeah, yeah, that's very escape proof.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like go ahead and try. Yeah, offense needed it.
Speaker 1:It's uh, I think that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:I don't see why there aren't more prisons on man-made islands uh-huh like hawaii could be one well you don't turn paradise into a prison.
Speaker 1:Paradise, please, what it's far from paradise.
Speaker 2:You don't think Hawaii's paradise? No, no, why not?
Speaker 1:I'm not a fan of Hawaii, really, no, no, I'll take the Caribbean any day. Much better water, better, more civilized islands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I definitely enjoyed Cancun. That was a lot of fun. Man, definitely be going back. I sure will. Yep, there's a difference between a timeshare and a vacation club, my friend. Yeah, it's the difference of semantics, you're absolutely right, oh, my friend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the difference of semantics. You're absolutely right, oh my god.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm in a bit of an argumentative mood. In case you haven't heard, you sure are, I'll tell you later.
Speaker 1:Pissy mood. I've been dealing with a lot of lawyers.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry. It's alright. I mean we just gotta get on board with Shakespeare.
Speaker 1:Shakespeare, oh, to send them all to the no Shakespeare in.
Speaker 2:I think it was King Lear first. Kill all the lawyers yeah what's the next topic you'd like to cover, since this is?
Speaker 1:well I've I can do a quick review of the xreal uh glasses okay so these are.
Speaker 1:I don't like calling them 3d glasses because they're not made for that, but we've talked about these before. These are basically. They look like ray-ban type sunglasses. They have little tiny miniature monitors in them and you can view a video on them or play a computer game or, you know, plug into your phone and watch youtube videos, whatever. Um, so they're. They essentially plug into anything with usbc and uh can show video and audio. And I've had this set for like. I had a set of these for two years. Um, I bought them originally for using on on airplane flights so that I can watch a much larger format movie while I'm on the airplane, and since then I've actually used them quite a bit for other things as well around the house. The resolution's really good, they're 1080p.
Speaker 2:They. It doesn't seem very good but depending on the actual size.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, 1080p is decent enough for most things, it's it. It's not the high end of what we have available, for sure, yeah, but if you're looking at a excel spreadsheet, it's pretty good. Uh, even watching most youtube videos, you're not going to notice any difference. In fact. Fact, if you watch a YouTube video on anything other than the computer, you're probably watching a 1080p version of it. Okay, so you know, compare this to just using a phone or a tablet, not versus computer. So they're pretty good for that.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest negatives of these, since they're not 3D glasses, is that the image that you see, it moves along with your head. So you could say that's good, because no matter where you put your head or how you turn your head or whatever, you're still seeing the full screen. But for some people it's a little disoriented to where your head moves, but the image doesn't. You got mixed signals from your eyes and your inner ear, and then for other people, it's just the idea that if, if you're um, uh, if you're moving your head, it might be because you're trying to look at or read something not on the glasses, and so they. They just came out with a new model and I, of course, I had to test this and the new model. There's actually two glasses in the new series, and it's the X-real one and the xreal one pro and how much are they though?
Speaker 1:uh, so the the pair that I had for two years is 299, which is why they're not, like you know, competing against gaming 3d stuff, which is way more expensive. Um, these are 4.99 and 5.99, the, the pro versus the non-pro, so 500 bucks basically okay. What they added, though, is pretty damn significant ridiculous what just seems pretty expensive well, I mean, what they do is pretty unique.
Speaker 1:I mean you're, you're the only other way you're going to get. This is like with a three and a half thousand dollar Apple glasses, okay, or, you know, maybe like the the VR glasses from when they come, but those are, all you know, safe from the about the same price point, from about 600 bucks up to thousands, depending on how high a resolution you want. Um, and they're not practical for battery related reasons. So these these are the main reason I got my original set was because they just plug into your phone. There's no separate battery. It just plugs into your phone. There's no separate battery. It just plugs into the phone. Use your phone's battery and it only drops your battery life by about 20%.
Speaker 2:Well, that's significant.
Speaker 1:Yes, but it's pretty damn good, and you can charge the phone while you're watching it if you wanted to, so you could not drop anything at all if you're stationary like an airplane. So, anyway, what does the new set do that the old one doesn't? Well, the new set is it has a. What do you call those things? The thing that measures movement? What do you call those things, the thing that measures movement? Damn, I'm blanking out the name for that thing. You know what I'm talking about, right?
