April 10, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- The horror of the DMV & being a government employee
- The conditions in the prison in El Salvador
- The American dream!
- Weezer bassist's wife arrested & booked on attempted murder
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Ketty arm Strong
and Getty Enough he Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
He finally A bronx man recently threatened to blow up
the Department of Motor Vehicles after he was told he
would have to wait up to two hours to apply
for an ID. Unfortunately for him, the line to blow
up the place was three hours long.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
That's a good joke. Having spent two hours of the
DMV yesterday, I spent two hours of the MVS today.
That's with an appointment. But but I tweeted out, and
I've wondered this since I was young. Why are all
life's losers hanging out at the DMV? Where are the
regular people? There are no regular people the DMV. It's
almost entirely losers. Like in line there you hanging out? Yeah,
(01:01):
sitting in line. Ever, either's like with me. It's got
a bit of a Homer Simpson. Why are the things
that happen to stupid people keep happening to me? But
you don't look around and see anybody. I mean, I
thought this when I was twenty five. So this isn't
like me. Now, I've always thought this, It's like, very well,
(01:23):
every car parked in the parking lot is like Dennet
and missing hubcaps and got you know, a plastic bag
over one window. The percentage of people with either a
crutch or a sling is way higher than the regular population.
I don't know what to make of this. I'm uncomfortable
with it, and I don't know why it is. I've
(01:44):
always wondered that. Now. I tweeted that out and some
people said, well, those of that there is a separate
one for those of us who are life's losers. It's
called Triple A. And I did discover that in my
thirties that if you're a member of Triple A, a
lot of the stuff you can do there, But like
the thing I'm doing bringing a car in from another state,
you have to go to the d m V. California
(02:04):
tries to make it impossible to bring a car in
from another state because there are ultimate goals to have
no cars. That is the goal of the state of California.
They hate cars and they would like to get rid
of them. So you're always everybody in evs, which tear
up the highways. Which are already bad. Yeah, and I'm
registerrying to register an EV and it's still just as hard.
But anyway, that aside, I had a point of Oh
(02:28):
somebody did point out though, because I got into a
lot of conversations online because I had two hours to
kill wondering about this question. Is that uh, further down
the ladder of life working out for you, or when
you're young you drive cheap cars that have, you know,
more difficulties, and you swap cars more often, and just
(02:50):
with with other crappy cars, just lots of things happen
that require the DMV more often.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
And yeah, and there's there's a certain percentage of trips
to the DMV which are caused by lack of organization, No,
no doubt.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I'm speaking for myself.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I know that if I, for instance, had gotten the
form X thirty four or B in on time, I
wouldn't have to be standing in that damn line. And
there's definitely a correlation between ability to be organized and
think ahead and success in life. You either have it
or in my case, you marry it and thereby avoid
a lot of the trips.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
But anyway, it's insane that we can't have a simpler
system though that I know a lot of it has
gone online. But it all should be easily doable online,
shouldn't it. Why not? Yeah, yes, clearly. I wonder if
AI can get a wrap on this someday where there's
a D M v AI thing that can tell you, no,
(03:47):
you need this form, click here and you'll have the form,
and then you fill out the form and it's submitted
on the computer. And all of this is nonsense of
waiting in line for hours, and this happen to me,
thank god, But I saw it happened to practically everybody
around me, waiting in line for hours to be told no,
you need thirty four B, you have thirty four B. A. Oh,
(04:09):
that's so Soviet Union. That is so evil.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Actually, Elon Muskin, the Doge boys, they're getting all the
attention for cutting this and firing them over there, but
one of the main priorities they have is updating the
ridiculously antiquated and unconnected computer systems of the government.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And I would love to see that catch fire.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Just as an aside, after the a half dozen or
so of the DOGE leaders made that great appearance on
the Special Report with Brett Beher I really thought they
would be mounting a charm offensive where more of those
people would be doing more interviews.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It could be that all of the Alphabet networks in
the usual suspects that New York Times have no interest
in it because it undercuts their narrative of it's just
