¶ Weekend Socializing and Activities
Well , good evening my friends . How are you tonight ? We are doing fantastic . I'm technically assuming that we're both doing fantastic . I know I'm doing fantastic . Are you doing fantastic , clay ?
Yeah , always I'm bright , I'm breathing and nobody's shooting at me . So yeah , I'm good .
Any day like that is a good day , right , always a good day . All right , good , we're going to get the intro out of the way and then we're going to chitchat . Ok , well then , what's up , my friend ? What have you been up to ? Anything exciting ?
You know , mostly quiet weekend here in Eastern PA , Not a whole lot going on . It's a little bit of crazy weather kind of move through A lot of windy , a lot of cold . You know it's stuff that just keeps you inside . It did enjoy the federal holiday on Monday . That was very nice . You know local to me , you know the barbershop right , atmosphere right .
It's kind of very similar to the beauty shop atmosphere , I guess . Sure , I have a local gun store that has a very like counter , bar stools , go in there guys , go in shoot the breeze kind of thing . And I spent probably a couple of hours yesterday at a place called Shoot Angry , incorporated Shoot Angry Inc . Right around the corner of my house .
Yeah , great little place , great gun shop , good people , and spent a lot of time , you know , just in there kind of shooting the shit , I guess . But it's great it is . It's one of those , you know I'm not a drinker anymore , so it's not like I go to the bar and hang out with the bartender or whatever , but , yeah , shoot Angry .
Right around the corner from my house is a great place that I just kind of go and hang out with the guys and talk shooting and guns and world events and all that good stuff .
That's so cool . It's like , instead of like the coffee shop or whatever , or the barbershop , like I said you guys , that's a better , I don't know . To me that's like an even more fun place to hang out .
Yeah , it's , you know people you know because it's a retail place like anything else . People come in and out , you know , and they join in the conversation and then they fade out of the conversation and so you spend a couple hours down there and you get a handful of people to pass through . It's a lot of fun , that's awesome .
I love it . I did not do what I normally do during this time of year .
I you know , as I've probably mentioned a thousand times , I hate the winter , when , when , when , and I I hibernate as much as possible , like during the week I barely leave the house , like there's been days where the truck hasn't moved for you know two days , three days even , and it's I make like a contest of it , like how many days can I go without leaving
the house ? You know my husband's like this is a problem . It's probably not normal , but I do . I guys don't , don't worry , I do leave the house .
I'm not a .
you're a shudder , elsa I have a shudder , I have like that little little bitty and I got my my little house code on . All I need is like 20 cats and I'm all set , right . Oh , but this weekend we were out every night . You know , we're , we're at that like stage of life .
I don't know if it's an age thing , I don't know what it is , but if we go out like normally , if we go out on , say , friday night , we act like that , that's it . Okay . Well , we've been out . I mean , we did it , we went out . We're not going out again . We're like we just got to recover from that and it's not like we go crazy or anything .
We go out to dinner , we have a nice dinner , we maybe go see a band or something . But you know , then after that we're like , oh well , we went out Friday , so we're good . And then , if we have plans any of the other days , we were so mad about it and we're like , oh , why do we have plans ? This is terrible , and but they were all great plans .
Now I'm I'm panicking a little bit , because people that we were out with are probably like , wow , that's really nice , really nice .
So taxing , so taxing .
Right , like oh , I'm sorry we're such a burden to you . Yeah , but you know it's bad , because I'm not used to . I'm not used to socializing as as much as as we did and , honest to God , it was so much fun . But you know , sunday after church well , no , sunday , we were busy too . So it was Friday night .
We went out Saturday Do we catch her in the day ? I don't know , it's all blur now , but Friday , saturday and Sunday we were out every day like just young party animals we were , and even closing places down . We were out until midnight . It was crazy .
You know it is . It is a little bit of the of the age thing , right . I mean , you know we talked about it last week . You know , a couple of weeks ago I was out , you know , down in Florida jumping out of an airplane and it's a super social atmosphere . I'm you know it's all veterans , but you know it's one of those early days that ends early , right .
So you know , I'm up at 430 , get dressed , you know , get some food in the belly , that kind of thing , and then and then get there and we go through all of our prep and all that stuff . And then , you know , you jump in and you're done by like you're on the ground and everything's kosher by like nine o'clock , nine , 30 . Wow .
And then we're back and we kind of , you know , shake out parachutes and we , you know , we pack them up and we put them away and you know you rolling into lunchtime and early lunch , you know , and we kind of hang around and shoot the breeze and everybody talks about the jump and you know just comradery and all that stuff , and you get done about 30 or so
and by that time I'm like I need a nap . I am done for the rest of the day Like I , you know , back in the old days , I hate to
¶ Political Oppression and Assassination Attempts
say this . Not that long ago I jumped out of a plane and that was like first activity of a two week training exercise . Wow , it's for two weeks after that . Now I do it . Okay , I gotta go lay down Like I'm .
No , you need a nap . Yeah , oh yeah . I don't know . There's something about I used to like be so resistant to to naps , like I thought it was like oh my God , how could you sleep during the day ? That sounds horrible . That's like you're wasting your life . Now I'm like you mean , I can take a nap right now .
Oh my God , like the excitement is like if somebody says I have a million dollars for you , here it is , and that's how I feel about you know , realizing that I could actually take a nap . Oh it's .
I don't know if it's sad or good but it is drifting back into being toddlers like oh , it's nap , it's not . Yeah , okay , nap time , yeah .
Yes , oh my God , those little stinkers don't know how good they have it . I mean , you get a nap and cookies , like come on . What is better than that ? I pass on the animal crackers there's never a fan of those . But you give me a cookie . I'm a happy girl .
