January 9, 2025 • 35 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- The interactions at the Jimmy Carter funeral
- The D.O.G.E. project
- Looters in the CA wildfires & the Obama/Trump relationship
- The constitutional crisis in South Korea
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
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 Katty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Armstrong and Jettaty and know He Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
What is the situation with the water obviously in the
palisage that ran out last night in the hydrants.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
The local folks are trying to figure that out.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I mean, just when you have a system that it's
not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large
scale fires, whether it be pipe electricity or whether it
just be the complete overwhelm of the system.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah, I got to believe Gavin Newsom getting on the
phone with some people why the hydrants were an out
of water. I need an answer because that's a bad story.
The hydrants run similar to other situations. He's a pot
So I'll tell you. If there's one place I could
be right now anywhere in the world, it'd be close
enough to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who were sitting
in the second row at the National Cathedral in Washington,
(01:03):
DC waiting for the Jimmy Carter funeral to start. It's
the role of the ex president's man. The most exclusive
club in the world and people with a better view
of the way things really work than anybody who lives.
But Barack Obama's now bending Trump's here. They are in
a NonStop conversation and both of them laughing now and then,
(01:24):
and Barack Obama's just shaking his head like rolled his
eyes and laughed, and they're talking about I would freaking
love to know what they're talking about. Do you think
if it's anything of consequence or is it like really
minor stuff just to make small talk.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I think it is a presidential small talk, That's what
I'm he knowing. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeh, DC and
the White House and the inauguration and the press and
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I suspect.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And famously, if you're into this sort of stuff, former
presidents often have way more respect for each other then
you might guess based on the way things were when
they were all fighting each other. And I wonder if
Barack and Trump are in that category. Oh it's guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, They've both done a job that is impossible and
ages you like a dog, and so there is a
bond even if you disagree fairly vehemently. I want to
say one thing and make it clear because we have,
you know, made various comments, whether lighthearted, about some of
the things happening at the funeral or Carter's presidency and
that sort of thing. I believe Jimmy Carter was a
(02:37):
good man who lived a good life. I think he
was ill suited to the job for which he is
being remembered. He was not a good president, and I
think respect to him and his family and those who
loved him upon his passing is absolutely appropriate. I think
(02:57):
worshipfulness is weird and off putting. You know, we can
certainly give criticism of his administration arrest during the funeral,
that's fine, but there is a difference between having respect
for a human being and suspending your not only you're right,
(03:21):
but your duty as an American to understand where his
presidency went terribly wrong. But again, we could give it
a rest for a minute.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
In terms of the presidents that are still alive, they're
all sitting there and I'm watching on TV. Joe Biden
looks one hundred and twenty years old. He walked in
and sat down with his mouth hanging open, and that
blank stare that he has. He's the current president with
all those former presidents, and he's the oldest guy in
those first two pews and looks by far the oldest,
(03:50):
and looks the oldest and acts the oldest. Yes, why
did we Why are you going back clear to Bush
won all those people? Well, I mean you're going way back. Oh,
Bill Clinton's there, that's ninety two. The guy that one
is not with us, but I mean Bush too. Yeah,
the oldest guy there is Joe Biden, the current president.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
That's an odd thing for America to decide.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
And you know, if we need this, and we probably don't,
but it's worth contemplating for another ten seconds. The fact
that the Democratic Party, the Biden administration, and the media
we're all telling us is recently is you know, the
early part of last year, the middle part of last year,
that he was good to go for another four years.
Nothing could be more dishonest or ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, last hour, we played the clip Joe Biden did
an interview with USA Today and said he thinks he
would have won, which is, well, here's David Atzorrod, who
ran Obama's campaign.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Here's what he has to say about that. Joe Biden
had a forty approval rating. I don't think there's a
president who's won reelection with an approval rating that low.
So you look, you know, one has to comfort oneself
in these moments, and you know that's probably what he's doing.
But I think it's nuts to think that he would
(05:05):
have won that election.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
It's nuts to think won He went from painstaking, painstakingly diplomatic.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
To he's a nut. It's not pretty quickly he would
have won. Yeah, damn it.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
What is Trump saying to Barack Obama that's making Barack
Obama throw back his head and laughter. I would love
to know what he'll never know. No, I won't, you
will never know. Uh Dovetailing from our conversational last year,
I appreciate Mike the lawyer in Chicago recognizing the Joe
Getty unified theory of civilizations. Talking about Carter's administration, he said,
(05:42):
Carter's policies are a great example of what you talk
about with the guardrails, Vietnam and Watergate made it easy
to adopt passivity and imagineering. When Carter came in, we
overcorrected and flipped the car in the ditch. That's a
that's a that's a really good analysis right there.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So coming up an extended discussion of DOGE and what
exactly it might be able to accomplish and what the
roadblocks will be. To paraphrase, I think it was a lick.
Oh you all live in who is an absolutely brilliant
writer and thinker, Jack, I know you, you're familiar with
this stuff. He says, it could be a complete waste
(06:22):
of everyone's time. That's usually how reform commissions go. But
Musk is no slouch, and the idea has drawn the
cooperation of an array of tech sector and entrepreneurial talent,
including favek Ramaswami, and needs to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, I think I think the biggest thing that's going
for Musk versus you know, two senators that ninety percent
of people don't know. Everybody knows who Elon Musk is.
He can say something and everybody hears it, and if
he when he runs into these roadblocks, at least he
can say it out loud and say, hey, look, we
got a government where you can't fire anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Did everybody know that?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Because a couple of senators doing this in a hearing
a year from now and explaining the difficulties, nobody ever
hears that stuff right now, whether they are like surpassingly
successful and they just did the Doge thing just totally
turns the country around. I don't think that's going to happen,
But I feel like this spouse who's been begging his
or her spouse to go to the doctor, and this
(07:17):
is at least a trip to the doctor where a
diagnosis will be given, where somebody who will not be
ignored will say a great example. Do you know we've
got millions of people who don't get fired no matter
how bad a job they do.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I mean everybody should know that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So I think it's even if it is just a
minimal success, we'll keep our It'll be great. We'll keep
our in the funeral and try to read lips. We'll
have that story and a whole bunch of other stuff
on the way.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Stay here.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
All five living former presidents gathered for the Jimmy Carter funeral.
More on that if anything happens. I do have some
more comments to make. Their procession is going on.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Indeed, we will bring that to you if it develops.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Joe Biden recently with his eyes closed for a prolonged
period of time.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
He's a spiritual man. He's also one hundred years old.
I think there's a decent chance he falls asleep and
tumbles into the aisle.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Oh boy, boy, that would make the headlines. Anyway, stay
with us, you've all Livin, who's a brilliant guy. One
of a couple of people I want to quote talking
about the Doge project is this Elon Musk and Vivek
Kramaswami in company's effort to reign in the federal government.
And it's spending And we'll get more into specifics in
a second, but I just saw the headline. For what
(08:37):
it's worth, Elon Musk has ascended to like the top
five or something like that in world.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Rankings in some sort of video game. Oh yeah, yeah,
he How does he have time? He says he's the
best video game player in the world. When he was younger,
he was he was the world champion, and he doesn't
have as much time to do it now, but he is.