Speaker 2:That measures movement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, accelerometer. Okay, so it's got an accelerometer, a very, very precise one, and so one of the new modes that the glasses have is a stationary image mode, to where, if you move your head, your image stays floating over the same exact spot, but you're just going to sort of move face away from the image if you keep turning your head. You know it lets you view a portion of the image if you want to just kind of not see the whole thing by moving your head down or up or sideways or whatever. Um, so that's a really cool feature it by stabilizing and having that not move.
Speaker 1:I think it also makes it a little easier to use this for reading than the previous generation, which always just moved with your head, which you would think would actually be good because you know there's no need for your eyeballs to move if the image isn't moving relative to your head, to your head. But again, there's a certain disconnect between what your eyes are showing you and between what your inner ear is sensing. That makes it actually harder. So with these glasses I found that it's actually more comfortable to read things on screen because your head is rarely ever perfectly stationary. You've got little micro movements that your head's doing all the time. This is true for everybody, everybody. Just kind of pay attention and you'll see what I mean um you're.
Speaker 1:You're constantly moving constantly yeah people, people don't realize it, but you're never really sitting still right, like it's actually difficult to try and keep your head from moving completely, so that new mode is very useful. They also added a uh side view mode, which kind of takes and squeezes the image into the upper corner of the screen. So you could be, as an example, you could be sitting there watching a documentary or a love story movie with your significant other and catching a football game in the corner of your eye and so that's useful.
Speaker 1:Um, or maybe looking at your computer screen, you know, while in the corner, while still seeing everything in front of you.
Speaker 1:Perfectly fine, the the other thing that comes along with having that ability having the accelerometer in there is they now have what's called a widescreen mode, which gives you a 4K width by normal 1080p height screen a virtual screen, if you will. That requires you to slightly turn your head left or right to be able to intake the whole thing, and that mode can be used for watching widescreen movies more the way that you would in a real theater, to where you're just slightly turning your head. At home and on most TVs, you can see the entire screen without moving your head or without moving your eyeballs. In a movie theater, and certainly the closer you sit, the more this becomes a thing you start to have to move your head around to look at the different parts of the screen. So with that in mind, these glasses create a virtual way for you to do that so effectively, creating a screen that is wider than the size of the glass is able to display.
Speaker 2:Right, and then you can track over it but how often? How much? How often are you using these? Because I imagine them sitting on your face and being right there would be pretty tiring to your eyes they're very light again.
Speaker 1:This is a difference why these versus like traditional gaming vr goggles. These literally weigh. They probably weigh the weight of two pairs of sunglasses. They're really not tiring. They're very comfy. I had them on for a five-hour flight on the way there and another five-hour flight on the way back just two weeks ago. So you know perfectly fine for that and that certainly drained my phone battery, but it didn't kill my phone battery watching but through the glasses for five hours the other problem there that I see is there's.
Speaker 1:Also, since you only have the one usbc port, there's no way to charge your battery either well, no, that's true, and that's why most people just buy an adapter right away that lets you. You know, it basically gives you a one plug out of the phone with two usbcs, one for charging and one for the glasses. Yeah, so you, you can definitely do that. Uh, and I have the adapter, but I didn't actually use it because I think my battery just dropped to like 45 and so I still had plenty left to go pick up the rental car and stuff wasn't concerned about it. Um, again, I don't want to minimize and say it doesn't lower your battery. It certainly does. It's just not drastically lowering your battery. And you don't have to plug them in the phone. You can like. If I plug them into the laptop, it essentially creates a second virtual screen.
Speaker 1:Right, it's a display it's a display and it, um, because of this, like in the previous version, it wouldn't be super useful because that screen is just always there, right? So you'd have to kind of be looking under the glasses to view the main laptop screen. With this new version and being able to lock in the virtual screen to just sort of float in a certain spot, and then, um, you know, I mean, it's um, it's a very, I think, evolutionary handy thing to have. Price really should be closer to $299 that the current last generation is selling at. But I think they're super handy for what they do.
Speaker 1:And then the last thing they they can do is they can do 3d, full-on 3d as well, um, by a method that a lot of both video games and videos use, which is doing two, so left frame and right frame of a stereo movie, each one being 1080p, which is essentially creating one wide 4k wide by 1080p image, with, you know, the split down the middle.
