10-16-25 - 7am - The Cost of 'Woke' Language and Department of War Media Guidelines

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Michael.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I think it was Milton Friedman who came up with
the idea that if you spend your money on you,
it's the best, but if someone spends your money on
other things, that's the worst. And I believe that's what's
happening here. I don't know how he knows what I want.
He doesn't even know my name, much less many of

(00:21):
the people in his district. So how can you spend
your money on you?

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Thanks? And you're a woman, you don't even know what
you want?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Dragon at iHeartMedia dot com.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
You try and ask a woman what she wants for dinner.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
I've kind of developed a new rule, and the new
rule in our household is what do you want to eat?
I don't know? Okay, Well, when you decide, let me know.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Because three hours later.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
No, because she gets hungry. Tamer gets hungry, So at
some point she will tell me what she wants to go.
All I have to do is just wait to get
the answer. I've become a little more like instead of
just you know, trying to push push push for a neck. No,
you'll venture tell me.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
In the red Beard household, it's a guessing game. And
she doesn't even know the correct answer. So I'll list
a dozen things in they're all wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well that's what I would always do now, you know, no, no,
no no. So I go through the list, and of
course the problem we kind of live in a we
live in a food desert. We live in a restaurant desert.
I mean it's pretty much chains or it's the same
place we go all the time, and so it's it's

(01:40):
it boils down to we don't even talk in terms
of do you want to go to name restaurants. We
don't do that. It's just you one Mexican, Chinese, Indian burgers, steak.
What else am I missing? He means, you know, like
five categories? So we just we decide by category. But

(02:03):
she's right, Friedman, did you know you know best how
to spend your money? Now, maybe you don't spend it
the best way you could, but people know they're going
to when they spend their money, that is their choice
and they're getting what they want, which is a great
lead in to what I also believe that people know

(02:26):
when you're being bull you know what, bull craped. I
really do believe people know that you can tell by
a person's body language, you can tell by hesitation in
what they're saying, and you can tell by the words.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
You can sometimes follow their eyes too. If their eyes
go up in that one direction, you know they're making stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Up, right or like we like to joke anytime you
watch interviews on TV. That's a great question, Michael, which
is let me think about that does make the difference
whether the questions wially a good question or not. It's

(03:13):
I need time to formulate where do I start answering
this question, and what is this a trick question?

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Exactly? If they say that's a great question and then
repeat the question, they have no idea, no idea.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
That's right, they had no idea. I sincerely believe that
all of the woke crap that we've been dealing with
has never really been effective, particularly in these quarters. And
I say particularly in these quarters because Dragon and I
actually hear the woke crap and we turn that into
subjects that we make fun of, We mockt how stupid

(03:47):
the wokeness is. I think the Conservatives themselves have long
suspected that all this push for woke woke language the
true margarita or cocktails of a victimhood group, identity, identity politics,

(04:08):
I think it alienates most Americans. We marck it here,
and I think mockery and making fun of something is
the best way to really counter some things because you
can use logic and reasoning and rational arguments all day long,
and people will understand those rational arguments. They'll understand your logic,

(04:30):
but it doesn't really internalize until you can mock it
and make fun of it. When you mack it and
make fun of it, you internalize them. That's why I
think some of the greatest teachers are the teachers who
present something. You know, they take a history class, for example,
and if they're animated, and they use all sorts of

(04:53):
multiple ways of conveying the information audio, visual recordings, photographs everything,
it brings it alive. Or you bring artifacts or things
into the classroom and actually say, hey, look at this.
You know, as much as I, as much as Glenn
Beck and I despise each other, Glenn Beck does a

(05:15):
really good job. You know. He collects all these historical
artifacts that Sunday I suppose when he dies will be
in a in a really amazing musicum he'll be able
to see things as you would. I mean, he collects
like odd things that you'll Hitler owned at one point
where you'll be able to go see those kinds of things.