He says he's the best in the world at most
of those games.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Even if we were to extract his brain from a
skull and you know, learn everything we could, science isn't
at a point where we would learn much. But his
brain does not work the way the rest of us are.
The rest of them are definitely definitely not no.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Indeed, so you've all.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Levin writes that surely there is a need for some
creative thinking about combating efficiency in government. Everybody knows that
maybe DOGE could have some potential, but to generate more
than memes and slogans, it needs to quickly nail down
several key particulars about its goals, its structures.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's approached because they're kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Vague for all to talk about doge It's basic ambition.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It's still pretty murky. As he points out.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Quite correctly, I think it's champions seem to have in
mind dramatically reducing federal spending, sharply curtailing the federal workforce,
and fundamentally reforming federal regulatory policy. And he points out,
and I agree completely, only the last of these is
really worth Doge's time and attention. It pains me to
(10:01):
skip over the sharply curtailing the federal workforce thing, and
we can get to I that's hard. But you've all
points out the notion that a committed billionaire tech executive
with no political experience is going to massively reduce federal
spending by focusing on waste is just the kind of
bain banal delusion that causes Washingtonians to roll their eyes
at the whole idea of Doge because.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
I saw Nashville have you writing about how Elon a
super smart guy. Nobody's doubting that. But he was not
into politics his whole life. He's just like started paying
attention to this recently. So he's having, like in his
head and with other people, a lot of the arguments
that people who are into politics, you know, have when
they're much much younger and realize, okay, these are the
(10:46):
points that everybody makes. Because he's having some of the
same tired arguments on his Twitter feed that yeah, we
know that part like those of us who pay attention
to this, you're new to this.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And in the same way I often say, evidence does
not necessarily equal proof. Good things do not necessarily equal
a solution. For instance, if they were to get rid
of all of the waste and fraud and abuse in
discretionary spending, that would be a great thing. It's not
going to come near solving our budgetary problems.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Doesn't that matter a lot? Morally though, or just morally
etally directionally.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I mean, it just pains me so much that we
have so many agencies employees that aren't needed, all right,
And that's what I'm trying to make clear. Do it
as fast and as viciously as you can, bloody some noses.
Do everything you can to get rid of that stuff
I was talking about, and to make it more efficient.
I'm just saying, remember that discretionary spending is absolutely dwarfed
(11:52):
by our entitlement programs and will and uh, and the
one is on the wane as a shriff GDP, the
other one's on the rise. So the relationship is getting
even more skewed. And Trump said entitlement reform is not
on his agenda. I had one of the most depressing
but enlightening thoughts I've ever had. And again political hacks
(12:13):
would laugh at me for this, just really having it
come into my head perfectly clearly. If I'm a Republican,
you know, a consultant, like really really in the know
with my pulse on the voters and all, I would
tell my candidate, dude, you're railing against or or perhaps
(12:34):
ma'am because women can hold office now these days. To Jack,
I would say, my friend you're one hundred percent right
about how we need entitlement reform, about how we're spending
our children's and grandchildren's money, how it's the greatest deft
in the history of mankind, from one generation stealing from another.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
All of this is true, and it is repugnant. I
hate it to my soul. But if you hang your
hat on that, you will lose and you will accomplish nothing.
If you shut up about that, we can roll back
the perversion of our kids in the woke schools. We
can cut the federal workforce and make it more efficient.
(13:17):
We can form great trade relationships. We can punch China
in the nose and make sure they don't take over
the globe. We can accomplish all sorts of stuff. But
if you keep talking about entitlements, you're not.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Gonna do any of it.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I would love it if we could get all those
former presidents sitting in the first two pews there in
a national cathedral. I would love to have this conversation
with them. Honestly, wouldn't it be awesome to have them
in a room. I would ask them the question, how
do you see this playing out? You all know the
structural problems we have and where we're headed. How do
you see this playing out? Bill Clinton, George W. Bush,
(13:49):
Barack Obama? What do you think is going to happen?
I mean they have to have an answer in their head.
Oh I think they do. Yeah, getting back to my screen,
what do you think most of them would say?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
There is no way to pass any meaningful reform until
it is an emergency. We've tried and there is no
taste for it among the voters. It's way too easy
to scare them off. So we just have to wait
to leave them here.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes see.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And I know I've said this before, but my concern is,
and I got this from you, all ofvin who you're
reading from, and this was the scariest thing I've ever
heard about this stuff. It's not going to be an emergency.
I've always pictured it being some sort of cataclysmic Oh
my god, the alarms are going off. We have to
do something. Everybody understands it. We cut this, we raise taxes,
we fix it.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He says. That's not the way it's going to play out.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
We're just going to become a less dynamic, slower moving,
bogged down, less fans, less powerful, high tax harder to
get a business started country and yeah we'll be France.
Yeah we'll just be France. And it will happen kind
of gradually, and older people who remember what it used
(14:56):
to be like will die, and everybody will just think
this is what life is like. That to me is
the scariest outcome of all. One, I think it's probably
the way it will happen. And two I don't know
how you ever turn that around.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Right right again, my foe Republican consultant's screen. I want
you to understand. I loathe that, I despise it. But
if there's one thing that being a conservative is, it's
being a realist. And I've got to I just got
to come to terms with that.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Levin points out that the federal government actually has about
as many employees as it did a half century ago.
It's the government's reach and scope and an enormous amount
of contractors that have grown, and so the key is
not so much the number of the workforce, but the
scope of what the government does and how it does
it through regulations and executive branch, contractors and stuff like that,
(15:45):
which I think is a good clarification. Can they actually
close can they delete a federal agency. There are serious
legal hurdles and you would have to have the cooperation
of Congress. Can't get in to this in a meaningful way.
We're up against a heartbreak. But maybe we can reset
that down the road, because I mean, how many of
(16:05):
us want the Department of Education gone? A majority of
parents to Polder just came out. It's a very small majority.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Hotel I was in was across the street from the
Department of Education in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Last week.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That's an enormous building with a lot of employees. And
to think we could do away with that and have
more local control and how I have that money stay
at home?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Oh, I don't think it'll happen.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well, yeah, and just not have the the woke bureaucrats
of d C playing the tune that local schools are
supposed to dance to.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I hate that idea.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
We will check in on the horrifying fires that continue
in LA today. Oh my god, big portions of cities
that are completely gone.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Everybody calls everything historic these days. This is an historic
catastrophe for Los Angeles in the state of California.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Biggest fire in LA's hitty already most devastating and climbing
up the ranks for the entire state of California.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I got a lot more on the way. I hope
you can stay here, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
We did have a sheriff's deputy drive past us and
we got this warning to be careful, and we thought, okay,
maybe he's talking about the smoke because the air quality
is so poor. That's why we're all wearing respirators and masks.
He said, no, be careful because there are looters out here.
He said, we've already arrested someone. And I asked, well,
how many? And we're and try to get some more information.
(17:34):
He says, it couldn't give you that information. But the
fact that they this morning have already arrested people, it
just goes to show that people are taking advantage of
an already devastating situation.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You know, as a libertarian, I have to be against
government vigilante style justice. But if you accidentally hit that
guy in the back of the year with a baton,
I'm looking the other way. Is there anything worse than
a looter? Anything? You are the worst human being on earth.