Speaker 1:So they can act that way to where, essentially, each eye only gets that one particular side of that wide frame, which allows you to use them for 3d stuff again being much smaller, lighter, etc.
Speaker 2:Than full-on vr glasses well, and you know the the way tvs. I don't know if you remember all the tvs that had 3d modes, yeah, but they were. Basically it would cut your frame rate down right because basically they were shifting in the polarization. They're just blinking on the glasses right which is what which.
Speaker 1:This is much better because they're. It doesn't change the frame rate, that stays the same. It's just basically taking a wider image and cutting it in half down the middle, with each eye getting half the image.
Speaker 2:What do you think about the? Uh new democrat uh well hold on before we jump to that before we jump to that.
Speaker 1:So I still have my old glasses. I've got the two sets of the new ones, the pro and the non-pro.
Speaker 2:I'm actually returning the pro give me one.
Speaker 1:I'm returning the pro because I, I, uh, I I tested it. The pro gives you a wider angle of view so you can see more, but I think it's actually less. It's worse for reading text. So I'm keeping the non-pro version of them, but I still have my old one. So I'm gonna be getting rid of that, probably on ebay, unless somebody wants to ping me and let me know they're interested and I'll, I'll sell it for 200 bucks, and for 200 bucks this is a a steal for something that's probably been used about 10 times, mostly on the airplanes.
Speaker 2:See, that shows how useful it is.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not for poor people, Ben. No, I'm saying your use of it for only 10 times, right, so it's got to be somebody that, for whom using it on an airplane 10 times is worth 200 bucks, yeah, so, and I mean, look, if you're playing video games, you can certainly use it as well. I, I did that, but I didn't do it a whole lot.
Speaker 2:Which, by the way, thank you for sending me a video game.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I sent you another.
Speaker 2:I think this is the fifth or sixth one I bought for you now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've gotten me a few video games now.
Speaker 2:And and.
Speaker 1:I haven't even accepted it yet. No, god damn it, hurry up. And I haven't even accepted it yet. No, god damn it hurry up.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you know, it's an old Far Cry game, man.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, it's the good Far Cry game, yep.
Speaker 2:Okay. I don't know why it has to be the good one. What's wrong with all the others?
Speaker 1:It's the one that all the music's from that I like to play. Yes.
Speaker 2:I know, I'm aware. That's why it's good.
Speaker 1:Other people may not be. So this was Far Cry 5, which is the one that takes place up in Idaho, where Ben used to live, on the area of the countries where they you know, they don't like the federal government, and I was very apprehensive what this game was going to be like. And when it came out and I played it, I was like holy shit. I don't think they realized what they just did, because they, effectively, they created a game where the main villain is actually the anti-hero. Okay, and um, you know, you slowly start to both realize the good and the bad of the people that you're supposed to be with. So that's, that's one thing.
Speaker 1:But probably the biggest aspect of that game was the music. Since it takes place in the U? S was all American and the songs were just absolutely beautiful. You know, I, I'm, I'm very tempted to just play some of that music, because our audience is so damn small that I don't think anyone really cares if we, you give darren so much sharing plays like 50 hours of stone music a week and he the end to a much bigger audience and he doesn't give a shit.
Speaker 1:I've I've resisted doing any commercial music to an audience of like five people. Oh, come on, we're bigger than all right, seven people. So it's a. It has absolutely awesome music. It's country music. There's some in there, but it's all sort of kind of tongue in cheek. It all depends on what perspective you have. If you're a liberal loony, it's all total racist Nazi music. If you're an actual intelligent person and you voted for Trump, it's actually really good music. And if you got a little bit of that kind of um, you know in time just coming kind of thing going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, rebellious, but also prepper. Um, that's definitely going to be jesus christ ben. When you first play the game, within the first 10 minutes, one of your missions is to go into an old prepper's cabin and then rate it and see what's available for you to grab.
Speaker 2:Okay, by the way, I'm trying to accept it right now.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Steam is being weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you may need to update Steam, but anyway, it's a good game and I gave it to ben because it's on sale right now. There's a whole bunch of games on sale right now, including a whole bunch of space games, and I posted that on x? Um. But there's also non-space games that are on sale, and when I talk about steam sales, it's not because it's like 20 off. It's usually like a 50 to 70 off kind of sales they're on right now. So if anyone's looking for any older games, not something that just came out this month, now's a good time for the 4th of July sale on Steam.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll have to figure out why it's not letting me accept the gift. But there you go.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, figure it out, because well worth it. And I believe just by installing the game you also get all the MP3s downloaded legally to your computer, for all the music as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I have Google Music, so I have them legally already.