(05:36):
It'll really bring history alive. And he's very good at
doing that. I give him credit for that. But go
back to wokeness from them, because I think it really
alienates us. It doesn't it's not convincing, if it's not persuasive,
it doesn't help in a debate. It's actually off putting.
It's just too grading. And we know it's devising. And

(05:59):
no matter what your politics, I don't care what side
of it or where you are on the spectrum of politics.
You know, I heard the word spectrum used yesterday on
something and I thought, this is a word that's becoming overused.
And I just now used it and thought about that.
When I say spectrum of the political spectrum, I really
do believe that politics is on a spectrum. You've got

(06:20):
the left wing nut jobs, you got the right wing
nut jobs, you got everybody in the middle. And I
don't mean like at ninety degrees. I mean all across
that half circle of a baseline. People are all and
your politics can be at a forty five degree angle
on that spectrum on one issue, and you can be

(06:42):
way over here on a twenty five degree angle. On
another issue, I think we just tried to buttonhold people
too much in politics. So this whole idea about wokeness
and my theory that it's really never been effective, I
now have some empirical evidence. There's a new study by

(07:04):
the Network Contagion Research Institute that has finally put out
some evidence that woke language actually provokes real anger, defensiveness,
and bile in the respondents. Woke language is often used
as a way to browbeat just ordinary people into submission. Well,

(07:27):
this study shows that we got plausible grounds to conclude
that it's actually achieving the precise opposite someone in I
don't care whether it's in this building or it's out
in my social life or wherever. People can say certain
things that I know are just buzzwords. And when they

(07:48):
use the buzzwords, particularly a woke buzzword or it's a
politically correct buzzword, I immediately stop thinking about what they're
trying to convey to me, and I start thinking about
what's their cultural position, what's their political position, What are
they really trying to convey here, what do they really believe?

(08:10):
It completely distracts me from whatever they're actually showing. Well,
this research shows that, you know, I like to say
things are just stupid. Well, this research, more than anything else,
probably shows that woke is just stupid. The survey tested

(08:32):
the actual effect of woke language on Americans by drawing
from public messaging put out by the Anti Defamation League.
That organization one of America's most influential liberal in geos
non government organizations, and it has been at the forefront

(08:54):
of shaping how anti Semitism is taught in schools all
across the country. That they develop up all sorts of
educational resources, handbooks, curriculum programs, you name it, but in
an effort, and there's no doubt in my mind that
this effort has been well intentioned to fight the scourge
of increasing Jew hatred. What did the Anti Defamation League do?

(09:18):
They embrace the language of woke in their campaigns, and
generally speaking, they have increasingly adopted language that presents Jews
as victims, victims of physical violence, of prejudice, of silence
from neutral bystanders. Jews get framed simply as one of
the many oppressed groups, one of the many oppressed group

(09:40):
identities in this country. And so the logic goes, we
can fight anti Semitism by getting people to see Jews
in a woke term. And I love the fact that
they use Jews as an example, because the problem is
is that they're type of rhetoric utterly fails to stimulate

(10:02):
feelings of any sort of solidarity, any sort of care
or concern. In fact, it doesn't even create any sense
of positivity or even respect. Actually, the study demonstrates that
exposure to this psychologically framing of everything in a woke
term actually increases participants reported anger, their defensiveness, even hostility

(10:26):
towards Jews. So here's the ADL, the aneid of Defamation League,
trying to fight anti Semitism and in doing so decides
to go woke. Well, they went broke because it increases
something called the hostile attribution basis. That's a bunch of jargon,

(10:48):
but it's a way of assessing whether you interpret people's
behavior in good faith or not so well, not kind
of truly paradoxically, fighting anti Semitism using the woke language
of ADL's language can measurably increase feelings of anti Semitism.

(11:11):
So when you're talking about social issues like you know,
inequality or racism. But you're using woke language. This study
shows that it actually appears to upset people because it
does exactly what woke language was designed to do. It divides,
it accuses, and it relies on the message of competition

(11:34):
instead of unity. Now I've long suspected this, but I've
never had the evidence. This is not the first study
indicating that woke messaging creates more hostility, not less. The
same organization ran a similar research project after learning that

(11:56):
and astonishing fifty two percent of professionals have to attend
some sort of DEI meetings and training events at work.
What's the purpose. Well, this stated intention, I should say,
is increasing awareness of an opposition to systemic oppression. Now

(12:20):
I will tell I will fully confess, not even Catholic,
but put me in a confessional and I will tell
you that when someone starts telling me about how some
group is systemically oppressed. Now I'm not talking about you know,
Christians in Syria, for example, They're not just being systemically oppressed,
They're being systematically annihilated. It's a holocaust of Christians in Syria.

