December 25, 2025 • 35 mins
Featured in Hour Three of the Thursday December 25, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- Smart Glasses, Susie Wiles & Ukraine
- #1 Sign of Future Separations--Check Your Face
- Gov Spending has Made Lives Worse
- Campus Madness Update!
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 (00:00):
It's Christmas Day, the presents are open.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You're gonna eat a lot of food, and you need
a little entertainment.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Well, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
My beautiful wife and I are probably sitting around looking
at each other as our kids are grown and we're
here on Thanksgiving, and we talked about presents and said
the remodel is our present, like for the next five years.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you're getting nothing, but.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Wow, we have the love of each other. You're good Lord,
and you fabulous people. I hope you're enjoying the Armstrong
and Getty replay.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
The maker the robot vacuum Rumba, said today that it
has filed for bankruptcy. Apparently the whole company got themselves
into a corner and couldn't get out.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I only used the first generation room but and it
was next to worthless.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
So you have claimed that it's got better over the years.
It did.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It did, although I stopped using it a couple of
years ago. I mean, I keep thinking I should go
back to it and then reprogram it and all, but
I just haven't. I was thinking about that with tech
this morning because I was having trouble with my Tesla,
and like the reason I like Tesla and Apple is.
It almost always does what it's supposed to do and
I don't have.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
To like figure anything out. I don't want any tech
where I got to figure something out. If I have
to figure something out, it ain't worth it to me.
I just wanted to work the way it's supposed to work,
and very few tech things do.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Uh No, Rumbo is that way for me.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It's like, Okay, if I pick up absolutely everything and
set everything in.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Exactly the right spot, it can do its job.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I ain't gonna do that, so yeah, it's it's I
haven't used the new new ones and that sort of
technology is just leapt forward. Like I know in the
world the golf automated moors are huge, absolutely huge.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I don't doubt that it'll get there. I'm sure. I'm
absolutely certain it will, but I don't know if it's
there yet.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, rooms with a lot going on, chairs and toys,
you got.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Kids and dogs. It's just.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Speaking of tech. Guy is at best Buy tweet out
a picture this. Yesterday. I tried on the latest generation
of the ray Bang glasses that have the tech in them,
although I haven't tried the ones that have the screen
in them yet. You have to set up an appointment
to do that. They won't let you just try that
out on your own. You have to make an appointment
and do like a twenty minute they show you how
(02:18):
they work.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Thing.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So there's the glasses we've talked about before. Our agent
uses them all the time, and there's a new generation
out that supposed to being better. You can answer the
phone that, you can listen to music, you can variety
of things with your glasses on, your sunglasses on, or
your eyeglasses on if you get the prescription. But then
there's the new one that's got the got a little
screen in there that people looking at you can't see,
(02:40):
but you can see it's in one of the lenses,
and like you can read your texts, and you can
have directions on there, like if you're walking down the street,
and various things like that. It's supposed to be pretty cool.
Based on the reviews that I've seen, they're eight hundred bucks.
Just kind of pricey. But I'll bet the idea with
these smart glasses is that you won't carry your phone.
(03:02):
It's gonna be the getting away from the phone. You
don't carry it anymore. Nobody says we're there yet on those,
but I'll bet that is where we're headed. You're gonna
wear some sort of glasses. You're not gonna carry a phone.
It's all gonna be in your glasses. And that'll be
within a couple of years. Yeah, I'm hoping to leave
tech behind and move to the woods. Like even stuff
(03:25):
to make face of old with Walden Pond and such,
even stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
That makes your life easier.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I don't want to if it, like I said, if
it doesn't work the way it's supposed to work, first try,
I ain't doing it. I don't want harder. I don't
want my life to get more complicated. I don't want
to get into a manual. I don't have to be
on the line with the with the it. It's just
got to work immediately, like most Apple stuff does, like
the Tesla stuff does. But but if it makes your
life easier, I'm prob you know.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, I'm not exactly, but I have the luxury of
being in the part of my life since my kids
are grown, of seeking simplicity, whereas you don't really have
that luxury with your kids and their lives and the
rest of it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So your life is pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
If You're sitting there with your glasses on and a
text comes in and you tap your fingers together and say,
and you just read it, then you respond to it.
Don't have to get out your phone, don't have to
do anything. It seems pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
You're dancing to the tune of your screen. Yeah wow?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Or are you gonna give it out texting? Are you gonna
go full Walden pond? No, I'm just going to give
up being plugged in all the time. I'm going to
be doing what I'm doing and not dividing my attention
with technology.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
But this would be the same amount of texting you're
doing now, in an easier manner without getting in my doing.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Okay, am I doing a bad job of explaining myself, Katie?
Do you think or what? No? No, I think you're fine.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think that the point of trying this, trying to
get you away from your phone is crap because you're
just putting your phone on your face.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Well right, And my point is all of that s
is going to be over there and I'm not going
to be paying any attention to it.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, Mountain Man, more or less, you'll be.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I'm absolutely convinced that is the route to better mental
health and happiness. Whittling and writing poetry would be the Yeah,
a poetry about whittling.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yes, the once was a man who could whittle. Right,
Don't don't get me started.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Let's see spittle George Kittle, little little Okay, I'm trying
to avoid the obvious. Oh oh, breaking, breaking, not exactly news.
This is what everybody's going to be talking about. It
just broke in the New York Times minutes ago. Susie Wiles,
(05:41):
the White House Chief of Staff, evidently sat down for
eleven interviews with either Peter Baker.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Or the New York Times or him and.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
His team, and the quote unquote highlights the things she
went ahead and said are unfreaking believable, given the fact
that she's still in the gig. This is like they've
been out of office two years and she writes her book.
Mister Trump has an alcoholics personality.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Doesn't it. Didn't I say that just a week ago?
You did?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
He's an untreated alcoholic. I've thought that for years.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Ah, couldn't you give.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The nickel version for folks who because he doesn't drink,
he's never drank, his brother drank.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Himself to death.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Those of us in the world of alcoholism. Most of
us don't believe the drinking has very little to do
with being an alcoholic. It's a it's one of the
many symptoms of being an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You're either are or you aren't.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And it's got to do with the way your brain works,
in the way you look at the world and your
relationship to it. Fair enough, okay, And he and since
he's got since he's got it in his family, his
brother drank himself to death, it makes it fairly likely
he certainly has an obsessive Well, I don't know how
(06:56):
you and I don't know much about that concept, so
I'll let you choose the word.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But anyway, so she said that Vice President J. D.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Vance has quote been a conspiracy theorist for a decade,
and his conversion from Trump critic ally was based not
on principle, but was sort of political because.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
He's running for the Senate.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Elon Musk is quote an avowed ketamine user who's an odd,
odd duck whose actions were not always rational and left
her aghast Russell t Vaught, the Budget Director, is a
right wing absolute zealot. Attorney General Pam Bondi completely whiffed
in handling the Epstein files, among other quotes.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
This is very, very long.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
But this is like when one of those tell all
books comes out and everybody goes to the index immediately
to see if they're mentioned in it, and then Washington
goes wild over it for a.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Couple of weeks or whatever. So much was in the
gig right now. So far, those all sound incredibly accurate.