Speaker 1:Are they on Google Music?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're on YouTube Music. They probably are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, they would be. So yeah, there you go. Happy July 4th. Where's my damn gift?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just assumed this was my birthday gift.
Speaker 1:And I've got a box for you. Yeah, I got a box for you too. I got a bunch of shit for you from years of not seeing you.
Speaker 2:now it hasn't been years, it's been like decades almost. Oh, my god, it has been less than a year.
Speaker 1:It'd been well. It'd been well for but one of these days.
Speaker 2:One of these days, we'll have a meetup well, we ought to uh have one soon, yeah, for sure maybe one in austin, or we could find an austin meetup and crash.
Speaker 1:We could do that. I should find out. I think I'm off that list because I haven't seen notice for an Austin one for a while. I used to get emails for that, but I may have not participated enough to have been dropped off the list.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who needs him?
Speaker 1:So I don't know. We'll see.
Speaker 2:We shall see.
Speaker 1:Seriously, where do I go to accept this? This is not so. Uh, I had to look this up for somebody else last time. Hang on, let me google that for you. How do I accept a?
Speaker 2:by the way, the picture of you on Steam is disturbing. Why? Because it's just not the gene I know.
Speaker 1:I know that's true. I have not updated that image in probably almost 20 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what do you think of the new NYC Democrat nominee for mayor?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, the socialist communist, whatever Muslim guy, Yep, I mean, he's a walking meme.
Speaker 2:In what way?
Speaker 1:He's a socialist Muslim guy. Mayor of New York.
Speaker 2:That's a meme right there. Okay.
Speaker 1:It's like who do you put in charge for a city that has had 40% of its businesses leave? I know A guy who wants to make your grocery stores be run by the state.
Speaker 2:Yeah, by the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I think he is definitely right there with the um. It's one of those things when we talk about let it burn, yep, it almost, almost, almost might work that we just let you know he gets elected and let it happen happen and I hate to see it because, you know, my niece lives there, but that's where she get out now it's her choice did you see where he was literally talking? He was literally talking about taxing white neighborhoods at a different rate for property taxes.
Speaker 1:Well, sure, why not?
Speaker 2:Why not?
Speaker 1:Why not Sure?
Speaker 2:Because it's not. I mean, this is not a good thing.
Speaker 1:Totally legal in Sharia.
Speaker 2:Sure, but not in the US.
Speaker 1:Equal protection and everything else, but Sharia kind of replaces that once it comes in the us equal protection and everything else but sharia kind of replaces that once it comes in. Okay, I mean in I. There's a video I posted on x day from the uk where there's a guy that walks into mcdonald's telling him that they have 48 hours to either shut down or start selling halal pork or not pork, halal meat.
Speaker 2:I didn't think there was any halal pork there.
Speaker 1:But halal meat is what I meant to say, and I'm not opposed to McDonald's having halal meat either, but the alternative is always threat of violence.
Speaker 2:Right or what?
Speaker 1:Or they're going to shut it down. They're going to shut the restaurant down.
Speaker 2:But how are they going to shut it down? Probably by putting a bomb inside of it or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in a way that'll be very expensive to reopen. So now you could say, oh, it's just one dude. You know, you can't, you can't think. What one crazy dude does I mean? Look at that guy that just shot up the fireman. He was clearly a mega guy, right, right I mean, I wouldn't think so, but no okay I don don't think he is, but that's what you're seeing in the media is like MAGA guy kills firemen.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And if you look at the picture of this guy I would not. Maga's not the first thing that comes to mind. I think angst-ridden youth comes to mind first. Parents are MAGA, which also means hates his parents wants to lash out against them. So this one doesn't appear to be trans, which is I'm not saying he's not.
Speaker 1:He may be, but the last batch have all been trans or you know, self-identifying is non-normal anyway and um so I guess we'll find out as time goes on. But yeah, it does appear that his parents were conservative. But immediately to the media, that means maga running around killing firemen.
Speaker 2:Okay, so back to New York. Do we let it all burn, or do? We hope that Cuomo or somebody can beat him in the actual general no, no, no, you've got to let it all burn.
Speaker 1:Dude, People don't learn their lessons unless it burns.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're in New York City, get out now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sell your house while it's still got some value.