(18:04):
You certainly are in the running. After people have had
their homes burnt down lost everything they have, and you
go in and try to steal from them, you soob.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Can we institute something like martial law the very least.
You got to make the penalty so high.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
It's just not worth going and digging through somebody's house
to try to find a an engagement ring.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You got my vote. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Some other thing about the fire, and we're keeping our
eye on the Jimmy Carter funeral. We got some comments
on that coming up in a little bit. It's going
on right now. But on the fire, this is getting
a fair amount of attention, and there's a lot of
already in the midst of the tragedy with neighborhoods burnt
completely to the ground. It looks like the moon in
some of these places where it used to be multimillion
dollar homes or just regular homes. It's not like it's
(18:49):
more or less tragic depending on the expenditure of the home.
And so Trump is doing a lot of true thing
about out fire management by Gavin Newsom, and Gavin Newsom's
trying to deflect it into other things in the Mayor.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Of la and blah blah blah, all that sort of stuff.
But this seems to be true.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
When the Forest Service identifies high risk forests needing prescribed
burns or any area that you got to deal with.
And if you don't travel around LA, there's a lot
of trees around LA, especially when you get up to
the Pasadena Altadena area. I've hiked up there many times,
did nothing but forests behind you. When the Forest Service
identifies a high risk forest that needs to burn to
(19:34):
be safe, it takes an average of four point seven
years to get it through the environmental reviews. If it's
a complex situation like their houses close by or infrastructure,
it takes about seven years, which, as it points out,
is many many fire cycles. I mean going through many
fire seasons before you get through the environmental review to
make sure the titmouse isn't gonna lose its habitat or
(19:56):
something like that before you can do anything about the fire,
which point the situation I would guess is very different.
Probably it needs to be done even more. But yeah,
that's a similar thing happened with And if you don't
live in California, you may not have heard the story
the historic pier in Santa Cruz that got washed away
(20:17):
a couple of weeks ago and I've been out on
there many times, very very old. But there were projects
planned to shore that thing up, aging wooden structure, but
it ran into environmental struggles because of some sort of
bird or fish or something, and they just couldn't do it.
And and there you go.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
What you have to understand, though, and what people need
to understand, both Californians and outside the state, is that
the environmental laws.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And fish, that's the main thing. I hate birds, I
hate fish.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Well, see here's here's where I slap you with the
firm hand of reality. It's not about the birds and fish,
at least in part like half the reason for these
laws is for trial aturnneys to get attorneys to be rich.
Unions constantly use these environmental lawsuits to blackmail companies, even
(21:08):
the state itself into giving them a better deal. It's
a it's a it's it's law fair. That's an excellent pointy.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
What it is how many of the lawyers who make
enough of a living to retire on on these various
cases have gone for years and years, care about the
freaking burger fiction involved, or just love the fact that
they get into. They've got a job, they've got a
case for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Maybe someday, Jack, you could explain, not today, how California's
divorce laws are patterned so that incredibly expensive lawfare can
take trial attorneys.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, I know the.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Trial attorneys and the public employee unions are on the state.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Anyway, enough said.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Let me turn my gaze briefly back to the funeral
that is going on. We have all the TVs on
live as the I don't know when you're listening to this,
if you're listening to it on the podcast Jimmy Carter Funeral,
and all the former president and vice presidents are in
the first couple of rows with their wives and husbands. Yeah,
Kamala Harris's vice president. She's got a husband. He'll slap
you around if you don't listen. But you know, it's
(22:10):
just thing and a couple of different things. So that's
Amy Carter. Executive producer hands and pointed out, I didn't
know who that woman does. I got nothing to say
about her. She's at her dad's funeral for crying out loud, right,
But she is an old woman now, as we all
have aged, I'm much older than I was when I
was a child. When she was a child also, but
(22:30):
I didn't know who that was. That's Amy Carter. But
Barrock and Trump were yucking it up a lot before
the funeral started, not like in an inappropriate way. You know,
you've been to a funeral and you don't have to
be morose the entire time, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
With no in many situations, it's a celebration of life.
But I would love to know what Barack and Trump
were talking about. I mean, they were really john a lot.
I figured it out. It's obvious, boy, is Biden a doe?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Could be?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
There are comparing notes on that it could be, and
Barack's like, you think you know he's a dope. Let
me tell you, I got some stories. Well, it wouldn't
be impossible. I don't know if they'd if he would
say it out loud or not, but if they're you know,
you had truth serum or something, and one thing about
being a two term president, you don't have to worry
about anything anymore. Have you ever seen a worse campaign
(23:22):
than what Kamala Harris did. I could see Brox saying,
oh my god, she couldn't do one interview. I know,
I don't know what they were talking about, but do
you remember the backstory on them. The reason Trump was
president is because Barack Obama. So Trump was endlessly back
when he was just a talk show host that I,
for instance, didn't think there was a chance Trump was
(23:42):
ever going to be in politics. Would not shut up
about Barack Obama being a Muslim from another land in
the birth certificate, just endlessly on every show he ever did.
He would talk about that at and Barack Obama got
so upset about that that when they did the National
correspond on its dinner and Trump was in the audience,
Barack Obama made like the entire hour monologue making fun
(24:06):
of Donald Trump in front of all those people. And
Trump sat there stewing and so angry that he was
being mocked by Barack Obama. That is, and this is,
according to everyone, what drove him to run for president.
And in a time honored fashion among human beings, millions
and millions of Americans said, oh, is that the enemy
(24:27):
of Barack Obama and everything he's trying to do the country.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Let's let's hear more about this guy.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
One of Bob Woodward's books, and I don't remember which one,
but As a Long Time Ago, opens with Barack Obama
running down the stairs to tell Michelle, I found it.
I found it because he found his birth certificate up
in the attic. He'd been digging through the boxes long
just to try to shut up Trump because it was
so annoying. He would just dig the President of the
(24:54):
United States, digging through boxes to try to find his
original birth certificate because Trump wouldn't shut up about which
is hilarious. But anyway, now here they are sitting on
the pew yucking it up together, both of them, with
their their lives intertwined and intercrossed in ways that you
know nobody would have predicted.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
They're trying to other him jacket's racism, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Well we now know, I mean at the time, but
we now know. Trump just does whatever to get under
people's kin. He calls you by the wrong name or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, he just trolls.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
He just trolls people. Who was the candidate. You know this, Michael,
you were into this sea. He was just called by
the wrong name all the time. One of the guys
that was running, oh Asa Hutchinson, he called for no
good reason, just I.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Mean, third grade schoolyard taunts, just like ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I don't even care enough to know what your name is.
Is all that is.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
So. Gerald Ford, who Carter defeated, and Carter were very
close friends the rest of their lives until Ford passed
away a number of years ago. And Ford's son is
delivering the eulogy, which is really a beautiful thing. And
he has pointed out during the service Carter's absolutely triumphant
bringing together of monocha Bagan of Israel and Anwar Sadat
(26:09):
of Egypt in what was the opening step of a
process that's gone right through the Abraham Accords and is
surely going to continue in Trump's term this time around.