Most of them are negative, except I don't think the
one on Elon is negative. Yes, he's an od duck.
I'm glad he's an nod duck. He's doing all kinds
of things because he's a nod duck.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Sheerage mister Trump to pardon the most violent riders from
jan six, but which he did.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Anyway. I agree with her on that.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
She unsuccessfully tried to get him to delay his major
tariffs because of huge disagreements among his advisors. She said
the administration needs to quote look harder at deportations to
prevent mistakes, but she did not complain about being overruled,
and at various points she got on board with the
eventual decisions. There have been a couple of times where
I've been out voted, she said, and if there's a tie,
he wins. Sounds like the you know, description of the
(08:25):
job she has. Sure anyway, they'll be buzzin' about this
all day, certainly in all week.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, it's interesting that she said that about her boss though.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
About Donald Yeah, oh my.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Gosh, I'm reminded that she grew up with an alcoholic father,
the great sportscaster Pat Summer All.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Oh, did Pat Summarol get sober at some point or
was he drinking clear up to the end?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I remember late in his career. You remember the infamous
Super Bowl clip? Yeah, Michael, do we still have that?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That was just being old though, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I have to look at there are games where people
believe he was drunk, though, where he sounded drunk.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Well, hey, you're watching a football game. You have a
couple of peers to the math. Even most of your
viewers are drunk. We're all drunk together. You're going to
be a judge put on a road, right huh.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Anyway, that's enough of that. Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I want to tell you a little bit where we
are in the Ukraine Russia peace deal thingy.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
According to New York times.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The negotiations that went on all weekend and then including yesterday,
with Zelensky, European leaders, and even Trump getting on the
phone at various times to get involved in the meeting.
The United States, Ukraine, and Europe have agreed on a
NATO like guarantee for.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
The security of Ukraine. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I can't believe this isn't bigger news, two US officials
said yesterday, as they tried to come up with a
peace proposal that would deter future aggression and still satisfy Russia.
Now they haven't agreed on the whole land things. Lensky
doesn't want to give up some chunks of land. Trump says, look,
they're going to take the land eventually. Anyway, you should
give it up. I don't know how they're going to
work that out. But to me, the bigger thing is
(10:12):
we're involved in a security guarantee, like we'll go to
war with Russia if they invade again.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We're just gonna have that on paper.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
That's something that's got to be a Senate ratified treaty,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The United States, Ukraine, and Europe have agreed on a
NATO LA I have no idea. I don't know enough
about that.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But many European countries have said they will put troops
in there. I don't know that we're going to put
troops in there, but if we're, if we're signed on
to some sort of agreement that if Russia comes back again,
we're in Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Where does an agreement end and a treaty begin and
Senate ratification become necessary?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I don't know. I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Presidents Lynsky, I'd want to look into that, make sure
it's an agreement that holds.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, agreed, of course, we might be you know, true,
the Euros might be saying we'll throw troops in and
we're just saying, yeah, well, absolutely, give you all the
arms and whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
But I suppose it could be.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
For instance, France, Germany and Great Britain are going to
have troops in Ukraine, and if they were attacked, I
suppose our NATO guarantee kicks in at that point. Maybe
I mean German NATO lots of NATO troops are being attacked.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, it's funny. I don't think I
printed it, but one of our beloved listeners, one of
you clever folks, said NATO just needs to invade Ukraine
under some idiotic pretext with the Zelenski's permission, have troops
all over the place and then say yeah, yeah, we
invaded better than you did.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
It's ours now, and wait for the dust to settle.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
What an interesting idea.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
NATO invades Ukraine, takes Kiev using my finger quotes right,
but lets them just operate as they've been operating.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
And instead of fighting tooth and nail, the Ukrainians would say, yeah,
you need to go to the stop sign and take
a left, and that's where they would help. And Naty
would just say, this is NATO territory, well right, or
our troops are here. Attack on one is an attack
on all, so you got to stop attacking.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Wow, I don't know where this is going. Pretty interesting though.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The Armstrong and Getty show, Yeah, Borgia nor show podcasts
and our hot links.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Said this many times.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
After your years of trying a number of different kinds
of therapy for me and my family, kids, marriage, all
kinds of different stuff, I.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Think it's mostly worthless. I really do, I really do.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I think it's mostly a waste of money, unfortunately, but
this is pretty good from a marriage psychologist who reveals
the number one sign of a future separation. And this
stuff is almost always crap, especially if it's in the
New York Post, which is where I got this, But
I thought this was really good. If you want to
know if your marriage is heading to splitsville, don't check
your partner's phone, check their face.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That you know.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
There's so many stupid things out there, you know, the
one sign that he's gonna cheat or whatever the hell
I mean, they're just all dumb, but click bait. The
subtle smirk of superiority is the number one red flag
for divorce, according to this psychologist. And they get into why.
Research found that four nasty little habits, criticism, contempt, defensiveness,
(13:26):
and stonewalling are the four horsemen of the apocalypse when
it comes to dooming relationships.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I'll read those four again.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
But contempt is the kiss of death.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
That's the one, and you've said that for years, that's
the one you can't get past.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Done. The largest marriage experiment ever done.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
They think of couples that you know, survive and don't survive.
Body language experts brought couples into a lab and if
one member of the couple shows a one sided mouth
rais which I had never heard before as like a
physical contempt thing. But I guess we're just programmed. When
we're feeling that feeling of contempt for something, or you know,
(14:10):
the oh pleaser, get out of here at that bs
or whatever feeling, you raise.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
One side of your mouth.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It's funny if one member of the couple shows a
one sided mouth raised towards the other, he can tell
you if they're gonna get divorced because it's contempt. He
could predict divorce with an astonishing ninety four percent accurate.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Fear.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Now, this is the part I thought was really interesting.
Fear comes in a burst, and then you calm down.
Happiness comes and then you go back to normal. Anger
comes and then you calm down, but not contempt. If
you feel scorn or disdain for someone else, and if
it's not addressed, it just festers and grows and stays
at the same level. Fear, anger, and then obviously happiness
(14:52):
you get back to a normal level.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Contempt it does not go away.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
And you know, in a definition of contempt, the feeling
that a person or a thing is beneath consideration worthless
or deserving scorn.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yes, coming back from that.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I've not felt contempt, but I have been on the
wrong end of contempt, I think. And having read this,
I thought, yeah, that's what was insurmountable. I mean, because
once you have contempt for someone you don't agree, you
don't think they are worth listening to on anything. This
is how I feel. This is my priority. I don't
(15:27):
care right. Yeah, that's a tough one to get past.
So look out for contempt and whatever started to bring
it on. The point is you start to deal with
it right away. Otherwise it does just grow and fester
and then it gets into a situation where it might
not be reversible. They also believe it many couples get
(15:48):
stuck in an endless loop of the same three arguments
throughout the relationship. They just don't realize it. And if
you can nail down what your three most common arguments
are you and your partner, you can solve a lot
of problems. Like you get into something, you say, okay,
here we're in argument number two again. We always argue
about this, and you can you know, realize that you know,
(16:12):
you don't see eye to eye in this particular thing
and how you've dealt with in the past. Back to
the contempt thing discussed, and contempt are to a relationship
with gasoline, and matches are to a fire. The telltale
signs are irolling mouth, crimping, and then subtle fidgeting like
picking it closed or cleaning fingers mid conversation as signals
(16:33):
of disdain. This person said that they dubbed this move
the lint picker, a behavior that he says, screams contempt
louder than words ever could interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
You know, it's probably worth presenting the other side of
the coin at some point. We don't have time now,
but how do you prevent that sort of thing? If
it in the bud?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Having lint on your shirt, no contempt in your nod?