Speaker 1:There's a I think there's some lessons to be learned about letting things get to a point where they have to burn, and those lessons don't end well for the people that stay.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, look at my wife so, speaking of history and so on, have you, have you uh, watched any of the fat electricians videos? Oh my god, dude, I have been binging them really like on some meaning they're really good.
Speaker 2:You know he tells a history, a brief history story of you know one tank commander or sub guy or whatever, um, all uS history from Revolution and forward, even some on the French and Indian Wars. Most of it's stuff I know, but in a lot of details that I didn't know, and told in a humorous way that I find extraordinarily entertaining.
Speaker 1:Interesting, okay, cool.
Speaker 2:I will have to check that out. Yeah, you, you should he's. He's pretty funny, um like, I've been watching the unsubscribed podcast more lately, so I know which one's that the unsubscribed podcast who's on there? The unsubscribed podcast. Who's?
Speaker 1:on there, brandon herrera. Oh right, the fat electrician donut operator right right, right, right. The uh, the only one I don't like in there is a donut operator I don't really like him either.
Speaker 2:No, like he, just he.
Speaker 1:He just screams and looks like a dick cop and he has that attitude yeah, I mean, I don't know what he ended up doing after he quit being a cop. I think he was only a cop for like three years. But either way I've talked about this a billion times that you know, cops aren't made, they're born. Uh, you, you have a certain personality type and it's very similar to the criminal personality type, but just slightly off. And those are the people that go to Police Academy. They're just a legalized gang. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think there's something about him. Even before I really knew any of his backstory, I kind of felt like there's something off about him a little bit.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, well, just saying, the Fat Electrician funny, good stuff.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:You ought to watch a couple of his.
Speaker 1:What have you been sending?
Speaker 2:me. You sent me some stuff, nothing that we need to talk about.
Speaker 1:Why do you send me stuff to look?
Speaker 2:at while we're recording them. Well, the one of them, the mr guns and gear post about the shootout and I think that's in el paso how about the uh, the one with the chick holding a cat? Oh, that's funny. That's funny. She got up there to save her cat and then when she gets jumped down, it's just human stupidity.
Speaker 1:Cats are okay with jumping themselves right, right, but there's a video I she gets hung up on the uh, on the uh cabinet, uh door handle and is then hanging there by herself okay, that that's bad, yeah, um, there's a video I watched, which was damn funny, of like a like a big hamster wheel, like cat size hamster wheel somebody has, and the cat's sitting in a non-moving hamster wheel and looking at the owner and going meow, meow and, uh, looking very like come and help me, and of course you know. And the chick comes over and starts spinning the wheel and the cat starts trotting along and making you know, happy sounds as he's trotting on the wheel and then after a couple of minutes the woman gets tired of spinning the wheel and so she stops and the wheel obviously I mean the cat's still kind of running, but not putting a whole lot of effort into it and the wheel slows down and stops and the cat looks at the woman and goes meow, meow, meow. You know, like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:you know, I, I think, uh, I think that you were going somewhere with this and I think you lost. I know I still.
Speaker 1:I remember I was just watching, watching your dumb video here, no and. And so you would think that's the end of it, right? You would think it's like well, okay, so cat is just, it can't do the wheel thing by itself, it's gotta have a human it yeah, it's wait, then the the video switches over to their uh like indoor baby cam at night. So it's dark, right? So you're seeing uh infrared cameras to black and white.
Speaker 1:This fucking cat jumps into this wheel and starts doing like 60 miles an hour in the middle of the night, just like going crazy wait till that starts squeaking like full speed gallop now, the point of the video being not that, oh, this, this, this cat is so reliant on this human, isn't that cute point of the video is the fucking asshole cat that is perfectly capable of using this wheel by itself, as it does at night when the humans are sleeping, but when the humans are around, it's like meow, meow. Help me, I can't do this. You all know the type of personality that is.
Speaker 2:And what type of personality is that? Well, it's the type of personality that is. What type of personality is that?
Speaker 1:Well, it's that personality that, basically, will just take advantage of anything that they can take advantage of, even though they're fully capable of doing it themselves. We all know somebody like that.
Speaker 2:Who.
Speaker 1:I don't know, you probably know different people than me. My point is everybody has somebody in their life like that.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, probably no different people than me.
