December 9, 2024 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- Jeff McCausland talks to A&G about Assad being overthrown
- % of Yale students getting A's in key subjects is low
- The "Doink for the Division"
- Word of the year & Trump's new cologne
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Arm Strong and Jetty and no he, I'm strong and Jetty.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Our troops these to the Euphrates where prepaired with our
SDF partners, are there to keep a lid on ISIS
and permit violent extremist organizations from gathering strength and being
able to attack the homeland of the United States. ISIS
aspires to attack US, as we know ISIS launch a
successful attack against Russia just a few months ago. That's
why those troops are there. So any decision to bring
(00:45):
them out would need to weigh that going forward, and
I'm certain that the new administration will take a hard
look on that when they come into office.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
So Trump said we should have nothing to do with Syria.
Obviously we currently do have something to do with Syria,
as we have nine hundred troops there and seventy five
different airstrikes yesterday in Syria. Tom Friedman mister intervene in
the Middle East, writing in the New York Times, they did,
(01:12):
mister President, a letter to Donald Trump. We need to
be very involved in Syria, and here's how so that's
a different point of view, and then he got this
La Times article. Today in Syria, militias armed by the
Pentagon are fighting those armed by the CIA, which makes
it quite complicated the always confusing Middle East major headline,
the regime of Bashar Ala Sade has fallen in Syria,
(01:35):
and that is sending shockwaves not only around the region
but globally. Is various powers are revealed to be stronger,
weaker than previously thought. All sorts of stuff to discuss
with Doctor Jeff mccauslin.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
CBS News military analyst.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Always a pleasure, Jeff, How are you doing well?
Speaker 6 (01:52):
Guys? It's crazy with you.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Well, what's your take over this stunning collapse of the
government in Syria.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
I think I'd say three things quickly. First of all,
an amazing surprise. The Assad family had controlled this country
for over five decades in the brutal fashion in the
Civil War, seamed to have frozen about four years ago,
and suddenly in eleven days they have collapsed. Second of all,
of course, this is an amazing geopolitical disaster, particularly for
(02:21):
the Russians who supported USAD for many years with military forces,
and the potential loss for them of two major bases
they've enjoyed unaval based at Tartuuse and a major air
base at Lakatia. And then also a major geopolitical disaster
for Iran because Syria, as the hub of hubs is
somebody once said in the region was a major conduit
(02:41):
for men material and weapons to their primary proxy in
the region, Hits Baalah. And now when you know things
were going bad, it's Valava was unwilling to support Syria,
Olivia was I unwilling to support Syria. Iran was unwilling
to have its allies in Iraq Militia Group support Syria,
and it collapsed. And last not as the least the
(03:03):
United States. You have to be aware of so called
catastrophic success. No one will weep for Bashir al Asada
bootle dictator. But if in return you end up with
a very extreme jihadi Islamic government in Syria that looks
like Afghanistan, well that won't necessarily be good either. Ye.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And for some reason it just popped into my head
whoever's famous for the old saying, you Americans, you feel
like you can fix everything. It was bad news for Russia,
it's bad news for Iran. What can we do to
make sure it's good news for us? Well, I think
with the one, can we do anything?
Speaker 6 (03:37):
Yeah, it's going to be very difficult. I mean, obviously,
if you don't want a wider military intervention, those said
well we shouldn't intervene might want to look around and
realize that, as you guys said a moment ago, we've
already gotten nine hundred troops Insuria number one, and we
just did seventy five air strikes number two of the weekend,
so we're already involved militarily. And now I think it's
(03:57):
going to be an effort by US, with allies in
the region and elsewhere, to try to find some mechanism
diplomatically and politically to pull together some kind of a
regime in Syria that can bring in together all these
various the spirit groups. You know, you've got at least
three major armies, one supported by Turkey, one supported by US,
and in the northeast in this group HTS, can we
(04:21):
get them to work together to come up with some
kind of viable government or do they turn on each
other and end up in some kind of subsequent civil war,
bringing on greater misery for the Syrian people. And more
and more refugees.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, whether they can be taking at their word that
they'll be pluralistic and fair to religious minorities is anybody's guests.
But Bear's just you know, doubling down on what you
said that the inability of Russia to back their client
and stave off this attack, I mean they did practically
nothing really goes to show how weakened they are by
their efforts in Ukraine, doesn't it?
Speaker 6 (04:57):
Oh, it absolutely does. You know, again, they were instrumental
in making sure that Assad wasn't defeated several years ago,
and had devoted massive air strikes to make sure that
didn't happen. But now you know, when things become difficult,
they were unwilling to do that. They made a few
air strikes, but quickly back down. And so the question
(05:20):
now becomes, can they salvage their bases as they try
to confine some kind of relationship with the new regime.
I think they'll do that. That's going to probably be
pretty difficult, based on their track record at bombing Syrians.
Number one, and now they also have accepted Bashir al
Assad's application for asylum in Russia, where he'll likely live
out his days.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, correct me if I'm wrong. This is also, at
least in the short term, a hell of a big
win for Israel.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Oh, without a doubt it is. But again it could
be catastrophic success if you end up with that kind
of extreme regime. He Israeli to have moved quickly to
occupy a so called buffer zone. How they've been established
at the end of the nineteen seventy three yob Kipoor war,
just to make sure that groups did not have a
greater ability to transit from Syria into Israel and threaten
(06:07):
Israel and everyone. Israelis in particular are going to be
concerned about what happens to the massive stockpiles of weapons
left behind and the Syrian army collapsed. What's going to
happen to, as we well know, some visual amount of
chemical weapons that Assad had at his disposal in the
aftermath that his armies collapsing. Certainly, what don't want to
(06:29):
see those things being acquired by one on one or
another of several extreme groups that operate in the leision.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Do you think this.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Helps with the pressure Trump's going to put on Putin
to come to some sort of ceasefire agreement or end
that war.
Speaker 6 (06:48):
I don't know if it helps, but it underscores just
you know, how weak I think in some ways mister
Putin's position is as well. I mean, we talk an
awful lot about the fact on the news that Russians
are gaining a more and more territory in the southeastern
portion of Ukraine. And they are. They've gained more territory
in the last month than they did in all of
(07:09):
twenty twenty three by a large member measure. But they're
doing that enormous cost. Estimates by the British intelligence is
fifteen hundred casualties in any single day. Now the Russians
exceeded two thousand casualties by most estimates on the twenty
eighth November, and November of this year may have been
the bloodiest month in the entire war for the Russians.
(07:32):
So gaining territory, but just that enormous cost, and we're
starting to see some of the effects on the Russian
economy that we hope for for several years. Inflation rate
in Russia right now is nine percent or higher, interest
rates over twenty percent and higher, and the Russian government
has now announced reduced payments to families of soldiers who
(07:53):
are killed in action or families of soldiers who are wounded,
because the costs that they have been bearing for those
payments has just become enormous.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Jeff mccauslin on the line, Jeff, final question, slash thought.