Speaker 5 (16:59):
S Folk at a partisan an event to encourage Democrats
or Republicans to work to protect social security together, which
seems about as likely to happen as a reboot of
Fiddler on the Roof starring Kanye West.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
But social security is number one for Joe Biden.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Literally, his social Security number is one.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
That's kind of interesting as a lead into this. Republicans
nevercats not being able to work together. It would seem
that they could work together on cutting spending based on
this polling that just came out from the Cato Institute.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
CATO is a serious think tank. It's a conservative think tank.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
They worked with you Gov on this survey, and it's
one of your you know, really big, large number of people,
wide reaching, lots of questions sort of survey that comes
out every once in a while from these think tanks.
I don't know which of these numbers is my favorite.
There's a lot of them that are just mind blowingly
make me happy, but I can't believe because public will
(17:58):
is a real big part of getting anythings done in
a democracy. Obviously, if you got big majorities of people
that want something to happen, you should be able to
get it to happen and run on it. Here's my
favorite of all the spending we've done in the last
ten years, and we've done a lot of spending in
the last ten years.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Eighty five percent. Now that's a big number.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Whenever you get eighty five percent of people in agreement
on something.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
You'd think you could get political will to do something.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Eighty five percent say that spending is either not helped
them or made their lives worse eighty five percent.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
That's astounding.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You wouldn't get that from taking it in through the
mainstream media, who feels like all government programs are wonderful
and doges trying to cut back on any of them
as a horror. Eighty five percent of Americans say all
that spending has either not done anything for me or
actually made my life worth the worse. Forty two percent
no impact. Forty three percent say it reduced to their
quality of life.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Wow, that's got to be inflation, which is the greatest
teacher of economic principles in the history of mankind.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Well, or is it just I regularly say, and this
this is true for me in my own personal life.
I believe the government stops me from doing things more
than it helps me.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Uh yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I mean, and well, do you drive on the roads? Yeah?
We we know you're an idiot.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Course I'm not even gonna explain why you're more I know, moron.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And by the.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Way, this is a non partisan observation. Eight and ten
Democrats and nine and ten Republicans believe that the increase
in federal spending has either made their lives not better
or worse.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Boy, this is really heartening.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I know, if the Republican if the Republicans can keep
between the ditches and not roll the car of their
messaging over, it seems to me like the ground is
super fertile for some good, solid conservatism in the years
to come.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Three quarters of Americans say the government spends too much.
Love that, seventy six percent the government spends too much.
And again it's not a partisan thing at all. Majorities
of Democrats fifty nine percent of Democrats think the government
spends too much money. Well, you'd never get that from
the main from your mainstream media coverage.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, and the question of what do you cut and
how and how much?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's the devil is in the details. But we do
have an enormous generalized agreement that, yeah, we need to
cut again two thirds. You get the opposite message from
all of the coverage of doges, for instance.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So almost everyone agrees there is waste, fraud, and abuse
in the federal government. The number is ninety eight percent.
I have out know if I've ever seen a poll
that reached ninety eight percent. Usually you have more than
two percent. They're like, no opinion, I don't know, refuse
to answer.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, but would you like me to stab you right now,
you might get ninety eight percent saying no, no opinion,
ninety I'm.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Not sure stab me as what.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Ninety eight percent broadly agreed there is waste, broader abuse
in the federal government. Of course, just to say no,
you'd be a crazy person. About half say there is
a great deal. Oh yeah, And twenty percent of moderate amount.
If hundreds of millions of dollars isn't a great deal
to you, what are you elon musk or something?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Man?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, Like I said, there's so many good numbers here,
I don't even know which ones to pick out the
most this one. One of the reasons this got attention
was some of the tax stuff yesterday. Fifty five percent
of Americans think their taxes are too high.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Which I thought was really interesting, especially especially given what
we were talking about yesterday on tax Day that the
top forty percent or so of income levels pay all
of the income tax.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
But fifty five percent of American seatter taxes are too high.
Fifty five percent same number believe they pay more than
their fair share in taxes. Is interesting given the fact
that half the country does not pay federal taxes federal
income tax. Although you have to remember, you know, a
property tax hammers a lot of people. Sales tax, sales tax,
(22:13):
I think is probably what gets a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
How about the controversial Trump tax cuts from twenty seventeen
and whether they should be extended or not? According to this,
eighty five percent of Americans support extending the twenty seventeen
tax cuts.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Eighty five percent. It's a gift of million as and
billion as. How is this a controversial issue?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
If the mainstream media was not what they are, could
Democrats win a single election as they're currently constituted?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
They need some of the best wordsmiths. Well, actually most
journalists are wordsmiths at all. They're parrots.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
But they need the power of the media colossus to
polish their their their poop, if you will. I'm sorry,
I just didn't want to use that common expression polishing
a turd because it's disgusting. But that's essentially but it's
good though. It's illustrative, Jack, I mean, it really makes
the point. There's got to be it's got to be
(23:19):
a better one, is there? It got to be that
doesn't include the T word.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Thoroughly lipsticking the pig of their policies.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So. Three quarters of people agree with the statement the
twenty seventeen tax cuts should be made permanent because businesses
and families need stability of the tax code to plan.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
For the future. Three quarters agree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Also, three quarters agree that tax cuts should be made
permanent because taxes are too high. Three quarters of Americans
think the Trump tax cuts should be made permanent because
taxes are too high.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Wow. Did you hear the pot about the millionaires?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You did. Oh you're rejecting it. I gotta get that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Then, since you brought that up, do the spending because
you'll that fits in perfect what you just said. A
majority of Americans admire the rich sixty five percent. Two
thirds disagree with the statement wealth should be taken from
the rich and given to the poor.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Two thirds of Americans disagree with that.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Wow, this is a different country than the media would
have you believed.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I'd eastly different.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Three out of five Americans strongly agree, ninety percent strongly
or somewhat agree that quote. There's nothing wrong with trying
to make as much money as you can. Ninety percent
strongly or somewhat agree with that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
When asked specifically about billionaires. Seventy one percent disagree that
it's immoral for society to allow people to become billionaires.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Seventy one percent don't agree with that statement.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
You hear it all the time from the AOC Bernie crowd,
Elizabeth Warren crowd, and they put it on the news
like that's you know, representing.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Half of America, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
And anybody who does think we should make it impossible
to you know, become a billionaire, you.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Just you're so dumb. You are so dumb. We just
need you to.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Get out of the way, please. As if you come
up with a great idea that one person likes and
it makes you a dollar, that's fine. If a million
people like that idea and give you a dollar, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
But if a billion people like that idea and give
you a dollar, that's wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Or to borrow again, you're just so dumb you need
to get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Well, not near as many people agree with that as
I thought. And I've been misled myself, and you know,
we're in the industry and and uh, taking lots of
media and read lots of polls, but I've been misled
to think there that in modern America, there were way
more people that hate the rich and think something's wrong there,
then it seems to be true two thirds think wealth
(25:57):
should not be taken from the rich and given to
the poor.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I'm sorry, I just didn't know.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
So. I think part of the reason that our perception
might be a little warped is that even some of
my favorite conservative journalists are of the coastal elites variety.