Speaker 1:My point is everybody has somebody in their life like that, somebody that's always ready to get help, that's always waiting with a handout, and you know if there's nobody around? Somehow, magically, they all managed to get shit done.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That was a funny story if you say so well, maybe you have to see the video I I reposted it on x it was pretty funny uh, so now I have to go find. Uh, you don't have to find it but no, look, my cat videos on x are limited to about 10 a day.
Speaker 2:It's not that hard to find but you're most russian man of the world oh yeah, you saw that one yes, uh, but you don't drink enough vodka. So you know, I don't, I fail I fail.
Speaker 1:As the most russian man these days, I don't drink. I don't really do squat sitting. Um, I mean, I do wear tracksuits but uh, you do, I don't smoke. Um, I mean, I do wear tracksuits but, uh, you do, I don't smoke. So but the guy that's cranking out those videos is on freaking fire right now because I think I almost said yeah, I, I saw the most canadian man and yeah, I almost sent it to a guy I know in quebec.
Speaker 2:But oh, you should, you should you totally should.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is very, very, it's what's the word. It makes fun of Canadians a lot. I mean it makes fun of everybody, Like the most Jewish. Jewish man was pretty funny too. Every stereotype you can throw in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm waiting to see the most Texan man.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Well, you know there's going to be some bestiality involved in that one. Why you know what's from texas no we're here, baby, we're here. This is not a complimentary video series. This is like an insult video series.
Speaker 2:Yes, I understand people enjoy watching.
Speaker 1:Don't be expecting him to be all like pro texan and shit if he does one I understand I understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know it's funny because I think twitter's listening to us because, as I, as we're having this conversation, there's literally a picture uh, that's a fake poll. It says what's more gay, being gay, or uh, and I, when I first read this, I thought it said texas, but it says taxes so at least, there's that yeah anyway man I don't know. I think the this mayor is. I mean, he's literally proposing some shame shit that south africa is doing the white farmers type stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But do you really feel that sorry for the New Yorkers? A little bit I feel sorry for the South Africans.
Speaker 2:I do too. I hope some of them come over here. It'd be great.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Alright, so, since you don't really want to talk about that topic and we bounced a bit, what, uh? What do you want to? What do you want to go to next?
Speaker 1:I? I brought up like three of my topics what, what else? What did you want to talk that I don't want to talk about?
Speaker 2:well, there were just a couple things I was you know bringing up and trying to talk about that.
Speaker 1:We kind of I wasn't shooting them down. I was just saying let me finish my main topic that I'm talking about here. That's all, but we'll go back. We go back no, that's fine.
Speaker 2:What do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1:I'm I'm trying to finish my damn lunch. Dude, you, you talk. How are you still trying to finish your? Damn I'm trying to do like one bite every five minutes. That's how I still have food left. It's Vietnamese.
Speaker 2:Is it at least good food.
Speaker 1:No, it's Vietnamese vermicelli with like it's leftover it's from yesterday with like shrimp and chicken and beef and all kinds of mix of stuff.
Speaker 2:So why isn't it good?
Speaker 1:It's carbs, mostly carbs. It tastes good. I mean, it's not good. It'd be better if I was eating beef jerky, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, so what's your take on all major corporations having not done the Pride Month thing this year? That's pretty good, that's a win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a win. There's a lesbian chick that I follow on X who I like, so I can't remember Her's jamie, something or other, but she's the, the founder of uh gaze against groomers groomers yeah that one and um, she was.
Speaker 1:She's saying that you know it's the best pride Month ever because everyone's ignoring it. Much like being against groomers, she's also against public indecency and all the shit shows that Pride Month had turned into. I think that there's a companies, partly due to the overwhelming support in the election of Trump, but I think companies generally tend to run with like their finger in the air to measure which way the wind's blowing, and this year, versus the previous couple of years, they've measured the wind blowing the opposite direction, and so a lot of businesses that kind of took for granted that we're going to spend money on pride month. We got to get those gay consumers in, you know, because they all love pride months. Uh, I think they're starting to realize that you know we're not getting any return for this investment and we may actually be hurting ourselves kind of like.
Speaker 1:Target did with their whole.
Speaker 2:I am surprised more companies haven't been sued over fiduciary responsibility quite frankly, that's a tough lawsuit to do.
Speaker 1:Man it's.
