Iran, Sick Senators, World Cup, Summer Updates

The podcast discusses the every changing landscape of the political environment currently at Washington DC. Iran seems to be seesawing and world cup is down to FINAL FOUR

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey everybody, this is OnlyDas Podcast coming to you on a Sunday, July 12th. This is our summer episode. And we're going to go over a few topics. We're going to begin with Mitch McConnell, Senator Lindsey Graham. We're going to transition into Iran and the latest updates of the Strait of Hermoose. And then we're going to end with summer updates. So without further ado, let's just begin with Mitch. I guess I said the elephant in the room. Breaking news last night, Senator Lindsey Graham uh passed away. And all eyes are pointing towards like a heart attack. And the FBI is assisting in the investigation, but they suspect no foul play. And I think for just for me, when I think Lindsey Graham, I think of, you know the senator who was the stalwart, the guy who saved Obamacare, and that's Senator John McCain. And him and Lindsey Graham were joined at the hip for the longest. And you know, Senator Lindsey, uh Senator McCain, you know, he put his, you know, his nation before everything, his politics, because he's a Republican. He shouldn't have voted for Save the American Federal Care Act. But he knew under he understood that the Republicans didn't have a viable alternative. It was just going to soak chaos in our system. So uh after McCain passed, then uh and at the once Senator Graham was a staunch uh not supporter of Trump, but spoke against Trump and campaigned against him, and then he became a big supporter of Trump. And I I think of career politicians, I think of Lindsey Graham because he literally will just say anything, but the way the politics flows. And and I think when McCain passed, I think that was it. He didn't, you know, it didn't matter anymore. Now he's just full political mo full, I'll just, you know, go what you tell me to do. And then it's unfortunate because I think Senator McCain's legacy is lasting and will have a profound impact uh for future generations. Whereas Senator Lindsey Graham, I don't think as much. I don't I don't think that uh it'll be he'll be missed, so to speak. But that gives the opportunity uh for Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina to appoint an interim to fill his term, and he's gonna appoint a Republican, but it's a little bit different. But before we go on to Mitch McConnell, Ricky, kind of what are your thoughts on Lindsey Graham?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, I I started paying attention to Lindsey Graham during Trump 2.0. So I think he at one point he was running for the resident, the Republican uh nominee. He didn't get it uh in the GOP primary or GOP uh yeah, the primary. Um, but then I think at some point, like you said, he kind of flipped and was like, well, I'm just gonna tell the people what they want to hear. Um, I'm trying to like, I was reading a little bit about his bio. He wasn't a he wasn't uh uh he was a service member, judge advocate, um, which is interesting. He retired as the rank of colonel, which is if you know military, that's pretty high for the army. Um, but in terms of politics, he was a senator for South Carolina, and that in and of itself is gonna be it's just gonna lend itself a little bit to like you know more conservative stuff. Um but during Trump 2.0 specifically, when Republican Party started to split on support for Israel, Lindsey Graham was a like staunch reporter, uh a staunch supporter of Israel. Uh, you know, the war in Gaza, um, the war in the Ukraine, he was he was a uh a war hawk, so to speak. Like he was like if there was some bombs flying, he was in the room trying to figure out what's going on. Um and on this most recent attack of Iran, or the most recent war in Iran, same thing. He was right there with it. He was a big supporter of it. So that's how I'm gonna remember him as being like uh, you know, that old school interventionist, right? That old school America, and maybe that's the old guard. Maybe the new guard isn't like that. Um, maybe the new guard's like, hey, before we go, let's look under the hood a little bit. Whereas Lindsay Graham's, you know, his generation was more like, well, you picked with America, we're gonna go all in. Um, kind of like Dick Cheney, kind of so to speak, in that with that mindset. So uh obviously, you know, we don't know him personally or anything. I'm sure he was a great guy, good parent, stuff like that. Um, politically, it is it's it's sending shockwaves to the Republican Party because again, he was a big supporter of Trump. He was a big supporter of the current war. That have we talked to Mitch McConnell yet? We can move on to Mitch McConnell.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