I know you were you're deployed to the Middle East
in the early nineties, commanding artillery battalion and tell us
just a.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Little bit about that experience and.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
As you came away from it, what did you understand
more clearly about that part of the world.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Well, that's a great question.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
I'm sure you could write a book and answer to
the question. Keep it break actually did.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
When I came away, knowing that it was the you know,
the wide disparity across the region of various different groups,
particularly based on religion Sea Ied versus Sunni. The support
for Asad in the region had basically been because frankly,
he was ahead of the Alawhites, which was a Sad
based group and serious So that's why he gained so
(08:56):
much support from Aura. These other groups are largely so
because the map of the Middle East is really one
drawn by Europeans in the colonial era. So consequently, in
the aftermath of these pick your wars. All those old
historical ties and ethnic and religious ties, there are so many,
so fundamental to people's identity rise to the surface and
(09:19):
make it enormously complicated for a country like Syria, which
has you know, Arabs and Christians and Shoonies and sites
and Alohites and whatever, to find some common ground where
they can create a structure that they all find acceptable,
that can also provide basic social services, pick up the garbage,
deliver the mail, provide basic police in a community, those
(09:42):
kind of things. So I definitely learned that. And then
the other thing you learn when you're in conflex like this,
it's just the dramatic problem and the plight of you know, refugees.
We saw thousands of thousands of refugees playing ahead of
dams as they moved back into southern Iraq. Will consider
(10:03):
the fact that Syria has somewhere around thirteen to fourteen
that million refugees, probably seven million displaced people inside Syria,
five million displaced people outside of Syria, and we saw
massive refugee flows early on in the civil war. So
now when we come back in the aftermath of Asad,
(10:24):
will this political conditions in the aftermath create conditions whereby
those people can go home and rebuild their lives after
thirteen years, or will this set off even more displacements
which will be unsettling to the countries in the region
and even beyond.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
CBS News military consultant Jeff McCausland, Jeff, always interesting, Thanks
so much.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
For the time.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Take care guys.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, I read about this stuff. I've read about this
stuff for so many years, and I still don't know
where I am. For instance, reading David Ignatius's column in
the Post today for the moment, Syria is a violent mosaic,
with Turkish back groups controlling western Syria all the way
to Damascus, a US back Kurdish militia controlling the northeast,
(11:10):
and Jordanians supported militias dominated in the south, along with
all kinds of other different splinters of kind of al Qaeda,
kind of ices, kind of whatever. I don't know is
our history of being involved in these things, have any
success stories?
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Boy?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Getting back to what Jeff was saying, and to your point,
I wish that you know, if I were some sort
of supreme being, I would say, look.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
All those borders the Euros drew.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Up in nineteen seventeen without a clue in the region
or whatever. It was precisely No, no, you soony, you're
over here. Gee, I go there, all right, courage, you
get your own country. Finally, congratulations, call it whatever you want,
Just redraw all those borders and maybe move people or whatever.
But enough of the h R, never ending, stirm and drunk,
(12:01):
you know, final point. And Jeff led me beautifully into this.
I was gonna bring this up anyway. I was listening
to an Iranian brit who now lives in America.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Pick a country, what.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
But this woman was talking about how the one thing
people don't understand is you remember the whole twelfth Madi thing,
how a lot of Sheites are looking for, you know,
the Judgment Day essentially, and the way you bring about
Judgment Day is through a war against the unbeliever. Specifically
a quote when the last drop of blood falls from
(12:36):
the last Jew. Iran wants to wipe out Israel, not
for mundane geo political stuff.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
It doesn't want the land.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It wants the last Jew to be wiped from the
face of the earth for religious reasons. How do you
sign a treaty with people like that? And and if
they're proxies hesbler Hamas.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Or right next door to you? How are you gonna have.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
A ceasefire with that? So we're gonna have Mike lions
On later today.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Those are our two go to guys, mccauslin and Lines
usually when there's a story like this, and they often
don't agree. So I'll be interested to hear what Lyon
says about the current situation.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Where I am in terms of how involved we ought
to be for whatever reason right now might be to
the level of coffee I've had, just I'm feeling more.
How about we back out and let them all fight
it out for a while and see how things turn out. Well,
I have had precisely the right amount of coffee, and
I disagree strongly.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Okay, we got plenty to talk about. Today's stay with us.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
A man in Canada saved his wife after a polar
bear lunched at her, and he leaped onto the bear's back,
shouting finish her.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
By the way, nobody watches Saturday and Live but me.
I watch it every week, have since nineteen seventy six
or whenever started. But I thought that was one of
the worst cold open and the history side of Alive
and I love Dana Carvey, I loved David Spade.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I just thought it was awful thought the jokes were terrible.
It wasn't funny. I happen to see it after online.
It was quaint, it was okay. It seemed like it
just did see. It seemed like an anachronism. It seemed
like something that somebody would have found funny in the
early nineties. Maybe, yeah, yeah, I'm tempted to keep discussing
the Middle Eastern Syria and religious fanatics and the impossibility
(14:27):
of negotiating with them, but I won't. I also won't
go too far down this road. We'll do it another time.
But how Trump and company are going to attack the
problem with America's university is becoming these indoctrination centers for
postmodern neo Marxist the madness, and and we'll do that
in full at some point, because it's all through accreditation, which.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Is going to be really interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Look, if you're if you're not teaching, you're you're perverting
all your teaching and all your science with this woke crap.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
We're not going to accredit you.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So that could be a good cudgel to get them
to come too, or come around, come correct, whatever phrase
you want to use. But came across this. This is
from Yale for the IVY League, Jack, the elite of
the elite. Didn't Yale just or was it Princeton? I
guess just passed Harvard as number one. As if I
give a crap about any of.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
That, I refuse to dignify that comment.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Agreed percentage of a's in their various concentrations. Economics, it's
just over fifty two percent. As math, for instance, it's
fifty five percent as well. Just cut to the bottom
or the top rather Women's Gender and Sexuality studies.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Ninety two percent.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
As Oh my god, there's no room for a final
nail in the coffin of higher education. But I guess
we'll have to squeeze another nail in between these two.
I mean, maybe just throw a rock at it. That's
just embarrassing. You should be embarrassed for yourself. You made
up a major that has no relevance to the real
(16:07):
world or anybody's needs, and then you give everybody.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
An a well right, And to repeat a point that
I made a while back, and it's one of the
cleverest things I've heard about this. And when these professors,
whether it's Claudine Gay at Harvard or whoever else, gets
busted for plagiarism, of course they're plagiarizing. They are repeating
(16:31):
the incantations of a cult. They're not trying to innovate.
There's no science in women's gender and sexuality studies except
maybe around the edges. It's the repeating of their doctrines.
They're not. Of course, they're plagiarizing. That's what they're supposed
to do.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Wow, everybody who takes that major gets all a's pretty much.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
I mean, that's just whatever, what have to do it again?
A B? Never mind us C.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And then if I shoot the professor, I get a B.
And then you go off to some lesser college and teach.