Speaker 2:Yes, I generally Bud Light should have been sued Like that was egregious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they can always say that you know, this was a one percent of our marketing budgets. This was specifically targeting a demographic that we always historically spend one percent of our money on. Like they could have done a thing to minimize what they did consciously, and just say, look, it got blown out of proportion because it went viral. And viral is always good. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad. Viral ends up bringing more people to watch your ad. So we actually saw a huge uptick in our advertising that year without having a large uptick in spend. Now, it wasn't necessarily complimentary, but in the end, what people are going to remember isn't the specifics of the ads. What they're going to remember is the brand, and they could probably demonstrate now, with the sales of their beer being totally back to normal, that it was all a bunch of nothing.
Speaker 2:I don't think their beer sales have recovered.
Speaker 1:Really I thought they did I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I'm just glad we're out of that and now into MAGA month.
Speaker 1:Well, July is White, American or White People Month, I think White People's History Month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, according to what's his name, the black guy. Yeah, you sent me the video.
Speaker 1:He's hilarious, he really is.
Speaker 2:Who is that Jesse?
Speaker 1:Jesse Waters.
Speaker 2:Jesse Waters is on Fox News.
Speaker 1:Oh, different Jesse. Yeah, jesse, waters is on fox news.
Speaker 2:Oh, different, jesse. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't have signal open on this computer at the time, so I can't see it jesse something or other but, yeah, he's uh, you've seen him, everybody's seen him.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you're listening to us you probably have seen him. He's kind of talks a little hick, a Little backwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's from Mississippi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's from like somewhere down there, but he's had a show forever and I've watched this show forever and he has guests on. He has white people, people, black people, all kinds of people. But his general premise is that black people are way overvaluing their contributions on every front and they need a little more humble. And white people need to stop acting like they're doing something wrong and actually own all the goodness that you've got. So black people quite often, I think as well. Certainly some black people would describe him as a self-hating black man or an uncle tom, but he's actually uncle jesse yeah, which is what he would be called by most of the black community yeah, but he's uh, honestly, I think he's more representative of the black demographic, demographic of guys in their 60s and 70s who actually remember that we got to a point where color didn't matter.
Speaker 1:Remember that we, you know, we were more concerned about the difference between men and women than we were between black men and white men. We were there, and then it started rolling back downhill in the 90s I think it's gonna return.
Speaker 2:There's gonna be a return to tribalism, yeah, like it just has to, and I I think stuff like the new york mayor will just expedite that well, I can't argue that and I think that you know, just like I think there's going to be a big backlash against feminism, um, that is building and is coming, and you know there's one of two ways that goes. So, as society collapses and there are fewer and fewer jobs, men are going to get the majority of the jobs, because men work harder, do more things. You know, there's there the there is no pay gap, um, in effort. There's pay gap in capability, um, so men are going to get the jobs, women are not. Women are now gonna not be able to be that boss bitch and be able to be independent, and then they're gonna have to find a man with a job for survival.
Speaker 1:And you know, we that that that's the even they're not gonna have to wear red clothes and that's the only non-violent path that this takes, but with the number of men under 30 that are virgins increasing.
Speaker 2:When we look at, you know, women, women not seeing value in men anymore at all and men not getting sex except a few, a few of the top very good looking guys, right, because of the app culture and everything else, that could end up in a very violent revolution very quickly. Yeah, and then yes, you could end up in a very violent revolution very quickly, yeah, and then, yes, you could end up with the red dresses and everything else. Harrison Bergeron what do you mean, harrison to Bergeron?
Speaker 1:Well, Harrison Bergeron, the story from Kurt Vonnegut.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you know, whatever abilities you have, you have to cover up, and if they're not just cover-up-able, you actually have to be artificially disabled.
Speaker 2:I see I was doing more Handmaid's Tale, but oh yeah, Backlash.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah. No, I get the backlash part, but I think that there's a. But I think that there's a. The bit that still exists, although with lower testosterone. I'm not sure that it exists in as great a difference as it used to between men and women is in physical ability and in decision-making ability.
Speaker 1:These are both affected by hormones and for jobs that require either one of those two things. Men are going to be way more qualified than women are. Not say that there isn't going to be that one woman out of a you know, 10, 000 or whatever that is more qualified than a lot of men, not to say that there's going to be that guy who is less qualified. That Right.
Speaker 1:But I'm saying on the aggregate on the aggregate certain things are better and easier for men and certain other things are better and easier for him. Like, I don't like the trend in having a bunch of guys as flight attendants I like that when we had stewardesses.