(12:48):
I know. I'm talking about well, you know, effeminate gay men,
or you know really, but you know, lesbian women or
his fannings or blacks or whatever identity column you want
to put somebody in. When you tell me that their system,
that their systemic oppression of those people, my brain immediately

(13:11):
just shuts down because I just think it's total bull crap.
But nobody's ever so to speak, run the numbers before
to see if the DEI training really works, because if
they had done that, they have seen that more often
than not, the curse is worse than the cure is
worse than the disease. And even that's only if you

(13:32):
actually believe that diversity, equity inclusion was about curing anything,
as opposed to say, you know, actually just subsidizing a
class of human resources professionals and then conjuring an entire
microeconomy out of that. You know what that microeconomy is
worth right now? According to Mackenzie, one of the giant

(13:53):
consulting firms, eight billion dollars. Now again, I like, I
like to think about eight billion dollar that's taken out
of something productive and put into think about, well, it's
kind of I can't actually equate the ethics programs because

(14:13):
dragon there's really nothing in our ethics program that are
testing that we do that's really DEI. There's nothing in
there about DEI that I recall, or if there is,
I've just totally spaced it out, So we don't really
do that. I am am I missing something here? Do
we do any DEI training at iHeart? I can't think
of anything.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
I think it might be a little bit in the
ethics training. Do you think there's something in this? Maybe
a sentence or two or a slide or something.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Okay, so maybe it's just a slide out of you know,
one hundred slides. There's one. But I just don't think
we do it here because I think I think it
really would have stuck in my head. But think of
the time that people spend. You have to hire a professional,
you've got somebody full time in that company or in
that organization. Then they hire a consultant because they don't

(15:02):
do the work themselves. Well, what does the hire consultant
come in and do it? So Mackenzy estimates that we
spend eight billion dollars, which I know, in the grand
scheme of you know, a trillion dollars GDP, it's not
a lot of money, but still that's eight billion dollars
that in those companies could be put to an actual
constructive use, like in our case, finishing the bathrooms. Did

(15:24):
you stay? Have you stuck your head in there today? Dragon?
On the on the fourth floor, the men's restroom is
virtually complete. I'm shocked. The sinks have water, the toilets
have water, the urinals do not. So we're getting close
pretty soon. No more tracks down the steps that eight

(15:45):
billion dollars could be used to do things like, Oh,
I don't know, how about a salary increase? Hmm, oh,
wages are flat. Well, you could take eight billion dollars
spread that around. May not be much, but that's something
you could use. Or you could buy some new peace
of equipment, you could expand your operation, any number of things.
But back to the program. Back to the study. They

(16:09):
found that when Americans were exposed to this kind of
messaging that gets lifted directly from these DEI programs, it
actually increased a person's perception of racism in the workplace. Now,
when I saw that, my first thought was, because that's

(16:29):
precisely what they wanted to do. They want you to
see racism everywhere, They want you to see oppression everywhere.
Why because that empowers them. So if it increases the
perception of racism in the workplace, even without any evidence

(16:50):
that there actually is any, that's going to result in
heightened racial prejudice, inner group hostility, suspicion division. Those programs
lead to increased support for actual punishment against those who
might create a microaggression something. Actually, some people lost their
jobs over.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
I gotta tell you, Dragon, that was pretty funny, and
it was funny because it was true. She's a woman
and she doesn't even know what she wants gold Dragon.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Gold Dragon at iHeartMedia dot Com.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
I will freely admit that I'm on my second marriage
right now, but that the first one really wasn't my
fault when you consider what she was coined downstairs on
the third floor as the lesbian prostitute, Thank Robert. So
I think, I think I'm okay.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
And I also, knowing missus Redbeard as I do. If
she really does know what she wants to eat, she
doesn't really give her rats. Ask what you want to
eat or not, that's where you're going to go true,
and the same is true in my household. I just
need to I just need to know, And I think,
don't you think sometimes it's more of they just don't
want to make the decision, right, yeah, But then when

(18:06):
you make the decision, it's, well, that's not what I
really want.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
It's the wrong decision.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
It's the wrong decision because they don't know what they want,
and so you have to go through all of the
hoops because what you're really doing is you're just forcing
them to think about what they really want.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
I've seen some of the woman hacks on social media
where you just say, hey, babe, guess where I'm taking
you to dinner? And then they'll name a restaurant, they'll
name a place, so they'll name you know, steak, and
you're you're right, that's where we're going.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Very would never fall for that. She would never if
I if I went home and said guess where I'm
taking you for dinner tonight, she go oh where? She wouldn't.
She wouldn't tell me. It would be.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Where to force them to guess.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
No, because what he would be doing is thinking where
does he really want to go?