Nap in a cookie . Elsa can be bought for a nap and a cookie .
So simple , so simple . Yeah , I'm like , yeah , no , that's , that's right up my alley Food . I'm very food driven . I'm like , you know , like a dog in training . How do you train your dog ? How do you train your Elsa ? I , just you just offer her food and she's just you know she'll do whatever . Yeah , treat so sad .
Anybody want to treat , do it for a treat , yeah .
Yeah , it's sad . I should be embarrassed by it , but it is what it is , man , I'm cool for that . Oh , oh , my goodness , all right , anybody watching is sitting here going . Are they going to ? Are they going to get on with the show ? Are they going to ? They're just going to sit and talk about themselves all day . Come on , you guys love it .
I don't know if you do or not , but if you do , let us know . We can talk about ourselves all day . Why not ? Not really , we can talk about each other .
That we could probably do Right .
That would work . That would be good . Let's see . So what are we talking about today ? Where are my little banners ? Oh , okay , so , yeah , so let's start off with Alexi . I'm not going to say it right , it's Navalny .
Navalny , navalny , I can't see now .
Yeah , I said it like five times before and I said it perfectly , and all of a sudden , now , when it counts , I've just froze . That's sad . I'm glad you got it though .
I think it's Navalny . You're right , it is For those . You know , everybody knows I think it was in the headlines all over the place health has been failing . But to go backwards in time , you know he was a opposition leader to Putin , an act political activist , blogger , lawyer , among other things . You know he got , I think it was 2020 . He got poisoned .
Yes , yeah , big , big surprise . There , right Right , he got poisoned , almost died and then went to . I think they moved him , they got him out and got him to Germany .
He got him to Germany ?
Yes , and then for some , I mean , you want to talk about a guy who's dedicated to trying to improve his country . He turned around and went back to Russia .
Right back and , of course , got arrested .
Got arrested and he's basically been in jail . Been in jail since then and yeah , here's a picture Right From there , yep .
Yeah , and yeah , I agree with you . I mean , that's pretty amazing , like to you just been poisoned . You've just recovered from getting poisoned and you're going to go right back , right back into the thick of it . It's , yeah , dedication or crazy , a little bit of both .
I'm going to go with dedication , though , you know passion and for the cause that he believed in in the country that he loves and loved . And very sad , sad for his family , sad for everyone . And yeah , I'm looking at his , I'm looking at the all the info now is 40 , he was 47 years old . Yeah , so how long was he actually in prison when Sony came back ?
Was that 2021 ? Is that right ?
Yeah , I think it was 2021 . So he got poisoned in 2020 , rapid health decline , almost died , got him out , went to Germany , got treated in Germany . That was a pretty long recovery and then , I think , yes , somewhere in 2021 , he returned to Russia and then immediately back in .
So he's been in prison for three , three plus years or three ish years , and you know everybody , you know the term of Russian prison , right , or you know the Siberia kind of a thing . I mean , that's essentially what happened to this guy and it's you know , it's no secret . I don't even know if Putin's ever really denied that .
You know his people were behind at the KGB or whatever the KGB is now , but but I mean , it's , it's not a secret . I don't think anybody , I don't think anybody in the world believes that it wasn't . You know , the Russian state responsible for this entire thing and it was the removal of a political opponent .
Yes , hmm .
It sounds strangely familiar , right .
Hmm .
Yeah , and and by , you know , okay , so the poisoning failed . And listen , you know the United States is , you know we , we tried to , we tried to kill Castro with exploding cigars . Right , we're not a bunch of people like this , we haven't been .
But but you know , the poisoning failed , you know , and for whatever reason , he decided to give them another opportunity and and they arrested him , as you know , shortly after he got back to Russia . So , political opposition out of the way in jail , right . Right , assassination attempt failed and then they just put him in prison .
Hmm , yes , Gee , I wonder there's somewhere else . I can't think of where it is that they're trying to put their political opponent in prison . I just I can't think of , I can't think of where that's happening . It can't be , can't be anywhere that we would live in . That wouldn't happen , right .
And let's be fair . Right , there is . There's one candidate who's got 91 counts against him and we're going to talk more about some of that here shortly . Yes , but let's be fair and honest both sides of the aisle , like President Biden's , under some pretty serious scrutiny right now , right .
His brother .
His brother paid him $200,000 after taking a $600,000 payment for some , you know , out of the country , medical something or something . They were trying to court a , I think , company out of Saudi Arabia . So that's being investigated . You know , obviously you've got all the Hunter stuff , you've got the Ukraine stuff , you got the China stuff , it's all .
So we've got . No , we have a lot of room to talk about jailing political opposition , because it seems to be going on just about everywhere .
Yeah , I , you know , am I crazy to think that this is a relatively new , new as in 2016 ? I mean , were they doing this before to each other , everybody trying to get each other in prison ? I mean Clinton , I guess ? Well , oh , nixon , well , okay , all right . Well , yes , this has been going on for a long time .
Yes , that does seem to be the answer , right .
I mean they were legitimate things .
I'm not saying that they were , you know , inconsequential or trivial or silly or anything like that , but yeah , I guess that is part of the whole political game .
Well , and then , depending on what conspiracy theory you , you know prescribed to , you've got Kennedy even before that they got him out of the way right .
Yes , that's right . That's probably that might be the biggest one , right ?
Right . So again , we're not , we're not above any of this , but this is being played out on an international stage , under an international lens , and there's very little denial going on . You know it's . You can't believe it's a coincidence that he got poisoned , he got cured and then he got put in jail and then he just stayed there until he died .
Like that's not , you know .
