The Scott Adams School - 05/06/26 JOEL POLLAK Joins the Home Team for News Iran, Trump. Scott Adams

And Owen will be joining us at the half, probably when you'll probably pass in the hallway, Joel, when Owen gets here. All right, all right.

Good morning, you guys! It's Wednesday.

Look who's here.

Know what that means?

Our favorite, Joel Pollack. Good morning! So we, we've been able to start Locals a little early. I don't know if it starts YouTube early, I can't tell from back here, but I love you guys being the pre-show and good morning-ing each other. Okay, you guys, file in. I am parched. I am ready. We have Joel for half an hour. When he walks out the door, Owen should be walking in. But no matter what, you have Marcella and I, so what more do you really need? Nothing. Okay, but we all need this, so let's do it.

First, the good news. You can enjoy the simultaneous sip. It's that great feeling that starts your day. And all you need is a cup or a mug or a glass, a tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. Go. Ah, good morning, San Ramon neighbor. Good to see you.

Okay, I guess that's my new thing, is doubling the sips. Double the sips.

I mean, San Ramon again.

Yeah, yeah. Good morning, Joel. Good morning, everybody. I'm Erica. You're at the Scott Adams School. It is May 6th, 2026, and Marcella and I are so happy to be here. And we are always, as you guys know, thrilled when Joel comes on with and tells us all of the things. So good morning, Joel. How have you been?

Good morning to you. I'm in sunny Southern California on a beautiful, mild spring morning.

Oh.

Heading back to DC this evening. My life is between LA and DC these days, and I live as fully as I can in each location. So just enjoyed a run on the beach here in Santa Monica and looking forward to the rest of the day, including the big mayoral debate this evening. Oh, we had a gubernatorial debate last night. We're having another one this evening. So this really is crunch time in the California primary. So I am very busy.

Yeah, it's really— now, Joel, I'm so sorry to hear about Spirit Airlines. So now who will you be flying with?

Let me talk about Spirit Airlines for just a second. I was a frequent flyer on Spirit for a while in California, and for a long time they were a very convenient airline if you weren't necessarily in a rush to get anywhere and you didn't have any carry-on bags. One day I got on the number 3 bus in Santa Monica, and you can take that bus all the way to LAX, to the airport. Takes about an hour, then you have to get another shuttle from the bus stop. I took the bus for $1.25. I didn't have a plane ticket. I went online. There was a plane ticket on Spirit Airlines from LAX to Oakland. I needed to get to San Francisco, so I flew to Oakland. It cost $25. Wow. So I'm on the bus. This is in the early days of Wi-Fi. I buy a ticket for $25. I get on Spirit Airlines. We get to Oakland and there's a giant party at the other end in the terminal. I didn't realize it was the inaugural flight. From LAX to Oakland, and we got these little Spirit Airlines cookies, which really hooked me on the airline. So I started flying Spirit, and the great thing about Spirit, the one really good thing, is that they had these two front rows of seats. They called it the Big Front Seat, and you could pay extra on cross-country flights. It was something like $180, which is really cheap for a first-class equivalent seat if you want to sleep on a red-eye flight. So That was where the value in Spirit really was, was in those big comfy seats up front that you could pay a little extra for and enjoy. But the airline just could not fly good routes consistently, and the Biden administration would not let them merge with JetBlue. So they collapsed, not just because of the high fuel prices, but because their business model was basically failing. I think their big branding problem was the carry-on bags you have to pay for. I mean, I think they were charging $40 for a carry-on item.

Wow. Yeah. I think their branding problem, Joel, was Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter posting their passengers running amok. That's what I thought. But, you know.

Yeah. Well, right now I'm a loyal Southwest fan. Southwest. Okay. And the main reason, even though they've changed their seating and people complain about that, but the main reason is just they don't punish you for canceling or changing your plans. It's just so important if you have a family, if you have a busy schedule that changes, you do not want to sit there messing around with fees and all kinds of other stuff that the other airlines charge you. So Southwest still— this is not a paid endorsement. I just think they're the best airline still.

Nice. All right. Well, that's good to know. Listen, Joel travels nonstop, so that's good advice. Find someone who travels nonstop, ask them. Who to use, and they will know. So, all right, Joel. All right, I know, I think, I think you wanted to, to say something first, and, and we want to get into the biography update too.

Well, let me start with the biography update. So you've all seen the longhand version. This is the longhand version of the biography. I've got a piece of paper here marking my spot, but this is basically, um, where I am. I'm on page 44 out of about 136 handwritten pages.

Is this the second rendition?

I'm now doing a second draft where I'm typing, and what I do is I take the handwritten draft and I go through each page and I type it out, but as I'm typing, I make some changes, some additions, some corrections. I add links when I know I'm going to have to footnote something later, and so it's a process of building the book, and I am very excited about it. I do think it's going to be a best-selling book, and I think this audience is going to enjoy it. I think you're going to enjoy reading it, sharing it, buying it, spreading the word about it. There are some new ideas in this book and some new stories that you may not have heard. Some people may have had little hints of here and there, but I do think there's going to be new information in the book. I think it's going to be a very exciting biography. We are hoping to have it out in the fall. My personal deadline for the second draft is July 4th. I like pegging these deadlines to fun occasions, so I have something to look forward to. The 250th anniversary, the big party, the fireworks. So that'll be the second draft, and then there will be a third draft, but that one is going to have to go much more quickly. I'm going to be hopefully doing more interviews, reaching out to more people. I've started already to talk to them about Scott and some of the interactions they had with him so I can fill in the book. I don't want it to be too long. I want it to be compact enough to be very readable, portable, so people can enjoy it as they travel. People can hand it easily to other people. I have written one biography before, which was very long. That was because I wanted to include some of this person's writings in the book. But I need to keep this one tighter. And I think people will appreciate that, that it is going to be a concise but very powerful biography. So I'm very excited about that. It's a project that's keeping me going. I work on it every morning. If I don't finish my daily quota of pages in the morning, I come back to it in the afternoon. And you can do anything if you break it up into small pieces. And I have a system. That's my process, as Scott Adams would say. That's my system. And I will eventually get there.

