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Cruel and unusual

Mike Durant's interview with Shawn Riley is awesome. I agree with @Lord Ratner about Shawn being whiny. I also find him quite shallow and repetitive in his opinions. Nevertheless, Durant comes of well informed, intelligent, and humble. He also talks about his time running for senator in Alabama. He at least appears to have taken his losses in stride and admits that it worked out best for him in the end, but politics is a dirty, expensive, soul-sucking game.

I’d say it’s normal across the community. I wouldn’t classify it as whining per se, but more like the following when describing the majority of SEALs: Arrogant Self-centered Douche bag As always, I like to note there are great dudes out there in/from NSW, but they are the minority and not the average. Sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s hard, to determine how an individual actually is from just listening to podcasts. You have to interact with them in person, or talk to trusted individuals who have interacted with them in person, to get a feel for the real person.

Dan just did a big long podcast with Andy Stumpf covering the recent controversy. The short version is that his "insider trading" is measured in the low tens of thousands and had no inside element to it. Shawn Ryan is a bit of a whiny bitch for a Navy SEAL. Or maybe not, if that's normal for them. But Crenshaw goes over that too and what Ryan was calling a threat was pretty clearly not. I'm hard-pressed to find someone in Congress I like more than Dan Crenshaw. You don't often find someone with the experience he has, electability, and the willingness to subject himself to many recorded long-form discussions about detailed policy issues. I think the bigger issue is that we are just at a phase where the population expects something that is not possible from politicians.

He's been in office long enough now for people to notice that he as qualities they don't like...aka he's human and now has a spotlight on him. Some guys apparently bite off on the trope of insider trading, or that he had some big-name somebody perform for free at a party, or that he's has a less than cordial relationship with Shawn Ryan, or something stupid like that. Personally I find it completely asinine when dudes get hugely emotional about their opinions about people whom they've never met, have had no interactions with, and are completely unaffected by. I don't have a problem with the dude, whom I've never met. I listen to his podcast, apply critical thinking, and learn stuff I didn't know before. But hey, adulting is hard. P.S. My guess on the trading is pretty much every congressman just applies to the Pelosi index and prospers. But it's not insider trading as literally every word they say is written down in public record and posted almost immediately on congress.gov. Convenient for me to follow? absolutely not, but illegal? No.

Uh... Those were the distraction. Not the goal.