Yeah , so the official word was that he I don't know , he just came back from a walk and he was , and then he was unconscious , and then I don't know , I guess he just died . Like that was basically the official word from the prison officials . Right , the gist of what happened he went for a walk , came back and was unconscious and that was it .
This guy's 47 years old , you know , I mean certainly probably , given the conditions he was probably in , he was probably not in the best of health , you know . So could he have died of natural unnatural causes or natural causes caused by unnatural circumstances ? Certainly possible , but it's a little bit inconceivable , right ?
Hey Epstein hung himself . So I mean there's that , you know so you know removal of political opponents while in jail or political threats while in prison , also not above . You know potential within the United States . So we're not .
You know you can make as many comparisons and parallels as you want with this thing because you know all over the media people , oh Putin is horrible and this and that and they , you know , and yeah , a little bit of internal . Take a look inside first before you start saying stuff , because we are not above the exact same things that are going on over there .
As much as we like to point fingers at Putin and he's a crazy man and everything else , but there's plenty of evidence that that kind of stuff goes on right here and has been going on here for decades . So , yeah , it's bad , it's horrible .
I feel terrible for his wife who , truthfully , has been super outspoken right and she's putting herself on the chopping block . If she keeps running her mouth , you know and don't make I mean not to sound terrible but she keeps speaking out against Putin and the Russian government she is going to end up in the same place , it's not going to go well ?
No , no , they don't really well . Like you said , putin is not denying it . I mean , I don't even think he's saying much of anything at this point , right , I think he's kind of like whatever ,
¶ NATO Aid to Ukraine and Denmark
and you know . So , yeah , it's not like here , where they at least have to pretend to be good guys . You know a little bit different , correct ?
Yeah , yeah , and that's you're right . It's everybody you know pretending hiding behind . You know things like well , he took an oath , oh okay , yeah , okay . He took an oath .
Okay , yeah , I was like you know , you know , I remember back with the Olympics , when they were in Russia . I remember a story about the rings that they were supposed to light up at a very specific moment in time and they didn't . And literally the next day or within two days , the guy that was responsible for that job mysteriously was found dead .
So they play by very direct , different rules . I guess they're not different rules , they're just way more direct . I guess is the only way I can come up with off hand . But no , my question I guess is and I don't know if you have the answer or not , but my question is like why now ?
So let's say that they did , it wasn't natural causes , just not a freak thing and they got rid of an opponent . Like why , right now ? Is this a specific reason in this moment ? Are they sending a message ? What do you think ?
That's a good question . I'm not as up on you know current affairs in Russia as I probably should be . I don't think it has any direct relation to what's going on in Ukraine . I don't know if maybe the impression is that the Tucker Carlson interview went better than is being portrayed like .
Well , maybe Putin's not crazy , Maybe you know , maybe he isn't , and then they're like well , everybody thinks he's normal . So let's take care of this thing now .
I don't know , it's a good question to ask and , again , I'm not as up on current affairs in Russia as I probably should be to make that determination , but that's definitely not , as we well know , but yeah , and nobody over there is asking the question .
So , you know , some international journalist who is outside of the Russian borders is probably the person to start asking those questions . Sure Cause , you certainly don't want to do it from inside Cause you don't want to do it .
That's a good question .
Why ? Why in timing is a that's a great question to ask .
Yeah , I'm very excited that I asked that question . I'm very proud of myself . I'm gonna pat myself on the back for that one .
You would jump on Van Damme with that , she would tell you that we'll circle back to that .
Yeah , they would have to circle back and just don't have any answers for you for that right now . And yeah , kick me out of the room , you're even asking it . Yeah , that too , oh man . So we've got some crazy times going on over here as well , of course . What do we talk ? Oh no , we're not on that yet . I'm going out of order . I was trying to .
No , we're staying .
It all rolls together , it's okay . It really does . It really does you wanna talk about ?
Denmark , yeah . So just continuing on the Russia-Ukraine thing . So , with the war going on , continuing to go on in Ukraine , right , the Russian invasion , yep and NATO as a whole continuing to back Ukraine , as you know , is probably in their best interests . You know , and I've said this from the beginning , I think Ukraine is a NATO problem .
So I think they should , you know , they should be the ones contributing . Oh , by the way , just as a side note , before we talk about this , the you know , nato nations contributing . Their requirement is to contribute 2% of their GDP to defense , like that's in the NATO charter .
Okay , whatever your GDP is , you have to dedicate 2% of that to defense , to requirement . For years it was like us and England , and then it was us and England and Romania . There was like three or four or five countries max . This year , for the first time maybe since NATO stood up , I think it's 13 countries . Wow , okay , are over the 2% mark , right ?
So when the threat is real , right , people start taking this stuff seriously . So , talking about Denmark , I guess Ukraine put in a request to NATO , and maybe to Denmark specifically , but I think to NATO in general . They said we need more artillery , we need more cannons , we need more artillery . To you know , continue this fight against Russia .
We've lost enough , or maybe what we have isn't sufficient enough , so they asked for more artillery . Denmark , which doesn't necessarily have a huge military , but they have turned around and they are giving every single cannon that they have to Ukraine .
This has to be unprecedented right Like nobody's ever done .
This isn't Lend-Lease right . This is not like us sending shiploads of rifles and machine guns to England and to Europe . That's not what this is Every single piece of artillery they are giving to Ukraine . Now , I'm not an expert at geography , but I am pretty well-versed in , you know , geographical geography when it relates to warfare , all right .
So Russia , ukraine , poland , a little bit of water , denmark . If you are really really worried as NATO , as Europe as a whole , if you are really worried that Putin is going to take Ukraine and then continue West right , I think the last thing you want to do is give away every single piece of artillery that you have . Seems like a strange choice .