That's amazing. You did tell us a little bit about your system before, but I love— like, we need Joel to give us a lesson at some point on his— I mean, you are busy people. Really, really busy people seem to get more done. I mean, I listen to people, like, even the fact that you already took a run and you're doing that, I'm like, oh my God. And I'm on the East Coast and I didn't take a run. You know, I'm just like, how? But busy people just get more done. So. They have good systems in place, obviously. Okay, so—

Well, you know, there are limits too. I think that I need to slow down just a little bit and get a little more sleep just for health reasons.

Oh, oh, Jim.

So I'm trying not to add new things and trying to complete things. And so I am a little less busy than I was before. I'm also working on another project that I've been doing for almost 7 years. Which is a daily study of the Talmud, which is the compendium of Jewish law. And I write a paragraph a day on each page. And if you do a page a day, you finish in 7 and a half years. It's part of this global study program. And I was doing a lot of additional work on that, and I wound that down a couple months ago. It was just too much. So I'm just sticking to my daily minimum. But it is true that if you give something to someone who's busy, they tend to be able to do it because the only way to maintain any kind of level of performance if you have a lot of things to do is to have a system. And I like to talk about the Big Five. So my Big Five are: I pray, I write in my journal, I do some work, I do something creative, and I get some exercise. And if I can do those Big Five things before 9 in the morning, my entire day is set. It doesn't matter what else happens. The rest of the day, I've had a successful day.

Okay. Say the 5 again.

Pray, write in my journal, do something else that's creative, do something for work, and exercise.

Okay. I have a question. So what— because we were talking about this the other day, what— like, give us an example of like what's something else creative.

So in this case, it's the Scott biography. So that's my other creative project. But it could be anything. It could be writing a poem. It could be writing a page in a short story. It can really be anything. It can be writing a song, something else to get your creativity on the page or onto a video. There are some days where I've allowed myself just to take photographs as the creative project for the day. I do that anyway, but some days I say, okay, I'm too busy to do all the creative stuff I want to do, but I am going to take a couple of cool pictures this morning. That's one of the motivations also to exercise. When I'm in California, I love to run down to the beach because there are always beautiful things to photograph. So you can achieve two things at once. You do the creative project at the same time you're doing the exercise. And you can't devote a huge amount of energy to each of those things. You learn that you have to budget your time. So sometimes instead of writing three pages in my journal, I'll write one page. And instead of instead of exercising for half an hour, I'll just get 15 minutes in. And sometimes it's not a proper workout, it's just a walk around the block, but that counts.

Yeah.

One of the things Scott Adams said was that even if you just drive to the gym and you sit in the parking lot and you don't feel motivated to get out of the car, but you've made the time in your schedule to go to the gym, you have gone to the gym. You have to check that off. A fitness trainer will tell you you didn't achieve it, but Scott Adams points out that you have to think about it as a system. And if you integrate it into your life, tomorrow you're going to get out of your car, you're going to go inside, you're going to do something. Make it easy for yourself to achieve little things. I used to hate lifting weights. Actually, I still hate lifting weights, but I found other ways of exercising that are more fun. And now I do weights, but I also don't put pressure on myself to keep up with the other guys in the gym necessarily. I mean, I can do 10 pull-ups, which is much more than I could do a couple years ago. I think I could do 1 a couple of years ago. But when you see guys pulling out these very large dumbbells and doing a million reps, you just have to focus on your own workout. Yeah. And it's easier to do that if you make it easier for yourself and don't feel embarrassed about what you're picking up or how easy something is relative to what other people are doing. Just make it part of your system.

Do not feel embarrassed. Scott always told us that. Scott had no embarrassment feeling. Although I think, I think I got him one time and I have it on video. I'll have to dig that up and show you guys. I think I caught him off guard one day. It was pretty funny. But yeah, don't be embarrassed. And also, that's why I kind of— I loved when I took yoga classes and somebody said to me, listen, the instructor actually just said, it's your, your mat is your space, it's your practice, it's about you. And I kind of feel that way going through life. Like, it is, it's about me and like the space around me. I'm not that guy. Like, Joel can do, you know, 10 pull-ups. I can like maybe just hang there and then cry and let go of the bar, you know? But it doesn't mean I wouldn't try. Um, so don't be embarrassed. And I agree, you can budget your time. I like that too, because it's like, I can't do like, you know, all those things before I start my work day. But no one said each thing is an hour. It can— it's just getting through those things in whatever way you can. I love that. I like the things that you do, Joel. That's nice. Very good.