a handful of frat boys on meth running around firing nice,
innocent people with families, when indeed that's not it at all.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I actually hadn't been in a DM being quite a
few years, so I was trying to take the multiple
hours as an opportunity to to just observe, you know,
our government system at work. I also committed myself to
knowing that I wouldn't get accomplished what I wanted to
accomplish in one trip, and I didn't, but to having
a cheerful out look about it as I watched so
(05:19):
many people get angry and thinking, you've made yourself miserable,
You've made the person that works there even a little
more hardened against the public. Nothing good was accomplished by
getting upset about this, no matter what. But I thought,
how do you do that job? How could you do
that job for a day? And not end up the
way a lot of DMV drone people are. The person
(05:42):
I worked with was very cheerful and nice, but a
lot of them aren't. And I don't know how you
could work that job one week without being one just
a mindless boredom of it, and then that everybody being
mad at you. It's really inhumane to subject someone to
doing that. Yeah, I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I agree that it's not an excuse exactly for being
mean or abusive, but I understand it having dealt with
the public fair amount, especially in younger jobs.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I think it's how TSA people end up where they
are too, although with the added benefit for both of
those jobs, you can't be fired because working in retail
is a lot of that too, and you have to
keep your cheerful out look because they can fire you
and get somebody different, So you have to overcome the
whole The customers pissed me off. Yeah, yeah, it's a
big funny.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
My son, who is a gifted actor, though he is
not really acting these days, which is a shame, but
he he once got a job by this person, said,
you know, there's a lot of public interaction blah blah,
blah and can you handle that? And my son said, look,
I'm a trained actor. I can convince your customers. I'm
happy to see them. And they thought, okay, that's good enough.
(06:54):
So on a related note, in about ten seconds, the
idea of privatizing the postals service is getting a lot
of attention again later in the hour, and I cannot
wait to bring this to you. One of my favorite authors,
so smart, the five biggest challenges facing America. And it's
not a gimmickylistical. It is the goods.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And we will bring them to you. I won't say who.
A relative of mine briefly worked for the post Office,
thought that's what he would do, moving from his military career,
and he was there. I don't remember how long, not
very long weeks. He says, the most miserable group of
people he'd ever around in his life. All they talked
(07:38):
about was when their next break was coming up. Said,
I've told the story before of a guitar player I
played with government employee. Bob the guitar player a terrific musician,
but he was a walking black hole of emotions. He
would suck your joy out of you because he was
so miserable with the public and a government job. He
(08:02):
just is the despair come to him like a stench,
even out of work, you know, outside of work hours.
Oh most Yeah.
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Speaker 1 (09:04):
Run your game, run it. The higher percentage of people
having crutches or slings? Does that fit in with your
I don't know that's going to be studied at the
university level. I have no idea what explains that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So Christian Snyder wrote a piece yesterday, I guess about
privatizing the post office.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And I haven't paid that much attention to this issue.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
But as soon as anybody mentions that, the public employee
unions start screaming and progressive congress people start screaming that
they're going to obliterate the postal service, it will be
the end of it. There will be no way to
get mail, and it'll be a disaster unseen since the
explosion of Mount Vesuvius.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I do get two pieces of mail per year that
I need, So yeah, it doesn't mean bliteration. I'm sorry,
take two.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
It doesn't mean obliteration, he writes, It means innovation, allowing
new ideas and to enter the chat, preferably ones not
written on parchment powered by oxen. I believe that is
a shot at the antiquated and idiotic systems of the
postal Service. What's the difference between the public and private sectors.
The answer is simple. In the private sector, if a
business mismanages its operations, it goes belly up.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
In the public sector, if in an organization fails, it's
kept on life support with more tax payer money lesson. Tim.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
The lawyer Tim Sanderfer has been helping us understand here
on the show and you Good folks for many years.