I don't , you know , it's a gamble is what it is right ? It's a strategic decision that either they'll have time to get more or somebody else will cover for them , or I don't know . But I thought it was very odd that the decision was we'll just give them everything , We'll just give them all of it and leave ourselves with nothing . I can't , like you said .
I think it's unprecedented . I can't imagine another nation giving every single piece of anything , An entire capability , to another country . I just I don't get it .
No , I am baffled and I have no military training expertise , anything . I watched a few movies and I'm married to a guy that you know . That's the extent of it , and even I'm sitting here going . That doesn't sound like a very good idea .
Now , and it's , you know , desert storm for all of us that are old enough to remember , skewed how most people viewed modern warfare . Cause it was . You know , most people don't realize or remember that . You know , iraq had the fourth largest army in the world when that kicked off . Okay , and they were .
They were modern , they were trained , it was a professional army . They did have some conscript but it was professional army . That war lasted 100 hours , that ground war , 100 hours , 100 hours .
We , we , the , the , the coalition , mostly American rolled through there and smoked everything that they had Right , and we saw it , we all , you remember , we all watch it on TV and we were putting bombs through , you know , air shafts and it was the coolest thing in the world and we all thought that that was how war was going to be forever .
Well , you know , there's some principles to warfare that don't change and and having artillery is is part of that Right , that is not a capability .
That is not a capability that you give up because now you think , well , drones and airplanes are going to take the place of that , maybe , maybe , to an extent , they're going to take some of it , but you don't ever give away your artillery , like that's been since they , just since they started launching catapults , that became like the best thing around .
Sure , and , and you know they're referred to , artillery is referred to as the king of battle . It's a chess reference . They're referred to as the king of battle for a reason . Right , it is the one of the least mobile but absolutely the most powerful thing on the battlefield . And that's the chess reference , like the , the the king piece on a chess .
And and Denmark was like here you go , just take , take , take everything we've got .
I don't get it . I don't understand it . There's certainly no strategy there . I mean there's , you know there's , it's a gift , basically right . He's not saying they're not getting it back . There's no exchange . Yeah , like you're never getting it back . That's , you know , that's a gift . Yeah .
Yeah , and it's . I guess it's a you know belief in in NATO as a whole by Denmark , like they just believe with their whole heart that you know , if anything bad happens , that they've got NATO to back them up . But if , if , if I'm Danish , I'm I'm not buying that , Like I'm just I'm not , I'm not buying it . So yeah very , very interesting by their .
I think they have a ministry of defense , if I remember . Yeah , I think they have a ministry . So if they have a ministry by their minister of defense or by their president , I think it was a very interesting decision .
Yep , it definitely is . I'm sorry I'm playing around with our , our , our , our things here , sorry you guys . So , yeah , I I don't . This is going to be interesting , as as everything that is going on in the world right now .
You know , it's yet another one of those grab your popcorn moments and just sit back and and see how this is all going to play out in the world , and I feel like that . We are , are just spectators to the most bizarre circus show on earth , and it just gets wackier and wackier Every single day . And of course , you know , center ring .
Center ring is , of course you guys can guess it , our guy , our guy Trump . He's center ring always , you know . I mean , well , they take turns , in fairness , they all kind of take turns taking that center ring , but he certainly gets a lot , of , a lot of time up in that center ring .
And of course , yeah , what was the number 300 and the number 350 , 350 , 350 , yeah , over , it's going to be actually over that . I guess , by the time it's all said and done , I have on here like 350 million . He was fine , they barred him from running .
We're telling you , of course , the New York trial that he lost and they are barring him from running businesses in New York for three years , and that goes for his sons and several business partners , associates , partners , associates as well .
¶ Business Impact of Trump Legal Decision
I think the word of the night is unprecedented , right , I mean , this is yet another . Are you kidding me ? Wow , moment . And you know in the obvious . Of course he's going to appeal . But this , what's his name ? Judge Arthur and Gorin , is that how you say his name ? He's quite a character , quite a character , to say the least . Leticia James .
I mean , this is .
I think I'm not a business real estate guy , so I had to get smart on this and really understand kind of the nuts and bolts .
So I watched and listened to quite a few people who work and live in this realm and the best explanation that I heard was this so the charge of fraud was based on the fact that , in an attempt to borrow money to continue to buy real estate and build on real estate , what President Trump did was he essentially overvalued his assets to the bank .
Right Now , every business analyst , every business person that I saw talk about this , all said the same thing . Everybody does this .
I was just gonna say I almost finished the sentence I'm like doesn't everybody do that ?
Yes , okay , and it's a negotiation essentially with the bank . Right , when you say , well , I wanna borrow whatever $250 million , and they say , okay , well , you've gotta have X amount of assets to back that up . And you say , well , I've got this and it's worth , you know , $140 million , and they go we value it at 110 .
And then it's like , okay , well , let's settle at 125 . You know what I mean . And then , and so you go back and forth and it's a negotiation , so that they know and understand what you have and what you can back it with when you get the loan , if we're gonna give you the money and all . But again , commonplace happens all the time . Everybody does this .
And now correct me if I'm wrong , but the kicker is , he paid everything Like he didn't default on anything .
He didn't default on anything .
Yeah , right . So there's no crime , there's no injury . No one's hurt by this , no one lost anything . The banks didn't lose anything . Everybody walked away winners . Nobody got hurt and he is being fined for doing nothing wrong . Fraudulent practices .
Fraudulent business practices is what it boils down to . Now , okay , let's say letter of the law was wrong . Okay , I'll concede that he was . Even the business guy said that , yes , by the letter of law he's wrong , but by common practice everybody does it . Totally accepted , not a thing . So there's that .
