Tangle - FULL EPISODE: The Sunday Podcast: Ari, Will, Magdalena, and Jon play a game, talk about DOGE, and air some grievances.

Episode Date: November 24, 2024

Please enjoy this fully unlocked preview episode of our Sunday podcast. These editions are normally available exclusively for premium podcast members. To become a member, please go to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up.On today's episode, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman takes on lead hosting duties while Isaac is away and invites on the Tangle team. Will Kaback, Magdalena Bowoka, and Jon Lall join for a game of which political figure they would choose to sit next to on a 10-hour flight, Will and Ari discuss Elon Musk's and Vivek Ramaswamy's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and a mega edition of the Airing of Grievances. Let us help you get prepped for your awkward Thanksgiving discussions.Check out Episode 8 of our podcast series, The Undecideds. Please give us a 5-star rating and leave a comment!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Where can I get help hiring people with disabilities? There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities who are ready to work, and many local organizations are available to help you find qualified candidates and make your workplace more accessible and inclusive. Visit Canada.ca slash right here to connect with one near you today. A message from the Government of Canada. Coming up, Isaac's out. So Ari's running the show. We are joined by every other member of the Tangle team. We go through what we would do on an airplane next to different political figures. We talk about Elon

Musk and Vivek Brahmaswamy and the Doge Initiative and then a mega grievance session. I think you guys are going to enjoy this one. From executive producer, Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all the Tangle listeners. I am not Isaac Saw as you may have recognized by now. This is Ari Weitzman, Tangle managing editor and co-host of the Sunday podcast. Isaac is off today and in his stead We're gonna be doing something a little bit different from the Sunday podcast today So I'm gonna be hosting so I'm stepping up from co-host to the host chair Which is the same chair and I'm joined by Tango editor Will K back. How we doing? Well, I'm doing well It's great to be back and talking with the Ari

Okay, back. How are we doing, Will? I'm doing well. It's great to be back and talking with you, Ari. And for everybody this week, we thought it'd be a good time to do something a little bit more low-key, a little more casual. We know it's Thanksgiving week coming up, so we've got something special later in the pod. But first, a little bit of news. So we had a nice announcement that we got to make today, which was that Tangle won our first major award, which was the Shorty Award. And Will, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Like, what's that mean? Yeah. So the Shorty Awards are a pretty massive awards program. The first one, first iteration was 2009. So it's been going on for a good while and it's essentially focused on like digital social

media content and brands and companies. So it encompasses a huge range of categories and different kinds of companies, startups, established companies. Some of the past winners are huge celebrities, you know, Trevor Noah, Michelle Obama, HBO, Airbnb. I'm just running on the list of what they have on their main page. But we submitted for the news and media category, honoring innovative, impactful news and media companies. We got word about a month ago that we were finalists, so we were one of the two companies that had been selected

to be judged by the Shorty Awards panel. And we also were up for an audience award, which is basically where you have your audience vote for you as much as one time a day to, you can receive an additional award called the audience award that just kind of shows the impact that you have among your audience. And then today we got word that we won in both categories.

So we were the winner in the news and media category and we received the Audience Award. So it was a testament to our own work and accomplishments from the past year at Tangle, but also to the strength and engagement of our audience. So a huge thank you to everybody who voted for us and participated in that process. And it's just a really exciting moment. It's really exciting for me too. I think having jumped over into this new media landscape from eight years of software engineering, which I was doing

previously before helping Isaac with editing, before coming on full time, before coming full time with you and Meg Delaney and John and building something together after all the work that Isaac did for years in obscurity and the darkness slowly growing to a thousand, then 10,000, then 25,000. And now just floored at the growth we've had over the last couple of weeks that we're over 275,000 subscribers on the newsletter, more on the podcast, and it's been a wild ride. And I think I want to echo the gratitude that you're voicing for the listeners and readers

who voted for us for the Shorty Award. It's something we don't get to do without everybody who listens and reads. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a validator, I think, for every single person in the Tangle community. It really did kind of encompass every part of what we do. So yeah, it's gratifying. It's an awesome award. I know Isaac instantly updated the about page to award winning media organization.

He was so good. He loves nothing more than being able to say that for sure. Yeah. So yeah, it's a fun, exciting day kind of capping off weeks of fun and exciting news for Tangle. And while we're talking about the whole Tangle community, I think it's a nice transition to talk about the kind of special thing that we have planned for today, which is something with most of the Tangle team, our full timers, Sans sans Isaac. So when this podcast comes out, it's going to be Sunday before Thanksgiving week, travel week for a lot of people, going to be entering, for some of us I know, fraught political conversations, Thanksgiving or travel or a lot of experiences where you might be

looking for something a little lighter. So we are now joined by our executive producer, John Law, and our executive everything else, Magdalena Bikova, to go through something a little bit light. So John, Magdalena, how are you two doing? Mags? I broke it. Obviously, it's my first time doing hosting because I'm introducing two people at once, which is probably part of the same thing. Oh, God.

Okay. There's going to be some growing pains. Are we redoing that or no? We're keeping it. No, definitely not. We're keeping that. That's fantastic. Okay.

So, John, how are we doing? We're doing great. I really liked that introduction. So I think I might make my business cards that title now. So thank you, Ari, for the inspiration. Oh, it's my pleasure. And thank you, Mags, for this interesting... Wait, I'm sorry.

You didn't do this. This was something Isaac shared with us. It's something that you might do, but Isaac sort of dropped a grenade into one of our chats, which was this image that's like one of these viral, which of these things would you choose images from this Instagram account, TradedVC, that's just about who would you sit next to on a plane with all of these different political figures as your options for seat mates.

So knowing that this is something that maybe you'd want to see linked out in a visual format, we're going to have a link to this in the show notes so you can see what the picture is, but I'll do my best to describe it. So you've got 12 choices. And one additional note is that this is a 10 hour flight. Thank you. Yes. So on a 10 hour flight, where would you rather sit of these 12 choices? Option one, middle seat between Donald Trump and Greta Thunberg.

Option two, aisle seat immediately next to Kamala Harris, on the other side is... Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban. I just forgot his name when I saw his face. I'm aging rapidly. Option three, middle seat between two guys that I don't recognize. So somebody who's a podcaster on the All In podcast, right? Jason Kolakonis. Jason Kolakonis. Apologies, Jason, and another person who I just, none of us know him. No idea who this is. No clue. I'm sure he's lovely. I'm not, but I hope he's lovely. Option four, I'll seat next to Elon Musk on the other side of, is that Kim Kardashian?

Yes, it is. Look at me go. Yes, it is. It is. Yeah. Those pauses, those pauses are ominous. Well, I'm not the most culturally fluent of our Tangle staff members. So number five, it's a window seat directly next to one of you have me on this, this person. That's Will.