Such is the case with the US Postal Service, which
has lost over one hundred billion dollars since twenty oh seven,
one hundred over one hundred billion dollars. The number of
pieces of the US Posted Service handles has fallen fifty
seven percent since one but the costly infrastructure needed to
(10:46):
deliver every letter to every square edge to the country
continues to hemorrhage money. So why the Government Accountability Office
added the USPS's unsustainable business model to its high risk list,
noting that the office need to take action to address
its poor financial condition. There would probably be a hiccup
or two. There are a couple of bills we still
(11:09):
get via mail for various reasons that are not interesting
enough to go into.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I can I don't get any bills through the mail.
The only thing I can think of that I get
in the mail, uh, Christmas cards, That's the only thing.
So in December I need the post office. The rest
of year, I'm pretty sure I don't. I'm amazed that
flyers of any kind are still worth sending the junk
(11:38):
mail that you get. I'm surprised it's still worth anything.
I don't think young, if you're under fifty, you're not
looking at her. I mean, there's still grandma's looking through
their junk mail every day to see if there's something
important in there. But doesn't it all just go in
the garbage? You know, I glance at it. I don't
call me crazy. I don't even look at it.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Shortly after Trump took office this year, he posited a
Trump has been tinkering with the much more appealing idea
of privatizing the postal service. It's an ideas time came
decades ago, especially with the Internet and fuel drop and
physical mail were just a few years away from every
grandma then mowing the kids their one dollar birthday.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Gets right, which won't be as charming because my mom
still sends stuff to the kids for birthdays, Christmas, that
sort of stuff, and they really really enjoy it. But
the post Office is exactly like the irs and a
whole bunch of other government things where if they didn't
(12:37):
exist and you were going to start today, this is
not what you would create or anything even close.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Final note, there's a federal law that grants the Postal
Service a government monopoly under which only its carriers have
access to mailboxes.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And there are a couple other things.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But Treasury analysis found that the per employee cost it
the Postal Service averaged almost eighty six thousand dollars, compared
to seventy six at UPS and fifty four at FEDEC.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Wow to eighty six grand per employee for the post
Office and almost after that for federal unionized government employees. Wow.
Phrase that should shock. Yet that's the highlight right there. Wow,
God dang it. More on the way Armstrong.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
And inside, alleged local gang members accused of robbery, rape, murder,
crammed at least eighty to a prison cell. They all
share two toilets, no visitors or books allowed, thirty minutes
of exercise each day.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
The lights here don't turn off.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Inmates are never allowed outside, and we're there as inmates
are called out of their cells for an inspection.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
This is bleak, this is brutal. It is difficult to watch.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
But the government of Al Salvador says that these people
are the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Ah. That may be true, but we don't keep the
worst of our worst in conditions like that. Neither do
most places. Although you know, you don't really know what's
going on in China and Saudi Arabia and a lot
of different countries in North Korea. But what's what's the
theory behind a prison that that is that awful? It's
forty thousand dudes, forty thousand and they think of the
(14:23):
eighty in a cell, lights on all night long.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
That's I mean, that's I would think you'd rather be dead, yeah,
or or go out in a blaze of killing guards.
There's always a balance that's struck between uh, you know,
punishment and keeping control of a prison. And if guys
feel like the only reason I'm going to, you know,
(14:50):
be obedient is to avoid death, at some point they
think the hell with it.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So I don't. I don't know how it's wrong.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I'd be fascinated to toward the place I'll bet it's troubling, Like, oh,
my cord idicated.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Came across this headline we got Do you want to
tease what you got?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
The five greatest challenges facing the United States. I think
it's fantastic, terrific.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah. And the way Weezer's bassist wife got shot by
LA cops yesterday. What a crazy story in the middle
of the afternoon. That got a lot of coverage in LA.
But the whole thing is nutty. I can get to
that a little bit later. I mean they're doing something
else completely when they happen across the Weezer basist wife
(15:35):
with a gun in the driveway, that was just like
an accidental thing. I don't know if she did that
every day and they're just were cops around or what.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
But I tell you what, keep an eye on Blurs
rhythm guitarist's girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
No kidding, there's madness in the end. She's running with scissors.
This from the New York Post today. Just eight drinks
a week increases your chance of brain lesions by one
hundred and thirty three percent and ups your odds of
a key sign of Alzheimer's. I don't want brain lesions.
