We are 42 episodes in and we couldn’t be anymore excited! Movember ended on Friday and with everyones help Don was able to raise $330! Everyone was an AMAZING help and we are looking forward to next year!

On this episode 42! Don and Offie provide insight into the advances in the Yemen situation, updates around Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen and what this means for the Mueller Probe, and the growing tensions between Russia and the Ukraine, and in the grab bag Don expresses more love/hate for Ben Shapiro, the signing of the USMCA at the G20 Summit, is killing the virtual KKK wrong? Why Don can understand people not liking him, and of course SPORTS!! w/ some updates from last week!

HERE you can find the episode in which we first talked about Michael Cohen

HERE is where you can find the original episode about James Comey

HERE you can find the first episode about Jama Khahsoggi

and HERE you can find the episode where we detailed the Saudis and Yemen.

 

THIS podcast, the ones we listed and ALL of our other can be found directly on our SoundCloud or ANYWHERE else you can get a podcast. The video from the live pre show can be found on our YouTube with the rest of our videos and the full episode video will be up tomorrow afternoon.

We also have hand crafted, artisan made T-shirts now available for purchase. Inquiries can be made through ANY of our social media and you WILL receive a response. Leave us a review wherever you listen to the pod, send us a screenshot and you will get $5 OFF YOUR FIRST T-SHIRT!

If there are ANY topics you want to hear us cover, let us know. If you have any thoughts or feelings about our show that you are holding back or choosing not to express? DON’T. Let us know what you think, WE WANT TO KNOW!

Written by: Colin Offenbacker

Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union died in 1953. It was Nikita Khrushchev who took the reins of leadership over the massive Communist state. Shortly after his elevation to head of the Soviet State, Khrushchev began what is commonly referred to as a “de-Stalinization” period, a major part of which ended in “gifting” the province of Crimea to the Republic of Ukraine in 1954.

As told by the Soviet newspaper Pravda on Feb. 27, 1954:

“Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferring Crimea Province from the Russian Republic to the Ukraine Republic, taking into account the integral character of the economy, the territorial proximity and the close economic ties between Crimea Province and the Ukraine Republic, and approving the joint presentation of the Presidium of the Russian Republic Supreme Soviet and the Presidium of the Ukraine Republic Supreme Soviet on the transfer of Crimea Province from the Russian Republic to the Ukraine Republic.”

This was an interesting move from the Soviet state considering, in one way or another, Crimea had been part of the greater Russian Empire for over a century. Never the less, it happened. Fast forward to 2014, the Soviet Union has fallen and a new modern superpower known as the Russian Federation stands in its place. On February 27th, unmarked and masked Russian soldiers moved into Crimea and took control of strategic targets including the Parliament building. By March 16th a pro-Russian government had been installed and had declared independence and on the 18th of March 2014, Russia had formally incorporated Crimea into the Russian Federation. To date, the international community has condemned the annexation of Crimea and has refused to recognize it as a part of the Russian Federation.

Over this past weekend yet another Russian provocation has developed, this time on the waters of the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea. Russian forces had fired on and seized 3 Ukrainian naval ships. On Monday, the F.S.B. (Russian Federal Security Service) said that border patrol boats had seized the Ukrainian naval vessels in the Black Sea using weapons to force them to stop. The Ukrainian ships included two smaller armored artillery ships and a tug boat. The ships were supposedly heading to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol via the Sea of Azov after leaving from the city of Odessa. The Azov is landlocked but for the exception of a narrow passage between Russia and the recently annexed Crimea. The waters are supposed to be a shared territory between the two nations according to a treaty signed in 2003. However, after the annexation of Crimea, Russia soon set to work, building a bridge that runs the water gap between Russia and Crimea. To help stop the Ukrainian ships from passing through, the Russians placed a large cargo ship broadside between the bridges underpass effectively blocking the only sea route to there destination. Soon the Russians had captured the ships and there crew. The 24 members of the Ukrainian ships crews are now being held in a 2 month pre-trial confinement.

Many United Nations officials including our very own U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley condemned Russia for the act. Haley called it “another reckless Russian escalation”.

For now this is a developing story and will, I’m sure, continue to evolve throughout the coming days, weeks and months.

Don’t forget to tune in to the upcoming episode of the Salt of the Streets Podcast to hear more on what Don and myself think about the whole situation.

This week Don and Offie take it back to their political roots and go over the latest on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi (which we covered originally in Episode 36), the CIAs findings and the Presidents response to it, in Trumpy Things the recent subpoenas of James Comey and Loretta Lynch and why this is happening now, and in the Grab Bag; how the Russians DID have their hands in your pie, Shapiro is better on other peoples shows, the new NASA Mars rover, 6ix9ine and why he is stupid, and of course SPORTS!!

White House Statement from the President of the United States

Every single one of our pods can be found on our SoundCloud and where ever else you can get a podcast. The pre show is available now on our YouTube along with all of our other videos and the full episode video will be up tomorrow afternoon. T-Shirts are available now and can be inquired about through ANY of our social media. Leave us a review on your podcast platform, send us a screen shot and you will get $5 OFF YOUR FIRST SHIRT.

 

MOVEMBER is going on for a few more days and ANYTHING helps. The Movember Foundation fights for mens health to work to eradicate testicular cancer, prostate cancer, and suicide among men along with many others. The mustaches that Don and Offie are wearing are to show unity with men and spread awareness. Search for either of our names on Movember.com to donate in our names or just follow the links below.

 

Don’s Movember

Offie’s Movember

 

 

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving. On account of the holiday, which is one of my favorites, I decided I would take a break from my 12 Rules for Life series and go over something that has been on my mind for the last few weeks.