Speaker 1 (19:03):
M m oh, yeah, but that's the eighty years of
marriage that you two have.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
Yes, right, So she would be thinking where does he
really want to go? Because now now we're both playing
exactly the same game, and we're never going to go anywhere.
It's it's, you know, we need Trump to come in
and do a negotiation. We need Trump to come in
and you know, decide for us every you know, whenever
we're going out to dinner, where are we going to go?
Where are we going to go? Do you think he

(19:28):
malaniey have that problem.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
It's always McDonald's. It's always McDonald's.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Always McDonald's. Yes, I mean McDonald's. McDonald's. I went into
while I was in New York zero one. Oh yeah, yeah,
I just wanted it was late in the afternoon. I
wanted to diet coke. Sod it was. It was actually
the day we were leaving, so I said, it wasn't
too far from the hotel and we were walking that

(19:54):
direction now, so let's just run in here. Let me
you want to diet coke? She said, oh yeah, yeah,
let's go get a dit coke. So he ran in,
got a couple of diet cokes, walk out. We're drinking
and walking back to the hotel. And then when I
get to the hotel, there's a screw up with her key
made a late checkout, but her key quit working. Mind didn't.
So I set it down and went to her room,

(20:16):
came back, grabbed my bag and walked out. Enough the
die coax anymore? Life, dragon, You don't know how difficult
my life is.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Why is life so hard?

Speaker 3 (20:27):
I know? So I sat in the cab all the
way up Legardi without a diet Cob cried, I you know,
that's why I almost didn't come in. I started called
Tepper and just say I left my diet coke in
the room. I can't I can't get to work, can't
make it, can't make it. What do you know? How

(20:47):
want you stop and think for a moment about what
you know about what the Department of War media access
guidelines actually say. There's no there's no right or answer here,
And I'm not trying to embarrass anybody. I just want
you to know what you know about it it because

(21:08):
if you listen to the cabal, they will tell you
it's it's a violation of freedom of the press. It's
a violation of the First Amendment that you're gonna have
to be escorted anywhere inside the Pentagon, even if you
have a validated and legitimate press pass. That it's all
pretty bad. And I have to admit that they I

(21:31):
haven't actually read the document, so I fell prey to
the same thing that Okay, they're changing everything and they're
going to start controlling things. A friend of mine who
is a editor and co founder of The Federalist, Sean Davis.
He worked for one of the senators that was involved
when I was in Katrina. Sean Sean's a brilliant guy,

(21:54):
and I think the Federalist is a is a great
website if you if you don't read The Federalist, you
probably should them. He put out a statement on x
that I really think is just sharing worth sharing with you.
He titled it statement on Department of War Media Access

(22:17):
Guidelines from the Federalists CEO Sean Davis and editor in
chief Molly Hemingway. You've certainly seen Molly on She's a
Fox News contributor, so I'm sure you've seen Molly. Here's
what their statement is. When other credentialed at lists and
journalists spread lies about the Russia collusion hoax or the

(22:40):
Covington kids hoax, we haven't thought about that in a while,
or the Kavanaugh rape hoax, or the Ukraine impeachment hoax,
or the COVID nineteen natural origin hoax, or the peaceful
Black Lives Matter riot's hoax, or the Suckers and Losers hoax,
or the Hunter Biden laptop hoax or the Biden's Brain

(23:03):
has Totally find You guys hoax. The Federalists fearlessly reported
the truth, and they did. The Federalists is a great
place to go if you want to see the truth
about some of this crap that the cabal feeds you.
Their statement continues. Corrupt corporate journalists published lies and regurgitated

(23:27):
regime propaganda and were given awards. We published facts and
the truth, and the federal government responded by waging a
global war of illegal censorship against the Federalists, which they did.
They profited from lies while we were punished for reporting
the truth. Where these self styled First Amendment defenders or

(23:51):
where were these self styled First Amendment defenders when we
were illegally censored and targeted for debunking deep state lies
in hoaxes. Many of them not only refuse to defend us,
but cheer the illegal censorship efforts against US. NBC News,
for example, colluded with big Tech to demonetize and de