So I've also had some other opportunities out here, and with the news of Shelley's passing, it's been an opportunity to think about Scott and really try to process what Scott's passing means. And of course, it's sudden and very sad news. But one of the amazing things, as I've gotten to know Scott and Shelley and their families over the years, is how much love Shelley created around herself, how many friends she had, and how many people just loved having a good time with her. And there are people with different strengths and different missions in life. And I think Shelley Adams's mission was to help the people around her and make them happy. Scott Adams believed in being useful, and he was useful in an incredible way. And I think Shelley believed in sharing love, which is also useful, but is useful in a different way. Because when you give of yourself the way she gave to Scott Adams and the way she gave to people in her family and her wide circle of friends, you just radiate joy and it multiplies. It doesn't grow in a linear way. It grows in an exponential way because when you make the people around you happier, they make the people around them happier. And there's just this critical mass of happiness that explodes in every direction. And I think that's who she was. And that's why, although the news of her passing has been incredibly difficult, it's also amazing to see how many people loved her so deeply. And it's an opportunity to think about what Scott's passing means. And I was thinking of something he said a long time ago, and I found it on YouTube. I think they took it from TikTok, which was originally from YouTube or something. But there's this clip of Scott talking about the Peter Gabriel song Salisbury Hill, and I loved that song as a kid because when I was 15, my parents took us to the UK. We have British family, and we went to Stonehenge. And there's a town near Stonehenge called Salisbury. I thought the two were the same. They're actually not. But Salisbury was so charming and so quiet and peaceful on a gray summer day. It just had a kind of beauty to it. I remember as a kid, we went somewhere for tea, and we had tea, the very British ritual of tea in Salisbury. And I had a very positive memory of that. Experience. And so I thought Peter Gabriel was singing about that town and that the song in a way was about religion. Scott Adams thought the song was about religion as well, but when you hear him talk about it, and he spoke about it in the wake of his second divorce from Christina, he said that the song moved him in a way he hadn't expected. And the conclusion he arrived at after listening to the song and reading the lyrics was that the song was about how everything fails, everything ends, and everything ends poorly. That sounds pessimistic, but Scott Adams found it incredibly optimistic because if you accept and understand that everything ends badly, even in the best world, even if you have a marriage that lasts— I have family friends who were married for 75 years and the wife passed away before the husband. The husband's 99 years old and still alive and well and playing tennis and traveling around the world. He's an extraordinary man, but it still ends in heartbreak because you've been together forever and one of you has to pass away first. George Orwell says, that the inevitable outcome of love is a broken heart. So Scott Adams said, when you understand that, it enables you to savor what you have and to forgive things that are hurtful, forgive yourself for mistakes you've made, forgive other people for doing something wrong. When you understand that everything fails in the end, that everything ends poorly, it gives you a kind of freedom to forgive and to enjoy the good things in life, even if there were also painful moments. And I think that insight liberated him from the emotional difficulty of the second divorce. And it just came up for me in thinking about Shelley Adams and thinking about Scott Adams and how they were able to find a friendship even after they got divorced and to work together. And she took care of him in his last days. I know that he would be heartbroken to know that she did not have a second life to live, which she really could have and should have. But I think if you just remember everything ends poorly, you savor the things that you had. And I, I think that she had an incredible life. So I really thought about that a lot. And then yesterday I went to a funeral for somebody else, a leader in our community in Pacific Palisades. So, you know, I'm from Pacific Palisades. Most of which burned down in the fire last year. And there was a guy named Larry Vane who many of us didn't know. He had some connection to the Palisades, but he became very prominent in the aftermath of the fire in helping people. He had a podcast where he gave people useful information. He showed up at all the community events. And I never knew what to make of him. I was always friendly toward him. I never knew exactly what he was doing and why, because he seemed very close to Mayor Karen Bass, whom a lot of us don't have a lot of time for. That's not to say we'll vote for her, against her in, in the election. It's just a separate issue. But she was out of the country when the fire happened, and a lot of people are very upset that the city was unprepared for the fire. So he was very close to her, and I could never quite figure out why. And a year ago today Today, May 6th, 2025, I made my peace with Larry. I don't even remember exactly how we did it, but we had some kind of conversation in the weeks leading up to May 6th, and he held this event at the Santa Monica Pier for Pacific Palisades residents, and he gave out all these awards to people who had contributed to the community, and he gave me an award for journalism because in the weeks after the fire. I was the only local journalist up in the fire zone writing about what was happening and connecting people to information about their properties and so forth. And that was a year ago today. It was the last time my kids and I were all together at the Santa Monica Pier. It was one of the last weeks we were all in LA because we moved to DC to join my wife, who took a job with the Trump administration. And we're still planning on coming back here. I visited my house this week, which is being repaired. The whole back wall is missing, and it's been an endless fight with insurance companies and so on. But Larry committed suicide, and it shocked everybody when we found out last week. How could this incredibly optimistic person do that? And we don't understand the pain that people are going through. We don't see that sometimes public people who are very happy, who are giving of themselves, are wrestling with private demons and dangers that we can only imagine, and we wouldn't imagine. We don't spend time thinking about what other people might be going through if we don't see any external signs of that. And the whole community came to the funeral, and it was very sad. And I walked around the cemetery, Hollywood Forever, which is a famous Cemetery in LA. My mother-in-law happens to be there. Her ashes are there. And I went and I paid my respects to her, and I just cried because of how much I miss her. And she died from cancer at a young age. And near her, there are some very famous graves. There's the grave of Joey Ramone from the Ramones, the great punk rocker, which is a really famous grave because it's got a sculpture of him playing guitar on top of the gravesite. And there's also the grave of Halyna Hutchins, who was that filmmaker that was shot by Alec Baldwin on the set of Rust, shot and killed. And she's buried right near my mother-in-law.

Hmm.