So Mitch McConnell, he's retiring at the end of his current term, which ends uh 2027, January 3rd. And here's the difference between him being a uh appointed successor had if something happens to Mitch McConnell, because Mitch McConnell has been in and out of the hospital for the past month. Currently, they don't know his whereabouts. Every Republican talking head is going on the news media saying, Oh, that I've talked to him for 20 minutes. And that's a little unfortunate because you know he's an elected official. We deserve a right to know if he's okay, if he's not okay, if he's incapacitated, uh, is he even able to carry the duties of his office? And if he's not, he can't just uh be someone can't just fill his term and be appointed. He has to actually hold us a special election, has to be held because that's under Kentucky's U.S. Senate succession law. If the seat becomes vacant before his term expires, the governor cannot appoint a temporary replacement, instead, a special selection will be required to choose a successor. Why is that important? Because as it stands right now, the Republicans hold a supermajority, 53 seats to Democrats 47 seats. Now, with Lindsay gone and a temporary replacement, obviously he's gonna be a staunch Republican, but that bows well for the math for Democrats coming into these midterm elections. So you have the potential to pick up two seats because the income is not gonna be there. And it's historically you're not running against the income, but you have a much better chance at winning. And potentially that can give the 51 to 49, which doesn't give you a majority, but there's other seats that are in play. But just doing the math, it will be a lot easier to convince one or two Republicans to go on the side of Democrats, which have been holding up legislation because of the razor-thin majority that the Republicans hold. So with these two seats up for uh not so much up for bid because Mitch McConnell's still in the seat and still, you know, the representative. However, when Lindsey Graham passed away and the midterm's right around the corner, these seats are in play. And I'm curious to see the the math of the Senate when it comes to the Democrats versus Republicans. So it's exciting to see. Rick Conn, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, I think you know, just to re just to remember or remind everybody, the reason why these seats are important is any bill that gets passed has to go through both houses. The lower house, which is called the you know Congress, and then the upper house, which is the Senate. No matter what bill it is, it has to go through both, and then it gets presented to the president. So the math is different, the terms of election, senators are six years, congressmen are every two years, and they're offset. So both of these individuals who we're talking about, Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham, were senators, um, which is that razor-thin majority Ralph was talking about. Congress is a little different. The I think it's a bigger gap, but the Senate's important because a lot of seats are in play. Texas, most notably, uh, I think a Georgia seats in play as well. Um, and so it's a big deal. So these, although we never want to see anybody get killed and die and stuff like that, uh, that's horrible always to get sick and things like of that nature. But you know, these will have lasting you know consequences. And so we're off the sand, and what I think is Mitch McConnell has been sick for a long time. We've seen him, it was a meme for a while. He froze up, you know, and the meme was like when your computer, you know, restarts or whatever. He just stopped talking, and everybody was like, uh, and then like his handlers fucking moved him away from there, you know, which is like you said, it's democracy. You don't want to see that. You know, where is he? Where has he been? Like if you can't do it, then you have to fill the seat this way. And that's what the law is. That's the law in Kentucky. South Carolina law says the governor can replace him. So then that's the governor's role. Okay, fine. That that's the way you want to run your state, because at the end of the day, these senators represent their state. Okay, fine. Kentucky has said we want to run it this way, which means you have to do it that way. Uh, and that's it sounds like that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to skirt it by hiding him, by getting these people. Oh, I've been talking to him, he's fine. You know, at some point people are gonna be like, oh, he's stronger than ever. Like, come on, man, really? Like, this is ridiculous, especially in this day and age where technology is everywhere. All you have to do is post a video. If he is fine, all you have to go to any Twitter, whatever, and just post a video, selfie, a video of him talking, like, hey guys, I'm fine. You know, I'm I'm working at it, like I'm gonna, I'm still committed or whatever. But even that, you know, with AI, who knows if that's real, you know. So, like, firsthand account is gonna be the most important one. So just make a press conference, get some people out there. Um, and the fact that he's that it's not happening this way is showing that the Republicans are really scared for the midterms that are around the corner. Um, you know, we're T minus now, we got August, September, October, November, we're four months away. You know, that is about a hundred days, right? Like maybe a little bit over 100, 120 days. Um, so we're coming in close. And these things, again, we never ever want to see no one ever wants to see anybody die and get sick. But, you know, this is gonna be important because this is gonna have lasting implications on the world, not just our country, not just the state that they represent, Kentucky and South Carolina, but the world. Um, so yeah, that's my those are my last thoughts on Mitch McConnell and I'll end with this.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