And that is the the calming of the sane regimes
of the Middle East and working together to root out
the scumbags and lunatics. H and and for that Carter
(26:30):
should be remembered. That was some really really good diplomacy.
He also engaged in some really really bad diplomacy. But
you know, what are you gonna do the one of
the several opportunities that the Palestinian leadership had for a
fabulous deal, a great deal that you know.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Not on our sadate.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
What's his face with the Kafia? The terrorist Help me
got the Nobel Peace Prize. At one point, I can't
think of his what does it come on? This is
embarrassing fat, Yeah, that's embarrassing to not know his name.
I talked about this not long acause, remember I got
I know a lot of names. You wanted some other names,
Lord Filmour, there's one Marie Calhoun.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So I got on this.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Monocca began kick you remember last year, and I read
his book and it explained how Yasser Airfat walk walked
away from that at the very end, I mean, like
hours before it was going to be accomplished, and Jimmy
Carter was furious and realized at that point that he
was dealing with a nut job that who had no
interest in actually having peace or actually having a state.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
So well exactly, Yeah, then they did it again under Clinton.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
That should be it'd be nice if Jimmy Carter could
leap up out of that casket and explain that to
the college students in Colombia and UCLA and everywhere else. Hey,
they don't want a two state solution, at least the
leadership that they voted for over the years, right exactly
while those college morons were demonstrating in favor of terrorists
while the bloods still ran in the streets of New
(28:00):
Orleans thanks to an isic converted lunatic. I suppose if
Jimmy Carter leaped up out of the caskets, that sub
headline would be his new peace plan.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
It would be.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Probably you know, yeah, that would that might not even
get noticed. The lead might be government attempts to bury
live former president or something like that.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I don't know, but I see your points. We've got
more stay with us.
Speaker 7 (28:29):
I mean, I've been in this same chair and I
was arguing about a year ago, saying that you know,
you can be pro immigration, but we need a secure border,
and we have a serious issue here on the board
and we have to address that. And here we have
now we can be pro immigration, and I really believe
we should protect the dreamers. But I don't know why
it's controversial that we need to deport any migrants here
(28:54):
illegal that are engaging in kinds of criminal activity. I
don't know why that's controversial to anybody.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Oh right, It's interesting that he gets credit for like
bravery or it's political courage or whatever, for saying something
that ninety percent of a people agree with.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, I think you know, the next step in that
discussion is how perverse and out of step is the
Democratic Party or the branch of the Democratic Party that
believes that is controversial? Not I mean because you're right, Well,
you asked a question that sounds rhetorical, but it's not.
How is that brave for a Democratic senator to say?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think the answer is you know what I said
more or less, so.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
A handful of story's worth, at least touching on I
don't know if you're following what's going on in South
Korea with their president, it is crazy. I mean, they
have a serious constitutional crisis going on.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
We cover the coup live a couple of weeks ago
when he declared martial law and to try to keep
the government from maybe able to go in and vote,
and they said, nah, we're going to go and vote anyway,
and then handed me.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Right in the legislature, including his own party, gave him
a wait what, No, you're not and they overturned it
absolutely instantly and according to their constitution. But now it's
believed by some in South Korean trust me, I'm not
an expert on this, that he actually broke laws and
so they're trying to arrest him.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Now trying to put cuffs on him and arrest him. Well,
this guy yun suck yol is saying eh, and his
personal security detail, which he has recently beefed up, is
now surrounded his presidential residential compound. And when they went
to try to arrest him, I think was last week,
(30:44):
scuffles broke out and the security people let the cops
and whatever, you know, federal law enforcement was there to
arrest the guy. Tell him no, you're not getting them
without a fight, and we mean a fight, chick chick,
you know, you know, cocking their weapons and and so
after a prolonged multi hour negotiation, the people who are
(31:05):
there to arrest him withdrew. Well they're going back now.
But said former Marcia law van jun suk Yol, he's
beefed up his security.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
He surrounded his.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Compound with buses and even more armed guys to hold
off the quote unquote authorities. So this is classic game
of throne stuff as old as time.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
J'n a barbed wire too, just to help solidify the
picture for you.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I'm just surprised that he has loyalists who are willing
to lay down their lives for him. Is he just
flat out paying him or do they believe in him
that much?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
You know. I'm thinking back to the early days of
our republic, including during the Articles of Confederation, when we
were a pretty new democracy, and we're the oldest democracy
on earth, and so we're reasonably good at it. I
know what you're thinking right now. This is good at it. Yeah,
I believe it or not. South Korea has just been
on democracy since the.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Eighties, is it. Yeah, it's within our lifetimes.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, I know, But I mean this has happened throughout
I'd reading the other day about Napoleon the Third in
France in eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
But anyway, he wanted his guys to fire on.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
The revolutionaries in the street, and they said, nah, we're
not going to and he realized, Okay, I guess the
jig is up, and he had to high tail it
to Great Britain. I mean, because sometimes your guys support
you and sometimes they don't. But in this case, the
South Korean president his people loyal to him.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
What or why?
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, well, certainly enough to hold off the arrest tours.
One of Ewan's lawyers said the president could not accept
the execution of the arrest warrant because it was issued
by a court in the wrong jurisdiction, and the team
of investigators formed to probe the incumbent leader had no
mandate to do so.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But did they think the people that are willing to
be shot to protect this guy, do they think he's
going to end up back in power?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
That's a great quest, and I suspect so, I would
guess it is. It is a and you know, I
tend to side with the other side because this guy
seems to be a nut job, but I'm far from
an expert in it. It is both a personal test
of wills and there are serious arguments about who did
what and whether it's constitutional. So anyway, what's going to
(33:23):
happen next is crazy. But in a settled, westernized Eastern democracy,
to have this happen, it's just it's it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's cataclasm. Oh, that's right, that's al Gore's nude Tipper.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
He and Tipper got divorced years ago, all years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Is that just a girlfriend then?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Or is he married? Anyway, we'll get back to the
funeral later. Asking me about al gorese love life. I
don't know remember when he used to go get the
massages and that was a big story.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
So CNN, which is where we happen to be watching
at least one of our screens, the Jimmy Carter funeral.
They are about to be the defendant in a high
profile defation trial, and the jurors have indicated that they
are open to a ten figure payout. That's a billion
dollars with a B for what it's worth ten figures, okay,
(34:11):
And this is and there's some funny aspects of this case.
Plaintiff Zachary Young is a I think he's a Navy veteran.
He was working like crazy to get people out of Afghanistan,
and CNN, for some reason took a disliking to the
guy and assassinated his character and called them all sorts
of things, like a black market, violator of laws and
all sorts of and they had no solid evidence to
(34:32):
do so. And the judge has let the trial go forward.
Their injury selection and as it turns out, only one
potential juror admitted to regularly watching CNN out of forty
potential jurors. Oof, that's blow number one and only two
out of forty, or roughly five percent, had any idea
(34:55):
who Jake Tapper is.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, that's funny.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
It's it's going to be hard to find a fair
jur or with the popularity. Oh, nobody's ever heard of us.