And you just think about how precious life is, and you think about the tragic choice to end life that Larry chose. And you can't judge anybody in that position, but when you have things in a proper perspective, you see how much there is to live for, and you also You can see as you walk around a cemetery how many people clung to life and wanted to live. My mother-in-law wanted to live. She wanted to live for her grandchildren. We have to make use of what we have. We have to make use of the time we have. We don't know when the end of life is coming. We just don't know. I look at Scott Adams' old videos and how could he possibly have known that 4 or 5 years from recording that Salisbury Hill video that he would be diagnosed with cancer. How could he know that? How could anybody know? You have to live as fully and as well as you possibly can. And that's why we come together to mourn people no matter how they pass away. We come together to mourn them because we remind ourselves not just about how wonderful the people were that we're mourning, but also how important life is and how important the living are to each other and how we have to support one another. And I left that cemetery and said, I can't explain what Larry's private demons were. I don't know. I'm not going to speculate. I'm really sad that it came to that, but I am determined to succeed. I'm determined to rebuild our community. I'm determined to repair my house. If I had to add up the dollars and cents, I would never do it because it doesn't make any financial sense, but I think the trick to flying is not to look down. That doesn't mean you do silly things and take silly risks. You have to keep reality in some perspective, but there are some things that are worth doing that just don't make sense, and you have to do them anyway. I think love is one of those things. Love is a risk that is actually irrational, but we do it anyway. When I met my wife, she was moving to another country, but I followed her. Because I knew that this was going to be an incredible relationship and I was willing to give everything up for that. My friend at the time, my best friend, told me I was being foolish and I was going to get hurt, and I just decided it was probably likely I was going to get hurt and I was going to do it anyway. So I think we just have to keep that in mind, and, and I think Scott Adams and Shelley Adler are incredible examples of people who lived their mission every single day. And Scott knew the end was coming. Shelley didn't. But that's how it is for all of us. And who's to say which is the best way to go? But confronting death is also about learning how to live. And I just think that Shelley would want us to keep this going and to keep life as vibrant and as exciting, as intense as it is.

Oh man, that is just so beautiful, Joel. Honestly, I have to, I have to re-listen to that. That's, that's just such wisdom from experience and taking chances and everything you've learned listening to people and adapting it. I just think that's so beautiful. And, and Joel, I want to also thank you. I don't want to cry. Okay. So I also want to thank you because you checked on me a lot. And I don't know if you know how much that meant to me, but, you know, we're newer friends, um, and I'm beyond grateful for our friendship. But, you know, you're the— you're a very thoughtful person, and we're talking about how busy you are all the time, and you made time to check on me and take your time to talk to me. And, you know, I just, um, I took that example and I I am implementing that kind of kindness in my life to check on people and make sure that I'm showing up for people. So I just want to, you know, make sure I really let you know that you mean the world to me. And you show up for people, you show up for us, you show up for Scott Adams, you show up for Shelley Adams. You know, so I think I can speak for everybody here. You know, we, we know how lucky you are when you come on here and you talk to us in your busy schedule. But, you know, just thank you for showing up and caring and taking your time. And, um, I'll never forget like the role that you've played in my life through some of my difficult times. So thank you for that and being here. Um, so moving along, should we shift gears while we still have you here into some, uh, other info Joel, you have to go.

I know, so I have to go in a couple of minutes, but I covered the California gubernatorial debate last night, which was very interesting. And it's interesting to watch the media manufacture an outcome in a way, because the problem that Democrats faced in the governor's race was there were too many of them. So first, Eric Swalwell was suddenly exposed for being a creep after so many years. It all just happened very suddenly. So one candidate gone. So now that narrows the field. And then we were told by political media that Javier Becerra is the front runner. There was no evidence that he was the front runner. There was just some Democratic consultant who put out a poll saying that he was doing better now that Swalwell is gone. And so he became the front runner and everyone talks about him like the front runner. And he suddenly starts rising in the polls, even though he has no money and no ads, nothing. He's the front runner. Tom Steyer has spent $100 million on the race or something like that, and he's the front runner because everybody sees him on TV all the time. So we now have two Democratic front runners. They could still split the vote between them, but it's just interesting to watch the Republicans. There are two of them. They buried the hatchet at the debate. They realized that neither of them will win if they attack each other. So that was interesting to see. We still don't know what's going to happen in that race. I gave a talk yesterday morning to some people who wanted to know what I thought about the political situation in California, and I'll just summarize it by saying this is a change election, but it's a change election for different reasons to different people. Republicans think it's a change election because of the fires in California and the budget problems and because California is failing. And Democrats think it's a change election in California because of Donald Trump. They just hate Donald Trump and they blame Donald Trump for every problem in the state— the high gas prices The ICE raids, the everything. So Democrats are running on who can be best at opposing Trump, and Republicans are running on who has the better policies. And I think just given the way the state is set up, Democrats are likely to win, and it's not going to lead to profound changes in California. I could be wrong. You could see Spencer Pratt break through as mayor. You could see one of the Republican candidates become the governor. Those are both long shots at this stage. But I do think that there are seeds of change and that once the Trump derangement syndrome fades away and once Democrats can't use Trump as an excuse for their own failures— and look, I'm not trying to be partisan here, but California is a one-party state. Everything that is going wrong does have to do with that fact. And once Democrats can't shield that realization by blaming Trump for everything, I do think there's going to be a reckoning. And you can start to see it already in the kinds of debates people are having. So I think The next election will be the real change election. This is laying the groundwork for the next one.