And they're nice fellas, and they have great principles, but
I don't think they know America and listen to second sound,
absolutely do not. This is going to sound awfully like
(26:23):
a self backpadding, but I think as a couple of
guys from you know, fairly average families in the Midwest,
I don't feel like an elite anything. I've never hung
out with those people. I wouldn't be comfortable there. I
would much rather, you know, a drink beer with my neighbor,
Larry the truck driver. I just and I think maybe
(26:44):
we have that advantage, and we, all of us friends
have to trust our own perceptions instead of that of
the bizarro.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Funhouse mirror of the media. I know a lot of
you already believe.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
That the fact that eighty five percent of people say
all that government spending has done nothing thing for them
or made their lives worse is amazing something. Yeah, and
you know over half of people say my taxes are
too high. All that fitting together, how do we not
get a government that spends less and keeps taxes low?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Well, I think you know, part of the answer would
be the swamp, which includes many Republicans and Democrats who
have a absolutely enormous financial interest in keeping government huge.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Right, there are solid majorities, and I could do more
than numbers, but I don't want to bore you to death,
but the solid majorities of people that think it's the
spending it's not the taxing, I mean that is that
is a settled issue in this country. It's the spending,
not the taxing, and we need to deal with it
from a spending standpoint. So we're not getting the government
we deserve on this front.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, yeah, so true.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It's encouraging people believe that in the numbers that they do.
It is discouraging that we are fighting to make any
progress in reigning in the insanity. But right, yeah, because
it's our duty, is citizens, So I guess we keep trying.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Sometimes it's barely.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Uh, you're barely able to believe that democracy works.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I mean, you know, look at the border issue. That's
what I've been saying for years.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It's not controversy at all either, Like ninety percent of
people want to secure border, but we haven't been able
to do it in my entire adult.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Lifetime, right right, Very frustrating.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, it is nice job of those of you
out there who agree that all this spending is make
your life worse off anything.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Absolutely need a moonshot style effort to reform education in
this country because it is absolutely killing us.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Michael.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
It's a campus madness update, good and bad news.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Editions were good and bad news.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Screaming, how's madness, you idiot?
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Oh my god, I.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Was quite a scream Yeah, no kidding, Michael.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So disembovement figures into the story somehow, so well metaphorically speaking.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So we'll start with some good news, really interesting piece
about Tufts University, which is to the left of Trotsky
Boston area. But there's a professor by the name of
Hirsch there who teaches a class on American conservatism that
is always one hundred percent enrolled and extremely popular, and
he a man of the sane center left, has them
(29:39):
read Frederick Hayek's Road to Serve Them at ein RAN's
The Nature of Government, and then has lefty writers assigned
as well.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That says, all right, let's talk about this issue.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And it is a classic American education where you have
to understand both sides before you say which one you're on.
And he is systematic steel manning conservator arguments for the
college kids.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And the really encouraging part about this is the kids
love it. That's interesting. And poll after pol.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Has shown that a lot of college kids resent the
cancel culture and the bully culture and the radical culture,
but they just they're afraid or you know, intimidated into silence.
And there's a lot more curiosity out there than I
think you would think from looking at college camp.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
God, are we.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Actually coming out of peak that? And we'll never have
to deal with it again, at least in our lifetimes.
I mean, did we just live through the pendulum swinging
to the far end of that nuttiness?
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I share hope. So I don't know, I don't know.
I'm a little afraid of it. Being like a sports
team that you know, has a very bad beginning of
the season. Then they win six in a row and
you think all right, and then that is just a
blip and they go back to being bad. I think
there's so much of a fight to go on, but
let me plunge on here.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
We can talk about this at length.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
A great piece in the Free Press about how all
over the country, including in some surprising places, educators are
covering up for their own failures wholesale. We should have
the best education system in the world, they write, We
should have an education system that reflects us being a superpower.
But there's no one with a straight face who can
(31:25):
say that the United States has a world class education system.
And that's from a higher up in the New Jersey
Department of Education.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Now retired.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
But they go through place after place where because they
are failing to meet any standard, they are systematically changing
the standards, including this shock to me. In twenty twenty four,
Oklahoma schools seemed to perform a miracle. They went from
twenty four percent proficiency in reading to forty seven percent
in two years, almost doubling the previous figure.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You see that number in a year. You know something
funky happened? Yeah, yeah, Indeed, if it sounds too good
to be true. That's because it was.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
In last year Oklahoma lowered its cut scores, the score
a student needs to hit on test to be considered proficient.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Unbelievable. That's good hearts law. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Once, once a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to
be a good measure.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Trend is also happening in New York State. After not
a single eighth grader in the upstate city of Schenectady
tested proficient in math in twenty twenty two, state officials
lowered the scores the following year. Wisconsin lowered cut scores
last year. Illinois is about to lower its scores, et cetera,
et cetera.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
We did it. It's a lot of blue states, but
Oklahoma shocked me.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
We've done it in California a couple of times. Well,
it speaks as much to the nature of bureaucracy as liberalism. Well,
it's a good hearts law. I mean that seems to
be a law no matter what you no matter your politics,
you come up with a goal, or you measure something.
Then you come up with a goal, and then you
just fudge to meet the goal. The measure doesn't work anymore.
(33:01):
And that's it happens over and over again. I can
come up with one hundred examples off the top of
my head, because I think it's a fascinating aspect of
the way the human brain works. But how are there
not People raise their hands, say, we can't be lowering
the standards.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
We need to raise the quality field tradition.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, right right, lift up the children, don't drop the standards.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
That'd be a good slogan.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Veering back to good news, the Department of Education on Friday,
Cancer which still exists, apparently canceled fifteen million dollars in
federal grants that were used to fund diversity programs at
three universities in California, State, La, Virginia Commonwealth, and University
of Saint Thomas and Minnesota. All had received giant, multimillion
dollar grants, part of a billion dollars a billion that
(33:49):
the Biden Education Department spent on diversity programs in America's schools,
nearly half of which went to grants for race based hiring.
That is, at least temporarily on the way out. Now
back to bad news. Two stories here that are adjoined
at the hip. Brown University Medical school. That's one of
your elite ivy leaguers. By the way, elite. I almost
(34:11):
vomit when I say that about these universities. But they
now give diversity, equity and inclusion more weight than excellent
clinical skills in its promotion criteria for faculty, raising questions
duh about the equality of teaching and patient care at
the elite medical school and underscoring how deeply deis penetrated
medical education. Again, when they decide what faculty to promote,
(34:35):
they now give DEI more weight than excellent clinical skills.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
I saw that over the week in medicine. I meant
to mention now on the air that is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
I was looking at the actual paperwork, the criteria, and
really your plan for how you're answering the question of
how you're going to get diversity, equity inclusion into your
your medical practice is more important than your actual skills, right?