Nope. I don't know who that is. Megs haven't the foggiest. Sorry, who are we at? Number five. That's not Stavros, is it? No. Okay.

Next to a person. Not Greek enough. And on the other side of whom is RFK Jr. Option six is an aisle seat next to Mark Andreessen on the other side of whom is Theo Von, look at me go. Option seven, middle seat between Jake Paul and. Andrew Tate. Andrew Tate.

Oh, sorry. I know, why is he in there? Wow. Why is he in there? I'm sure there are people who would love that. Giving that one away. I think I've got a 10 year old sorry. I know. Why is he in there? Wow. I'm sure there are people who would love that. I think I've got a 10-year-old nephew who would probably pick that seat. I just want to note that this entire thing is like the account is called Trade VC and like it makes sense as to the choices here.

Like this is very tech bro-y. The online mail, right? Yeah. as to the choices here. This is very tech bro-y choices. The online mail, right? Yeah. For sure, there's a slant in that direction. I'm just going to say I looked through these comments just now while we were talking about this. That's why it's based on number five.

And there are no funny comments. I was like, I'm here for the comments. What are people saying? People were like, number three, obviously, number eight. Like, there was nothing to really glean apart from someone saying that if you sat next to Shaq, you would be squeezed out of your seat for like the entire 10 hours. So. Foreshadowing Shaq to come.

Yeah, someone might have chosen that one. So. Thank God we're here to bring the lighthearted commentary then. So, seat number eight, we've got just a couple more to get through. Seat number eight is next to David Portnoy on the aisle. On the other side of him is our guy at Amazon, Jeff Bezos. Number nine, middle seat between two very online figures of the right, which is Joe Rogan on the aisle and on the window is Alex Jones. Number 10 is that coveted window seat next to Shaquille O'Neal and on the other side of him is Peter Thiel. Seat 11, aisle seat immediately next

to Taylor Swift. On the other side of Taylor is Bill Gates. And number 12, the last spot, a window seat next to Mark Zuckerberg. On the other side of Mark is the CEO of, what company will you have this? NVIDIA, Jenshin Huang. Thank you. So there's all of our options.

We all had pretty strong immediate reactions. Maybe some people who are listening have reactions as well. But I'll just start this by saying everyone else is wrong. I'm right, but I'll go last. And I'll start by saying Isaac chose option one, which was the middle seat next to Trump and Greta. And I think that is insane. And I just want to hear what you all think about that.

He was so confident too. It was the number one next question I believe was how he framed it. Definitely not even close with the direct words from our insane CEO Isaac Saul. I think Isaac just really wants to interview Trump and hopefully we can realize that goal for him someday. I think he was going to pick whatever seat Trump was in regardless of who the other occupant was. Right. I have to, I'm gonna take a little bit of, this is a very Ari perspective here. That's my man. That's my dude right there. Very practical man. Always thinking. Donald Trump is a notorious chair-farter. So, I can't be next to somebody.

What? Is this a scoop? No, this is not a, this is a thing. Chair-farter. That is correct, yes. In court, he was falling asleep and farting in his chair. It was reported. I think- Reported from whom, John? This sounds like some left-leaning liberalist to me. I want to say I read it in Slate. Oh, man.

But now I feel like I got to go back and prove this. But even just the idea that that's a possibility on a 10-hour flight, I can't. Anybody could fart, John. Okay. Okay. I peer and respect your opinion. Well, and we all know they're like those stinky McDonald's farts too, because we know what the man is.

And I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. I think that's the thing. Anybody could fart. Okay. Okay. Well, and we all know they're like, they're like those stinky McDonald's farts too,

because we know what the man eats. Did he have McDonald's before the flight is a great question. Now, that's interesting because RFK Jr. did say that the stuff that Trump brings onto his plane when he's campaigning is, quote, poison, like fast food, stuff that he would never eat. I mean, RFK is very famously rigorous about the kind of things that he would put into his body and eat. So, consider the source here. But I think it's fair to say that there's a track record of Trump being friendly towards the fast foods and what they offer. But-

Did he mean the food or the people on the plane? Do we clarify? He was referring to the food. It was really clear in context. He said campaign foods never great, but the stuff that Trump eats during his campaigns at a different level, which I think is probably just fast food.

I think RFK Jr. just, you know, has no tolerance for that. But I mean, RFK Jr. is on this flight. Is he an option for any of you? He is not for me. No, no, no. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. The faster money and data move, the further your business can go to a seamless digital future for Canadians.

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Well, Mags, where are you going? What seat are you taking? I am, I mean, I have to admit I was pulled towards number one just because I think it's a 10-hour flight and being next to Donald Trump, like he's not going to be this persona that you see in the media for the entire 10 hours. I mean, he might be sleeping, he might be eating, but I feel like there would be a glimmer of hope of seeing maybe a potential realness to him,

and that would be super fascinating. I did not choose that seat because I think sitting next to Greta and just knowing she would be like scowling the entire time would make for some awkward vibes. And it's a 10 hour flight and I don't need that, especially if Trump is crop dusting me the entire time as John thinks he would be. So allegedly. So I just watch it out for the people. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I would go for Rogan and that middle seat between Rogan and Alex Jones. Um, I just think they would be the most fascinating. Um, you know, obviously, okay, so I'm going to put this out there, but do we, do we label Rogan? I mean, obviously, Jones is a conspiracy theorist. Do we label Rogan as a conspiracy theorist? Because I feel like he has some, I don't think he's a conspiracy theorist, but he definitely panders to a little bit of that aura.

I would just think it's fascinating to be between two people that obviously hold interesting views about the deep state and vaccinations and mainstream media. I just think Rogan would be obviously like super funny and personable and he would make the effort to probably talk to us and me and so that would be an interesting one to sit through. Whereas like can you imagine if you sat next to Zuckerberg, like what would you talk to him about? I mean you would actually actually maybe connect with him.

I would be like, hey, did that girl ever friend you back from college? And your social network? Anybody? Yeah, the one that you created. I don't know. I just think it'd be interesting. I could not personally imagine asking either Mark Zuckerberg or Joe Rogan to scoot over while I went to use the

bathroom on a 10-hour flight. I think that would be just so awkward for me. But yeah, to your question, I wouldn't label Rogan a conspiracy theorist. I think I know that some would, but I think he's just a fantastic interviewer. And that's the reason why he's so popular in his podcast is number one is that he's really good at showing genuine interest in people and getting them to open up and tell their perspectives in a way that's safe and personable. I don't know what we get out of Alex Jones in that. Jones is a person who has gone on record and said that Infowars is an entertainment website.