It looks like Spencer is pulling ahead now, and I'm like so excited about him because again, it's, you know, someone who's an outsider who can't stand what they're seeing anymore and felt compelled. And I like him because like, you know, people that saw him in reality TV, he, you know, they were like, oh, I didn't like him. I'm like, yeah, but he was like the bully who just got what he wanted and got things done. And he's like, I just think the perfect voice to be like, listen, I just want to get, you know, my state, you know, my, my LA back to where it used to be. And, you know, and I like that.

I think he has a shot. However, the unions are backing the mayor, and in LA, the unions elect whoever they want. So we'll see what happens, but it is going to be interesting.

Well, I did like— I heard Hilton briefly last night say something about You know, you blame Trump for the gas, you blame, you know, him for this, this, that, for everything. But the other states also have President Trump as their president and they're not doing as poorly as California. And I'm like, that's just such a good, obvious, stupid, perfect point. I love that.

We did a story at the Post about how there's a gas station in California that's on the border with Nevada and nobody goes there because if you drive across the border to Nevada, you pay $2 a gallon less. And I joked and said, they have the Iran War over there too. You know, it's not like, it's not like it's only a California thing, the Iran War. So, uh, anyway, I, I have to go.

Yes.

Because of meetings and so forth, but I'm really grateful for everything you guys are doing to keep Scott's legacy alive and stay tuned for more updates on the book.

Yes, Joel. Thank you so, so much. We love you so much. Thank you for coming on and, you know, anytime you can. Please do. Good luck with everything.

Thank you.

Bye, guys. I'm not guys. Bye, Joel. I'll say.

Bye, guys. Oh my gosh.

Oh man, I love him, you guys. I mean, you know what? I just love that, that he just can just give us like this master class in just off the cuff. And, uh, Joel will be back with us again. Marcela. Don't you love him?

Well, yes, but at the same time, I want to like— we're moving in the right direction, we're progressing in the right direction, and, and I'm not the Salisbury Hill type of person that thinks that things will end badly, you know. That's just my own perspective. But in regards to California, my gosh, um, we don't learn. We don't learn from our own mistakes. But you know, it's that TDS, the hoaxes are working, everything working. People believe that Trump is making things worse in California, and, and that goes far, you know.

So it really is spectacular how they can just stay in that derangement. I don't know, it's like— so Marcella, you have to— you said you kind of lie low about your opinions there, right? So do you, do you feel like— well, you have to too because of your job and everything, but Yeah. Oh, hold on, look who's not— someone's knocking on the door. But, um, I don't know, Marcela, so you think it's going to stay Democrat?

Well, I'm hopeful for, for the mayor race, but, um, but you know, the, the unions really have a big, big to-do, a lot of power, which is some of the Republicans that have won in the past have been trying to get the unions to support them and have— Arnold is one of them. Um, he fought them off. Yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger. But he fought them off and then he, um, yeah, then he, uh, kind of gave in to them. Um, it's hard to not give in to them because they, they hold so much power. Also, voter harvesting. I don't know if you have that in New Jersey.

Oh, don't— are you, are you like— I feel like this is our California Jersey thing. Um, I'm sure I can raise you some voter harvesting and give you some more. Hi Owen!

Hello!

Yeah, yeah, no, that, that's why. So, okay, so hi Owen, we just had a great time with Joel. Um, so speaking of the voter harvesting, what does anyone know? This is so off the cuff, but I'm wondering, um What about the SAVE Act? Are we anywhere with that? I know that's not—

not yet. That's still, um, allegedly ballot harvesting. Yeah, being debated out there, uh, in the Senate. And one of the things that was said is that, um, as you know, I would have to go to my next story to cover this story, but basically anybody that goes against Trump pays the price, um, any Republican that does. And basically what they're saying in Texas, um, is that the Texas, uh, Senate race can go the way Trump wants it to go, but unless he votes for the SAVE Act. So we'll see what happens in that race, um, if he's able to sign up. So there is Republicans that aren't— they have not, um, supported the SAVE Act.

How is Boone— like, who is pulling his— like, what is it? What— like, what dirt does he have? Like, what is the, the promise for this guy? It is such a bullshit. Um, I, I don't know. Owen. Hi, Owen. Do you have anything to add to our stories? Just running through the hallway and coming in.

Well, I, I mean, I do think it would be great if we could get the Save America Act passed, but Um, it doesn't look likely to me. It does seem like we're getting a lot of, um, pushback from Congress. I, I think I said maybe a few weeks ago about this that I— my suspicion is that there are a bunch of Senate Republicans that just don't want it for whatever reason, and you can speculate as to why. But, um, you know, I tend to think that, um, just based on the behavior, it seemed like Thune was saying, oh, we can just put it up for a vote or whatever, but I think he was— he said at one point something like, I don't have— we don't have the votes. Um, and so I wasn't really sure exactly what he was trying to do there. He might have just been kind of saying, well, we'll put it up for a vote, but it's going to fail, and then we'll just say we voted on it and people voted against it. But, um, you know, my hope is they could get to the 50, and that would potentially at least expose— and by 50, I mean, you know, not having to do the filibuster, or at least going through the talking filibuster.

Yeah, let's see, let's see who these people are before midterms.

And then, you know, that would hopefully get everybody on record to say, are you going to pass this or not? And then we would at least find out, do we have the votes or not? And if we don't, which ones are resisting election integrity, essentially.

Interesting.