(35:06):
That is?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Or it's important? How is that even possible? The Armstrong
and Getty Show
It's Christmas Day, the presents are open.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You're gonna eat a lot of food, and you need
a little entertainment.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Well, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
My beautiful wife and I are probably sitting around looking
at each other as our kids are grown and we're
here on Thanksgiving, and we talked about presents and said
the remodel is our present, like for the next five years.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you're getting nothing, but.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Wow, we have the love of each other. You're good Lord,
and you fabulous people. I hope you're enjoying the Armstrong
and Getty replay.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
The maker the robot vacuum Rumba, said today that it
has filed for bankruptcy. Apparently the whole company got themselves
into a corner and couldn't get out.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I only used the first generation room but and it
was next to worthless.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
So you have claimed that it's got better over the years.
It did.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It did, although I stopped using it a couple of
years ago. I mean, I keep thinking I should go
back to it and then reprogram it and all, but
I just haven't. I was thinking about that with tech
this morning because I was having trouble with my Tesla,
and like the reason I like Tesla and Apple is.
It almost always does what it's supposed to do and
I don't have.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
To like figure anything out. I don't want any tech
where I got to figure something out. If I have
to figure something out, it ain't worth it to me.
I just wanted to work the way it's supposed to work,
and very few tech things do.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Uh No, Rumbo is that way for me.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It's like, Okay, if I pick up absolutely everything and
set everything in.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Exactly the right spot, it can do its job.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I ain't gonna do that, so yeah, it's it's I
haven't used the new new ones and that sort of
technology is just leapt forward. Like I know in the
world the golf automated moors are huge, absolutely huge.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I don't doubt that it'll get there. I'm sure. I'm
absolutely certain it will, but I don't know if it's
there yet.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, rooms with a lot going on, chairs and toys,
you got.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Kids and dogs. It's just.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Speaking of tech. Guy is at best Buy tweet out
a picture this. Yesterday. I tried on the latest generation
of the ray Bang glasses that have the tech in them,
although I haven't tried the ones that have the screen
in them yet. You have to set up an appointment
to do that. They won't let you just try that
out on your own. You have to make an appointment
and do like a twenty minute they show you how
(02:18):
they work.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Thing.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So there's the glasses we've talked about before. Our agent
uses them all the time, and there's a new generation
out that supposed to being better. You can answer the
phone that, you can listen to music, you can variety
of things with your glasses on, your sunglasses on, or
your eyeglasses on if you get the prescription. But then
there's the new one that's got the got a little
screen in there that people looking at you can't see,
(02:40):
but you can see it's in one of the lenses,
and like you can read your texts, and you can
have directions on there, like if you're walking down the street,
and various things like that. It's supposed to be pretty cool.
Based on the reviews that I've seen, they're eight hundred bucks.
Just kind of pricey. But I'll bet the idea with
these smart glasses is that you won't carry your phone.
(03:02):
It's gonna be the getting away from the phone. You
don't carry it anymore. Nobody says we're there yet on those,
but I'll bet that is where we're headed. You're gonna
wear some sort of glasses. You're not gonna carry a phone.
It's all gonna be in your glasses. And that'll be
within a couple of years. Yeah, I'm hoping to leave
tech behind and move to the woods. Like even stuff
(03:25):
to make face of old with Walden Pond and such,
even stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
That makes your life easier.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I don't want to if it, like I said, if
it doesn't work the way it's supposed to work, first try,
I ain't doing it. I don't want harder. I don't
want my life to get more complicated. I don't want
to get into a manual. I don't have to be
on the line with the with the it. It's just
got to work immediately, like most Apple stuff does, like
the Tesla stuff does. But but if it makes your
life easier, I'm prob you know.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, I'm not exactly, but I have the luxury of
being in the part of my life since my kids
are grown, of seeking simplicity, whereas you don't really have
that luxury with your kids and their lives and the
rest of it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So your life is pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
If You're sitting there with your glasses on and a
text comes in and you tap your fingers together and say,
and you just read it, then you respond to it.
Don't have to get out your phone, don't have to
do anything. It seems pretty simple.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
You're dancing to the tune of your screen. Yeah wow?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Or are you gonna give it out texting? Are you gonna
go full Walden pond? No, I'm just going to give
up being plugged in all the time. I'm going to
be doing what I'm doing and not dividing my attention
with technology.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
But this would be the same amount of texting you're
doing now, in an easier manner without getting in my doing.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Okay, am I doing a bad job of explaining myself, Katie?
Do you think or what? No? No, I think you're fine.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I think that the point of trying this, trying to
get you away from your phone is crap because you're
just putting your phone on your face.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Well right, And my point is all of that s
is going to be over there and I'm not going
to be paying any attention to it.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, Mountain Man, more or less, you'll be.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I'm absolutely convinced that is the route to better mental
health and happiness. Whittling and writing poetry would be the Yeah,
a poetry about whittling.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yes, the once was a man who could whittle. Right,
Don't don't get me started.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Let's see spittle George Kittle, little little Okay, I'm trying
to avoid the obvious. Oh oh, breaking, breaking, not exactly news.
This is what everybody's going to be talking about. It
just broke in the New York Times minutes ago. Susie Wiles,
(05:41):
the White House Chief of Staff, evidently sat down for
eleven interviews with either Peter Baker.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Or the New York Times or him and.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
His team, and the quote unquote highlights the things she
went ahead and said are unfreaking believable, given the fact
that she's still in the gig. This is like they've
been out of office two years and she writes her book.
Mister Trump has an alcoholics personality.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Doesn't it. Didn't I say that just a week ago?
You did?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
He's an untreated alcoholic. I've thought that for years.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Ah, couldn't you give.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
The nickel version for folks who because he doesn't drink,
he's never drank, his brother drank.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Himself to death.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Those of us in the world of alcoholism. Most of
us don't believe the drinking has very little to do
with being an alcoholic. It's a it's one of the
many symptoms of being an alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You're either are or you aren't.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And it's got to do with the way your brain works,
in the way you look at the world and your
relationship to it. Fair enough, okay, And he and since
he's got since he's got it in his family, his
brother drank himself to death, it makes it fairly likely
he certainly has an obsessive Well, I don't know how
(06:56):
you and I don't know much about that concept, so
I'll let you choose the word.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
But anyway, so she said that Vice President J. D.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Vance has quote been a conspiracy theorist for a decade,
and his conversion from Trump critic ally was based not
on principle, but was sort of political because.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
He's running for the Senate.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Elon Musk is quote an avowed ketamine user who's an odd,
odd duck whose actions were not always rational and left
her aghast Russell t Vaught, the Budget Director, is a
right wing absolute zealot. Attorney General Pam Bondi completely whiffed
in handling the Epstein files, among other quotes.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
This is very, very long.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
But this is like when one of those tell all
books comes out and everybody goes to the index immediately
to see if they're mentioned in it, and then Washington
goes wild over it for a.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Couple of weeks or whatever. So much was in the
gig right now. So far, those all sound incredibly accurate.
Most of them are negative, except I don't think the
one on Elon is negative. Yes, he's an od duck.