I suppose is what you do? Oh whatever is in
more minds.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
I guess for pro assassination. Now they too are strong and.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
They kickle tough for Matthew, right, this is for the division.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
For the Chiefs. Desions is the d bike for the
defension to the Chiefs. My goodness. Then they shot their opponents.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Sell me.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
The Kansas City Chiefs the most hated team in the NFL. Right,
now except for by Chiefs fans because they always went
on the last play something crazy they the other team
went the game.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
I was at last Friday.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
The other team fumbles the snap before they're going to
kick the winning field goal, block a punt. This that
bounced it off the uprights and it went.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Through the for the division.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
They God have mercy on his soul for saying that.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Oh okay, and Patrick Mahomes almost looked embarrassed afterwards, just
kind of.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
I know, I know, I know everybody hates this. Wow wow.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
NFL season is definitely heating out the big fun So
I don't know how to talk about this correctly.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
This is the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare.
Oh the moment it happened, and when we first talked
about it, I thought, this is going to be ugly.
This is what people are going to talk about the
way they hate insurance companies, and that's going to be
the focus of this story. And it has been for
(18:47):
a lot of people, including a lot of the crowd
out there who's happy the guy's dead and things that
needs to happen more often.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Then you gotta factor this in last week and I
don't have the notes in front of me.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Whichever health insurance group came out and said, we'll now
double the amount that we pay for anesthesia.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And was that a caving to threats like so you
don't get assassinated. The timing of it was a little
uncomfortable at the very least. I'd say that was a
frightened response.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
To the mood.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Right he y'all hate us, hate us less because of this.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh boy, so that's rewarding an assassination right, well, and
I don't know, there's there's kind of a fevered mood
in the land because it was who was it, Blue Cross?
It said, hey, look we're gonna put in time limits
for the amount of anesthesia for various procedures. And the jokes,
(19:54):
which were pretty good jokes, were about, hey, we're at
ten minutes turn off the gas in the middle of
your amputation.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
You know, it's a nightmare. It's right, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
You're getting heart surgery or something like that, and you're like, hey,
what's going on here? Sorry, dude, the meter ran out.
That's not what they meant.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
It's just we have to get into the weeds into
these things.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Well, one of my favorite podcasts were It was appalled
at the idea of even discussing high insurance costs, because
that makes it seem like it's justified even bringing it up, right. Yeah,
(20:36):
so I don't know how to approach this.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I just I think the Pandora's
box is open on the discussion. I see their point exactly. Well,
you're basically saying, like I don't, I shouldn't have to
even have this argument. A man was assassinated on the
street for having committed no at least direct crime, depending
on who you ask. But oh, it's worth pointing out.
And this is a note from somebody or other Henry
(21:04):
who pointed out that this dude was born in nineteen
seventy four, the son of a grain silo worker, got
an accounting degree from Iowa, married his college sweetheart, has
two kids, worked his way up, joined United Healthcare, worked
his way up there. Big supporter of the Special Olympics,
you know, not some evil character out of a novel.
(21:26):
He's a hard working iowe. Now, are there problems with
health care and insurance companies and stuff like that. Yeah,
But the idea that you just murder him in cold
blood on a sidewalk is just yeah, but it's tough.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Well, yeah, it's obviously awful.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
It's awful, and if you go down that road even
this much, it's a disaster. Were you going to try
to affect policy, either in the government or private business
by threatening people by them being scared of you?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I mean that's just said to Everything falls apart at
that point, and I mean everything.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
The whole thing falls apart.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, some executive, some executive at Ford says, hey, we're
losing so much money on electric cars now that the
federal mandate has gone. We're going to offer like one
or two, but that's it. We're going to go back
to doing what we do best. Then somebody guns him
down on the sidewalk for reasons of climate change and
climate disaster.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Weasy to picture, Well, if that happened, I certainly wouldn't
be okay with then having a conversation, well maybe we
ought to take another look at electric cars.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
That wouldn't be cool.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Right, Why are we talking about this and the other
thing that bothers me? And again I want to get
to Craig, the healthcare guru, back on to chat with
him about this. But what people don't understand because I
was reading some of the specific gripes online on Twitter.
I read a story that included a bunch of them.
Why people are mad about healthcare and it has to
do with the whole delay or I'm sorry, deny delay,
(22:54):
defend thing where and it could be argued by some
And here we are entering the discussion.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
And that gut and that's those are exactly the words
that were on the shellcasings of the bullets.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, he had a bit of a he said depose
instead of.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Delay.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
But anyway, a lot of what's going on, and people
don't understand this is because of two things. Number One,
the incentives and disincentives that Obamacare put in place for
insurance companies. They dance to the federal government's pied piper.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
They have little flexibility.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Granted, they're they're big, giant, nasty corporations that have lobbyists
to and bribe politicians like crazy. That's still true. But
the point is they are so interwoven with government policy
at this point. And secondly, and Craig's talked about this
a fair amount, the whole Medicare thing and and and
medicaid is built on an absolute mountain of lies. The
(23:56):
end result of which is doctor surgeon hospital gets paid
like sixty percent of their costs to see a government patient.
They lose money on every patient. And Congress said, you
got to see them, or will put you out a business.
You're gonna lose money on it because we don't have
(24:18):
the guts to tell Americans how much tax they actually
have to pay to get the benefits they're getting, which
is why we have a deficit every single year. And
the hospitals and doctors said, well, we'll go out of
business in about ten minutes. And so the government says, well,
what you do is you gouge the crap out of
anybody with private insurance. They're gonna pay five times what
(24:38):
a Medicaid patient pays for the same procedure, but they
won't really notice it because it's all baked into their
insurance from their employer or whatever. So Congress gets away
with that, you guys are gonna make money and we're
just gonna soak the crap out of people with private insurance.
And so the insurance companies say, well, we're paying for
(24:59):
a lot of that, so we've to see if we
could limit these costs. Sometimes they do it in a
way that's awful and unfair. Sometimes not, And again I'm
not going to go down that road because I'm not
an expert in it.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
But the fact that practically nobody.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Knows of this unholy, dishonest relationship between the government and
the assurance companies frustrates me. So you're okay to have people,
innocent men gummed down in the streets, but you have
no idea how the system works.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
Well.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
The other aspect is, I assume that most of these
people that have very strong opinions pro of this guy
being assassinated, they should all be scared. I've seen that
sort of thing. Ye, are that lunatic?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Taylor Lorenz actually putting the name and birth date of
the head of Blue Cross I think it was or
something like that, and her whenever she was born nineteen
seventy one dash and then it was left blank. Is
if yeah, let's figure let's fill that out. Taylor freaking
Lorens is a monster anyway, thank you, and was a
columnist for the Washington Post and the New Times. Yeah,
(26:01):
which gives you a Nightgaad is a great progressive mind.
But I assume that crowd their answer would be government healthcare.
You actually believe now the cost will be lower, at
least it will seem lower because it'll all be in taxes.
But do you if you actually believe you're not going
to be denied when the government is running healthcare or delay,
(26:24):
you think they're going to be responsive and have great
customer service and be looking out for you.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I spend a little time reading about NIH in Great
Britain or Canada or any place on the way those
healthcare systems work, you get denied all the time. Well,
the DMV becomes your How do you like it when
you go to the DMV and they tell you got
the wrong form? Come back tomorrow with the different form.