But the aftermath , outside of just him appealing , I learned a lot more and again , this is a great one , I really did learn a lot on this one is so the three year ban of him doing business . The repercussion of that is that he is going to most likely close down everything that he has in New York City . Trump towers , all of it .
He is going to close it all down so that real estate will get sold that nobody can really afford to buy Nope , or if they can afford to buy it , they can't afford to do anything with it . All the employment , everything that goes along , everything that's got Trump all over it in the city of New York .
They're saying he is going to move it if he loses the appeal . In the meantime he will continue to do business as usual , but there is the threat of all of that . Everything that he owns , every business that he operates in New York , is going to get shut down and moved because they've said it , they banned it three years , right , so that's potentially huge .
So now ?
so so , while this is his tax revenue , that's the thing they lose tax money and everybody says , oh well , he cheats on his taxes anyway . Blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . Yeah , he might cheat on his taxes , he's still paying hundreds of millions of dollars you know all of his assets . You know it's crazy .
And by , you know , by what they think is cheating is is taking advantage of all of the things that are are available to take advantage of . You know that most wealthy people do business . You know anyone who knows anything about money . They are going to look for every loophole , every , everything . So he's not doing anything different than anyone else .
It's just because he's Donald Trump and they hate him . You know , to the expense of , or to the detriment of , the city of New York yeah , the people of New York . You have any jobs ? Just Trump Tower alone . How many businesses are in there ? How many jobs ? How many are there residences in there as well ? I can't remember Besides his yeah .
Well , yeah , besides his yeah .
I don't . I think , so I'm not positive . I'm not positive either .
But but let's say , let's just say , you know , an insane amount of people are going to be affected by this . And then the audacity of it .
I don't know if it was Hochel , hochel , I don't know how to say it Hochel , hochel or one of the other ones , but somebody came out and said you know business owners , you know wealthy business owners in New York City are kind of like whoa , hey , how's ? What does this mean for me Is you're going to come after me ?
And they're like you don't have anything to worry about . Nothing to worry about . Okay , sure , we don't .
So Nobody is taking out . Nobody is taking out a loan like that in New York ever again . It's not happening , because they know that they can't do what has been the common practice , which is the you know haggle back and forth with the bank and a little bit of overvaluing and and those kinds of things . They know that they can't do it .
One of these other business guys and I should have got his name down and I didn't he said that there's New York has now , with this , solely with this decision , new York has turned into a loser city and and he said that he grouped it with Southern California , specifically Southern and Central Los Angeles and San Francisco , right , the Bay Area itself , because
nobody is opening a business in San Francisco and nobody is opening businesses in LA . They're all moving . So those are both loser cities and now New York has just joined that crowd because of this decision and because of what you said , which is all these business owners are like I'm not going there . What are you crazy ? Right , and I risked that .
So the repercussions of this , not just to Trump and not just to his assets , but to future assets is just going to get worse .
Yes , yeah , the very idea and real possibility that New York City could become essentially a ghost town . Now , is that an exaggeration ? Sure , but not by much . Not when you're talking about the amount of people . You know , tourists and businesses and just everything that's there . You know they're overrun with migrants all over the place .
Those curfews , I'm sure , are working out very , very well , no doubt . You know like we joked about it last week , or like , yeah , I'm sure , at 10.59 , they're like rushing back to the shelter so they can be all in their bed tucked in with their cookies and their milk . But oh man , it's bad . And I'll tell you what . I haven't been to the city .
I don't know it's been a long time it's been . It's been quite a few years since I've been here . We used to go all the time . We used to go , like we used to do our four times . It was seasonal . We'd go four times a year , each season . We'd go to New York , to the city , and make a day event , just have a great time .
You couldn't catch me there for nothing . Nope , not , not , not , unless I have to . If it's business and I'm in and out of there , fine , I won't be happy about it , but I'll do it . And yeah , but for pleasure , no , you see the videos . You see all the things . They have destroyed that city to something that's almost unrecognizable .
So two more things for context . One of them is , you know we said we talked about this is obviously it's politically motivated to go after Trump , right ? No question , nobody's even being shy about that either . Right , you've got that . You've got all the poor decision making by . You know , mayor Adams . That's all going downhill .
Even he's back peddling and trying to you know course correct and get things back on track . But if you go back and you go back , I think probably what's it been five years now ? The Amazon miss driven by AOC herself . Right , yes , so go back those five this years when she was so adamant about the tax break , because that's what it was about .
It was about them not paying their fair share of taxes .
Right , and that's why that whole thing got tanked was because she wanted them to pay their taxes , not taking it to account the amount , sheer amount , of jobs and revenue that was going to come through the city , but because they weren't going to pay their fair share of taxes , amazon said , fine , we'll go somewhere else .
And they did Right , yeah , so a couple of key Democrat moves in the last few years have really , really taken a toll on New York , whether people want to acknowledge it or not , or if they want to draw those lines and connect those dots .
But those that between that move that Amazon , you know sabotage , you know , mayor Adams and all his and all the stuff that you know defunding the police and that , and then all the migrants and everything , and then now this thing with President Trump in the aftermath that's going to come out of that .
Put those three things together and now you're starting to get even diehard Democrats in the city of New York , very much like diehard Democrats in the city of Chicago are going . What in the world did we allow to happen ? Why this leadership is screwing us . It's all going bad and you're starting to get a lot of , you know , shaky people living in the city .
¶ Truckers and Social Media Impact
The last thing , and I don't know if this is going to come to fruition or not , have you seen this thing with the truckers ?