I'm glad he's an nod duck. He's doing all kinds
of things because he's a nod duck.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Sheerage mister Trump to pardon the most violent riders from
jan six, but which he did.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Anyway. I agree with her on that.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
She unsuccessfully tried to get him to delay his major
tariffs because of huge disagreements among his advisors. She said
the administration needs to quote look harder at deportations to
prevent mistakes, but she did not complain about being overruled,
and at various points she got on board with the
eventual decisions. There have been a couple of times where
I've been out voted, she said, and if there's a tie,
he wins. Sounds like the you know, description of the
(08:25):
job she has. Sure anyway, they'll be buzzin' about this
all day, certainly in all week.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, it's interesting that she said that about her boss though.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
About Donald Yeah, oh my.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Gosh, I'm reminded that she grew up with an alcoholic father,
the great sportscaster Pat Summer All.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Oh, did Pat Summarol get sober at some point or
was he drinking clear up to the end?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I remember late in his career. You remember the infamous
Super Bowl clip? Yeah, Michael, do we still have that?
Speaker 1 (09:01):
That was just being old though, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I have to look at there are games where people
believe he was drunk, though, where he sounded drunk.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Well, hey, you're watching a football game. You have a
couple of peers to the math. Even most of your
viewers are drunk. We're all drunk together. You're going to
be a judge put on a road, right huh.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Anyway, that's enough of that. Okay, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I want to tell you a little bit where we
are in the Ukraine Russia peace deal thingy.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
According to New York times.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
The negotiations that went on all weekend and then including yesterday,
with Zelensky, European leaders, and even Trump getting on the
phone at various times to get involved in the meeting.
The United States, Ukraine, and Europe have agreed on a
NATO like guarantee for.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
The security of Ukraine. That is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I can't believe this isn't bigger news, two US officials
said yesterday, as they tried to come up with a
peace proposal that would deter future aggression and still satisfy Russia.
Now they haven't agreed on the whole land things. Lensky
doesn't want to give up some chunks of land. Trump says, look,
they're going to take the land eventually. Anyway, you should
give it up. I don't know how they're going to
work that out. But to me, the bigger thing is
(10:12):
we're involved in a security guarantee, like we'll go to
war with Russia if they invade again.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We're just gonna have that on paper.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
That's something that's got to be a Senate ratified treaty,
doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
The United States, Ukraine, and Europe have agreed on a
NATO LA I have no idea. I don't know enough
about that.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
But many European countries have said they will put troops
in there. I don't know that we're going to put
troops in there, but if we're, if we're signed on
to some sort of agreement that if Russia comes back again,
we're in Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Where does an agreement end and a treaty begin and
Senate ratification become necessary?
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I don't know. I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Presidents Lynsky, I'd want to look into that, make sure
it's an agreement that holds.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, agreed, of course, we might be you know, true,
the Euros might be saying we'll throw troops in and
we're just saying, yeah, well, absolutely, give you all the
arms and whatever.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
But I suppose it could be.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
For instance, France, Germany and Great Britain are going to
have troops in Ukraine, and if they were attacked, I
suppose our NATO guarantee kicks in at that point. Maybe
I mean German NATO lots of NATO troops are being attacked.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, yeah, well yeah, it's funny. I don't think I
printed it, but one of our beloved listeners, one of
you clever folks, said NATO just needs to invade Ukraine
under some idiotic pretext with the Zelenski's permission, have troops
all over the place and then say yeah, yeah, we
invaded better than you did.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
It's ours now, and wait for the dust to settle.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
What an interesting idea.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
NATO invades Ukraine, takes Kiev using my finger quotes right,
but lets them just operate as they've been operating.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
And instead of fighting tooth and nail, the Ukrainians would say, yeah,
you need to go to the stop sign and take
a left, and that's where they would help. And Naty
would just say, this is NATO territory, well right, or
our troops are here. Attack on one is an attack
on all, so you got to stop attacking.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Wow, I don't know where this is going. Pretty interesting though.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The Armstrong and Getty show, Yeah, Borgia nor show podcasts
and our hot links.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Said this many times.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
After your years of trying a number of different kinds
of therapy for me and my family, kids, marriage, all
kinds of different stuff, I.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Think it's mostly worthless. I really do, I really do.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I think it's mostly a waste of money, unfortunately, but
this is pretty good from a marriage psychologist who reveals
the number one sign of a future separation. And this
stuff is almost always crap, especially if it's in the
New York Post, which is where I got this, But
I thought this was really good. If you want to
know if your marriage is heading to splitsville, don't check
your partner's phone, check their face.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That you know.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
There's so many stupid things out there, you know, the
one sign that he's gonna cheat or whatever the hell
I mean, they're just all dumb, but click bait. The
subtle smirk of superiority is the number one red flag
for divorce, according to this psychologist. And they get into why.
Research found that four nasty little habits, criticism, contempt, defensiveness,
(13:26):
and stonewalling are the four horsemen of the apocalypse when
it comes to dooming relationships.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
I'll read those four again.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
But contempt is the kiss of death.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
That's the one, and you've said that for years, that's
the one you can't get past.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Done. The largest marriage experiment ever done.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
They think of couples that you know, survive and don't survive.
Body language experts brought couples into a lab and if
one member of the couple shows a one sided mouth
rais which I had never heard before as like a
physical contempt thing. But I guess we're just programmed. When
we're feeling that feeling of contempt for something, or you know,
(14:10):
the oh pleaser, get out of here at that bs
or whatever feeling, you raise.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
One side of your mouth.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It's funny if one member of the couple shows a
one sided mouth raised towards the other, he can tell
you if they're gonna get divorced because it's contempt. He
could predict divorce with an astonishing ninety four percent accurate.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Fear.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Now, this is the part I thought was really interesting.
Fear comes in a burst, and then you calm down.
Happiness comes and then you go back to normal. Anger
comes and then you calm down, but not contempt. If
you feel scorn or disdain for someone else, and if
it's not addressed, it just festers and grows and stays
at the same level. Fear, anger, and then obviously happiness
(14:52):
you get back to a normal level.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Contempt it does not go away.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
And you know, in a definition of contempt, the feeling
that a person or a thing is beneath consideration worthless
or deserving scorn.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yes, coming back from that.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I've not felt contempt, but I have been on the
wrong end of contempt, I think. And having read this,
I thought, yeah, that's what was insurmountable. I mean, because
once you have contempt for someone you don't agree, you
don't think they are worth listening to on anything. This
is how I feel. This is my priority. I don't
(15:27):
care right. Yeah, that's a tough one to get past.
So look out for contempt and whatever started to bring
it on. The point is you start to deal with
it right away. Otherwise it does just grow and fester
and then it gets into a situation where it might
not be reversible. They also believe it many couples get
(15:48):
stuck in an endless loop of the same three arguments
throughout the relationship. They just don't realize it. And if
you can nail down what your three most common arguments
are you and your partner, you can solve a lot
of problems. Like you get into something, you say, okay,
here we're in argument number two again. We always argue
about this, and you can you know, realize that you know,
(16:12):
you don't see eye to eye in this particular thing
and how you've dealt with in the past. Back to
the contempt thing discussed, and contempt are to a relationship
with gasoline, and matches are to a fire. The telltale
signs are irolling mouth, crimping, and then subtle fidgeting like
picking it closed or cleaning fingers mid conversation as signals
(16:33):
of disdain. This person said that they dubbed this move
the lint picker, a behavior that he says, screams contempt
louder than words ever could interesting.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
You know, it's probably worth presenting the other side of
the coin at some point. We don't have time now,
but how do you prevent that sort of thing? If
it in the bud?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Having lint on your shirt, no contempt in your nod?