When the mic is on, very much plays a different character, which is one of the reasons why a judge ruled that he had to sell all of his media assets to try to cover this giant fine from the Sandy Hook families. I don't know what that would be like sitting between the two of them. I think that's a fascinating answer from Magdalena, and we get to get a little bit of insight into how her mind works. I'm sure that there's a little part of you, Mags, that's thinking I'd sit next to Joe Rogan because that's the most popular podcast in the world and maybe that'd be a way for Tangle to talk to Joe. Oh yeah. I mean, yes, I read something recently about him that was like, you don't get to be the number one podcaster

without being the most likable person. So I feel like on this entire flight, he's probably one of the most likable personalities that's on there. But also I would sit next to Jones just to ask him how he feels about the onion buying Infowars. Just because I feel like that would just start an entire tirade and I'm sure he would get like super red and hot under the collar.

And I think Rogan would probably get a lot of good entertainment out of him they could use on his podcast. So it'd be like a really interesting moment. A little inside scoop. All I can think is how different will the headlines even be between Infowars and The Onion? Probably pretty similar. Not at all.

Well, The Onion recently both said that they had, I think, 1.7 trillion daily readers. So maybe not as dissimilar as we think. Anyway, John, what's your choice here? Who are you going with? All right. I'm going to start actually by saying a couple right off top that I definitely would not do. It's very important to understand.

Definitely not sitting next to Shaq, as was already kind of stated by Mags. But I'm 6'4". Airplanes are not comfortable, generally speaking, for me. I'm definitely not sitting next to 7'4", 300,000 pound Shaq. I'm not doing that. I just can't do that, even though he's the dude. Also definitely not sitting next to Jake Paul and Andrew Tate, because that's about 40 tons of Axe body spray that I can't take.

Where I think I am sitting is going to be Prime Spot, number 11. You know what it is. You know what it is. I got to sit there. First of all, I'm a musician. So I'm just going to talk to Taylor Swift. Number 11 is the aisle seat next to Taylor Swift, of course. That is correct. I'm definitely going to talk shop with her, you know, talk music, you know, see about what I can do to maybe play a little guitar on the next album, you know, what's going on. And then I can, you know, if the conversation runs a little stale, bring in my man Bill Gates, talk, you know, future science, Windows 98, bringing back the zoom, all sorts of fun stuff.

Whoa, wow. Yeah, a lot of future science there, John, with Windows 98 and the zoom. Those aren't mutually exclusive. You know, I'm just saying, cool things to talk about. Okay. Yeah, I think that's the prime spot there. I also just want to make one little quick note here, which is kind of funny to me, but the thing is these are all venture capitalists and millionaires, billionaires, whatever,

very powerful people. Why are they sitting in rows of three like they're sitting in economy class? Yeah, John, you're asking the wrong questions, man. We're on our way to our end of the world bunkers and there's only so much room. Right. Got you. We got a seat on that plane. Well, I'll spoil it by saying I fully agree with John. It's the right answer. I'll explain why and I'll explain why Will's wrong after Will gets to tell us his answer. What do you think?

Excellent. What's your wrong answer? Well, my wrong answer has already been brought up and it's Shaq and Peter Thiel. I mean, John brings up a great point. I mean, John's a little bigger than me. I'm 6'3". I'm pretty lanky. So that helps a bit, but I'm also long in the leg.

That's where a lot of the height comes from. So planes are uncomfortable. There's no doubt about it. My thinking is it's already gonna be uncomfortable for me. I don't know how much more Shaq adds to that. I feel terrible for him in the middle seat, but I do think that there is a potential advantage to sitting next to Shaq, which is that he could ferry me

over the seats with his bare hands if I needed to use the bathroom, and I could be carried like a baby boy to the aisle, which I haven't experienced in a long time. I think it would be nice to go back and have that experience. I think we'll need some hugs. So you and I meet next to Shaq so you can feel swaddled like you were as an infant.

I think that Shaq could pick me up with one hand and put me down in the aisle of the plane on command. Spin you like a basketball? Yes, yes. But, but beyond that, although that, I would say it's the primary reason, I consider Shaq to be a cultivator of vibes in the sense that he is somebody

who's always having a good time, he is always keeping it light, and his humor is the humor that resonates to me the most, which is like facial reactions and spit takes. I find everything that Shaq does to be hilarious, and so I would just take the opportunity to sit next to him no matter what the environment was. I find Peter Thiel interesting too.

I would want to ask Peter Thiel about his role in the ascension of JD Vance. And that would be the topic I would wanna talk to him with Shaq there for comedic relief, if it ever got too heavy. So I'm gonna give my two- I don't know, Ari, that's a good reasoning. Will, would you switch with Shaq though?

Would you give him your window seat? I would give him the window seat and I would just, I would treat him like the window seat I would be leaning into if I wanted to fall asleep. More hugs, more hugs, more contact. I would lose the ferrying ability but I think he would be kind of like a giant pillow that I could lean into if needed.

In 10 hours you're gonna need at least a nap on the way. Right. And that's, you know, I'm seeing, I'm seeing that we have a very different on plane attitude towards what we want here because the thing that I really want is minimal contact as much as possible. And the person who I'm going to get that from is Taylor Swift, 100%. I can, so first of all, 10-hour flight, I'm taking an aisle. So already that gets a lot of them out of the way. I'm taking the aisle of the person that I expect to be all of these things. One, keeps to herself respectful. She's going to have her earbuds on. There's

going to be a lot of weird conversations in this flight. We're going to exchange like eye-roll glances a lot, and that's going to be most of our communication with each other. I'm going to be respectfully distant, and I expect she'll be the same. Two and that's going to be most of our communication with each other. I'm going to be respectfully distant and I expect she'll be the same. Two, she's going to be like to herself and clean. I'm so, so certain that Taylor Swift will be clean on a flight. I can't say I have the same level of certainty about every single other person on this flight. And three, I'm on the aisle. I get to move. I'm sitting directly And three, I'm on the aisle, I get to move. I'm sitting directly next to, on the other aisle, RFK Jr.

If I want interesting, weird conversation, I'll turn my head to the left. When I want to sleep, I'll put the earbuds in. Maybe I'll let Taylor Swift see that I have one of her albums on. Just, you know, maybe there'll be a conversation eventually. I'm not, I don't need it, but maybe. And then I'll go to sleep and I can expect

that there'll be a respectful etiquette of cultural distance between the two of us on a 10-hour flight, which is a long time. And that's why John's right. And I love you, John. And the rest of you two are fine. Pete Slauson Well, what you're neglecting is that in the row immediately behind you, me and Shaq are going to be yucking it up. So I don't know how much sleep you're going to be able to get. Well, this kind of reminds me of-

I have to mention the knees are going to be in the chair hitting you. Yeah. A row is behind me. We're on the aisle though. We're on the aisle, so we're not getting that lean back stuff. And Taylor is, you know, she seems like a petite person. She could handle it. I think she's 5'11".