And I, I would imagine it might be that that's what's the holdup, is that they don't want to put everybody on record in terms of whether or not they're going to vote for this thing.

Wow. All right, well, you know, like, our, our, um, country lies in the balance with this, and it's shocking to me that, like, and nothing else should be getting done except for this. And if they take one more freaking vacation and, you know, whatever, it's just, it's a joke. It's a joke. Okay, let me not get crazy.

They're on vacation now, I believe.

They're always on vacation. Imagine if you had that much vacation. Like, they should have no vacation. Make it really unpleasant. So you take a term limit because I don't know what it takes to get people out of this job. People like look forward to retiring their entire life unless you work in the swamp, which is supposed to be so terrible. It's so terrible that you stay till you're 99 and you're dead. So it's really bizarre to me.

But I think part of it might be what Scott Adams has said in the past about how some people might be staying in just to protect themselves. Yeah, you know, they might be worried that they get thrown under the bus as soon as they leave, or they get investigated, or they'd end up in prison or whatever. And so by staying in office, they have more power, and they have staff, and they have the ability to negotiate with people. And as we've seen, people kind of scratch each other's backs and protect each other because they don't want themselves to be exposed. But once you're out of Congress, you don't have that power anymore, so you are all of a sudden much more vulnerable. And I think that may be a big part of it. The other part, of course, is probably all the insider trading and other stuff that goes on there where you would lose access to all that information that you're you're making millions of dollars on, like some people are. And I think that was one person— I forget the name, but I think I posted a story about it— about somebody who's being investigated now. Somebody on X, I think, posted a bunch of information about, you know, this person. And it was one of the worst instances of insider trading where there was a bunch of trades happening like right after committee meetings that this person was part of, where he knew that Palantir might be getting a contract that day. So the day before, he puts in a big trade, and he's claiming he has a blind trust, but he doesn't according to the and like, so it's pretty blatant that he's even breaking the law as it's written, because they did pass a law about insider trading that— I don't think they really prohibited it completely, but they did say, okay, you got to report it within a certain time, and this person isn't doing that. So he broke that part of it. But also, you're not supposed to do insider trading on things that you're part of the committee for, like where you do have direct insider information, and he's blatantly flaunting it.

So I'm supposed to do insider trading period.

Well, I mean, yeah, I think there's unfortunately relaxed rules for that within Congress. And so certain things— but again, certain things were passed, I think it might have been 10 or 15 years ago, about this, to say you have to follow these rules. And he's not following those rules, so he should be able to be brought up on charges as far as I'm concerned. But it, you know, regardless, we know it's happening. And we know people are making millions of dollars from this.

I think it has to go back to— so I, I would like to see— so if they're going to stay there for X amount of time, first of all, term limits for sure. Let, let, you know, new ideas come in, other people. There's too much time to like make these clicks and deals that they stay there forever. But also, you get the exact same benefits, rules, and laws that you are passing for everybody else. You do not get better healthcare, you like nothing. You have to live by the laws you pass. And I don't know, I, I, this is just like my fairness factor, not that life is fair, but it's just like, you can't pass laws for us that you don't live by. It's just such bullshit. Um, I'm really sick of it. I'm really sick of it.

In terms of the Save America Act, I am looking at an article from Byron Fisher in The Federalist that says there is an alternative way this could happen where— I mean, I don't think anyone's doing anything about this, but he's proposing a way where there's something called the Election Assistance Commission that was established back in 2002, and they apparently have the authority, statutory authority, to change the voter registration form without any congressional approval. So that may be an alternate way they could explore to say if, if Trump appointed new people that were, you know, people that would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, then he could potentially push through a lot of those same protections um, without Congress. So that may be something to look into, is, um, I think it was the Help America Vote Act of 2002 that established it, and that, that lets Trump or the president appoint people, um, with Senate confirmation. But, you know, as long as he can get people through, I think he would have to appoint Republicans and Democrats because there's a split there required, I think. But if he could find people on both sides that are willing to vote to require that proof of citizenship, then he could potentially put some of these protections in place in a different way.

All right, so can I have a sip of coffee? Anyone that came late that wants to sip with me? And I was going to see if Marcela, could you give us an update on, um, I know a lot of people voted yesterday and I know you have an update for us. And everyone else who needs to sip, let's go, we'll listen to Marcela.

Oh my gosh, so I am so excited. Um, everything's progressing in the right direction. Um, the idea was to defeat President Trump yesterday, and he wasn't defeated. Um, he still holds a lot of power over the Republicans, obviously not the Democrats. The Democrats always run with no ideas, and just— and this is clear with the California governor territorial race. They just run against Trump, but it is what it is. Uh, I wish they had their own ideas, but basically Indiana, um, they were about 7 primaries to different, uh, local state Senate primaries. And the reason they were primaried is because they rejected Trump's idea of redistricting. Texas did it, even California did it, but for their own purpose, to get Democrats to vote, um, to have more people in Congress, to have more Democrats in Congress. So the idea from President Trump was to have more Republicans in Congress, um, the Senate. So anyways, so that's just the— there's more to it obviously, but 5 out of the 7 lost 5 out of the 7 incumbents. Now, that was huge because everybody thought Indiana, they will go the way, you know, the way that their incumbents go, because to defeat an incumbent is always very difficult because they have the name recognition, they have the power. Now, there is a lot of money that was poured into Indiana to have these incumbents primaried out. So I would have to say they did have to fight against a lot of money, but regardless, you know, people showed up for the primaries and they were able to win. Um, and there was one, uh, was held, held on the other race. So that's 6 5 against 1. The last race, which is the 7th race, was too close to call. That one's really spicy because, um, he, uh, the incumbent claimed victory, but the challenger has disputed this.