It'll be easy to find a fair jur Oh.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Okay, Jack triple as many as recognized Jake Tapper said, yes,
I believe CNN creates fake news.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Wow again, Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Katty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Armstrong and Jettaty and know He Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
What is the situation with the water obviously in the
palisage that ran out last night in the hydrants.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
The local folks are trying to figure that out.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I mean, just when you have a system that it's
not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large
scale fires, whether it be pipe electricity or whether it
just be the complete overwhelm of the system.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah, I got to believe Gavin Newsom getting on the
phone with some people why the hydrants were an out
of water. I need an answer because that's a bad story.
The hydrants run similar to other situations. He's a pot
So I'll tell you. If there's one place I could
be right now anywhere in the world, it'd be close
enough to Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who were sitting
in the second row at the National Cathedral in Washington,
(01:03):
DC waiting for the Jimmy Carter funeral to start. It's
the role of the ex president's man. The most exclusive
club in the world and people with a better view
of the way things really work than anybody who lives.
But Barack Obama's now bending Trump's here. They are in
a NonStop conversation and both of them laughing now and then,
(01:24):
and Barack Obama's just shaking his head like rolled his
eyes and laughed, and they're talking about I would freaking
love to know what they're talking about. Do you think
if it's anything of consequence or is it like really
minor stuff just to make small talk.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
I think it is a presidential small talk, That's what
I'm he knowing. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeh, DC and
the White House and the inauguration and the press and
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I suspect.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And famously, if you're into this sort of stuff, former
presidents often have way more respect for each other then
you might guess based on the way things were when
they were all fighting each other. And I wonder if
Barack and Trump are in that category. Oh it's guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, They've both done a job that is impossible and
ages you like a dog, and so there is a
bond even if you disagree fairly vehemently. I want to
say one thing and make it clear because we have,
you know, made various comments, whether lighthearted, about some of
the things happening at the funeral or Carter's presidency and
that sort of thing. I believe Jimmy Carter was a
(02:37):
good man who lived a good life. I think he
was ill suited to the job for which he is
being remembered. He was not a good president, and I
think respect to him and his family and those who
loved him upon his passing is absolutely appropriate. I think
(02:57):
worshipfulness is weird and off putting. You know, we can
certainly give criticism of his administration arrest during the funeral,
that's fine, but there is a difference between having respect
for a human being and suspending your not only you're right,
(03:21):
but your duty as an American to understand where his
presidency went terribly wrong. But again, we could give it
a rest for a minute.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
In terms of the presidents that are still alive, they're
all sitting there and I'm watching on TV. Joe Biden
looks one hundred and twenty years old. He walked in
and sat down with his mouth hanging open, and that
blank stare that he has. He's the current president with
all those former presidents, and he's the oldest guy in
those first two pews and looks by far the oldest,
(03:50):
and looks the oldest and acts the oldest. Yes, why
did we Why are you going back clear to Bush
won all those people? Well, I mean you're going way back. Oh,
Bill Clinton's there, that's ninety two. The guy that one
is not with us, but I mean Bush too. Yeah,
the oldest guy there is Joe Biden, the current president.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
That's an odd thing for America to decide.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
And you know, if we need this, and we probably don't,
but it's worth contemplating for another ten seconds. The fact
that the Democratic Party, the Biden administration, and the media
we're all telling us is recently is you know, the
early part of last year, the middle part of last year,
that he was good to go for another four years.
Nothing could be more dishonest or ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, last hour, we played the clip Joe Biden did
an interview with USA Today and said he thinks he
would have won, which is, well, here's David Atzorrod, who
ran Obama's campaign.
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Here's what he has to say about that. Joe Biden
had a forty approval rating. I don't think there's a
president who's won reelection with an approval rating that low.
So you look, you know, one has to comfort oneself
in these moments, and you know that's probably what he's doing.
But I think it's nuts to think that he would
(05:05):
have won that election.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
It's nuts to think won He went from painstaking, painstakingly diplomatic.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
To he's a nut. It's not pretty quickly he would
have won. Yeah, damn it.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
What is Trump saying to Barack Obama that's making Barack
Obama throw back his head and laughter. I would love
to know what he'll never know. No, I won't, you
will never know. Uh Dovetailing from our conversational last year,
I appreciate Mike the lawyer in Chicago recognizing the Joe
Getty unified theory of civilizations. Talking about Carter's administration, he said,
(05:42):
Carter's policies are a great example of what you talk
about with the guardrails, Vietnam and Watergate made it easy
to adopt passivity and imagineering. When Carter came in, we
overcorrected and flipped the car in the ditch. That's a
that's a that's a really good analysis right there.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
So coming up an extended discussion of DOGE and what
exactly it might be able to accomplish and what the
roadblocks will be. To paraphrase, I think it was a lick.
Oh you all live in who is an absolutely brilliant
writer and thinker, Jack, I know you, you're familiar with
this stuff. He says, it could be a complete waste
(06:22):
of everyone's time. That's usually how reform commissions go. But
Musk is no slouch, and the idea has drawn the
cooperation of an array of tech sector and entrepreneurial talent,
including favek Ramaswami, and needs to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, I think I think the biggest thing that's going
for Musk versus you know, two senators that ninety percent
of people don't know. Everybody knows who Elon Musk is.
He can say something and everybody hears it, and if
he when he runs into these roadblocks, at least he
can say it out loud and say, hey, look, we
got a government where you can't fire anybody.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Did everybody know that?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Because a couple of senators doing this in a hearing
a year from now and explaining the difficulties, nobody ever
hears that stuff right now, whether they are like surpassingly
successful and they just did the Doge thing just totally
turns the country around. I don't think that's going to happen,
But I feel like this spouse who's been begging his
or her spouse to go to the doctor, and this
(07:17):
is at least a trip to the doctor where a
diagnosis will be given, where somebody who will not be
ignored will say a great example. Do you know we've
got millions of people who don't get fired no matter
how bad a job they do.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, I mean everybody should know that.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So I think it's even if it is just a
minimal success, we'll keep our It'll be great. We'll keep
our in the funeral and try to read lips. We'll
have that story and a whole bunch of other stuff
on the way.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Stay here.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
All five living former presidents gathered for the Jimmy Carter funeral.
More on that if anything happens. I do have some
more comments to make. Their procession is going on.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Indeed, we will bring that to you if it develops.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Joe Biden recently with his eyes closed for a prolonged
period of time.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
He's a spiritual man. He's also one hundred years old.
I think there's a decent chance he falls asleep and
tumbles into the aisle.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Oh boy, boy, that would make the headlines. Anyway, stay
with us, you've all Livin, who's a brilliant guy. One
of a couple of people I want to quote talking
about the Doge project is this Elon Musk and Vivek
Kramaswami in company's effort to reign in the federal government.
And it's spending And we'll get more into specifics in
a second, but I just saw the headline. For what
(08:37):
it's worth, Elon Musk has ascended to like the top
five or something like that in world.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Rankings in some sort of video game. Oh yeah, yeah,
he How does he have time? He says he's the
best video game player in the world. When he was younger,
he was he was the world champion, and he doesn't
have as much time to do it now, but he is.
He says he's the best in the world at most
of those games.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Even if we were to extract his brain from a
skull and you know, learn everything we could, science isn't
at a point where we would learn much. But his
brain does not work the way the rest of us are.