All right, maybe not. Okay, so Ari, you're definitely a Swiftie. No one knows that about Taylor Swift without being a Swiftie. I am married to a Swiftie and like a low level Swiftie, I think, but somebody who's been to a Taylor Swift concert, we have one of her albums on vinyl. And when you show interest in your partner, you learn about their interests. I have a lot of stuff I can say about Taylor Swift now that I've learned thanks to my marriage, and I'm grateful for knowing it. I'm going to go ahead and also say she's one of the best,

I'm going to say she's one of the best pop writers of the last like 30 years, well, 20 years. I'm going to say she's one of the best pop writers of the last 30 years. Well, 20 years. 25 years. 2,000. Yeah, yeah. Under Brandon Flowers. I would love to get the chance to talk to him. We learned recently that we have a potential second level connection to Brandon Flowers,

who's the lead singer of The Killers. If you, anybody else know some at all, just tell them about Tangle. We just got to talk to him. I think that's the best pop music writer of the last 30 years, but that's maybe a second conversation for another day. That's an Ari and John episode. For sure. Love that. John is visibly holding his tongue right now.

I'm trying not to let this pod go on forever. Yeah, because you have to edit it. That's maybe a good way of transitioning. We have in the show notes 15 minutes max to talk about this, so it's been 22, which is kind of, I think, par for the course for us. So we've only gone seven minutes over. That's pretty good. So thanks to John for joining us.

Thanks to Magdalena for joining us. And we'll hear from you two a little bit later when we do our grievances. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break.

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We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. I'm hiring, but where can I find potential candidates? Hundreds of thousands of Canadians with disabilities are ready and eager to work. Help create an inclusive workplace that benefits everyone. Find the tools and resources to help you hire persons with disabilities at Canada.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca.ca. disabilities at Canada.ca slash right here. A message from the government of Canada.

["The Tangle Pod"] All right, so that was a fun visit from two people who we don't normally get to hear on the TanglePod. So yeah, I think there's a lot to think about, a lot to talk about from our colleagues, but I think maybe we should transition to our second game here at WoW. You feeling ready?

Yeah, I'm super excited for this one. All right, so we're bringing back something that Isaac brought to the podcast by way of Bill Simmons, who he refers to as the pod father, somebody who's a very well respected, or at the very least, largely listened to podcaster, somewhat controversial in the sports talk world. Bill Simmons is a legend. He has this game called Yes No Maybe, where he likes to give out a prediction of what

could happen in the future to anybody who he's doing his podcast with or to himself and answer the question, is this going to happen in the future? Yes, no, or maybe. So a little bit of a take on that with our topic here, which is the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ, which is the sort of extra governmental contracted department that's going to be working closely, according to Donald Trump, and the co-chairs that he pointed to lead it with the federal government to try to eliminate waste and make the government more efficient. The co-chairs that were announced for that are Vivek Waramaswamy and Elon Musk.

They recently penned an opinion in the Wall Street Journal giving their details at a high level for what they expect to do with the Department of Government Efficiency, which abbreviates to DOGE, which is commonly referred to as DOGE. My bias coming into this is that I think that's a very ridiculous name. I have a hard time seeing past that. I think a lot of times, Musk has a tendency towards jokiness, which a lot of people find endearing. For things that involve people's livelihoods and the federal government and other high level executive stuff, I'm not as charmed by it. So I'm a little off put by that kind of thing off jump.

So that's something that I'm thinking coming into this. But just so everybody hears that bias before we get into the game, give you the chance to give a little bit of a reaction to that too, Will, before we get started, if you have any thoughts. Will Barron Yeah, I share that. I mean, I know a number of people who work in the federal government, who work in jobs that conceivably could be affected

by some of what Musk and Rameswami are proposing. That said, I think I also find myself generally amenable to the idea of targeting waste and efficiency in the general sense in the government. I think it's probably true to say there's a lot that we could be doing that we're not. So I respect some of the impulse behind this push. However, the people who are in charge of it particularly must give me pause that it will be enacted in a responsible way. So, let's start with that. So, let's maybe go back and forth, two at a time. I'll give you two, you give me two, and we'll just go from there.

So, let's start with the very appointment of Ramaswami and Musk as co-heads. Yes, you love it. No, you hate it, maybe. We'll see what happens. Yes and no. Yes on Vivek. But not maybe, okay. I don't know if that's a maybe. I'm a yes on one and no on the other.

Gotcha. Yes on Vivek. I find him to be a very interesting political figure and I think he's going to be a very interesting political figure, and I think he's going to be a figure in our politics for a long time. If it was just him doing this, I would be far more intrigued and open-minded about some of the things that are being proposed,

just because he doesn't have a governing record. His rise to prominence is tied to the book that he wrote, and his run in the Republican primary last year. I think he's somebody who comes to his positions honestly enough, even if there are aspects of the way he communicates them that is grading. But he's somebody who I still have an open mind about and I'm always interested to hear him talk and do long-form interviews. Musk, I would have said that about in the past, but just to put it simply,

I don't consider him to be a very serious person anymore, despite the fact that he works on very serious things and is the leader of some very serious companies. But just as somebody who's followed him on Twitter for a long time and has sort of tracked his dissension into what you reference, which is just being like constantly communicating memes and jokes. He's somebody who I am much more worried about heading up an initiative like this. Yeah, I think I share those perspectives.

I think that's well said on Ramaswami. I don't have a whole lot to add to that, so I'll let you have the last word there. I think you said that well. With Musk, I think I'm a little bit of a maybe there. I think the idea of co-heads for the Department of Government Efficiency is just comedy. Maybe it's better to have a couple people working through a consensus model, but it seems like if we want to cut inefficiency, cut waste, get one of them out of there maybe but i'm the reason why i'm a maybe on musk is maybe it's a little bit selfish but i think he's showing a tendency in the last couple years to hyper fixate on things that

are maybe less important but are important to him. Like memes of Twitter, trying to weigh in on election interference in Pennsylvania than dropping in when Trump won. Before that, when he was at Tesla, getting really fixated on the cyber truck model, which was rolled out. Whereas Tesla has a lot of super profitable,

other models of vehicles, and they're doing really well. The reason why I'm optimistic is that I think his, for selfish reasons, is that his company that I think is the most important is Starlink. And when he's focused on other stuff, that means he's going to give less attention to it and I think that's good for Starlink. Yeah. And I'm high on that technology.

I'm curious, Starlink over SpaceX? Personally, yeah. I think the reach of rural digital internet access is a game changer. But I mean, that's a concern with SpaceX, honestly, is do we want somebody who would be a government contractor to be working with the government because SpaceX is contracted for space flights? And that's another strike that I think is fair to talk about with Musk here.