That it doesn't seem like what I mean. I'm criticizing
(16:09):
my hobbies, but my main takeaway being between coffee studies,
alcohol studies, and then pretty much everything around diet and exercise.
Is there any point in paying any attention to any
of these studies? Oh boy, I take them all with
a grain of salt, which drives up your heart rate.
Of course, I'm not blood pressure. I'm not sure you
(16:29):
need to take them at all. Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
They're almost always preliminary studies that the media blows up
into like this is the latest knowledge, and it's not
at all. It's just a preliminary study that often gets
reversed by the scientists who came up with it, and
they and they say, because I know some scientists who
have had this happen before, they say, the media shouldn't
(16:51):
have printed that at all. It's just one preliminary study.
It's not worth shouting about.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Right right, or even noticing in particular. Yeah, you know what,
in long time listening will appreciate this reference. I'm the
the the third of the big three of the three
legged stool, if you will, is where is their fecal matter?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
But that's kind of out of fashion on your computer keyboard. Well, yeah,
the handle of the grocery car to your car steering wheel.
There's more fecal matter in a hotel blah blah blah
than you can believe. Yeah, but fecal matters out of
fashion now for some matter. That's right, Johnny Depp, it
had its day, Jack, How are you getting it on
(17:32):
the steering wheel? Where is your lifestyle? Eh? Boy?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That reminds me we ought to get to Jerry Nadler
is the stinkiest member of FAS.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I don't know if I want to be around for that.
So Trump paused the tariffs yesterday on everybody practically but China.
That's the big deal, and the stock market rows a lot.
Now it's dropped again today as everybody realized, Oh yeah,
China giant. Practically everything is made in China, and the
one hundred and fifty percent tariffs still exist on them
or whatever that number is that Trump put out yesterday.
So that's still a thing. Maybe more on that later.
(18:05):
Enormous degree of uncertainty. Yeah, I would say stay with
us if you mista sake me. Get the podcast Armstrong
and Getty on demand. Armstrong and Getty ladies and gens.
I give you the pride of Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
So I have to go around the country and educate
people about what immigrants do for this country, or the
fact that we are a country of immigrants, right right.
The fact is, ain't none of y'all trying to go
in farm right now? Olry, So I'm ly raise your hands.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You're not.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
You're not we done picking kott.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
We are.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
You can't pay us enough to find a plantation.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
So, just to get this straight to the rest of
view is black people are now too good to quote
unquote pick cotton.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Therefore medium brown people should do it. If you ever
got these people to flesh out their arguments, it would
be pretty entertaining. I find the whole thing troubling that
we have all kinds of jobs we've decided are beneath us,
manufacturing jobs, farm jobs. Regular Americans shouldn't have to do those.
Let's import a brown underclass, says a black woman. It's
(19:31):
an odd circumstance. Dad McLaughlin is a brilliant writer.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
He pens pieces for the National Review, among other places,
and he busted it out a piece the other day.
The Five biggest challenges facing America that I thought, Okay,
I like a listical.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Everybody likes a listical. I'll take a quick look. But
I thought it was absolutely terrific.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So here are the five issues that come to his mind,
and some have kind of subcategories. And Jack, obviously you
can jump in anytime you want. First, first challenge, do
we still believe in the American idea? And he says
the largest single crisis we have today is whether or
not the American people will remain committed to the American idea.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Well, what are they defining as the American idea?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
He actually has kind of a five point description of it.