(24:13):
platform US for criticizing the government and the corrupt corporate
news media. So you'll have to forgive our skepticism of
corporate media's ostensible new love of press freedoms and the
First Amendment. That's a brilliant paragraph, right, That's just a
one sentence paragraph that is just brilliantly written. So you'll

(24:34):
just have to forgive our skepticism of corporate media's ostensible
new love of press freedoms and the First Amendment. Just
I want to insert it parenthetical here when you think
about the Cabal, I've started, you know, I don't know
who's picked it up, but I've heard other people start

(24:56):
to refer to that unholy alliance of big tech and
the media and the government as the Cabal, and it
really does have meaning for me. It's not something I
use as a joke. I mean it very sincerely, because
the corporate media, the dominant media, the mainstream media, whatever

(25:16):
you want to call them, really had just become stenographers
for the Democrat Party. That's all they really do. Now,
occasionally they'll put out a piece that is an objectively
written report about something that's non political, and it's actually
worthwhile reading. But you've got to you've got to swim
through all of the gunk and the muck and the
mud to get through that one story, which is why

(25:40):
I might still read all of those newspapers, but I
do primarily for the purpose of this program. Anyway. They
continue in their statement, they say, we actually read through
the new Department of War media access guidelines, and we've
found zero new restrictions on the ability of journalists to
report honor to criticize the government. Many corporate journalists, eager

(26:02):
to grandstand, will claim otherwise without evidence, But we will
show you what the actual document says. Quote nothing in
this document requires you to waive any constitutional rights. This
in brief constitutes a description of Department of War policies.
Quote continues, Members of the news media are not required

(26:26):
to submit their writings to the Department of War for approval.
Continuing the quote, This in brief and its appendices address
Department of War policy and the potential basis for such
a determination, and do not prohibit you, as a credential holder,
from engaging in constitutionally protected journalistic activities such as investigating, reporting,

(26:53):
or publishing stories. Continuing to quote my signature meaning Secretary
of War Pete Hegesath my signature represents my acknowledgment, and no,
I'm sorry, this is the reporters acknowledgment. My signature represents
my acknowledgment and understanding of such Department of War policies

(27:16):
and procedures. Even if I do not necessarily agree with
such policies and procedures, Signing this acknowledgment does not waigh
any rights I may have under the law. Well, those
are the facts, and as is usually the case, the
Federalists was the first outlet to actually report them. They

(27:39):
continue with the statement, we look forward to eagerly covering
the Pentagon, both on site and from a distance, with
the same fearlessness and courage and devotion to the truth
that we have exhibited since we were created. And if
the new guidelines result in fewer professional con artists and
media hoaxers roaming the halls looking for new lies to pedal,

(28:03):
so be it. Bingo, there you have it. So what
are they upset about? Oh, sometimes restrictions to restrictive access
to certain places where they probably should not have been
in the first place, which is their right to do

(28:23):
so they don't. For example, you have to be credentialed
to get into the Brady Briefing room at the White House.
There's nothing unconstitutional about that. They have to limit the access.
So it's just, oh, I represent the Denver Post. I

(28:44):
want to get access to the Pentagon. Okay, well, then
you have to apply. You have to prove your credentials,
you have to prove that you're a reporter for the
Denver Post. You have to go through all these steps,
and we will give you credentials that give you unfettered access.
It just gives you credentials that you can get inside

(29:05):
the building. Once again, the cabal trying to make you
think that Trump is what, oh, attacking the First Amendment?
Not at all. The United Nations is proposing a new
digital ID. What could possibly go wrong with a digital ID?
I saw people traveling this weekend that were showing digital IDs,

(29:29):
which I didn't think was acceptable. Or maybe it was
actually to get into some places where people need to
see a driver's license, and it was and it was
on their on their phone and they were showing that
on the phone and I thought, I'm never going to
hand my phone over to a cop to look at
my driver's license. Just not going to do it. Well. Now,
the United Nations is actually out there proposing it. We
use a digital ID. I'll let you hear that when

(29:51):
we get back. Maybe I'm digitally pretty good at everything,
but when it comes to stuff like this, I'm still
a pure and log guy. No, I don't want a
digital currency. I don't want well, I don't care if
you all when crypto digital IDs. Nope, not gonna happ