Yes , I did .
I did . Yeah , it happened . And then now the guy's kind of backpedaling typical . He's a Chicago guy . I think they call it Chicago Mike or something like that .
You know I did hear a couple of things about his reasoning for backpedal . I heard two different things . I heard one and I'm sorry I don't know the guy's name . Do you happen to know it ? I ?
think it's Chicago , mike , this is what they call it .
Yeah , it's like yeah , that was like trucker or something , I think . Yeah , so , okay , yes , so I heard two different things in the span of hours , and I don't know which , if even either are true . One that his it was upsetting his grandson and so that's why he kind of took it down . I don't know that . You know that would seem you didn't hear that .
I saw it on X . Let's blame Twitter . And the other one was because he , he's something to the effect of that he didn't want it to affect other people's livelihoods by pushing , pushing that on them . I don't know if any of that is true , if any of that was the reason , but for whatever reason .
Oh , and then I also heard that he only took it off of like one platform , like he only took it off of Twitter or something , and it's still active . So I don't know , I don't know . Do you have more intel on that ?
Well , those that aren't tracking . So this guy's Chicago Mike I think that's what they call him or that's what he goes by he is a truck driver and has , you know , tried to mobilize very much in , like the French farmer , you know kind of thing .
Yes , over there , right , he's trying to mobilize the truck driving force of the United States to stop making deliveries to the city of New York . Yes , now , you know , I think he was kind of playing to the independent truck drivers . Obviously , for the big companies they're not going to stop .
And you know the other , the companies that have their own fleets are not going to Amazon and others are not going to . That , that's not going to stop . Sure , right , I think he was really trying to play to the independent truckers to say , listen , we're not happy .
You know , we're all conservatives , we're all Trump lovers , we all , we all think this is garbage , the lawsuit is treblis , they're just screwing with him because he's Trump . So screw the city of New York , let's just stop making all deliveries to the city . And that was his , that was his , his play .
But then he came back and I don't even know if it was 48 hours it might have been less than 48 hours because it was a traction . It gained traction very quickly Very very quickly , yeah .
And then all of a sudden it was like , well , um , maybe I think your point of you know , I don't think he thought through the impact of the you know the small bodegas and and the . You know the mom and pop places , or you know stores and shops that really need those deliveries , and how much it was going to affect them .
And then , oh , by the way , the consumers in New York , right .
It's not just going to hurt the city .
It's going to hurt the people that live there . While I admire his gumption , and the fact that it did gain traction very quickly was pretty very cool , yeah , I , you know , I suspect this guy was misplaced , I think that was bad ?
Yeah , definitely . I suspect that he was just angry about the verdict and expressed his feelings and it grew legs . It grew legs and ran , and I don't think he was expecting that to happen .
He probably figured , you know , maybe , maybe I don't know what his following is , you know , but maybe I'd like just a , you know , modest following , and he figured he was just venting and throwing out an opinion and yeah , and it , like you said , it was definitely under 48 hours , let's put it that way .
So yeah , michael famous , real fast .
Yes , he did , yes , he did .
Yes , he got his 15 minutes , that's for sure .
And he was like , oh , whether he wanted it or not . So , yeah , and you do feel bad , because when these people get thrust in the spotlight like spotlight , like that and they're unprepared for it , you know you get .
You get both sides of the spectrum , people that are telling you that you know a lot of expletives and not very nice things , and you're just sitting there like all I did was give my opinion on something and so this was going to happen , and then other people are bolstering you up and , and you know , trying to make you basically their mascot .
So I feel for the guy , because that is a alarming position to be put in when you're not looking for it or expecting it , right . So yes , social media man , it's crazy . I mean , I guess it's one of those cautionary tales of like always assume that if you put something out on social media that it'll go viral .
Now , chances are obviously it will not happen , but if you go into it , always assuming that it will , you better make sure it's something you really want out there .
Yeah , and again , if you're not like , I'm sure that the first time it happened to you that you got a little bit of hate traffic , you were like Whoa whoa oh yeah , like whoa oh yeah absolutely yeah . And then I hate to say you get used to it but you do you do .
Yeah , I mean this guy , you know , when it was Chicago , mike or whatever , probably wasn't expecting , because he got both sides of it , I'm sure , right Like you said , he got people that were cheering him and then people that were probably you know , wouldn't surprise me with that guy had threats against his family . I mean you know , oh , I bet you know .
People are bonkers man .
Yeah , I'm sure , like you said , he wasn't prepared for that . He just threw it out there and it went nuts . So yes , I don't end being there .
I know , and I , you know , I would put money on that . That is exactly how that whole thing went . Just , you know , here's how I feel about this and just spoke off the cuff , threw it out there , not expecting it to grow legs , and it did . Poor guy , yeah , but yeah . So I wish him well , you know , hope , whatever .
If he just can't , you know , quits all his social media and says I'm done with this nonsense , or if it pushes him into , you know , who knows , maybe maybe a spotlight position , who knows ? Maybe that'll work out really well for him .
No idea , but maybe he is from Chicago and maybe he'll run for governor of Illinois . That would be interesting , right . That would be a nice . It would be a nice change of pace for that state .
Yes , oh , my goodness , but talking talking social media and things .
You know technology and things getting out of control . I mean , you know this topic , ai . You know I had a little bit of a wake up call . My best friend , you know we , we , we commiserate all the time . He works in . He works in Hollywood and you know he's , he does a lot of things in Hollywood .
He's a TV writer , he belongs to the GIL , which they just went through the whole strike , and then you know the SAG strike afterwards and everything else and , and you know a lot of that or that , a lot of that was based on revenue from streaming right , because for years and years and years , they , they all relied on residuals .