Speaker 2:Well, I, I, yeah, it's there and they're rude, you know because they're guys yeah yeah, exactly, exactly yeah, screw that. Oh, by the way, when we were leaving the iah there was a jet there that was painted in the continental colors, all right, like it had a continental paint job and it's. It's a new enough jet that there's no way that that's original pain so continental did get bought by somebody.
Speaker 1:This is a while united. No, no, no, um wait, do you mean continental or eastern? Continental and united merged yeah, yeah, oh, you mean, you saw a jet that was like the old canada jets.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, okay, okay, okay I'll send you a picture, but it was like what the hell? It caught my eye, so I don't know if they're doing something special or what like.
Speaker 1:I don't know no, I, I was thinking of not eastern either. It's what? What's the old airline company that used to be like the biggest one? Uh, what are they called? Shit. You know what I'm talking about. And it's not eastern, it's not twa. They don't exist anymore.
Speaker 2:Um like here there you go, take a look let's see.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got a picture of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, see, it's got the old continental airlines paint job like really retro yeah, I don't know what United's doing with that.
Speaker 1:I thought that was weird, huh um, I don't know what United's doing with that. I thought that was weird, huh, um.
Speaker 2:Hmm, anyway, yeah, all right, gene. Well, I think we've covered pretty much everything important in the world. Oh, except for one thing we got a big donation Ah yeah to a PayPal thing we got a big donation, ah yeah, to a PayPal account where I will never see it.
Speaker 1:To a PayPal account. You'll see it someday maybe. If we ever meet up. Uh-huh, but um no, I told you to remind me.
Speaker 2:Well, yes.
Speaker 1:And you failed.
Speaker 2:You're now reminded Of what you need to talk about the big donation, this is the largest single donation we've gotten.
Speaker 1:I think it actually is. Yeah, who gave it?
Speaker 2:Huh.
Speaker 1:Who gave the donation? I don't know.
Speaker 2:You were the one who got the donation. God damn it. Okay, hold on.
Speaker 1:I have to log into my.
Speaker 2:PayPal. You're the one who got the donation to you.
Speaker 1:I did, I did and I had to you, I did, I did and I had to ask. I had to clarify what the hell is this for, because I wasn't sure what he was sending money.
Speaker 2:It's uh, sir, howitzer, howitzer that's right.
Speaker 1:Good, good you found it. Yeah so, mr howitzer, thank you appreciate that. Um, he did mention, when I asked, that it was specifically for this podcast, not my own one because he has donated to the other one before. Cool. So yeah, I think it is the biggest. It's $100 donation in one chunk, as it were, and certainly there are people that have donated over $100 to us, but they're doing it on a monthly basis for many months and we appreciate those guys as well.
Speaker 1:I mean, that helps to cover all the costs of actually hosting a podcast. And in fact, I just got a credit card uh, expired notice uh, from buzzsprout. I need to go update my credit card. But um, yeah, uh, thank you, sir, and uh, you know how to get a hold of us. And also I'll point out that you sent the money to the wrong PayPal, because the PayPal that's actually listed in the podcast goes to a different PayPal where I would have known it was coming for this podcast. But nonetheless, money is appreciated.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the other thing I would say is I did a donation to Nudge in 1776, and Adam read the note and I reminded everyone to listen to just Two Little Boys.
Speaker 1:Two Little Boys.
Speaker 2:Two Good Old Boys.
Speaker 1:I thought you said and Adam said to listen to Two Little Boys, that would have been a great donate. Yeah, that would have been Wrong name, damn it.
Speaker 2:Hey, I need to make good. Hey, I need to make good I need to make good, exactly no the 1776 show.
Speaker 1:They had a pretty decent showing, but uh 1777, not so much well, that's, that's normal typical yeah anytime there's a show that generates a lot of donations uh, this has been true since they started the show. Right after that, usually very little, and I think that's because everyone that's been kind of semi thinking about doing it, that that that's the trigger. Is some round number or whatever it triggers people. Oh yeah, yeah, I should do that right now and then obviously, they're not going to do it every every show at all yeah, well, whatever we uh did or said, sir howard, sir that made you donate to us, let us know so I'm sure it was something funny yeah, uh, probably me falling asleep well, it could have been.
Speaker 1:That's true. That's true, all right guys. Uh, thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next one.
Speaker 2:Later.