But let's move on to the second thing, which is reduction in headcount at the federal government. So I'm just going to quote from this Ramaswamy and Musk article in the Wall Street Journal directly and just get your yes, no, maybe response to it. So, quote, a drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass headcount reductions across the federal bureaucracy. Doge intends to work with embedded appointees and agencies to identify the minimum number of employees required at an agency for it to perform its constitutionally permissible and statutory mandated functions. The number of employees to cut should be at least proportional to the number of federal

regulations that are nullified." End quote. Yes, no, maybe. I'm a maybe. I really think that these two are thinking about this question as if it's a technology company, the kind that they're familiar with. Musk famously bought Twitter, fired 80% of its employees, and used the fact that it didn't crash the site and the site continued to function.

As an example of you can cut massive bloat out of these huge organizations and be totally fine and a lot of these workers are expendable. I've seen a lot of Twitter activity to that effect as well, people writing anonymously about I'm a coder at one of the major tech companies in Silicon Valley. I do less than 10 hours of work a week and I get paid $250,000, you know, stories to that effect. I think that kind of thinking in the world that Rameswamy and Musk come from, they're applying to the federal government because they see another massive organization where there's, it's not always clear what jobs people have, how much they're contributing,

whether they're really necessary and thinking that A will apply to B. I think they're going to be surprised when they get in there if any of the stuff actually does get enacted by the differences in how the federal government operates. So I do like the idea of, hey, maybe we can identify a significant amount of jobs that aren't really necessary and cut those from the federal government on paper. I'm not opposed to that.

But I think the philosophy that they're approaching it with is not going to translate perfectly. I'm a maybe lean no on this just because my axe to grind about federal inefficiencies when it comes to the bottom dollar, the bottom dollar figure, is that it's mostly if you want to talk about cutting federal costs, you have to talk about the big line expenditures, which are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the military. If you want to talk about calling the federal workforce and other departments, I'm sure there are efficiencies to gain there. But if you are looking at the big places to gain efficiencies, if you're not talking about

those things, you're just not talking about it seriously. So I don't know, maybe that's something that they'll be looking into, but I'm a little skeptical. Yeah. I worry too about the idea that they've already come to the conclusion that this is necessary and that no matter what they find when they do an audit of the federal agencies or when they actually get in and take a close look at this, that they're going to reach

the conclusion they want to reach no matter what they find. Especially Musk, I just see his mind working that way so often on Twitter. It gives me positive. So I would say I lean towards as well, even if again, on paper, I'm not opposed to the idea. All right, balls in your court, Will. All right. This was one that stood out to me in the Wall Street Journal op-ed. And the quote was that Doge will work with legal experts embedded in government agencies aided by

advanced technology, which to me is alluding to artificial intelligence, to apply the rulings from the Supreme Court's Chevron decision to federal regulations enacted by such agencies. So again, just like a quick catch up, the Chevron deference being overturned by the Supreme Court, where the court is effectively instructed to no longer defer to federal agencies and how they make rules and that Congress needs to be the ones to pass these very specific rules about how they want laws to work. So using AI to suss out incongruities with Chevron after the latest Supreme Court ruling

and make decisions about government from there? Yes, no, maybe. Maybe just because I really don't know what that means or what it looks like. And that's not to say that, oh, I'm confused about what Chevron means and I'm confused about what AI is. It just means I don't know what kind of guidance that would provide in an actionable sense.

So I want to hear more about what this idea of, hey, Chevron deference was repealed. So, that actually doesn't mean the federal agencies have more ability. It means they have less to enact regulations without the guidance of Congress. It means that we're going to have more of a level playing field when it comes to interpreting challenges to regulations from federal departments. So I think it just means they want to try to curtail more regulations and they want to try to have some sort of natural language processing model help say what regulations

are going to be running afoul of legislation as it exists. I don't know that that's going to result in anything actionable. I think it needs to be oriented towards some goal, like we want to reduce federal overhead so we want to enact regulations that are going to require fewer people to enforce. If that's the test, the means mean less to me. Whether or not it's AI or a person who pay $80,000 a year to do it. I think that's more important is what is the end goal of this? Is it to save cost and efficiency by trying to limit enforcement of regulations that we think are unnecessary?

I think that's a bit of a different question. Yeah, agree that it's not fleshed out in the slightest, at least what they've said so far. And my suspicion is throwing artificial intelligence in the description to make it sound buzzy. But we actually have no idea what it's going to look like in reality. All right. Yeah. What's next for you? So the next one for me is from a Fox News report that came out today, which is that House Oversight Committee Chair

James Comer, Republican from Kentucky, is planning to create the Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee to work alongside DOJ and implement potentially its recommendations via Congress and that this subcommittee will be chaired by none other than Marjorie Taylor Green. via Congress and that this subcommittee will be chaired by none other than Marjorie Taylor Greene. No. Yeah. I'd seen that report too. Again, if my largest concern coming into this is seriousness over memeability, you could

not have selected a single worst person in the House of Representatives to indicate seriousness than Marjorie Taylor Greene. I don't have a whole lot more to add on that other than to say if we're creating extra governmental or quasi governmental federal departments that are aimed at reducing waste, which again, I think this is something Isaac said too, is a little contradictory at its heart

with trying to cut down on the government doing something by creating more work. Maybe that's something that's gonna be, you do this effort once and then it's useful and then it's done. Sure. But there are interconnections at play that are going to get larger. So there being a house subcommittee, now we're talking about diverting legislators' resources and their time and their thoughts towards interacting with this agency. I think that's going to be less efficient than having our legislators directly represent us by enacting legislation that's popular with their constituencies. I'm sort of maybe this is a vanilla boring institutionalist

take, but I'm of the opinion that that model is pretty good and that we should try to do more to get out of the way of people legislating than add another hurdle to it. And that's my thought. Yeah, I agree with that. I think if DOGE ends up working like an interest group, where they're just very publicly lobbying for their findings and their positions, then that's fine.

I mean, then they kind of just join the ranks of lobbyists and interest groups that advocate for their positions. Maybe they have a little bit more influence by virtue of who's running it, but that seems to me like within the normal bounds of how our government works. I think this subcommittee idea, it's like you said, the non-seriousness

of Marjorie Taylor Gre Green and also the fact that she just has no record of being able to shepherd legislation through the House or rally people even on her own side, you know, behind her legislation, her initiatives. It almost is like we're just putting somebody on this to pacify the online right and make it seem like we're doing something. But it's almost like Comer saying this is not a serious thing. Yep. I think I'm with that.

So balls back in my court. Going to go with this report from Fox Business that the Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly considering developing a mobile app to make it easier for taxpayers to file their returns for free? Yes, no, maybe. Yes, yes, I think that's an idea most people are behind. I mean, I think we're seeing that effort already underway by the IRS, right?