The rest of them are definitely definitely not no.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Indeed, so you've all.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Levin writes that surely there is a need for some
creative thinking about combating efficiency in government. Everybody knows that
maybe DOGE could have some potential, but to generate more
than memes and slogans, it needs to quickly nail down
several key particulars about its goals, its structures.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It's approached because they're kind of.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Vague for all to talk about doge It's basic ambition.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It's still pretty murky. As he points out.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Quite correctly, I think it's champions seem to have in
mind dramatically reducing federal spending, sharply curtailing the federal workforce,
and fundamentally reforming federal regulatory policy. And he points out,
and I agree completely, only the last of these is
really worth Doge's time and attention. It pains me to
(10:01):
skip over the sharply curtailing the federal workforce thing, and
we can get to I that's hard. But you've all
points out the notion that a committed billionaire tech executive
with no political experience is going to massively reduce federal
spending by focusing on waste is just the kind of
bain banal delusion that causes Washingtonians to roll their eyes
at the whole idea of Doge because.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
I saw Nashville have you writing about how Elon a
super smart guy. Nobody's doubting that. But he was not
into politics his whole life. He's just like started paying
attention to this recently. So he's having, like in his
head and with other people, a lot of the arguments
that people who are into politics, you know, have when
they're much much younger and realize, okay, these are the
(10:46):
points that everybody makes. Because he's having some of the
same tired arguments on his Twitter feed that yeah, we
know that part like those of us who pay attention
to this, you're new to this.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
And in the same way I often say, evidence does
not necessarily equal proof. Good things do not necessarily equal
a solution. For instance, if they were to get rid
of all of the waste and fraud and abuse in
discretionary spending, that would be a great thing. It's not
going to come near solving our budgetary problems.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Doesn't that matter a lot? Morally though, or just morally
etally directionally.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I mean, it just pains me so much that we
have so many agencies employees that aren't needed, all right,
And that's what I'm trying to make clear. Do it
as fast and as viciously as you can, bloody some noses.
Do everything you can to get rid of that stuff
I was talking about, and to make it more efficient.
I'm just saying, remember that discretionary spending is absolutely dwarfed
(11:52):
by our entitlement programs and will and uh, and the
one is on the wane as a shriff GDP, the
other one's on the rise. So the relationship is getting
even more skewed. And Trump said entitlement reform is not
on his agenda. I had one of the most depressing
but enlightening thoughts I've ever had. And again political hacks
(12:13):
would laugh at me for this, just really having it
come into my head perfectly clearly. If I'm a Republican,
you know, a consultant, like really really in the know
with my pulse on the voters and all, I would
tell my candidate, dude, you're railing against or or perhaps
(12:34):
ma'am because women can hold office now these days. To Jack,
I would say, my friend you're one hundred percent right
about how we need entitlement reform, about how we're spending
our children's and grandchildren's money, how it's the greatest deft
in the history of mankind, from one generation stealing from another.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
All of this is true, and it is repugnant. I
hate it to my soul. But if you hang your
hat on that, you will lose and you will accomplish nothing.
If you shut up about that, we can roll back
the perversion of our kids in the woke schools. We
can cut the federal workforce and make it more efficient.
(13:17):
We can form great trade relationships. We can punch China
in the nose and make sure they don't take over
the globe. We can accomplish all sorts of stuff. But
if you keep talking about entitlements, you're not.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Gonna do any of it.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
I would love it if we could get all those
former presidents sitting in the first two pews there in
a national cathedral. I would love to have this conversation
with them. Honestly, wouldn't it be awesome to have them
in a room. I would ask them the question, how
do you see this playing out? You all know the
structural problems we have and where we're headed. How do
you see this playing out? Bill Clinton, George W. Bush,
(13:49):
Barack Obama? What do you think is going to happen?
I mean they have to have an answer in their head.
Oh I think they do. Yeah, getting back to my screen,
what do you think most of them would say?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
There is no way to pass any meaningful reform until
it is an emergency. We've tried and there is no
taste for it among the voters. It's way too easy
to scare them off. So we just have to wait
to leave them here.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes see.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And I know I've said this before, but my concern is,
and I got this from you, all ofvin who you're
reading from, and this was the scariest thing I've ever
heard about this stuff. It's not going to be an emergency.
I've always pictured it being some sort of cataclysmic Oh
my god, the alarms are going off. We have to
do something. Everybody understands it. We cut this, we raise taxes,
we fix it.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He says. That's not the way it's going to play out.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
We're just going to become a less dynamic, slower moving,
bogged down, less fans, less powerful, high tax harder to
get a business started country and yeah we'll be France.
Yeah we'll just be France. And it will happen kind
of gradually, and older people who remember what it used
(14:56):
to be like will die, and everybody will just think
this is what life is like. That to me is
the scariest outcome of all. One, I think it's probably
the way it will happen. And two I don't know
how you ever turn that around.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Right right again, my foe Republican consultant's screen. I want
you to understand. I loathe that, I despise it. But
if there's one thing that being a conservative is, it's
being a realist. And I've got to I just got
to come to terms with that.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Levin points out that the federal government actually has about
as many employees as it did a half century ago.
It's the government's reach and scope and an enormous amount
of contractors that have grown, and so the key is
not so much the number of the workforce, but the
scope of what the government does and how it does
it through regulations and executive branch, contractors and stuff like that,
(15:45):
which I think is a good clarification. Can they actually
close can they delete a federal agency. There are serious
legal hurdles and you would have to have the cooperation
of Congress. Can't get in to this in a meaningful way.
We're up against a heartbreak. But maybe we can reset
that down the road, because I mean, how many of
(16:05):
us want the Department of Education gone? A majority of
parents to Polder just came out. It's a very small majority.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Hotel I was in was across the street from the
Department of Education in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Last week.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That's an enormous building with a lot of employees. And
to think we could do away with that and have
more local control and how I have that money stay
at home?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Oh, I don't think it'll happen.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Well, yeah, and just not have the the woke bureaucrats
of d C playing the tune that local schools are
supposed to dance to.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I hate that idea.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
We will check in on the horrifying fires that continue
in LA today. Oh my god, big portions of cities
that are completely gone.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Everybody calls everything historic these days. This is an historic
catastrophe for Los Angeles in the state of California.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Biggest fire in LA's hitty already most devastating and climbing
up the ranks for the entire state of California.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I got a lot more on the way. I hope
you can stay here, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 6 (17:11):
We did have a sheriff's deputy drive past us and
we got this warning to be careful, and we thought, okay,
maybe he's talking about the smoke because the air quality
is so poor. That's why we're all wearing respirators and masks.
He said, no, be careful because there are looters out here.
He said, we've already arrested someone. And I asked, well,
how many? And we're and try to get some more information.
(17:34):
He says, it couldn't give you that information. But the
fact that they this morning have already arrested people, it
just goes to show that people are taking advantage of
an already devastating situation.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
You know, as a libertarian, I have to be against
government vigilante style justice. But if you accidentally hit that
guy in the back of the year with a baton,
I'm looking the other way. Is there anything worse than
a looter? Anything? You are the worst human being on earth.