That's what all healthcare will be like. You're not going
to be happier.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
That's nice or it's well right, or again read about
the various you know, federal health plans in other countries
where there are only a certain number of cancer doctors.
So it's going to be eighteen months so you can
see a cancer doctor. Excuse me, the cancer is growing.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Get in line.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
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Speaker 5 (27:36):
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Speaker 5 (28:07):
I don't know how many.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Of you all celebrated National pan Sexual and Panorromantic Pride Day,
which was yesterday.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
Had a moment of silence.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Now, we often mocked the various days and say, you know,
whatever National Strawberry Day or National chuncoln Hip Cookie Day
or whatever. A lot of those are just dumb, completely
made up by calendars or websites some of the governments.
Some of them are actual government wins. And then this
one is this was This is a post from HHS yesterday. Wow,
(28:41):
HHS dot gov, you paid for everything that went into this.
It's probably ridiculous how much money was involved in this?
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (28:49):
This was their post today on pan Sexual and panor
Romantic Pride Day. Uh what percentage of people could tell
you what the hell that was? Or have ever heard
that word before in their lives? That'd be a good question.
Any Americans have ever heard that word ever in their
lives before reading this government tweet?
Speaker 5 (29:05):
Panda?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Oh well of course, yeah, But what do we gotta tree?
Is there carols just saying a gift? So what is
there our parade? How do we celebrate.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Today on pan sexual and pan romantic Pride Day. Everyone
deserves to feel seen, respected and supported, no matter who
they love. Create a world where everyone feels proud to
be themselves. And then a rainbow and a big something
or other.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
The government does not need to be involved in this
at all. The government shouldn't have had There shouldn't have
been a vote to declare this that there shouldn't be.
There are probably people who make their living dealing with
the messaging around this or the role of the government.
The government should not be involved in this crap at all,
at any level, not one taxpayer dollar.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Is that Rachel Levine character, the former dude in chargehas
no xavir bessera. She's under secretary of something, right, what
does she do? It doesn't matter. Yeah, the whole transgender
madness things. Stop it with your pan sexual whatever. I
don't care, get with dudes, get with women, whatever. Just
(30:13):
quit sexualizing the little kids in school.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Well I actually got that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I think might have been from elon or Vivik's website.
It was just another Why is the government involved in this?
The government? We need to shrink the government.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, if the government is big enough that you got
time for that. The government's too big.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Good lord, no kidding. Yeah, that's a good point too. Oh,
speaking of that sort of thing. Clip number eighty two, Michael,
this is the good folks that gaze against groomers who
are quite appropriately saying, hey, gay rights has got nothing
to do with trying to convince little kids that they're
the wrong sex, That we're not them, they're not us.
(30:49):
It's LGB. You get to the Q and the T.
You got weirdness going on. Good for you people standing
up and staying it. Go ahead, Michael, And.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
What age do you think most trans kids determine that
they're trans?
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Told us when she was one and a half.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
She's been telling us since she could speak, so she
knew since birth. Not freaking chance that that's true, not
even the slightest chance that that is true.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I love the bit of wisdom. Uh yeah, a trans
kids like a vegan dog. We know who made that choice.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
As a one year old.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Your kid, who has no concept whatsoever of generosexuality, has been,
you know, making it clear. Give me a break. Merriam
Webster's Dictionary is out with their Word of the Year.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
Among other things. On the way.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Armstrong Hetty.
Speaker 7 (31:46):
You can see these little girls here as well. Lava
been winko, okay, shut up into.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
They said, they're very happy has fallen.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
That's Claris's Award of CNN. And she was in this
traffic jam near the border is Syria, and everybody was
so happy, like a level of happy most of us
will never understand, because we haven't had family members disappear
or tortured by the government and then the government has fallen.
But those little girls were just thrilled. I also thought,
(32:33):
you speak whatever language that is they speak, that's interesting.
How'd you learn that Clarissa Award is amazing? She knows
no fear for one thing, or doesn't show it. Secondly,
I just hope those little girls aren't don't have their
lives ruined by islamis nut.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Jobs or take over. We'll talk to the terrific Mike
Lyons about that next hour. I hope you can stick around.
If not, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
A couple of quick things. Webster's Dictionaries out with their
word of the year. They went withation. Okay, fantastic. Oh,
I got nothing to say about that. I thought this
was an interesting article in uh Politico about how Biden
is Trump is already the president in many people's eyes,
including Democrats in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
More on that Street st had a piece on that too. Yeah,
it's notable, Oh, i'd say, but I don't know.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
If you saw Trump yesterday in France, he was at
Notre Dame for the reopening their first mass since they
rebuilt it and everything like that. It absolutely looks fantastic.
I really want to see that in person. They scrubbed
that church. You know, it's not been cleaned nine hundred years.
So these pillars, like if you've been to Notre Dame,
(33:43):
I know a lot of you have. I haven't, but
those pillars that were like gray were actually gold and
painted with beautiful paintings on them all these years, and
nobody knew it. So or if you didn't know it,
you didn't see it. I mean, so they scrubbed the
whole bang church. The whole thing leams and looks like
it probably did to people centuries ago. And if you
(34:06):
saw the sixty minutes piece a couple of weeks ago.
They brought in all these artisans around the country, woodworkers,
glass workers, masons that you get to work at the
county fair and show off their crafts. Usually got to
go into Notre Dame and actually do the old time
he work to do it just the way it was
done throughout the centuries and bring it back to life.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
So it looks really cool.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
But anyway, Trump is there and all the world leaders
are treating him like he's the President of the United States,
not like he's hitler, including Joe Biden sitting there and
talking to him and smiling, and that got a lot
of attention. Of course, Joe Biden one seat away, and
they look to be getting along really well. And then
Trump puts out an ad on his truth social about
(34:46):
his cologne which is called his Colonne, which is called
Fight Fight Fight, and it said something like, look, my
colonne even attracts Jill Biden or something.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
Wow, what a Trump thing to do. Just hilarious.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I just I can't get past the hole. He's literally
a hitler. Oh he won, So how you doing? Don't
come over for tea right?
Speaker 4 (35:08):
No kidding, no kidding, There'll never be another election again
if he wins. A. Hey, I'll sit here and laugh
and joke with you as we're waiting for the match
to start. But so he meets with McCrone, the leader
of France, and everything like that. Afterwards, Trump says in
an interview he said he's a good man. He did
a good job with the church. I told him, you
have no idea what a good job you did on
that chapel. That's very hard to do, painstaking. It's such
(35:32):
a Trump thing to say. I love Trumpet.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Notre Dame named after the late great Virgin Mary.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
Many people are saying, not a virgin. I don't know,
not my type.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
A late great Virgin Mary. I'm saying to McCrone, Uh,
A lot of you have no idea.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Yeah I do. I have a good I spent years
at this. Thanks though, I guess that's it's compliment. Sure,
a Trumpian compliment is so hilarious.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Oh, we ought to talk about that AI video I
sent to the team of Trump and doctor Jill looking
at each other then getting into a fist fight, generated
on by AI and totally realistic.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Looked regardlessly real.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
We're gonna talk to Mike Leins about Syria and US
involvement in our three Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Arm Strong and Jetty and no he, I'm strong and Jetty.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Our troops these to the Euphrates where prepaired with our
SDF partners, are there to keep a lid on ISIS
and permit violent extremist organizations from gathering strength and being
able to attack the homeland of the United States. ISIS
aspires to attack US, as we know ISIS launch a
successful attack against Russia just a few months ago. That's
why those troops are there. So any decision to bring
(00:45):
them out would need to weigh that going forward, and
I'm certain that the new administration will take a hard
look on that when they come into office.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
So Trump said we should have nothing to do with Syria.