They rolled out this program to a similar effect to a limited number of people this year and they're planning to expand it in the coming year. I mean, on a personal level, I would love the idea of a program like that. And I think it's as simple as that. I think that's one of their better ideas. Yeah, I agree. I'm optimistic about it. I understand there's reasons to be concerned.

One being philosophically, if you're saying we want to create a council or government efficiency bureau or a doge that's trying to limit government involvement. This is definitively taking something that's been the purview of the free market and moving it to the government. But I do think it is something that on net would be more efficient if it's something that's rolled out correctly. I should be able to pay my taxes in a way that's low overhead and the government is going to be the recipient of that so they should be the ones that are making that easier for me. I think that's something I'm optimistic about as

well and I'd like to see that move forward with. Yep. Yep. Same page. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Are you sure you parked over here? Do you see it anywhere? I think it's back this way. Come on. Hey, you're going the wrong way. Feeling distracted? You're not alone.

Whether renting, considering buying a home, or renewing a mortgage, many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances and clear your head, visit Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. I have one more and then we'll give you one or two more. I know you got to run, but real quick, this is my last one, which is giving or moving federal agency headquarters

out of Washington, D.C. So that's something that came out. I'm just going to paraphrase it. Directly quoting it from the article is a little bit awkward, but we've seen this notion before. Every federal agency's headquarters are in D.C. Agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, most of their land is out west. So critics have asked on the right in recent years, but actually if you go back years before, a decade or ish or more, it's been somewhat bipartisan, if not something

we've seen on the left at times, which is to move these agencies' headquarters to other cities. It'll help spur, this is the theory, it'll help spur economic development in those areas and then spread out some of the brain concentration of the public sphere or the quote unquote swamp, get that spread out across the land mass. What do you think about that idea? Yeah, I'm a maybe leaning towards a yes.

I think all of the arguments in support of it that you just described resonate with me and make sense. My concern about how this would look in reality is that the movers and shakers and the people with power within these agencies would still just end up being pulled to DC for most of the time. And so, you know, maybe you would have the lower level staffers who are in these other cities and are mostly based out of that. But would it just create an unnecessary hurdle for the people who are actually running these agencies

because they still have to travel to DC to do business for the majority of their time. So that would be my hesitation. Yeah, I understand that. I think when I've read criticisms about this idea before, I've heard about how this is gonna be a big upheaval for families and people who do a lot of their business in DC. It's more effective for them.

It's gonna be a huge hurt for the people that are career government servants who have been doing this work and have set up lives in DC. I get that. I think there's going to be costs and benefits to everything. I think I just see the long-term benefits as being a little bit worth it. Not that I don't have sympathy for the cost that those civil servants would have to pay in that regard. But I think that's a little bit better than we're going to axe these whole agencies. And not saying that that's the choice that we have, it's obviously more complicated than that. But I just, I'm more optimistic about this plan than I am pessimistic.

I think for me, I'm leaning yes. But I know we have a couple minutes left of whale time, so I want to give you the last word here. Yeah. So this is another one that came from the op-ed. Doge will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended. An example that they cite is $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $1.5 billion for grants to

international organizations, $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood. I kind of like refer to above, I guess. If you're really looking to try to cut government waste, this isn't the line item where you're going to find most of it. I think it's a lot of issues that are popular on the right and I understand the reasoning for it. I think the progressive inclusion and identity issues are something that are lightning rods for criticism. I think I'm a maybe about that being room for efficiency but in terms of broad scale gains at the federal governmental level that's just not where you're gonna get

it. So I'm a maybe leaning now. Yeah I mean that's just the objective truth right? You look at the budget, you look at the size of it, the size of the money that would have to be cut. 500 million sounds like a lot, but there are 1,000 million in a billion and there are 1,000 billions in a trillion and our government is measured on trillions. Right.

I mean, didn't Tangle made about $500 million last week, right? If only from your lips to God's ears. It's not that much. All right. So with that, we're going to head to our grievance zone. The airing of grievances. You gather your family around and tell them all the ways they have disappointed you over

the past year. So we're going to bring John and Magdalena back for a sort of giant Tangle family complaining session in honor of Thanksgiving week. Any of you guys have anything you feel like you just got to get out of you right now before you move on? Nobody wants to go first? I'll go first then. So my grievance is that I'm going to start with the most on-brand revelation about myself that you guys remember,

it's a safe space, so keep the ribbing to a minimal. I'm having a rough go of it with my go of it with my online invite only trivia league this season. Oh boy. I've missed a couple questions that I feel like, you know, it's not on me a bit. There's this style of question that I just want to complain about a little bit where they will give you something that sounds like the thing that they're going to ask you about. Like, if you know the general thing that they're getting at, it should be enough to answer the question, but then they zag on you and it's something completely different or something that doesn't quite get at the thing they're asking.

So here's the question that I missed. It's a geography question, which is very much my bread and butter. So it's frustrating. The question was, the city of Sri Jirwanapurakote is a national administrative capital, which I know. I know that. I know what capital it is. I know what country it's in and a suburb of what other city.

No idea. Come on. I feel like just knowing what Sri Jwadanapurakote is and what country it's the capital of ought to be enough, but it's not, and I missed that one because do you guys know what the other city it's a suburb of is? Any guess? I would say Bombay or… Definitely not. …Mondale?

If I had to guess, I'd say Jakarta. Oh, that's a good one. It is the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo? So, we're in the right region. I said it! Colombo? Yeah, and then it's not enough, sorry, because the answer to the question is Colombo, a city

that it's the larger city in Sri Lanka. Maybe I'm not as much enough of a geography buff that I didn't know that, but big X missed it, missed the question, lost the day because of it. So boo. Ouch. Ouch, ouch. Who creates these questions? I think that's one of those questions you're not allowed to ask.

The creator is a mysterious person or persons, runs this invite only trivia league called Learned League, which I know obnoxious name but the person's name is the commissioner like we don't really know who they are and I'm sure it's several people and they ask great questions it's a phenomenal experience but this one type of trivia question just like just annoys me it just grinds my gears I are you typically a top performer in this league? Yeah, so this league is broken up into several different rundles, which is so nerdy.

Rundle is the word for a ring of a ladder, and rather than say level, they call it rundles. And it is divided vertically by rundle and then horizontally randomly by just randomness. So you're within a division because there's so many people that play it and then within your division you have a Rundle. The Rundles go from rookie at the bottom and then you get placed into the other Rundles from how you perform in your rookie season and then goes from E up to A. My father is an A. He is usually the front runner for his R rundle and then often gets invited to the commissioner's circle end of season tournament of champions, which he hates because he has to do it live

and he needs the whole day to think about it and it just helps him. Then he'll get questions in the craziest way right as the day goes on, which is also frustrating. I most recently was in B, so I got promoted up to B. I had a great season and then I had a terrible season in B and I got demoted back to C. So I'm in C now, which is fine. It's good. It's good. For people who are good at trivia, I'm slightly above average. Peter T. Lopate People who can identify capitals but not suburbs. That's, that unfortunately is my rating, yes.