Uh, so who's the, the incumbent? A Democrat?

The, the incumbent— they're all Republican. Spencer Durick.

Okay.

Yeah, so it's RINOs versus America First or MAGA, MAGA candidates. So they are all Republican, and basically the way that they position themselves is they were against Trump. And these Republicans are against Trump. Remember Indiana? What's Indiana? Indiana has— who was the vice president in the first term? So he holds a lot of power.

Yeah.

Um, in Indiana.

He's— and so you're talking about Mike Pence?

Mike Pence, who's a total rhino. I was never alone with him in the elevator. Uh, Mike Pence?

No, his wife was with him. So he's a total— everybody's gonna think—

um, so basically, he— there was the rhino candidates that didn't want to go the way that Trump wanted. Now, in Ohio The Republican candidate that Trump backed, and as you know, Scott liked, Vivek Ramaswamy, won his primary for governoratorial, for the governorship. However, you know, the polls right now have the Democrat winning, but we'll see. We'll see. He's a smart man. As a lot of the, the, the people that are used to Scott, they know, we know a lot about Vivek. Some people do oppose Vivek, uh, but now he's the, the Republican gubernatorial, um, candidate for the GOP. And, um, you know, he was able to do great things. Um, let me see, uh, Democrat doctor. Amy Acton is still winning.

Um, you know, wait, the chat is so funny. I know a lot. What is he saying? A lot, you know, he is smart, he did run a good campaign, he does, you know, often stick his foot in it. But, um, you know, we'll see. I, I don't know, let's be a little bit nicer. I mean, I, I do think, um, you know, Scott liked him. I don't know, I, I don't dislike him.

Well, it's like, do you prefer Vivek Ramaswamy or do you prefer Dr. Amy Acton? Which one do you prefer? And somehow Erica prefers leaving. I don't know, something went wrong. Well, anyways, uh, so weird. She's like, no, I'm leaving.

I was like, I don't want to talk about Vivek. No, I'd never prefer the Republican, let me be clear, and I never prefer a RINO. So I prefer— yeah, I prefer, you know, someone that's America first, you know. And if it has to be generally speaking, then generally speaking.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, to be honest, I, I don't know anything about, uh, Dr. Amy Acton, so I, I don't know. Maybe she's great. Maybe she has ideas that are really great. I, I doubt it though. So, right, there it is. It's all going in the right direction. And Iran, which Owen might want to talk about, we're close to— allegedly, so allegedly we're close to having a peace deal.

All right, so Owen, let's, let's know more about Iran. What do you, what are you hearing out in the streets Um, I don't think I've heard that we're close to a peace deal.

Maybe that's true. Um, it might just sort of be breaking news if that's the case. Um, but I think the, you know, the understanding I have of what's going on there is there is this, um, blockade of course in place on the Strait of Hormuz, and that's still in place. But there was this Operation Freedom thing going on where they were going to start escorting commercial shipping vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. But Trump recently said we're going to put that on pause because it looks like, you know, maybe we can get a deal going. And I don't know why that's related, but maybe they— maybe he was worried that if we started sending destroyers through there to escort commercial shipping vessels, that they might get attacked or something. And so he might have just been saying, okay, we were going to basically open up the strait for commercial shipping, which might be separate from oil shipping, but um, that, you know, he might be just putting on pause. So that may be part of what you're talking about in terms of saying, you know, we're gonna see if we can make a deal here before we start this Operation Freedom operation to escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Um, another story was that apparently UAE has been attacked again, so that, that was seen to be kind of like a violation of the ceasefire. Um, and UAE was kind of reserving the right to respond, and so there is some potential blowups that could come out of this as well.

Here, I, I don't, I don't know much about this, so I rely on you two. Okay, so what is this? Like, you know, so who struck the UAE? Iran did?

Yeah.

Okay.

And then, well, allegedly they, they deny it. Iran denies it.

Okay. Um, I, I was just going to say, it's just, it's just so complicated. So does anyone in the chat, yes or no, does Do you guys feel like the war is over? I'm just, I'm sincerely asking this, yes or no. Do you feel like the war is over? And as that comes in, um, I'm, I'm very, I just feel like it's more confusing for every day it goes on. I just feel like we keep, no, no, or I'm getting nos. No, nope, nope. It will never be over. Over a while ago is your two cents. No, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, you know, because I just— it's so confusing to me, and I think it's confusing to, to all of us because you see Mario Neufeld's like, the war's over, okay, the war. And I'm like, what are you looking at?

He's in Dubai, so Different perspective.

I think, you know, it depends on your perspective of, you know, how you define war, to one thing. But also, you know, because like we're not dropping bombs on them right now and they're not firing at us, meaning the US forces. And so at least we're in sort of a ceasefire mode. But I don't think you can say the war is over until there is an actual deal that both sides agree to.

And now does, um, Israel have to agree to the same things for— like, if we're like, okay, the— this is what I don't like about being in a joint war is like, you know, we'll say, okay, there's a ceasefire, and then, you know, let's just— I'm hypothetically, guys— then Israel will launch a missile into something and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, that's not going to help us any. But I feel like we're tied together, so I don't know what the war, like you said, Owen, being over looks like. And How many people, you know, if I were Iran, I'd be like, all of you need to stop. You know, it can't just be one. So I think it's, it's going to be a problem ending this war personally and based on my limited knowledge.