This is why we need term limits. The Senate have term limits, and Mitch McConnell, this is his seventh term. He was first elected in 1984. That's insane. We literally have people failing health in the office because they're so old. And this is why I just again will reiterate why term limits are important. But our next topic is uh politics, uh, Iran. So, you know, Trump with his you know bombastic remarks, he's like, oh, you know, the Strait of Hermoose is open, the Strait of Hermoose is closed, we have a deal, there's no deal, uh, oh, we got a deal with Iran, and everything's good, everything's open, and then they start bombing each other again. And the United States has just escalated this war with Iran by bombing in the Strait of Hermoose. And I don't know how you how do you how do you govern like that? It's it's unstable, it it messes up the the markets. You know, a lot of Americans have their savings, their 401ks, the TSPs tied up in these markets that you know, with a tweet can go up or down, and this is this is our life savings. And you know, for people who are close to retirement or are retired, this it affects them more than it would affect someone like me and you, because we got some more years to go, but we can kind of ride out the way. People who are retired or about to be retired, it affects them greatly. So uh it's it's an interesting way to govern. Uh just looking at the landscape, the political landscape, this is just uh bad for business, I think. Uh especially when you have an administration who uh came to an agreement that looked just like an agreement the last administration made. There was no no new, but uh the last administration didn't spend millions and billions of an ordinance attacking another country and bringing us more into the shit, so to speak. So you know just one for me this doesn't I don't think it bodes well for the midterms for the current administration, and I think it does uh it does it more of a disservice than a service, and I'm curious to see how these midterms shakes out. Kind of Ricky, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

I think you know the war should have been a wake-up call. The war in Iran should have been a wake-up call for most American voters. We are no longer whether it is our decision-making process or whether it's the military might, we can no longer throw our weight around the way we thought we could. You know, we used to think that we could do that, and maybe the world thought that, honestly. Maybe the world was like, hey, don't fuck with America because they can throw their weight around. We saw explicitly that that's not the case here, which is why what you say is important with the words of like the like the deal being the exact same thing, right? Like Iran, this nation that is not a nuclear superpower, like Russia, China. Um, you know, they're just a regional power. Uh, they were able to put the squeeze on us, whether it's politically, right? By, you know, memes and sowing dissent in terms of like support or economically with the shred of vermoose, like there's war isn't as simple as it used to be because the world is more interconnected now. And so we need to think about that whenever we're thinking about you know what it looks like to be in conflict. Um, and so I say that to say if you are voting for people that are trying to sell you we are a strong America, we're gonna throw our weight around, we're calling it the Secretary of You know, the Department of War now, that's a that's that's a tool of a bygone era. You know, we don't do that anymore. We can't. The world isn't like that. Um, I would prefer us seeing conflict in the way of like China, right? For example, they're building roads and in roads, bridges, hospitals in Africa, and they're giving them these outrageous loans that they're never gonna be able to pay back. And in in response to those payments, they're allowing Chinese vessels and businessmen to use these ports for free. That's an economic way to do conflict in a way, right? That's exactly what it is. Where instead of bombs and stuff, because that's no longer to play, it's now economic, it's now intellectual. When that's when it's that complicated, you need people that understand it and people who aren't as emotional as Trump is, right? Trump is a bull in a China shop, which I understand why people want that sometimes. They're like, this whole thing is fucked up, I'm gonna take it all away. But then if you if you do it that way, whatever you've been trying to build goes away, right? We've been trying to use this might as like a as like a stick behind our back. What Trump is saying is like, let me wave this stick around, and he's showing the world that it's a little bit weaker and not as effective as it as it could be or as it used to be. You don't want that. We need a different type of leadership. And I think the MAGA movement loves simple answers. They love, we're gonna fuck them up, we're gonna build this wall. And then reality hits and it's like it's not that complicated, it's not that easy. I don't even think the wall's built anymore. Like maybe some portions of it, but like through two presidential terms, he can't do that. And now we're sending all this money to Iran, and it's like, okay, well, maybe what you wanted was right by your by whatever you believe is your values, but the way it's happening, the methods aren't working. We need different leadership to put America back on top, which is what we should all want.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