Speaker 5 (16:59):
S Folk at a partisan an event to encourage Democrats
or Republicans to work to protect social security together, which
seems about as likely to happen as a reboot of
Fiddler on the Roof starring Kanye West.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
But social security is number one for Joe Biden.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
Literally, his social Security number is one.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
That's kind of interesting as a lead into this. Republicans
nevercats not being able to work together. It would seem
that they could work together on cutting spending based on
this polling that just came out from the Cato Institute.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
CATO is a serious think tank. It's a conservative think tank.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
They worked with you Gov on this survey, and it's
one of your you know, really big, large number of people,
wide reaching, lots of questions sort of survey that comes
out every once in a while from these think tanks.
I don't know which of these numbers is my favorite.
There's a lot of them that are just mind blowingly
make me happy, but I can't believe because public will
(17:58):
is a real big part of getting anythings done in
a democracy. Obviously, if you got big majorities of people
that want something to happen, you should be able to
get it to happen and run on it. Here's my
favorite of all the spending we've done in the last
ten years, and we've done a lot of spending in
the last ten years.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Eighty five percent. Now that's a big number.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Whenever you get eighty five percent of people in agreement
on something.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
You'd think you could get political will to do something.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Eighty five percent say that spending is either not helped
them or made their lives worse eighty five percent.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
That's astounding.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
You wouldn't get that from taking it in through the
mainstream media, who feels like all government programs are wonderful
and doges trying to cut back on any of them
as a horror. Eighty five percent of Americans say all
that spending has either not done anything for me or
actually made my life worth the worse. Forty two percent
no impact. Forty three percent say it reduced to their
quality of life.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Wow, that's got to be inflation, which is the greatest
teacher of economic principles in the history of mankind.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Well, or is it just I regularly say, and this
this is true for me in my own personal life.
I believe the government stops me from doing things more
than it helps me.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Uh yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I mean, and well, do you drive on the roads? Yeah?
We we know you're an idiot.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Course I'm not even gonna explain why you're more I know, moron.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And by the.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Way, this is a non partisan observation. Eight and ten
Democrats and nine and ten Republicans believe that the increase
in federal spending has either made their lives not better
or worse.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Boy, this is really heartening.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I know, if the Republican if the Republicans can keep
between the ditches and not roll the car of their
messaging over, it seems to me like the ground is
super fertile for some good, solid conservatism in the years
to come.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Three quarters of Americans say the government spends too much.
Love that, seventy six percent the government spends too much.
And again it's not a partisan thing at all. Majorities
of Democrats fifty nine percent of Democrats think the government
spends too much money. Well, you'd never get that from
the main from your mainstream media coverage.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, and the question of what do you cut and
how and how much?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
That's the devil is in the details. But we do
have an enormous generalized agreement that, yeah, we need to
cut again two thirds. You get the opposite message from
all of the coverage of doges, for instance.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So almost everyone agrees there is waste, fraud, and abuse
in the federal government. The number is ninety eight percent.
I have out know if I've ever seen a poll
that reached ninety eight percent. Usually you have more than
two percent. They're like, no opinion, I don't know, refuse
to answer.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, but would you like me to stab you right now,
you might get ninety eight percent saying no, no opinion,
ninety I'm.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Not sure stab me as what.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Ninety eight percent broadly agreed there is waste, broader abuse
in the federal government. Of course, just to say no,
you'd be a crazy person. About half say there is
a great deal. Oh yeah, And twenty percent of moderate amount.
If hundreds of millions of dollars isn't a great deal
to you, what are you elon musk or something?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Man?
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah, Like I said, there's so many good numbers here,
I don't even know which ones to pick out the
most this one. One of the reasons this got attention
was some of the tax stuff yesterday. Fifty five percent
of Americans think their taxes are too high.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Which I thought was really interesting, especially especially given what
we were talking about yesterday on tax Day that the
top forty percent or so of income levels pay all
of the income tax.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
But fifty five percent of American seatter taxes are too high.
Fifty five percent same number believe they pay more than
their fair share in taxes. Is interesting given the fact
that half the country does not pay federal taxes federal
income tax. Although you have to remember, you know, a
property tax hammers a lot of people. Sales tax, sales tax,
(22:13):
I think is probably what gets a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
How about the controversial Trump tax cuts from twenty seventeen
and whether they should be extended or not? According to this,
eighty five percent of Americans support extending the twenty seventeen
tax cuts.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Eighty five percent. It's a gift of million as and
billion as. How is this a controversial issue?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
If the mainstream media was not what they are, could
Democrats win a single election as they're currently constituted?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
I don't think so.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
They need some of the best wordsmiths. Well, actually most
journalists are wordsmiths at all. They're parrots.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
But they need the power of the media colossus to
polish their their their poop, if you will. I'm sorry,
I just didn't want to use that common expression polishing
a turd because it's disgusting. But that's essentially but it's
good though. It's illustrative, Jack, I mean, it really makes
the point. There's got to be it's got to be
(23:19):
a better one, is there? It got to be that
doesn't include the T word.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Thoroughly lipsticking the pig of their policies.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So. Three quarters of people agree with the statement the
twenty seventeen tax cuts should be made permanent because businesses
and families need stability of the tax code to plan.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
For the future. Three quarters agree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Also, three quarters agree that tax cuts should be made
permanent because taxes are too high. Three quarters of Americans
think the Trump tax cuts should be made permanent because
taxes are too high.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Wow. Did you hear the pot about the millionaires?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You did. Oh you're rejecting it. I gotta get that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Then, since you brought that up, do the spending because
you'll that fits in perfect what you just said. A
majority of Americans admire the rich sixty five percent. Two
thirds disagree with the statement wealth should be taken from
the rich and given to the poor.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Two thirds of Americans disagree with that.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Wow, this is a different country than the media would
have you believed.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I'd eastly different.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Three out of five Americans strongly agree, ninety percent strongly
or somewhat agree that quote. There's nothing wrong with trying
to make as much money as you can. Ninety percent
strongly or somewhat agree with that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
When asked specifically about billionaires. Seventy one percent disagree that
it's immoral for society to allow people to become billionaires.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Seventy one percent don't agree with that statement.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
You hear it all the time from the AOC Bernie crowd,
Elizabeth Warren crowd, and they put it on the news
like that's you know, representing.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Half of America, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
And anybody who does think we should make it impossible
to you know, become a billionaire, you.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Just you're so dumb. You are so dumb. We just
need you to.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Get out of the way, please. As if you come
up with a great idea that one person likes and
it makes you a dollar, that's fine. If a million
people like that idea and give you a dollar, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
But if a billion people like that idea and give
you a dollar, that's wrong.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Or to borrow again, you're just so dumb you need
to get out of the way.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Well, not near as many people agree with that as
I thought. And I've been misled myself, and you know,
we're in the industry and and uh, taking lots of
media and read lots of polls, but I've been misled
to think there that in modern America, there were way
more people that hate the rich and think something's wrong there,
then it seems to be true two thirds think wealth
(25:57):
should not be taken from the rich and given to
the poor.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I'm sorry, I just didn't know.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
So. I think part of the reason that our perception
might be a little warped is that even some of
my favorite conservative journalists are of the coastal elites variety.