Well, I think a lot of it comes back to the nuclear question. Like, are they going to let us get the enriched uranium? Are they going to make some kind of promise that we would at least temporarily trust that they're not going to restart their nuclear weapons program? And, you know, I don't know what happens with the regime in terms of like who's going to be in power. I guess that is another thing to work out in terms of how that moves forward. But I think the— to me, it seems like the main sticking point is the nuclear piece, that if they can get agreement that we're able to go in and extract the enriched uranium and if we're able to, you know, essentially set them back a very long way, at least on developing nuclear weapons, then I think Trump will be able to call that a victory. And he probably would be happy to go home at that point.

Interesting. All right, I just, um, I don't, I don't know. I'm gonna zip my lip. Um, okay, we have 5 minutes, you guys. So, um, Marcela, you had a list of very interesting stories.

I did. I have a list of a lot of interesting stories, but I just wanted to, yeah, um, talk about Ted Turner. So he, he, the news just came out that he passed away. Despite how you feel about CNN, it was the first 24-hour news channel that ever existed. And, you know, as a news, you know, lover, I would have to say he was one of the key people that created that type of system, regardless of what it turned out to be.

Oh, yes, we can't blame him.

And not news. Yeah, but remember the old days? You guys, when CNN gave actual facts and, you know, it wasn't just opinions and, um, and different people sitting around a table giving, you know, whatever they thought. I, I— yeah, so rest in peace, uh, Ted Turner. So yeah, I had a lot of interesting stories. One of them was a robot that became a Buddhist monk.

So what happened first? Did he become a monk or a robot first? She was like, it's a robot, a monk, then became a robot.

Well, in South Korea, the first humanoid— I love how they put the humanoid robot monk, like, what is it making? I guess just the shape that he looks like a human, right? Um, made its debut at the Joggi Jogye Temple in Seoul ahead of the Buddha's birthday. So Buddha's birthday is celebrated every year, and, uh, it's gonna be— it changes, I guess. There's no set date, but the lunar whatever, it's gonna be at the end of May this time around. And this very tall robot, um, now wore a traditional gray and brown Buddhist robe, and he was able to perform perform, um, prayer gestures with Psalms together, and he was able to put his palms and he was able to pray. And he carried, uh, the bead rosary the Buddhists use. And basically he was so, so—

what I don't—

what it kind of fear that I always had is with robots and AI is that people are going to start worshiping it. So that kind of felt a little close to it. So they like to— the Jogye Order, which is this order of Buddhists, try to integrate robotics with their traditional religious practices.

So that's not a problem.

Maybe we'll see, um, robot pastors.

Look, you know what, there is a flip side, you guys. So if it's robot reading sermons, etc. I don't know. Oh, see, this is going to be in such bad taste. I'm not going to say it. I'm full of like starting a sentence today and an idea and then stopping myself because it's going to be inappropriate. So that's just, it's just where I'm at.

Bring the inappropriateness.

Aye yai yai. I can't, not with religion and ideology. I got to zip it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, mm-hmm. They're like, say it. I was just gonna say it might be good for the altar boys if there's just robots there instead.

Definitely.

I just, I don't know. I do think that religion and robots are kind of incompatible in my mind because it's a spiritual thing, right? And so a robot obviously doesn't have a spirit and doesn't have that element. So to me, there's something missing there where, you know, it doesn't have true empathy. It doesn't have true understanding. It's just mimicking things. So if you're looking for something that can quote scripture, whatever religion you're talking about, it might be good at that. And yes, it's not going to be hopefully abusing ultra boys, but I think, um, you know, it's— to me it's just kind of incompatible. But I will also just add that I think, um, I've heard predictions that seem compelling to me or credible to me that there may become some kind of AI religion and that there may be some kind of split between people who are you know, against AI and for AI. And if we do get to this AGI or ASI level, I think it'll become a bigger issue where people might just say, okay, this is essentially like our new god. And I would think a lot of other religious people might say that's a false god and you got to get rid of that and you can't have that. And it could become a really big issue. So hopefully not, but it's something to watch out for.

Praying to the altar of Grok and Sam Altman. So, all right, you guys. Oh, Andy Wang, listen, shout out for you today because Joel gave an Alec Baldwin reference. So I was like jumping up and down for Andy in the chat today. We are done with our hour. It went so fast, yet so confused for my little brain. How much do we love Joel? So much. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry about my joke and thank you for getting it. Okay, so tomorrow, be back. You guys remember Kyle Becker? We love Kyle. He's going to be on with us tomorrow. It's going to be like a whole entire news show, and I'll have clips, and it's going to be like amazing. So we appreciate you guys being here today. Um, what did I want to tell you? Anything else? I think that was kind of it. Owen, thanks for coming in when you could. We, we miss you if you're not here.

Glad to do it.

Yeah. Marcela, thank you so much. Everyone loves this blue on you today, Marcela. They said—

do they?

No.

Yeah. Yes, that you know your color wheel and what works for you.

Oh, I know my color wheel. Okay.

Mm-hmm. All right, guys. So we will see you tomorrow. As always, we thank Shelly and Scott for allowing this show to go on. And I'm going to be useful and I'm going to add in some of the things Joel was teaching us today about his systems. And let's all try that. Okay. All right, you guys, let's have a closing sip to our Scott. And we will see you in the morning. Say your goodbyes to Scott Adams.

To Scott.

Should I stay on for a minute? You should. Let's see.

Bye. Bye.