Obviously we currently do have something to do with Syria,
as we have nine hundred troops there and seventy five
different airstrikes yesterday in Syria. Tom Friedman mister intervene in
the Middle East, writing in the New York Times, they did,
(01:12):
mister President, a letter to Donald Trump. We need to
be very involved in Syria, and here's how so that's
a different point of view, and then he got this
La Times article. Today in Syria, militias armed by the
Pentagon are fighting those armed by the CIA, which makes
it quite complicated the always confusing Middle East major headline,
the regime of Bashar Ala Sade has fallen in Syria,
(01:35):
and that is sending shockwaves not only around the region
but globally. Is various powers are revealed to be stronger,
weaker than previously thought. All sorts of stuff to discuss
with Doctor Jeff mccauslin.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
CBS News military analyst.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Always a pleasure, Jeff, How are you doing well?
Speaker 6 (01:52):
Guys? It's crazy with you.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Well, what's your take over this stunning collapse of the
government in Syria.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
I think I'd say three things quickly. First of all,
an amazing surprise. The Assad family had controlled this country
for over five decades in the brutal fashion in the
Civil War, seamed to have frozen about four years ago,
and suddenly in eleven days they have collapsed. Second of all,
of course, this is an amazing geopolitical disaster, particularly for
(02:21):
the Russians who supported USAD for many years with military forces,
and the potential loss for them of two major bases
they've enjoyed unaval based at Tartuuse and a major air
base at Lakatia. And then also a major geopolitical disaster
for Iran because Syria, as the hub of hubs is
somebody once said in the region was a major conduit
(02:41):
for men material and weapons to their primary proxy in
the region, Hits Baalah. And now when you know things
were going bad, it's Valava was unwilling to support Syria,
Olivia was I unwilling to support Syria. Iran was unwilling
to have its allies in Iraq Militia Group support Syria,
and it collapsed. And last not as the least the
(03:03):
United States. You have to be aware of so called
catastrophic success. No one will weep for Bashir al Asada
bootle dictator. But if in return you end up with
a very extreme jihadi Islamic government in Syria that looks
like Afghanistan, well that won't necessarily be good either. Ye.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
And for some reason it just popped into my head
whoever's famous for the old saying, you Americans, you feel
like you can fix everything. It was bad news for Russia,
it's bad news for Iran. What can we do to
make sure it's good news for us? Well, I think
with the one, can we do anything?
Speaker 6 (03:37):
Yeah, it's going to be very difficult. I mean, obviously,
if you don't want a wider military intervention, those said
well we shouldn't intervene might want to look around and
realize that, as you guys said a moment ago, we've
already gotten nine hundred troops Insuria number one, and we
just did seventy five air strikes number two of the weekend,
so we're already involved militarily. And now I think it's
(03:57):
going to be an effort by US, with allies in
the region and elsewhere, to try to find some mechanism
diplomatically and politically to pull together some kind of a
regime in Syria that can bring in together all these
various the spirit groups. You know, you've got at least
three major armies, one supported by Turkey, one supported by US,
and in the northeast in this group HTS, can we
(04:21):
get them to work together to come up with some
kind of viable government or do they turn on each
other and end up in some kind of subsequent civil war,
bringing on greater misery for the Syrian people. And more
and more refugees.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, whether they can be taking at their word that
they'll be pluralistic and fair to religious minorities is anybody's guests.
But Bear's just you know, doubling down on what you
said that the inability of Russia to back their client
and stave off this attack, I mean they did practically
nothing really goes to show how weakened they are by
their efforts in Ukraine, doesn't it?
Speaker 6 (04:57):
Oh, it absolutely does. You know, again, they were instrumental
in making sure that Assad wasn't defeated several years ago,
and had devoted massive air strikes to make sure that
didn't happen. But now you know, when things become difficult,
they were unwilling to do that. They made a few
air strikes, but quickly back down. And so the question
(05:20):
now becomes, can they salvage their bases as they try
to confine some kind of relationship with the new regime.
I think they'll do that. That's going to probably be
pretty difficult, based on their track record at bombing Syrians.
Number one, and now they also have accepted Bashir al
Assad's application for asylum in Russia, where he'll likely live
out his days.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, correct me if I'm wrong. This is also, at
least in the short term, a hell of a big
win for Israel.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Oh, without a doubt it is. But again it could
be catastrophic success if you end up with that kind
of extreme regime. He Israeli to have moved quickly to
occupy a so called buffer zone. How they've been established
at the end of the nineteen seventy three yob Kipoor war,
just to make sure that groups did not have a
greater ability to transit from Syria into Israel and threaten
(06:07):
Israel and everyone. Israelis in particular are going to be
concerned about what happens to the massive stockpiles of weapons
left behind and the Syrian army collapsed. What's going to
happen to, as we well know, some visual amount of
chemical weapons that Assad had at his disposal in the
aftermath that his armies collapsing. Certainly, what don't want to
(06:29):
see those things being acquired by one on one or
another of several extreme groups that operate in the leision.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Do you think this.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Helps with the pressure Trump's going to put on Putin
to come to some sort of ceasefire agreement or end
that war.
Speaker 6 (06:48):
I don't know if it helps, but it underscores just
you know, how weak I think in some ways mister
Putin's position is as well. I mean, we talk an
awful lot about the fact on the news that Russians
are gaining a more and more territory in the southeastern
portion of Ukraine. And they are. They've gained more territory
in the last month than they did in all of
(07:09):
twenty twenty three by a large member measure. But they're
doing that enormous cost. Estimates by the British intelligence is
fifteen hundred casualties in any single day. Now the Russians
exceeded two thousand casualties by most estimates on the twenty
eighth November, and November of this year may have been
the bloodiest month in the entire war for the Russians.
(07:32):
So gaining territory, but just that enormous cost, and we're
starting to see some of the effects on the Russian
economy that we hope for for several years. Inflation rate
in Russia right now is nine percent or higher, interest
rates over twenty percent and higher, and the Russian government
has now announced reduced payments to families of soldiers who
(07:53):
are killed in action or families of soldiers who are wounded,
because the costs that they have been bearing for those
payments has just become enormous.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Jeff mccauslin on the line, Jeff, final question, slash thought.
I know you were you're deployed to the Middle East
in the early nineties, commanding artillery battalion and tell us
just a.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Little bit about that experience and.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
As you came away from it, what did you understand
more clearly about that part of the world.