(18:04):
You certainly are in the running. After people have had
their homes burnt down lost everything they have, and you
go in and try to steal from them, you soob.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Can we institute something like martial law the very least.
You got to make the penalty so high.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
It's just not worth going and digging through somebody's house
to try to find a an engagement ring.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You got my vote. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Some other thing about the fire, and we're keeping our
eye on the Jimmy Carter funeral. We got some comments
on that coming up in a little bit. It's going
on right now. But on the fire, this is getting
a fair amount of attention, and there's a lot of
already in the midst of the tragedy with neighborhoods burnt
completely to the ground. It looks like the moon in
some of these places where it used to be multimillion
dollar homes or just regular homes. It's not like it's
(18:49):
more or less tragic depending on the expenditure of the home.
And so Trump is doing a lot of true thing
about out fire management by Gavin Newsom, and Gavin Newsom's
trying to deflect it into other things in the Mayor.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Of la and blah blah blah, all that sort of stuff.
But this seems to be true.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
When the Forest Service identifies high risk forests needing prescribed
burns or any area that you got to deal with.
And if you don't travel around LA, there's a lot
of trees around LA, especially when you get up to
the Pasadena Altadena area. I've hiked up there many times,
did nothing but forests behind you. When the Forest Service
identifies a high risk forest that needs to burn to
(19:34):
be safe, it takes an average of four point seven
years to get it through the environmental reviews. If it's
a complex situation like their houses close by or infrastructure,
it takes about seven years, which, as it points out,
is many many fire cycles. I mean going through many
fire seasons before you get through the environmental review to
make sure the titmouse isn't gonna lose its habitat or
(19:56):
something like that before you can do anything about the fire,
which point the situation I would guess is very different.
Probably it needs to be done even more. But yeah,
that's a similar thing happened with And if you don't
live in California, you may not have heard the story
the historic pier in Santa Cruz that got washed away
(20:17):
a couple of weeks ago and I've been out on
there many times, very very old. But there were projects
planned to shore that thing up, aging wooden structure, but
it ran into environmental struggles because of some sort of
bird or fish or something, and they just couldn't do it.
And and there you go.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
What you have to understand, though, and what people need
to understand, both Californians and outside the state, is that
the environmental laws.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And fish, that's the main thing. I hate birds, I
hate fish.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Well, see here's here's where I slap you with the
firm hand of reality. It's not about the birds and fish,
at least in part like half the reason for these
laws is for trial aturnneys to get attorneys to be rich.
Unions constantly use these environmental lawsuits to blackmail companies, even
(21:08):
the state itself into giving them a better deal. It's
a it's a it's it's law fair. That's an excellent pointy.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
What it is how many of the lawyers who make
enough of a living to retire on on these various
cases have gone for years and years, care about the
freaking burger fiction involved, or just love the fact that
they get into. They've got a job, they've got a
case for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Maybe someday, Jack, you could explain, not today, how California's
divorce laws are patterned so that incredibly expensive lawfare can
take trial attorneys.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, I know the.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Trial attorneys and the public employee unions are on the state.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Anyway, enough said.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Let me turn my gaze briefly back to the funeral
that is going on. We have all the TVs on
live as the I don't know when you're listening to this,
if you're listening to it on the podcast Jimmy Carter Funeral,
and all the former president and vice presidents are in
the first couple of rows with their wives and husbands. Yeah,
Kamala Harris's vice president. She's got a husband. He'll slap
you around if you don't listen. But you know, it's
(22:10):
just thing and a couple of different things. So that's
Amy Carter. Executive producer hands and pointed out, I didn't
know who that woman does. I got nothing to say
about her. She's at her dad's funeral for crying out loud, right,
But she is an old woman now, as we all
have aged, I'm much older than I was when I
was a child. When she was a child also, but
(22:30):
I didn't know who that was. That's Amy Carter. But
Barrock and Trump were yucking it up a lot before
the funeral started, not like in an inappropriate way. You know,
you've been to a funeral and you don't have to
be morose the entire time, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
With no in many situations, it's a celebration of life.
But I would love to know what Barack and Trump
were talking about. I mean, they were really john a lot.
I figured it out. It's obvious, boy, is Biden a doe?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Could be?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
There are comparing notes on that it could be, and
Barack's like, you think you know he's a dope. Let
me tell you, I got some stories. Well, it wouldn't
be impossible. I don't know if they'd if he would
say it out loud or not, but if they're you know,
you had truth serum or something, and one thing about
being a two term president, you don't have to worry
about anything anymore. Have you ever seen a worse campaign
(23:22):
than what Kamala Harris did. I could see Brox saying,
oh my god, she couldn't do one interview. I know,
I don't know what they were talking about, but do
you remember the backstory on them. The reason Trump was
president is because Barack Obama. So Trump was endlessly back
when he was just a talk show host that I,
for instance, didn't think there was a chance Trump was
(23:42):
ever going to be in politics. Would not shut up
about Barack Obama being a Muslim from another land in
the birth certificate, just endlessly on every show he ever did.
He would talk about that at and Barack Obama got
so upset about that that when they did the National
correspond on its dinner and Trump was in the audience,
Barack Obama made like the entire hour monologue making fun
(24:06):
of Donald Trump in front of all those people. And
Trump sat there stewing and so angry that he was
being mocked by Barack Obama. That is, and this is,
according to everyone, what drove him to run for president.
And in a time honored fashion among human beings, millions
and millions of Americans said, oh, is that the enemy
(24:27):
of Barack Obama and everything he's trying to do the country.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Let's let's hear more about this guy.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
One of Bob Woodward's books, and I don't remember which one,
but As a Long Time Ago, opens with Barack Obama
running down the stairs to tell Michelle, I found it.
I found it because he found his birth certificate up
in the attic. He'd been digging through the boxes long
just to try to shut up Trump because it was
so annoying. He would just dig the President of the
(24:54):
United States, digging through boxes to try to find his
original birth certificate because Trump wouldn't shut up about which
is hilarious. But anyway, now here they are sitting on
the pew yucking it up together, both of them, with
their their lives intertwined and intercrossed in ways that you
know nobody would have predicted.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
They're trying to other him jacket's racism, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Well we now know, I mean at the time, but
we now know. Trump just does whatever to get under
people's kin. He calls you by the wrong name or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, he just trolls.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
He just trolls people. Who was the candidate. You know this, Michael,
you were into this sea. He was just called by
the wrong name all the time. One of the guys
that was running, oh Asa Hutchinson, he called for no
good reason, just I.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Mean, third grade schoolyard taunts, just like ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I don't even care enough to know what your name is.
Is all that is.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
So. Gerald Ford, who Carter defeated, and Carter were very
close friends the rest of their lives until Ford passed
away a number of years ago. And Ford's son is
delivering the eulogy, which is really a beautiful thing. And
he has pointed out during the service Carter's absolutely triumphant
bringing together of monocha Bagan of Israel and Anwar Sadat
(26:09):
of Egypt in what was the opening step of a
process that's gone right through the Abraham Accords and is
surely going to continue in Trump's term this time around.