Enough about me though, if anybody has anything they wanna go with next. Well, I was just gonna note before I rudely interrupted John was that I know, because I'm sure someone's gonna write in and be like, my first answer was Bombay. I know it's not Bombay anymore, it's Mumbai. So just throwing it out there.

I am aware that the official name is Bombay. But still people call it Bombay, so. Yeah, well, throwing up the cancel sign, sorry. It's all over for you. Canceled in India, we didn't even make it there. Yeah, yeah, mine's quick. So I live in Brooklyn, I go to the local budget gym, Blink Fitness, which recently entered bankruptcy.

Fun fact. And it honestly is a great gym, it's not too crowded for a budget gym. All the stuff works. Like there's no complaints about the gym itself. Increasingly though, there have been a, and I don't know what the term, a flock, a fleet, a group of jump ropers who have been coming to the gym

in the morning, when I go, I go pretty early in the morning. And basically commandeering the entire cardio stretching area that's available to the entire gym. And jump roping, number one, it takes up a lot of physical space because they're using the full jump ropes. And it also just creates this low-level stress

when you're anywhere near their vicinity because it's this constant whooshing sound and also the slapping on the ground at a high pace. And so, this morning for instance, I was stretching in the cardio area, it was pretty early, so there wasn't many people there and three jump ropers come in and all they do is jump rope. They don't work out.

They just jump rope indoors at six in the morning. And got incredibly close to me while I was like, stretched like, while I was like on my back doing stretches, standing up doing stretches, laying down doing stretches, and I'm feeling the air from the jump rope, like rustling my hair, like they're that close to me. And it reminds me a little bit, like there's almost like a soullessness to it

because they're not interacting with each other, they're not talking to each other, they just have their earbuds in, they have these little like programs on their phone that they're following to do like different kinds of jump roping. And they just jump rope for 45 minutes. Nobody can use the space.

It's like three people taking up 75% of the space. And it is a truly unfortunate development because I use that space every day. And it's increasingly difficult too. So that's my dream. I love the combination of Jimbrow and care and energy that you're given to this even. And I also love that it started with I have a quick one.

And here we are, three minutes later. First of all, it's like, you don't need to jump rope indoors. You don't need to. Like when I'm in Manhattan, people are jump roping on the street, like outside their apartments. All the time, in Manhattan, just up and down the streets. They're just jump roping. Outside boxing gyms, they jump rope out on the street

because it's New York, it's a lot of close confined space. Like you don't have these vast gyms or these vast spaces. And jump roping is one of the things I feel like you could do outdoors. And there's a lot of stuff indoors that you can only do indoors at the gym. So it does feel like they're commandeering a lot of space, but yeah. That feels fair.

It's not like you're going to take the bench outside and start doing that. You know? Yeah. I would if I could. I would if I could to get away from the damn jump ropers. What's your plan of action here? I mean, you just going to sit through it. Are you going to write a change or petition?

I bet you can get people on board. I mean, you just going to sit through it, or you're going to write a change or petition. I bet you can get people on board. I feel like if I got put myself in a position where they hit me one time, you know, like where, where I got struck one time that I might be able to just like unleash on them and like make them feel the hostility that I can't yet because they haven't actually done anything wrong. the hostility that I can't yet because they haven't actually done anything wrong. Um, so I'm like waiting for the day that I could like be doing like, like core exercises and like be like nudging over into like the jump rope or space and get hit and just like play it up.

Well, you're literally just throwing an arm out. Well, I think if you did that, then, um, probably the gym owners would kick them out because it would be a liability, right? Like you're threatened to sue and you're pretty good. I've seen you do the walk and fall and I'm sure you could jump rope. Oh, gosh, I'm aggsteering. Maybe safely at that time as she's developing a plan for kicking out people like that. Okay, yeah.

I am sorry if people enjoy jump roping. Like personally. You're sorry if people enjoy, not that you're sorry to those who you may have offended who enjoy jump roping. You're sorry if people enjoy jump roping. There are so many cardio machines in the gym. There is such an assortment of cardio machines in the gym.

I do feel like you really want to jump rope, go to the park, go out onto the sidewalk. It's New York, people do weird stuff out on the streets. It wouldn't be that big of a deal to go do a jump rope sesh outside your apartment. Again, maybe I'm a little out of pocket, but that's the way I've been feeling. I think that feels fair.

Maybe not all of us colluding to kick everybody out of the gym or the jump robers, but the rest of it sounds fair. I'm saying you could get it done. You could, with small actions, you could probably get it done. I would fame concussion off of a jump rope strike. I can't abide any more of the, just for our own liability reasons, the entrapment schemes that are being vocalized here, I think. Fun grievance, a lot to go over.

But let's jump and skip it on over to John here. If that's not too close to you, well, sorry. That feels a little on the nose after what I've just dumped on you all. Oh no, a nice faint concussion now. Sorry, John, the floor is yours. All good, all good. I feel your grievances. I'm here for you. All right. I've got a little bit of a double grievance here. It's the same story, but I'm not sure who to blame. It's either United Airlines or Newark Airport. All right, here it is. Right after the election, I decided to bring my mom out to where I live in Colorado. She hasn't been here before. She doesn't really fly. She's afraid to fly. Has not been on a plane in 20 years. She was like,

if I'm going to come out, you got to take me out there. All good, right? I'm like, no problem, I'm already there. I go get her, we go to Newark airport, and the flight's at five o'clock. We get there at two o'clock, just to like kind of ease her in, go get lunch, you know, have a good time or whatever. Four o'clock comes around and they announce a delay. Like, okay, well, delays happen, no problem. 4.30 comes around, another delay. 5.30 comes around, another delay. We've been delayed three times already.

It's starting to get weird. My mom's like, is this normal? I'm like, it happens. We're good. We're going to get on the plane in a minute, so it's no problem. Get on the plane. Then we're told while we get on the plane in a minute, so it's no problem. Get on the plane. Then we're told while we're on the plane, there's some kind of problem with air traffic control at Newark Airport. It's going to take a long time to taxi down, but by the time we do, we'll take off.

It's going to be all good. Taxi down, next plane to take off, and they come over the loudspeaker and they say, really sorry to tell you this, but there's a problem with the air conditioning on the plane. So we have to turn the plane back around. We go back. I'm not going to tell this entire complete story because it's so damn long. The short version of this is we got on

three planes and de-boarded all of them. From two o'clock until 1. thirty in the morning, we weren't allowed to get a refund or a ticket or anything else. They would not do anything. At one thirty in the morning, after getting on the third plane, they were like, yeah, we're canceling the flight. So. Your poor mom. That would be so scary for someone that like doesn't like to fly in general to have that happen. Right?