And they're nice fellas, and they have great principles, but
I don't think they know America and listen to second sound,
absolutely do not. This is going to sound awfully like
(26:23):
a self backpadding, but I think as a couple of
guys from you know, fairly average families in the Midwest,
I don't feel like an elite anything. I've never hung
out with those people. I wouldn't be comfortable there. I
would much rather, you know, a drink beer with my neighbor,
Larry the truck driver. I just and I think maybe
(26:44):
we have that advantage, and we, all of us friends
have to trust our own perceptions instead of that of
the bizarro.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Funhouse mirror of the media. I know a lot of
you already believe.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
That the fact that eighty five percent of people say
all that government spending has done nothing thing for them
or made their lives worse is amazing something. Yeah, and
you know over half of people say my taxes are
too high. All that fitting together, how do we not
get a government that spends less and keeps taxes low?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Well, I think you know, part of the answer would
be the swamp, which includes many Republicans and Democrats who
have a absolutely enormous financial interest in keeping government huge.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Right, there are solid majorities, and I could do more
than numbers, but I don't want to bore you to death,
but the solid majorities of people that think it's the
spending it's not the taxing, I mean that is that
is a settled issue in this country. It's the spending,
not the taxing, and we need to deal with it
from a spending standpoint. So we're not getting the government
we deserve on this front.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, yeah, so true.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
It's encouraging people believe that in the numbers that they do.
It is discouraging that we are fighting to make any
progress in reigning in the insanity. But right, yeah, because
it's our duty, is citizens, So I guess we keep trying.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Sometimes it's barely.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Uh, you're barely able to believe that democracy works.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I mean, you know, look at the border issue. That's
what I've been saying for years.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It's not controversy at all either, Like ninety percent of
people want to secure border, but we haven't been able
to do it in my entire adult.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Lifetime, right right, Very frustrating.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, yeah, it is nice job of those of you
out there who agree that all this spending is make
your life worse off anything.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
That's amazing.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Absolutely need a moonshot style effort to reform education in
this country because it is absolutely killing us.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Michael.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
It's a campus madness update, good and bad news.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Editions were good and bad news.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Screaming, how's madness, you idiot?
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Oh my god, I.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Was quite a scream Yeah, no kidding, Michael.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
So disembovement figures into the story somehow, so well metaphorically speaking.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
So we'll start with some good news, really interesting piece
about Tufts University, which is to the left of Trotsky
Boston area. But there's a professor by the name of
Hirsch there who teaches a class on American conservatism that
is always one hundred percent enrolled and extremely popular, and
he a man of the sane center left, has them
(29:39):
read Frederick Hayek's Road to Serve Them at ein RAN's
The Nature of Government, and then has lefty writers assigned
as well.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That says, all right, let's talk about this issue.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
And it is a classic American education where you have
to understand both sides before you say which one you're on.
And he is systematic steel manning conservator arguments for the
college kids.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And the really encouraging part about this is the kids
love it. That's interesting. And poll after pol.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Has shown that a lot of college kids resent the
cancel culture and the bully culture and the radical culture,
but they just they're afraid or you know, intimidated into silence.
And there's a lot more curiosity out there than I
think you would think from looking at college camp.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
God, are we.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Actually coming out of peak that? And we'll never have
to deal with it again, at least in our lifetimes.
I mean, did we just live through the pendulum swinging
to the far end of that nuttiness?
Speaker 3 (30:43):
I share hope. So I don't know, I don't know.
I'm a little afraid of it. Being like a sports
team that you know, has a very bad beginning of
the season. Then they win six in a row and
you think all right, and then that is just a
blip and they go back to being bad. I think
there's so much of a fight to go on, but
let me plunge on here.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
We can talk about this at length.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
A great piece in the Free Press about how all
over the country, including in some surprising places, educators are
covering up for their own failures wholesale. We should have
the best education system in the world, they write, We
should have an education system that reflects us being a superpower.
But there's no one with a straight face who can
(31:25):
say that the United States has a world class education system.
And that's from a higher up in the New Jersey
Department of Education.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Now retired.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
But they go through place after place where because they
are failing to meet any standard, they are systematically changing
the standards, including this shock to me. In twenty twenty four,
Oklahoma schools seemed to perform a miracle. They went from
twenty four percent proficiency in reading to forty seven percent
in two years, almost doubling the previous figure.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You see that number in a year. You know something
funky happened? Yeah, yeah, Indeed, if it sounds too good
to be true. That's because it was.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
In last year Oklahoma lowered its cut scores, the score
a student needs to hit on test to be considered proficient.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Unbelievable. That's good hearts law. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Once, once a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to
be a good measure.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Trend is also happening in New York State. After not
a single eighth grader in the upstate city of Schenectady
tested proficient in math in twenty twenty two, state officials
lowered the scores the following year. Wisconsin lowered cut scores
last year. Illinois is about to lower its scores, et cetera,
et cetera.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
We did it. It's a lot of blue states, but
Oklahoma shocked me.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
We've done it in California a couple of times. Well,
it speaks as much to the nature of bureaucracy as liberalism. Well,
it's a good hearts law. I mean that seems to
be a law no matter what you no matter your politics,
you come up with a goal, or you measure something.
Then you come up with a goal, and then you
just fudge to meet the goal. The measure doesn't work anymore.
(33:01):
And that's it happens over and over again. I can
come up with one hundred examples off the top of
my head, because I think it's a fascinating aspect of
the way the human brain works. But how are there
not People raise their hands, say, we can't be lowering
the standards.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
We need to raise the quality field tradition.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, right right, lift up the children, don't drop the standards.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
That'd be a good slogan.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Veering back to good news, the Department of Education on Friday,
Cancer which still exists, apparently canceled fifteen million dollars in
federal grants that were used to fund diversity programs at
three universities in California, State, La, Virginia Commonwealth, and University
of Saint Thomas and Minnesota. All had received giant, multimillion
dollar grants, part of a billion dollars a billion that
(33:49):
the Biden Education Department spent on diversity programs in America's schools,
nearly half of which went to grants for race based hiring.
That is, at least temporarily on the way out. Now
back to bad news. Two stories here that are adjoined
at the hip. Brown University Medical school. That's one of
your elite ivy leaguers. By the way, elite. I almost
(34:11):
vomit when I say that about these universities. But they
now give diversity, equity and inclusion more weight than excellent
clinical skills in its promotion criteria for faculty, raising questions
duh about the equality of teaching and patient care at
the elite medical school and underscoring how deeply deis penetrated
medical education. Again, when they decide what faculty to promote,
(34:35):
they now give DEI more weight than excellent clinical skills.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
I saw that over the week in medicine. I meant
to mention now on the air that is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
I was looking at the actual paperwork, the criteria, and
really your plan for how you're answering the question of
how you're going to get diversity, equity inclusion into your
your medical practice is more important than your actual skills, right?
(35:06):
That is?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Or it's important? How is that even possible? The Armstrong
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