Speaker 6 (08:27):
Well, that's a great question.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
I'm sure you could write a book and answer to
the question. Keep it break actually did.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
When I came away, knowing that it was the you know,
the wide disparity across the region of various different groups,
particularly based on religion Sea Ied versus Sunni. The support
for Asad in the region had basically been because frankly,
he was ahead of the Alawhites, which was a Sad
based group and serious So that's why he gained so
(08:56):
much support from Aura. These other groups are largely so
because the map of the Middle East is really one
drawn by Europeans in the colonial era. So consequently, in
the aftermath of these pick your wars. All those old
historical ties and ethnic and religious ties, there are so many,
so fundamental to people's identity rise to the surface and
(09:19):
make it enormously complicated for a country like Syria, which
has you know, Arabs and Christians and Shoonies and sites
and Alohites and whatever, to find some common ground where
they can create a structure that they all find acceptable,
that can also provide basic social services, pick up the garbage,
deliver the mail, provide basic police in a community, those
(09:42):
kind of things. So I definitely learned that. And then
the other thing you learn when you're in conflex like this,
it's just the dramatic problem and the plight of you know, refugees.
We saw thousands of thousands of refugees playing ahead of
dams as they moved back into southern Iraq. Will consider
(10:03):
the fact that Syria has somewhere around thirteen to fourteen
that million refugees, probably seven million displaced people inside Syria,
five million displaced people outside of Syria, and we saw
massive refugee flows early on in the civil war. So
now when we come back in the aftermath of Asad,
(10:24):
will this political conditions in the aftermath create conditions whereby
those people can go home and rebuild their lives after
thirteen years, or will this set off even more displacements
which will be unsettling to the countries in the region
and even beyond.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
CBS News military consultant Jeff McCausland, Jeff, always interesting, Thanks
so much.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
For the time.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
Take care guys.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, I read about this stuff. I've read about this
stuff for so many years, and I still don't know
where I am. For instance, reading David Ignatius's column in
the Post today for the moment, Syria is a violent mosaic,
with Turkish back groups controlling western Syria all the way
to Damascus, a US back Kurdish militia controlling the northeast,
(11:10):
and Jordanians supported militias dominated in the south, along with
all kinds of other different splinters of kind of al Qaeda,
kind of ices, kind of whatever. I don't know is
our history of being involved in these things, have any
success stories?
Speaker 5 (11:26):
Boy?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Getting back to what Jeff was saying, and to your point,
I wish that you know, if I were some sort
of supreme being, I would say, look.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
All those borders the Euros drew.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Up in nineteen seventeen without a clue in the region
or whatever. It was precisely No, no, you soony, you're
over here. Gee, I go there, all right, courage, you
get your own country. Finally, congratulations, call it whatever you want,
Just redraw all those borders and maybe move people or whatever.
But enough of the h R, never ending, stirm and drunk,
(12:01):
you know, final point. And Jeff led me beautifully into this.
I was gonna bring this up anyway. I was listening
to an Iranian brit who now lives in America.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Pick a country, what.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
But this woman was talking about how the one thing
people don't understand is you remember the whole twelfth Madi thing,
how a lot of Sheites are looking for, you know,
the Judgment Day essentially, and the way you bring about
Judgment Day is through a war against the unbeliever. Specifically
a quote when the last drop of blood falls from
(12:36):
the last Jew. Iran wants to wipe out Israel, not
for mundane geo political stuff.
Speaker 5 (12:44):
It doesn't want the land.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It wants the last Jew to be wiped from the
face of the earth for religious reasons. How do you
sign a treaty with people like that? And and if
they're proxies hesbler Hamas.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Or right next door to you? How are you gonna have.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
A ceasefire with that? So we're gonna have Mike lions
On later today.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Those are our two go to guys, mccauslin and Lines
usually when there's a story like this, and they often
don't agree. So I'll be interested to hear what Lyon
says about the current situation.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Where I am in terms of how involved we ought
to be for whatever reason right now might be to
the level of coffee I've had, just I'm feeling more.
How about we back out and let them all fight
it out for a while and see how things turn out. Well,
I have had precisely the right amount of coffee, and
I disagree strongly.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Okay, we got plenty to talk about. Today's stay with us.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
A man in Canada saved his wife after a polar
bear lunched at her, and he leaped onto the bear's back,
shouting finish her.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
By the way, nobody watches Saturday and Live but me.
I watch it every week, have since nineteen seventy six
or whenever started. But I thought that was one of
the worst cold open and the history side of Alive
and I love Dana Carvey, I loved David Spade.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I just thought it was awful thought the jokes were terrible.
It wasn't funny. I happen to see it after online.
It was quaint, it was okay. It seemed like it
just did see. It seemed like an anachronism. It seemed
like something that somebody would have found funny in the
early nineties. Maybe, yeah, yeah, I'm tempted to keep discussing
the Middle Eastern Syria and religious fanatics and the impossibility
(14:27):
of negotiating with them, but I won't. I also won't
go too far down this road. We'll do it another time.
But how Trump and company are going to attack the
problem with America's university is becoming these indoctrination centers for
postmodern neo Marxist the madness, and and we'll do that
in full at some point, because it's all through accreditation, which.
Speaker 5 (14:47):
Is going to be really interesting.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Look, if you're if you're not teaching, you're you're perverting
all your teaching and all your science with this woke crap.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
We're not going to accredit you.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
So that could be a good cudgel to get them
to come too, or come around, come correct, whatever phrase
you want to use. But came across this. This is
from Yale for the IVY League, Jack, the elite of
the elite. Didn't Yale just or was it Princeton? I
guess just passed Harvard as number one. As if I
give a crap about any of.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
That, I refuse to dignify that comment.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Agreed percentage of a's in their various concentrations. Economics, it's
just over fifty two percent. As math, for instance, it's
fifty five percent as well. Just cut to the bottom
or the top rather Women's Gender and Sexuality studies.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Ninety two percent.
Speaker 4 (15:46):
As Oh my god, there's no room for a final
nail in the coffin of higher education. But I guess
we'll have to squeeze another nail in between these two.
I mean, maybe just throw a rock at it. That's
just embarrassing. You should be embarrassed for yourself. You made
up a major that has no relevance to the real
(16:07):
world or anybody's needs, and then you give everybody.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
An a well right, And to repeat a point that
I made a while back, and it's one of the
cleverest things I've heard about this. And when these professors,
whether it's Claudine Gay at Harvard or whoever else, gets
busted for plagiarism, of course they're plagiarizing. They are repeating
(16:31):
the incantations of a cult. They're not trying to innovate.
There's no science in women's gender and sexuality studies except
maybe around the edges. It's the repeating of their doctrines.
They're not. Of course, they're plagiarizing. That's what they're supposed
to do.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Wow, everybody who takes that major gets all a's pretty much.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
I mean, that's just whatever, what have to do it again?
A B? Never mind us C.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And then if I shoot the professor, I get a B.
And then you go off to some lesser college and teach.