As cliche as it is, we have about a million things to be thankful for and the holiday season is for celebrating family and all that you have to be thankful for. Now I love my family more than anything, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. The thing I am thankful for today, is free speech. That’s a pretty general idea, because free speech can cover so many different things and is used differently by so many people that share this inalienable right.

I have talked on the show before about a particular line from Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s  book, “12 Rules For Life”, the book I have been doing my blog post series on the last few months. The line is ” When you have something to say, silence is a lie. And tyranny feeds on lies.”, and when I read this line, it genuinely almost brought me to tears. I have never heard or read a single idea that I hold more true in my life, and I was then filled with overwhelming pride and patriotism for living in a country where free speech is guaranteed and protected for every human being born in this country, or legally immigrated and nationalized here.

I wouldn’t be where I am if I wasn’t honest. And I don’t mean just in the sense of not lying, but I am honest with myself. I am and always have been the type of person to follow my gut. Everything from a conversation with a superior at work to a mushroom trip, if it doesn’t feel right in my stomach I don’t do it. All of my actions and choices are things I will have to live with from the moment I execute them through the end of my life and I take that very seriously. Guilt is a fuel for my life. It’s a feeling I have never found a way to eradicate once it has infected my soul so I do everything to lead a life where I can avoid it, even by not leaving things unsaid.

That’s the part that I think I took most from this particular line from Dr. Peterson’s book, don’t keep yourself silent. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a place or time to have certain conversations, but they should be had and in an expedient manner. Having a family fight at your place of employment is not a good idea if you would like to continue to be employed there. But if you had a friend, or even worse a family member, who is treating you poorly then what do you have to lose by speaking up? Nothing. And at the end of the day YOU are the one that will have to deal with the feelings that resulted from that mistreatment. If your husband/wife is short and snappy when they get stressed out and YOU don’t like it, why should you not speak up? Why should you be subject to mistreatment? These are feelings that YOU will have to deal with.

Injustices is a word I use often, which sounds probably a little bit douchey. But for me it is an umbrella term that I use to describe anything that violates my fairly well-defined morals or gives me that stomach-sinking feeling I have only ever been able to relate or compare to guilt. That can be anything from poor treatment by a partner or family member like I was talking about, to blatant and disgusting corruption in the government, to being kicked out of Dave and Busters because Justin Bieber wanted to rent the place out. It’s things like these, Injustices, that I don’t think people should be silent about. That’s the ideal that got Colin and I into this podcast. That’s the ideal that leads people to be very selective of the time and subjects in which they ask for my opinion. It’s the ideal that leads me to not get along with people who speak with little insight or information into what they are speaking about.

A lot of people I have come across may enjoy this quality as an idea but not exactly the way it looks or feels when done. It’s almost never easy. To this day even when I get that guilty feeling and know I have to do or say something, I feel conflicted. It is simply a matter of self preservation to not want to have conversations with people that they probably won’t enjoy or to put yourself in an uncomfortable position, but that doesn’t make it right. The right thing to do is almost never easy. If it was, everyone would do it.

I’m not saying this is the right thing to do because it probably isn’t for everybody. It isn’t going to make you friends all of the time. A lot of times it is really really frustrating to identify and be bothered to care about the injustices you see in the world, but keep your eyes open makes it easier to see what you can do to help correct them, and that’s what honesty is to me. It’s not only something I can do to keep myself sane and guilt free, but I’m becoming increasingly certain that it’s what I can do for other people. So on this day of thanks I am going to break the mold and ask for something from everyone reading this; Be honest with someone today. If someone is rude to you because of an event you didn’t cause, be understanding but tell them that is not acceptable. If you hear someone say something you KNOW is incorrect (especially politically) say something. Correct them because it could change their mind. If you feel strongly that Saudi Arabia is not a place where America should have money and that The President is wrong, tell someone who challenges that idea.

People are surprisingly accepting of almost anything you tell them, as long as you say it the right way. Say it with confidence and care and concern, not with anger or spite. Be honest not to prove someone wrong or put them down, but for self preservation. YOU are the one that has to live with your choices and feelings. YOU have to decide if you were true to yourself and your morals. Honesty in all areas of life is liberating. And so I will leave you with the same line that has inspired me so deeply before I had even read it, but once articulated and presented to me I knew was to be my mantra for life. “If you have something to say, silence is a lie. And tyranny feeds on lies.”

 

On a very special Episode 40 Don and Offie and are joined by Old Man Dave Z to discuss his legacy in the neoprene world, the differences in being in school in the 60’s compared to today, simple rules to live your life by, why you should ALWAYS be nice to people your are on the phone with, halfway claustrophobia, the roots of MAD and National Lampoons magazine, Asian Pears are far superior to regular ones, culture shocks as a child, and of course, SPORTS!!

This podcast and every other one we have done can be found on our SoundCloud and ANY where else you can get a podcast. This full video for this episode will be available Tomorrow afternoon on our YouTube page where you can find ALL our other videos. Give us a rate and a review where ever you are listening or watching, send us a screenshot and you will get 5$ OFF YOUR FIRST T-SHIRT, which are available now. Inquiries for the shirts can be made through the website or ANY of our social media. Your WILL hear back from us.

Movember is still rolling and Offie and Don are still in full participation. Don is about halfway to his fundraising goal and will be donating more from every pay check he receives during the month of November. The links to donate can be found here (Donavan & Colin) and also on the Salt of The Streets Facebook. Help us do everything we can for Movember and for Mens health.