And that is the the calming of the sane regimes
of the Middle East and working together to root out
the scumbags and lunatics. H and and for that Carter
(26:30):
should be remembered. That was some really really good diplomacy.
He also engaged in some really really bad diplomacy. But
you know, what are you gonna do the one of
the several opportunities that the Palestinian leadership had for a
fabulous deal, a great deal that you know.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Not on our sadate.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
What's his face with the Kafia? The terrorist Help me
got the Nobel Peace Prize. At one point, I can't
think of his what does it come on? This is
embarrassing fat, Yeah, that's embarrassing to not know his name.
I talked about this not long acause, remember I got
I know a lot of names. You wanted some other names,
Lord Filmour, there's one Marie Calhoun.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So I got on this.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Monocca began kick you remember last year, and I read
his book and it explained how Yasser Airfat walk walked
away from that at the very end, I mean, like
hours before it was going to be accomplished, and Jimmy
Carter was furious and realized at that point that he
was dealing with a nut job that who had no
interest in actually having peace or actually having a state.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
So well exactly, Yeah, then they did it again under Clinton.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
That should be it'd be nice if Jimmy Carter could
leap up out of that casket and explain that to
the college students in Colombia and UCLA and everywhere else. Hey,
they don't want a two state solution, at least the
leadership that they voted for over the years, right exactly
while those college morons were demonstrating in favor of terrorists
while the bloods still ran in the streets of New
(28:00):
Orleans thanks to an isic converted lunatic. I suppose if
Jimmy Carter leaped up out of the caskets, that sub
headline would be his new peace plan.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
It would be.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Probably you know, yeah, that would that might not even
get noticed. The lead might be government attempts to bury
live former president or something like that.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
I don't know, but I see your points. We've got
more stay with us.
Speaker 7 (28:29):
I mean, I've been in this same chair and I
was arguing about a year ago, saying that you know,
you can be pro immigration, but we need a secure border,
and we have a serious issue here on the board
and we have to address that. And here we have
now we can be pro immigration, and I really believe
we should protect the dreamers. But I don't know why
it's controversial that we need to deport any migrants here
(28:54):
illegal that are engaging in kinds of criminal activity. I
don't know why that's controversial to anybody.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Oh right, It's interesting that he gets credit for like
bravery or it's political courage or whatever, for saying something
that ninety percent of a people agree with.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
Well, I think you know, the next step in that
discussion is how perverse and out of step is the
Democratic Party or the branch of the Democratic Party that
believes that is controversial? Not I mean because you're right, Well,
you asked a question that sounds rhetorical, but it's not.
How is that brave for a Democratic senator to say?
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I think the answer is you know what I said
more or less, so.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
A handful of story's worth, at least touching on I
don't know if you're following what's going on in South
Korea with their president, it is crazy. I mean, they
have a serious constitutional crisis going on.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
We cover the coup live a couple of weeks ago
when he declared martial law and to try to keep
the government from maybe able to go in and vote,
and they said, nah, we're going to go and vote anyway,
and then handed me.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Right in the legislature, including his own party, gave him
a wait what, No, you're not and they overturned it
absolutely instantly and according to their constitution. But now it's
believed by some in South Korean trust me, I'm not
an expert on this, that he actually broke laws and
so they're trying to arrest him.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Now trying to put cuffs on him and arrest him. Well,
this guy yun suck yol is saying eh, and his
personal security detail, which he has recently beefed up, is
now surrounded his presidential residential compound. And when they went
to try to arrest him, I think was last week,
(30:44):
scuffles broke out and the security people let the cops
and whatever, you know, federal law enforcement was there to
arrest the guy. Tell him no, you're not getting them
without a fight, and we mean a fight, chick chick,
you know, you know, cocking their weapons and and so
after a prolonged multi hour negotiation, the people who are
(31:05):
there to arrest him withdrew. Well they're going back now.
But said former Marcia law van jun suk Yol, he's
beefed up his security.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
He surrounded his.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Compound with buses and even more armed guys to hold
off the quote unquote authorities. So this is classic game
of throne stuff as old as time.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
J'n a barbed wire too, just to help solidify the
picture for you.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I'm just surprised that he has loyalists who are willing
to lay down their lives for him. Is he just
flat out paying him or do they believe in him
that much?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
You know. I'm thinking back to the early days of
our republic, including during the Articles of Confederation, when we
were a pretty new democracy, and we're the oldest democracy
on earth, and so we're reasonably good at it. I
know what you're thinking right now. This is good at it. Yeah,
I believe it or not. South Korea has just been
on democracy since the.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Eighties, is it. Yeah, it's within our lifetimes.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, I know, But I mean this has happened throughout
I'd reading the other day about Napoleon the Third in
France in eighteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
But anyway, he wanted his guys to fire on.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
The revolutionaries in the street, and they said, nah, we're
not going to and he realized, Okay, I guess the
jig is up, and he had to high tail it
to Great Britain. I mean, because sometimes your guys support
you and sometimes they don't. But in this case, the
South Korean president his people loyal to him.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
What or why?
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah, well, certainly enough to hold off the arrest tours.
One of Ewan's lawyers said the president could not accept
the execution of the arrest warrant because it was issued
by a court in the wrong jurisdiction, and the team
of investigators formed to probe the incumbent leader had no
mandate to do so.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But did they think the people that are willing to
be shot to protect this guy, do they think he's
going to end up back in power?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
That's a great quest, and I suspect so, I would
guess it is. It is a and you know, I
tend to side with the other side because this guy
seems to be a nut job, but I'm far from
an expert in it. It is both a personal test
of wills and there are serious arguments about who did
what and whether it's constitutional. So anyway, what's going to
(33:23):
happen next is crazy. But in a settled, westernized Eastern democracy,
to have this happen, it's just it's it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
It's cataclasm. Oh, that's right, that's al Gore's nude Tipper.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
He and Tipper got divorced years ago, all years ago.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Is that just a girlfriend then?
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Or is he married? Anyway, we'll get back to the
funeral later. Asking me about al gorese love life. I
don't know remember when he used to go get the
massages and that was a big story.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
So CNN, which is where we happen to be watching
at least one of our screens, the Jimmy Carter funeral.
They are about to be the defendant in a high
profile defation trial, and the jurors have indicated that they
are open to a ten figure payout. That's a billion
dollars with a B for what it's worth ten figures, okay,
(34:11):
And this is and there's some funny aspects of this case.
Plaintiff Zachary Young is a I think he's a Navy veteran.
He was working like crazy to get people out of Afghanistan,
and CNN, for some reason took a disliking to the
guy and assassinated his character and called them all sorts
of things, like a black market, violator of laws and
all sorts of and they had no solid evidence to
(34:32):
do so. And the judge has let the trial go forward.
Their injury selection and as it turns out, only one
potential juror admitted to regularly watching CNN out of forty
potential jurors. Oof, that's blow number one and only two
out of forty, or roughly five percent, had any idea
(34:55):
who Jake Tapper is.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, that's funny.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
It's it's going to be hard to find a fair
jur or with the popularity. Oh, nobody's ever heard of us.
It'll be easy to find a fair jur Oh.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Okay, Jack triple as many as recognized Jake Tapper said, yes,
I believe CNN creates fake news.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Wow again, Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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