And I think that's what the difference is between Trump's administration and previous administrations. You literally have you know the rank and file civil servants who understand the game, who know how to play the game and diplomacy. You know, there's there's carrier big big stick diplomacy, and then there's there's actual diplomacy and soft money, you know. That we talked about that soft money before, but I think that's what's so important. Like money, you you know, we you know, you can yet feel a certain type of way if we're sending money over to a certain country, but we're not sending troops, you know, we're not bombing them, but now we're bombing them and we're sending money. So, you know, we're doing everything twice. So we're gonna win or lose. So, you know, you have this is where leadership and knowledge and experience really wins the day, but there's not much of that in this, it's this second administration, and it's showing. And I think it's just important to highlight those differences because you know, you have uh an administration that got re-elected on the pro on the premise that no new wars, you know, no meddling in other nations, just focus at home here. America first. That was the thing. America first, let's make America great again. And you're not getting that, you're getting the opposite of that. And so I think the electorate was fooled, and I think they were led astray, and they have every right to feel a certain type of way. And I hope they feel a certain type of way. I hope it's just not, oh, give someone a pass because if they don't, if they fail to meet your benchmarks and they don't deserve to be re-elected, they don't deserve to be in power. But just reading an article from CNN, they I'm reading straight from them. It says Iran's Islamic Resolution Revolutionary Guard Corps announced in the early hours of this morning that it had closed the Strait Hermoose, a claim backed by the Iranian authority, tasked with overseeing a new protocol for transit through the waterway. However, U.S. Central Command, U.S. President Donald Trump, and the Joint Maritime Information Center, which is overseen by the U.S. Navy, has insisted that the waterway is open. So it's literally tit for tat. One country saying it's closed, the other country's saying it's open. I mean, that's just I think that just that's the Trump presidency, uh 2.0. So uh that's just kind of what it is. Ricky, before we go on our last topic, anything you wanted to end on before you move on?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah, you know, we don't owe these politicians anything. We don't owe them our loyalty. They lo they owe us. We put them in power, we can take them out. It's okay to be fooled with people if they're not up to par, instead of making excuses for them, say no, you're right. And the next time I'm gonna be better and be better.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

And our last topic is summer updates. Uh, Ricky, it was birthday, so Ricky's gonna go on that. Ricky, just real quick, how old are you now?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

34.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Holy shit. Oh big number, big member boys. That's almost crazy big. I know I would you guys would always, oh, you're like 20, and I'm like, you sons of bitches. Yes, I was a little fucking. But I'm 35, you're 34, and holy shit, you're 30. You're all of 34, you know, ain't no little 34, you're 34.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah, I'm no longer early 30s, like I'm in the 30s, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

You're in the 30s, you're mid-30s, bro. Yeah, and that's just what happened. Yeah, you're mid-30s, but you know, you know, you look good, you know, all the things that you're doing is awesome. Just kind of give us a rundown of where you're at in law school and and what you did for your birthday and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, so uh I forgot it was my birthday, you know, and I I know when my birthday is, obviously, but like making plans or anything like that. I wasn't really thinking about that because you know, I had the public offender job, then I got this new job at this other law firm. And so I've just been like focused on that uh and more focused on like that than like trying to go and have a party or anything. Maybe because I'm getting older, it means a little bit less every year. You're just kind of like, oh, okay. Um, but Tommy Hag gave me a couple gifts, he gave me like a card, uh, some uh a bunch of chocolate. He mean like a little basket of like chocolates. I'm sure his mom helped him, um, but it was adorable. And then we saw a movie with him. It was uh what the hell was it? I think it was like the Mario movie part two. We didn't see it in theaters, we just watched it uh on TV, and so that was cool. Uh, and then the next day we went on the bike ride, and then the next day we went for like a little run together. So that was cool, but just like little things like that because he's so he has his friends now, he's starting to be like more independent. Um, but we still do some stuff together. So it's been really relaxed, and in terms of like overall summer, it's just been a lot of work uh with the criminal defense stuff and then with this other law firm, make me do some like corporate type law stuff. Uh, it's all been very weird, very interesting. And I'm going into my last year of law school in less than a month, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

That's awesome, man. I'm excited for you. That's that's good that you're fucking you're doing it. You're in your last year of law school, you got these jobs lined up, the the world's at your shoulders. So for someone who's 30 fucking four, you're doing a hell of a job. So that's up to you. Um, for me on my side, uh, my son's birthday is on the fourth, and I wanted to have a pretty good, decent party. And the kids have always been telling me, let's go to the pool. I'm like, man, I really don't want to go to the pool.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

So it's a it's a lot of things, so it's a lot of effort to just fucking do your own.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