And she flew. She ended up flying, right? So the next day, we did get on a plane. There was one more delay. Oh my gosh. But we did take off. We did get through. And on the other end of it, by the way, here in Denver, we had our first snowstorm, so

we flew through that too. My mom is a trooper. I don't know how she did it. Me, I gave her outs. I don't know how she did it. Me, I gave her like outs. I was like, it's all good. Like we can rearrange this flight and do it another time. She's like, I want to see my granddaughter. I'm going out there. We're doing this. I'm like, mom, you're still taking me to school. Still a trooper. So that's the, that's the good side of the grievance part. Bad side is what's up Newark airport. You got to get it together here.

of the grievance part. Bad side is, what's up Newark Airport? You got to get it together here. And this is one of your native sons here, John, tried and true New Jerseyer too, getting betrayed. That's what I'm saying, you know? I think they dumped something like, you know, I don't know, some hundreds of millions of dollars into Newark Airport. It's a really nice airport now. They got great restaurants and everything like that. How are these planes backed up? I really don't understand. That's fact. And you were flying not Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy, which is surprising. Yeah. United, baby. I'm saying, come on. You are one of the top three. You're supposed to

have this together. That's what I'm saying. I don't know. Who do I blame here? United or Newark? United. United, I think. I don't know. The cosmos. Also, was there at any point, did you Google rental cars one way to see if you could drive your poor mom out there? Because that's what I would be doing.

I, I, this is going to sound rough. I love my mama. She's like a hero of mine. I'm not doing, you know, 30 hours in the car with my mom. That would have been a long drive. I'm not doing that. But you pretty much did 30 hours with her in an airport, it seems like. That part though, that part, you know, we could get like a little space.

You know, I went, I walked over to get a coffee while she sat down, some lovely people talked to her, but like, you know, 30 hours in a car ride and like it within the first 30 minutes, she's already told me like seven different ways I could be a better driver. Yeah, I can't do that. Would you rather sit next to Shaq on a plane or your mom? That's a good one. They call that king. Wow.

Nice. You got to answer that one. He uses the answer very tactful. Moving on. But only one might be listening, so you got to say Shaq. He refuses to connect to Shaq. Good looking out, man. Exactly.

No, Shaq, I got you, baby. We're sitting next to each other. We'll be partners. We're good. All right, Max, you promised a lot of heat here. And you're anchoring us. So you got to bring it home. Yeah, I do. I have, you know, you got to bring me on more often

because I have a lot of grievances I need to air. I have like two. I'll list them from kind of least important to more important. Maybe I won't even get to the last one. But the first one is, at the beginning of this year, I subscribed to a print magazine. I'm not going to name which magazine because I feel like that will give away some bias. But I did it on the recommendation of Ari, our managing editor. I have an idea which one it was.

Yes. Just really good reads. And every single print edition is late. And at the beginning, it's like, well, it's a four to six week timeline. I expect the first ones to be backed up. I got two at the same time. But now it's just a month behind. I just got the edition for October now. It's a monthly mag. It's not that it's super time sensitive because a lot of the reads can be evergreen, so to speak, but it's just not a lot of people are jumping to paid and you promised me this product and now it's late. So that's one grievance that I have that just kind of... I already don't have a lot of time to read.

I brought a stack of them with me when we went out to Philly for the election and I went through one or two of them, but I already don't have enough time to read, so come on, get it together. So that's one grievance that I have. Okay. Well, that's one grievance you have, you said, in a very ominous tone. Okay. Well, that's one grievance you have, you said, in a very ominous tone. Okay. I'll try and be quick. The other one is I just visited the great state of Florida. Shout out to Donald Trump again. It was a great experience. I especially loved

the warm weather, but the resort fees that are tacked on to every single hotel stay was just a racket. So I am complaining about the resort fees that are just playing crazy in this great state of Florida. And they package it as you're paying for the amenities of the hotel that you're staying at that you, one, can't opt out of. So, it's not an optional thing. So, they should just include it in the base price of the room. A lot of times you don't know until you get to the place and you're checking out that you have to pay for this thing. And it bumped up the price by like 30% a lot of the times. And yeah, I just think that we should be able to opt out of it. If I don't want to use the pool

I just think that we should be able to opt out of it. If I don't want to use the pool or your pool towels, I guess, then – and Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi was one of the things. We'll include Wi-Fi with it. It is 2024. Wi-Fi is included everywhere, I think. I have maybe some good news for you, but maybe it's too late and maybe this is dated a little bit. I found an article from a Fox affiliate in Tampa

Bay from a couple years ago that quotes the Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody at the time in Florida. And she said that in some cases, if you've already booked the room, you can fight the charge and you won't have to pay. She said, quote, in fact, there are numerous instances. Someone said, I didn't know, I didn't use the facilities and the ones that they were charged for. And generally speaking, they've been amenable to that, but nonetheless, they need to be fair and disclosed to consumers.

So you can maybe fight some of these resort fees if they're for amenities that you're claiming you're not using. And I thought that was like federal too, isn't it maybe state by state, like that you have to include resort fees in the total price and you have to specifically say what they are? I don't know. I know that recently President Biden passed or I think it was trying to pass

some legislation about and maybe I need to read up on this again because I'm not super, I can't really recall the details, but was pushing an initiative to try to make it easier to cancel subscriptions that are one click to join. I don't think that that's the same, but I don't know what legislation's out there about, you know, transparency of fees. It's probably state by state. My microphone is off, I think, so. I don't know how much more I'm gonna talk. I can't turn it back on.

Last grievance from Magdalena is her microphone's now switched off again and she's getting to join our tradition of Tech Hell here on the Sunday that we're hoping to leave behind maybe in the new year. My last grievance is just, and I think I'll save it, but I'm just going to briefly say the last grievance is local news channels using press releases as their entire article. And I'm just going to leave it at that. There you have it.

I know resources are slim. I know the Mediascape out there. We all know it. But at least try and put some critical thinking into your pieces. There you go. Magdalena Bikova from Tangle News says, if you are a small media affiliate, try harder. That's great. Well, just don't run it.

With that, we'll say thank you all for joining us on our Thanksgiving bickering episode of Tangle with all of us here, minus Isaac who's away. We appreciate you all for listening, appreciate everybody who voted for us for the Shorty Award. We will be back in your inbox on Monday for the subscribers and back in your ears in the podcast shortly after. Thanks for joining us for another edition. Take care. Peace. early after. So thanks for joining us for another edition. Take care. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by John Wall. The

script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will K. Back, Bailey Saul and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bacopa, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.