I suppose is what you do? Oh whatever is in
more minds.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
I guess for pro assassination. Now they too are strong and.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
They kickle tough for Matthew, right, this is for the division.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
For the Chiefs. Desions is the d bike for the
defension to the Chiefs. My goodness. Then they shot their opponents.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Sell me.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
The Kansas City Chiefs the most hated team in the NFL. Right,
now except for by Chiefs fans because they always went
on the last play something crazy they the other team
went the game.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
I was at last Friday.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
The other team fumbles the snap before they're going to
kick the winning field goal, block a punt. This that
bounced it off the uprights and it went.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
Through the for the division.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
They God have mercy on his soul for saying that.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Oh okay, and Patrick Mahomes almost looked embarrassed afterwards, just
kind of.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
I know, I know, I know everybody hates this. Wow wow.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
NFL season is definitely heating out the big fun So
I don't know how to talk about this correctly.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
This is the assassination of the CEO of United Healthcare.
Oh the moment it happened, and when we first talked
about it, I thought, this is going to be ugly.
This is what people are going to talk about the
way they hate insurance companies, and that's going to be
the focus of this story. And it has been for
(18:47):
a lot of people, including a lot of the crowd
out there who's happy the guy's dead and things that
needs to happen more often.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Then you gotta factor this in last week and I
don't have the notes in front of me.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Whichever health insurance group came out and said, we'll now
double the amount that we pay for anesthesia.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
And was that a caving to threats like so you
don't get assassinated. The timing of it was a little
uncomfortable at the very least. I'd say that was a
frightened response.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
To the mood.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Right he y'all hate us, hate us less because of this.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Oh boy, so that's rewarding an assassination right, well, and
I don't know, there's there's kind of a fevered mood
in the land because it was who was it, Blue Cross?
It said, hey, look we're gonna put in time limits
for the amount of anesthesia for various procedures. And the jokes,
(19:54):
which were pretty good jokes, were about, hey, we're at
ten minutes turn off the gas in the middle of
your amputation.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
You know, it's a nightmare. It's right, it's hard.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
You're getting heart surgery or something like that, and you're like, hey,
what's going on here? Sorry, dude, the meter ran out.
That's not what they meant.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
It's just we have to get into the weeds into
these things.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
Well, one of my favorite podcasts were It was appalled
at the idea of even discussing high insurance costs, because
that makes it seem like it's justified even bringing it up, right. Yeah,
(20:36):
so I don't know how to approach this.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I just I think the Pandora's
box is open on the discussion. I see their point exactly. Well,
you're basically saying, like I don't, I shouldn't have to
even have this argument. A man was assassinated on the
street for having committed no at least direct crime, depending
on who you ask. But oh, it's worth pointing out.
And this is a note from somebody or other Henry
(21:04):
who pointed out that this dude was born in nineteen
seventy four, the son of a grain silo worker, got
an accounting degree from Iowa, married his college sweetheart, has
two kids, worked his way up, joined United Healthcare, worked
his way up there. Big supporter of the Special Olympics,
you know, not some evil character out of a novel.
(21:26):
He's a hard working iowe. Now, are there problems with
health care and insurance companies and stuff like that. Yeah,
But the idea that you just murder him in cold
blood on a sidewalk is just yeah, but it's tough.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
Well, yeah, it's obviously awful.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
It's awful, and if you go down that road even
this much, it's a disaster. Were you going to try
to affect policy, either in the government or private business
by threatening people by them being scared of you?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I mean that's just said to Everything falls apart at
that point, and I mean everything.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
The whole thing falls apart.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, some executive, some executive at Ford says, hey, we're
losing so much money on electric cars now that the
federal mandate has gone. We're going to offer like one
or two, but that's it. We're going to go back
to doing what we do best. Then somebody guns him
down on the sidewalk for reasons of climate change and
climate disaster.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Weasy to picture, Well, if that happened, I certainly wouldn't
be okay with then having a conversation, well maybe we
ought to take another look at electric cars.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
That wouldn't be cool.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Right, Why are we talking about this and the other
thing that bothers me? And again I want to get
to Craig, the healthcare guru, back on to chat with
him about this. But what people don't understand because I
was reading some of the specific gripes online on Twitter.
I read a story that included a bunch of them.
Why people are mad about healthcare and it has to
do with the whole delay or I'm sorry, deny delay,
(22:54):
defend thing where and it could be argued by some
And here we are entering the discussion.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
And that gut and that's those are exactly the words
that were on the shellcasings of the bullets.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, he had a bit of a he said depose
instead of.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Delay.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
But anyway, a lot of what's going on, and people
don't understand this is because of two things. Number One,
the incentives and disincentives that Obamacare put in place for
insurance companies. They dance to the federal government's pied piper.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
They have little flexibility.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Granted, they're they're big, giant, nasty corporations that have lobbyists
to and bribe politicians like crazy. That's still true. But
the point is they are so interwoven with government policy
at this point. And secondly, and Craig's talked about this
a fair amount, the whole Medicare thing and and and
medicaid is built on an absolute mountain of lies. The
(23:56):
end result of which is doctor surgeon hospital gets paid
like sixty percent of their costs to see a government patient.
They lose money on every patient. And Congress said, you
got to see them, or will put you out a business.
You're gonna lose money on it because we don't have
(24:18):
the guts to tell Americans how much tax they actually
have to pay to get the benefits they're getting, which
is why we have a deficit every single year. And
the hospitals and doctors said, well, we'll go out of
business in about ten minutes. And so the government says, well,
what you do is you gouge the crap out of
anybody with private insurance. They're gonna pay five times what
(24:38):
a Medicaid patient pays for the same procedure, but they
won't really notice it because it's all baked into their
insurance from their employer or whatever. So Congress gets away
with that, you guys are gonna make money and we're
just gonna soak the crap out of people with private insurance.
And so the insurance companies say, well, we're paying for
(24:59):
a lot of that, so we've to see if we
could limit these costs. Sometimes they do it in a
way that's awful and unfair. Sometimes not, And again I'm
not going to go down that road because I'm not
an expert in it.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
But the fact that practically nobody.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Knows of this unholy, dishonest relationship between the government and
the assurance companies frustrates me. So you're okay to have people,
innocent men gummed down in the streets, but you have
no idea how the system works.
Speaker 6 (25:22):
Well.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
The other aspect is, I assume that most of these
people that have very strong opinions pro of this guy
being assassinated, they should all be scared. I've seen that
sort of thing. Ye, are that lunatic?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Taylor Lorenz actually putting the name and birth date of
the head of Blue Cross I think it was or
something like that, and her whenever she was born nineteen
seventy one dash and then it was left blank. Is
if yeah, let's figure let's fill that out. Taylor freaking
Lorens is a monster anyway, thank you, and was a
columnist for the Washington Post and the New Times. Yeah,
(26:01):
which gives you a Nightgaad is a great progressive mind.
But I assume that crowd their answer would be government healthcare.
You actually believe now the cost will be lower, at
least it will seem lower because it'll all be in taxes.
But do you if you actually believe you're not going
to be denied when the government is running healthcare or delay,
(26:24):
you think they're going to be responsive and have great
customer service and be looking out for you.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
I spend a little time reading about NIH in Great
Britain or Canada or any place on the way those
healthcare systems work, you get denied all the time. Well,
the DMV becomes your How do you like it when
you go to the DMV and they tell you got
the wrong form? Come back tomorrow with the different form.
That's what all healthcare will be like. You're not going
to be happier.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
That's nice or it's well right, or again read about
the various you know, federal health plans in other countries
where there are only a certain number of cancer doctors.