It's yeah, it's a lot of effort to do all that. So I was like, you know what, what I what don't I just get my own damn pool? And so I was starting to look around, and it was 4th of July sale. They had a lot of say sales on pools, and so I got a pool. I found a pool that was on sale, and it was uh the size I wanted and for the price I wanted, but the only thing I had to do was make it happen. And what that means is I had to get some sand, lay it down, I had to level the sand, and I had to do a lot of sand, so I had to get like a shipment. And I found a shi a company that does it, who's here in Hearn, which is not that far, that was willing to bring it that day for a crazy good price. So I was like, I'm gonna get it done. So I had it, them come and they had a dump truck, and I had to actually take down part of my fence so I could get and good thing about my yard, it'd be in a corner lot, you can literally pull up right there next to it where I wanted it out in the backyard. And so you put it all down as close as you can get it, and I just kind of painstakingly smoothed it out, got my pool, put it together, filled it up overnight because it literally took that long for this water, 8,000 gallons. And the kids got here, they're excited, they swim, and I'm starting to know the pool maintenance side of things. It's not as simple as just putting water in it and letting it think, oh, it's all good. No, you have to have chlorine tablets, you have to have all these stains, you have to scrub. So I'm now seeing that side of it, but now that it's all done, like I'm I'm proud of it because I just put the chlorine tablets, I put these arm and hammer baking soda tablets in, so it's good to go. Got the pump going good. I'm using the net to clear out the water. So I think that was a really good investment. The kids are happy with it, they love it, and it's big enough for me, too, that I can go in there and and you know, swim a little bit. And if the freaking water was cold, I just Did it again earlier today, so that's my summer pool update. Uh the kids love it. We're gonna uh they're gonna come when I get them back here in a little bit, they're gonna come swim again. But I've been I bought a barbecue pit and I've been barbecuing a lot more, so that's just kind of getting in tune with the summer.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, I I my backyard isn't up to par yet. I I it's a long effort for me. But in speaking of pool, funny story, my parents had a pool at their house. And if if if anybody knows my parents or knows the type of uh Hispanics that we are, we don't really follow the rules, we don't really follow instructions very well. At least my family doesn't. So all the things you mentioned, we didn't do any of that. So we we got a pool and it was a big, you know, a big pool. And uh we you know we filled it up and it had like the you know the inflatable rim, and then you put the water in it and the rim kind of is lifted up. Yeah, and it was a boo, I remember it being pretty big, maybe four feet deep. Um, I can't remember the size of it, but nope, we didn't clean it with chlorine tablets or anything like that. We just filled it with garden hose water. And then what was funny was the uh the city sent us a letter saying, like, hey guys, if you're gonna have this pool, you have to have a fence up, which is apparently uh apparently it's fairly common to have, you know, and I'm I'm sure, well, yeah, you it would have to be the same, like you have to have a fence around your pool. And it's like that here in Georgia as well, because they don't want people, kids to wander in. My parents didn't know that, so we just kept it up, and I think we got in trouble and we had to like take it down because my parents were like, We're not gonna build a fucking fence around our house for this pool. It's no. So then we just like and we didn't we just like fucking like pushed it down and like with the water just spilled out and that was fun. Yeah, that was fun, yeah. Um, but yeah, we never cleaned it with like chlorine tabs, we just like cleaned up with like the skimmer, um, the little thing, the little net. But uh, oh the last thing I wanted to say was on note of the summer is the fucking World Cup. Now that it's down to the final four, I think we can we can speak about, you know, we can update y'all later, but we can tell y'all who the final four is. Uh the two, so right now final four is gonna be France versus Spain on one side, and then on the other side is Argentina versus England. So those are the final four. So Spain, France is one team one one uh match, and then the other match is gonna be England versus Argentina. Obviously, Argentina has Messi, so that's the one that like everybody's watching.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Um, but I'm gonna say here if whoever wins in the Argentina versus England is gonna be the one who wins it all. That's my prediction.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Okay, I'm gonna go the exact opposite. I'm saying whoever's gonna win on the Spain France is gonna be the one that wins it all. So one of us is gonna be right at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

The question is how many shekels are we gonna put on it?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Oh there we go.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

That's that's where the money making is.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Okay, so what we're saying is basically we're picking sides. We get two sides on this one. Yeah, so we can't pick a team, we're picking a side.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

We're picking a side.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

I say five zero, I say five zero, fifty American dollars.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

It's the world couple. Yeah, okay. Let's do it. You heard it here first on the Little Nas podcast, and I'll end on this. So the tradition that Ricky used to do, but now he's in Georgia, it's really hard for him to do it. Is we do a 5k on 4th of July. And your brother came and it was awesome because I met your family. I've already met your family, but your family was there. I met your mom, your dad. It was cool. They all came out to see your brother. Dude, your brother freaking really wrecked shop, man. He was doing good. My my son had a good, I don't know what happened to my son, but my son just kind of fell apart. He just stopped and he just wanted to walk the whole way. And it was like a whole thing. Your son, your brother beat us, which is great for him. Uh, but it was good to see your family and hang out and take pictures and all sending to you. But guys, this is the only dance podcast. If you have any tips, comments, or suggestions, please reach out to us at only dance podcast at gma.com. Rick, you got the last word.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Enjoy your summer, everybody.