Contracts were based on residuals from reruns and replay right . So if you wrote for a TV show and it aired , you know , prime time , you got a certain amount of money . And then when it was shown in rerun in prime time , you got a certain amount of money .
And then every time , like you know the people who you know , like the , the cast of friends , is still getting money off of reruns .
Oh yeah , they will . Right , and they will , and they will .
But what was never being accounted for or not being accounted for well , was when somebody went to Netflix or they went to Amazon or they went to Hulu or they went to whatever , and they streamed something that you did , they weren't getting compensated for that , right , right . And streaming's been around for a decade plus , right yeah ?
I remember my friend talking about this quite a few years ago , like , I think , two , two contracts ago for the writer's guilt , right yeah . And then this time it finally came to a head . So the new scare they just settled the streaming thing and now it's this , right Now , it's this .
And you and I have talked to AI a couple of times , just casually between the two of us , but this is like AI is really , really coming to the fold in every way that you can imagine .
Every possible way , and the way that it is and has been affecting actors and those people is that in a lot of different ways . But just for one example , when they want to do , either say , reshoots or , you know , change language or words , or they want them to say things that the actors don't want to say , they'll use AI software to simulate it to .
You know , basically take their place , use their likeness , but use AI software to have them speak what they want them to say , and that's creepy and crazy . So you know they're taking that away from them . But AI man , it's , it's in everything . It's .
It's their people are using it for book writing , people are using it for , you know , for everything that you can think of , and you know there's no , you know , and hence the , the Wild West , there's , there's no regulation of this . They don't know what to do with it . It's , it's so fast . It's .
It's infiltrating every single aspect of life , including your doctor's office , you know , robotics and and all of these things . It's taking the , the job of People . It's taking over , yeah , it's literally taking over the thing that everybody . You know . They made all those movies of the .
You know the AI is gonna take over the robots are gonna take over the world Skynet on Terminator . Yeah .
It's all AI , yeah , exactly , exactly . And here we are and we're you know , it's not like the , the Terminator , where we're fighting it we're , we're saying , oh good , oh , you're making my life so much easier . Write my book for me , write my you know my scripts for me , do everything for me .
And it's crazy so our , our lawmaking process is Eocratic and cumbersome , which is part of the problem . Right , we are not moving fast enough and we will never , as it stands right now , move fast enough to , you know , set laws in place , protections in place to protect against AI .
Right , there are nefarious people , horrible people in the world that will absolutely use AI in the worst possible ways that you can ever imagine . Yes , people suck and and that's our reality , right ?
Oh , yeah , and the lowest form of that is the these like spoof calls . You know these , you know , we have your , we have our Mama . I've been kidnapped and it's an AI generated voice and you know , and people are falling for it and terrible things are happening . I mean , that's just one of the many things .
But yeah , there's , I mean it and it . You know it can get a lot darker , a lot quicker , and I'll only make what I'll make , one reference and you guys can jump to all kinds of Different places from that .
¶ Ethical Concerns With AI Development
Um , with AI , it is possible to Develop , without ever having a human being involved , child pornography , mm-hmm , okay , yeah , and you know there is some sick son of a bitch out there who's gonna do it if they haven't already ? Right , right now , is that legal ? Is that not legal ? It's not a real child , right , you know what I mean .
Like you get into all these gray areas and again , our legal system is not Agile enough to to , to put protections in place , to protect right and right now .
They're right . There is no answer for that right now . There's no answer for that of what do you do , and I think you know , not child pornography , but there was a big splash about Taylor Swift , her likeness being used in pornographic content . You know , and it is a . The technology is so advanced now that people can't tell you know so it really does .
It's not like you know , I don't know . I can't even think of any of the . The shows were . You know back in the day , when it was so obviously you know , animatronic or whatever , I don't know screen and all yeah .
Exactly up and all that stuff . It was always readily apparent . But right , I mean in every horrible way possible that you think somebody can use AI . They will use AI and it is gonna develop so quickly . And again back to the conversation with my best friend you know he's .
He said that the one of the scary things in Hollywood right now is , you know , if you take a script for a movie , whether it was written by a human being or written by AI itself , you will be in the next 12 to 24 months , you will be able to take that script , dump it into AI and it will generate a full-length feature film with not a single actor in
it . Done , and it'll do it in a matter of no time . Right , so then even if there's something bad in or something wonky or whatever , like they watch it , they say , ah , let's they just go in there and it's all digital and they just change it right , right , it's not difficult .
So you know , again , every possible way that you think somebody's gonna exploit this . They're going to and it is going to affect and and we are , in a lot Of cases , we're welcoming it yes , unbelievable . All the telltale , like all of the cautionary tales , are out there .
We joked about Terminator and Skynet , but that's right , you know , that is a cautionary tale , that is an extreme cautionary tale , but it is out there . Um , yes , this is we collectively . You would have thought that our , our consciousness , a nation is , as human beings would have slowed this down , right , you remember cloning ? You remember cloning ?
Oh , yeah , yeah , dolly dolly in the world .
Everybody , I won't say everybody the vast majority of the world looked at that went this is a horrible idea , like we need to stop . But there was a handful of scientists that were like , yeah , oh think what we can do next . We did a sheep , let's do a cow , and you know what I mean . What's next ?
Yes , right , um , and you're gonna have the same thing with AI . You're gonna have a group of people , people out there that are gonna jump on it . I will tell you now as a substitute teacher it's love chat GPT .
Oh yeah , I'm sure right yeah schools right now are having a hard time protecting Themselves from kids writing things on chat GPT right , I was just , I need another . Tomorrow morning .