So it's going to be eighteen months so you can
see a cancer doctor. Excuse me, the cancer is growing.
Speaker 5 (26:59):
Get in line.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
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Speaker 5 (28:07):
I don't know how many.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Of you all celebrated National pan Sexual and Panorromantic Pride Day,
which was yesterday.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
Had a moment of silence.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Now, we often mocked the various days and say, you know,
whatever National Strawberry Day or National chuncoln Hip Cookie Day
or whatever. A lot of those are just dumb, completely
made up by calendars or websites some of the governments.
Some of them are actual government wins. And then this
one is this was This is a post from HHS yesterday. Wow,
(28:41):
HHS dot gov, you paid for everything that went into this.
It's probably ridiculous how much money was involved in this?
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (28:49):
This was their post today on pan Sexual and panor
Romantic Pride Day. Uh what percentage of people could tell
you what the hell that was? Or have ever heard
that word before in their lives? That'd be a good question.
Any Americans have ever heard that word ever in their
lives before reading this government tweet?
Speaker 5 (29:05):
Panda?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Oh well of course, yeah, But what do we gotta tree?
Is there carols just saying a gift? So what is
there our parade? How do we celebrate.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Today on pan sexual and pan romantic Pride Day. Everyone
deserves to feel seen, respected and supported, no matter who
they love. Create a world where everyone feels proud to
be themselves. And then a rainbow and a big something
or other.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
The government does not need to be involved in this
at all. The government shouldn't have had There shouldn't have
been a vote to declare this that there shouldn't be.
There are probably people who make their living dealing with
the messaging around this or the role of the government.
The government should not be involved in this crap at all,
at any level, not one taxpayer dollar.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Is that Rachel Levine character, the former dude in chargehas
no xavir bessera. She's under secretary of something, right, what
does she do? It doesn't matter. Yeah, the whole transgender
madness things. Stop it with your pan sexual whatever. I
don't care, get with dudes, get with women, whatever. Just
(30:13):
quit sexualizing the little kids in school.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Well I actually got that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I think might have been from elon or Vivik's website.
It was just another Why is the government involved in this?
The government? We need to shrink the government.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, if the government is big enough that you got
time for that. The government's too big.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Good lord, no kidding. Yeah, that's a good point too. Oh,
speaking of that sort of thing. Clip number eighty two, Michael,
this is the good folks that gaze against groomers who
are quite appropriately saying, hey, gay rights has got nothing
to do with trying to convince little kids that they're
the wrong sex, That we're not them, they're not us.
(30:49):
It's LGB. You get to the Q and the T.
You got weirdness going on. Good for you people standing
up and staying it. Go ahead, Michael, And.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
What age do you think most trans kids determine that
they're trans?
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Told us when she was one and a half.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
She's been telling us since she could speak, so she
knew since birth. Not freaking chance that that's true, not
even the slightest chance that that is true.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I love the bit of wisdom. Uh yeah, a trans
kids like a vegan dog. We know who made that choice.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
As a one year old.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Your kid, who has no concept whatsoever of generosexuality, has been,
you know, making it clear. Give me a break. Merriam
Webster's Dictionary is out with their Word of the Year.
Speaker 5 (31:41):
Among other things. On the way.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Armstrong Hetty.
Speaker 7 (31:46):
You can see these little girls here as well. Lava
been winko, okay, shut up into.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
They said, they're very happy has fallen.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
That's Claris's Award of CNN. And she was in this
traffic jam near the border is Syria, and everybody was
so happy, like a level of happy most of us
will never understand, because we haven't had family members disappear
or tortured by the government and then the government has fallen.
But those little girls were just thrilled. I also thought,
(32:33):
you speak whatever language that is they speak, that's interesting.
How'd you learn that Clarissa Award is amazing? She knows
no fear for one thing, or doesn't show it. Secondly,
I just hope those little girls aren't don't have their
lives ruined by islamis nut.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Jobs or take over. We'll talk to the terrific Mike
Lyons about that next hour. I hope you can stick around.
If not, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
A couple of quick things. Webster's Dictionaries out with their
word of the year. They went withation. Okay, fantastic. Oh,
I got nothing to say about that. I thought this
was an interesting article in uh Politico about how Biden
is Trump is already the president in many people's eyes,
including Democrats in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
More on that Street st had a piece on that too. Yeah,
it's notable, Oh, i'd say, but I don't know.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
If you saw Trump yesterday in France, he was at
Notre Dame for the reopening their first mass since they
rebuilt it and everything like that. It absolutely looks fantastic.
I really want to see that in person. They scrubbed
that church. You know, it's not been cleaned nine hundred years.
So these pillars, like if you've been to Notre Dame,
(33:43):
I know a lot of you have. I haven't, but
those pillars that were like gray were actually gold and
painted with beautiful paintings on them all these years, and
nobody knew it. So or if you didn't know it,
you didn't see it. I mean, so they scrubbed the
whole bang church. The whole thing leams and looks like
it probably did to people centuries ago. And if you
(34:06):
saw the sixty minutes piece a couple of weeks ago.
They brought in all these artisans around the country, woodworkers,
glass workers, masons that you get to work at the
county fair and show off their crafts. Usually got to
go into Notre Dame and actually do the old time
he work to do it just the way it was
done throughout the centuries and bring it back to life.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
So it looks really cool.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
But anyway, Trump is there and all the world leaders
are treating him like he's the President of the United States,
not like he's hitler, including Joe Biden sitting there and
talking to him and smiling, and that got a lot
of attention. Of course, Joe Biden one seat away, and
they look to be getting along really well. And then
Trump puts out an ad on his truth social about
(34:46):
his cologne which is called his Colonne, which is called
Fight Fight Fight, and it said something like, look, my
colonne even attracts Jill Biden or something.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
Wow, what a Trump thing to do. Just hilarious.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I just I can't get past the hole. He's literally
a hitler. Oh he won, So how you doing? Don't
come over for tea right?
Speaker 4 (35:08):
No kidding, no kidding, There'll never be another election again
if he wins. A. Hey, I'll sit here and laugh
and joke with you as we're waiting for the match
to start. But so he meets with McCrone, the leader
of France, and everything like that. Afterwards, Trump says in
an interview he said he's a good man. He did
a good job with the church. I told him, you
have no idea what a good job you did on
that chapel. That's very hard to do, painstaking. It's such
(35:32):
a Trump thing to say. I love Trumpet.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Notre Dame named after the late great Virgin Mary.
Speaker 5 (35:38):
Many people are saying, not a virgin. I don't know,
not my type.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
A late great Virgin Mary. I'm saying to McCrone, Uh,
A lot of you have no idea.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Yeah I do. I have a good I spent years
at this. Thanks though, I guess that's it's compliment. Sure,
a Trumpian compliment is so hilarious.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Oh, we ought to talk about that AI video I
sent to the team of Trump and doctor Jill looking
at each other then getting into a fist fight, generated
on by AI and totally realistic.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Looked regardlessly real.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
We're gonna talk to Mike Leins about Syria and US
involvement in our three Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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