Yeah , gee , that's gonna be so hard . Here you go , just drop in a couple of lines , you know and you can't , what are you gonna do ? How do you ?
¶ Impact of AI on Daily Life
You know , if they go in and change a few words and dumb it down a little bit , or I think even with that stuff you can there's different categories of you know summarize , I've seen it . I know somebody who uses it for stuff .
They plug stuff in there and if they want it to , you know , they can choose whether they want the , the language to be casual , conversation style or professional . You know , business , professional , casual , blah , blah , blah . And it's like I , you know , listen , I , I get that the love and appreciation for , uh , convenience and ease and and fast stuff .
When it's a fast-paced world , we want everything five minutes ago and this is how we get it . But you know , now that this box has been open , pandora's box here Is open and how the heck do you get the lid on that ? I , you know . I mean , I guess that's the million dollar question , or I guess , now you know , with inflation , the billion dollar question .
The million dollars right as nothing chump change . But that's the billion dollar question right now , like how do you undo or or pump the brakes on this now that it's already so huge and it's infiltrated so much of our everyday lives , so much so that we don't even realize how much we're already using or engaged with AI ?
So , whoo , somebody has the answer to that question .
I don't have a billion dollars for you do have a billion dollars , okay , so forget the billion dollars , guys , and the hard part is we're balancing because there are some things that are coming out of AI that are amazing , some medical breakthroughs that AI is coming up with that people could not have Put the pieces together , and certainly not as quickly as AI
has . There's been some leaps already because of the use of AI , so You're in that like , well , if we shut it down now , then we like this was awesome , we want to do more of this , and it's like well , yeah , the problem is this awesome stuff is offset by this really crappy stuff over here that some dirtbags doing and and there's no in between .
So , yes , it's the billion dollar question . Um , we , we . We can't move quick enough on protective laws and I , for one , do not trust the united states government to be in charge of AI .
Absolutely not , absolutely not . Yes , that is literally the last thing that we , anyone , should want to happen , and you know . But there are going to be , just like everything else , people are going to be , you know , pounding their fists and saying what are you going to do about it , government ? You know , how are you going to fix this problem ?
Well , they're going to fix it the same way they did the social media , um , you know , with the , the tech Hearing you know , it's the same way .
It was so successful grandstanding . Yeah , they haven't done anything . By the way , that was not three . You know , three weeks ago we talked about this . Nothing has changed zero nothing's changed .
I'm shocked .
You're right , it'll nothing . The us Government will waste more time and money and effort and they won't control anything and it won't matter . Um , and some smart guy like you know Zuckerberg or Bezos or somebody's going to capitalize on it and they'll be in charge of everything within a matter of a couple of years .
Yeah , yeah , absolutely . I think the only answer for right now , guys , for all of us , is that we need to be more diligent , more aware , um , more man .
Many to you know I hate to sound like the , the survivalist doomsdayer , uh , but we need to build a bunker and we I'm just kidding , just kidding , but we do need to become a little bit more , go back to being Self-reliant and not so dependent .
So I think the change , the only way you can start , is like in our own homes , with our own lives , with our own technology and all that stuff , and and , uh , I am going to make a conscious effort , um , because I am definitely technology attached , for sure .
So , uh , I don't know where , I don't know where my , my changes are going to come , but there's something I don't know . We'll see . I tried , man , I tried .
Listen , I'm the guy who can still sleep outside and kill my own food , so I'm , I'm okay .
Oh , I'll tell you what I . I actually , you know , there's a weird part of me and I hate to go over here , we're okay . Um , there's a weird part of me that like kind of loves the idea of everything getting shut down . Like , I'm a camper , I love camping , so and I , I'm hardcore , I do the tent camping . I'm not , you know , I'm not .
So what's that called glamping ? I don't do the glamping , I don't care . Um , yeah , there's a weird part of me that would love for everything to get shut down . Don't hold me to it , because I'll be the probably the first one complaining , but well , you know it's funny because Manual or , you know , rudimentary .
Is this solution in a lot of cases , like when we talked about school Mm-hmm ? Um ? The answer is give the kids a pile of paper and make them write a paper like here's the final exam no chromebook , no computer , no tablet , no , nothing Right . The problem is is that most of the kids can't physically write . It's not that they didn't like .
Their handwriting is atrocious and they don't know . Yeah , and all those other things . But to you know , keep them from using AI , chat , gpt and all these other things . Make them write out of their own brain . Yes so you do like that , the , the converse of the , the tech explosion , is to go back to rudimentary .
But you know , there is some Romantic kind of you know notion in that . I think it's pretty , pretty awesome . But uh , yeah , I that's . That may be the way we got to go .
Yeah , I think so . I think so in the meantime , guys , um , after you watch the show well , no , you're gonna be watching in the evening , maybe if it's state time and you're watching this or listening to it . Um , go outside , get some fresh air , get out in nature , like that .
I feel like that is the answer to so many things , like turn off the , the phones and the All of the distractions . Go outside , get out in nature , breathe that air in and and just disconnect from it all , even if you could do it for like an hour or two a day , just just that Time to like let your brain regenerate , right .
Yeah , no , for sure , outside's important .
Yeah , all right guys , that is our , our , our healthy living tip for for the week .
¶ Appreciation for Engagement and Support
We are so appreciative of you guys hanging out with us . We look forward to your comments . You've been absolutely phenomenal engaging in that comment section and we love it . Keep it up and we will see you next week . Clay , as usual , you get to close them out .
Hey , just a one last shout out to jeff and the folks over at chute angry . You know my local gun shop , great people and uh , I always enjoy going over there . They're good folks . But uh , as always for me , keep moving , keep shooting .
Take care guys .