He points out first that and as I and philosophers
formal wise than me have pointed out, if the principles
just exist on paper but not in the hearts of
the people, they're done for. And if they're in the
hearts of the people, we can change the paper or
have a revolution or whatever. But he's talking about a
democratic republic in which the government responds to the commands
(20:37):
of the people and has no permanent privileged class immune
to popular pressure.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Also, this is more specific. I was just going to
go with work hard and get ahead. That's in it too.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah, the constitutional rule of written law, on which everyone
is bound by the same rules and agrees to abide
by the outcomes of the political system. Civil liberties for
all on equal terms, including free speech, freedom of religious conscience,
and do process of law, free markets in the right
and responsibility of every individual to live off the fruits
of his or her own labor and improve his or
her own lot in life. And finally, a baseline of
(21:11):
pluralism by which we tolerate disagreement, managed to live with
people who have fundamentally different worldviews and accept the common
rules of the political game. That is, Americans sticking by
the American idea.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I got my tax bill yesterday. It would seem that
I am supporting many people off the fruits of my labor.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So yes, I would appreciate a thank you note, maybe
just at the holidays or something like that. Or but
as we've said many times, show me the aircraft carrier
I helped pay for.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'd like to at least tore it. But so a
bunch of those you can be somewhat cynical about, or
are a lot of people are cynical about a lot
of those? Is that cynicism, well placed, well earned. Yeah,
it's funny.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Cynicism or being a cynic is an interest word that
I think is sometimes misinterpreted.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But not to quibble, legitimate. Being pissed off and a
little bit bitter that people aren't living by those ideas.
That's healthy. We need more shame, not less.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
So you see Nancy Pelosi and the folks on the
Republican side of the aisle too, getting rich in Congress
and that sort of thing. Yeah, I'm hearings blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I'm beyond cynical about the idea that there's not a
privileged class that gets treated differently and everything like that.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Right, right, But that bitterness is healthy, that's good. We
lose that we're doomed. So anyway, that's point number one.
And then Dan says, the gravest threat to these values
continues to be progressivism and its dissemination through our schools
and Hollywood and the media.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
As you know, this is my jihad. The schools, especially
woke ideology and its variance DEEICRT, cancel culture, all the
rest of it. Attack the essential props of a society
that's based on equality and liberty of the individual, and
then he goes into a little more scholarly discussion of
living constitutionalism. We can interpret the.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Constitution, however we want to solve our problems these days, No,
you can't. And Democrats for the past quarter century have
been attacking the legitimacy of our entire political system, including
the completely reasonable Supreme Court. So anyway, and he takes
a couple of shots at Trump for refusing to concede
the election in twenty twenty. Fair enough, Okay, So that's
(23:33):
number one. Do Americans continue to believe in the idea
of America?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I'm a yes.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Of the things I said, I do fervently, and we'll
go down fighting till to day I die. It's one
of the reasons I'm so conflicted about the idea of
ever retiring from this job. I just as long as
we have any audience. Thank you for listening. It's hard
to not be in the fight anyway. Number two of
the five greatest channel just facing America. Do we still
(24:01):
have enough Americans? Our American idea is only useful as
long as there are people to believe it. And he
points out great periods of growth in our wealth, power,
standard of living, cultural influence, have typically been times when
our population is growing, usually by high birth rates and
relatively high immigration. Yet birth rates are collapsing around the
(24:23):
developed world. America is not immune declining rates of family formation,
resurgent rates of abortion. An era of population decline would
undermine all of the fiscal and financial assumptions behind our
entitlement state, as well as our free market economy. And
he doesn't really get into this, but the antidote to
that is to import millions of young people from around
(24:44):
the world who may or may not give a crap
about concern Number one, do Americans still believe in America?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
So that's a big one. Realizing this is a little
heaviest segments go, but it's worth considering. Or three, are
we going broke? Yes, well, that one's settled. I mean
we could go into detail, but come on.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Now, Nearly a quarter of our GDP is now spent
on just the federal government, never mind the cost of
state and local governments. I warned of this years and
years ago. I should have written a quickie talk show
host book. When the most important lobbyist of government becomes
the government itself, we're doomed.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And we might be there and it's not sustainable. The
level of spending, the debt, the deficits, blah blah blah.
We all know that, right. This one's interesting. Fourth is
the world getting away from us. Foreign enemies will likely
always be with us, but we should be alarmed by
the prospect that they are united, uniting their causes and
expanding their spheres of influence. This is the axis of
(25:53):
a holes.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
China, Russia Ran represent a block of resistance to the
American ideas, and they are trying to expand and send
its tentacles anywhere it can. This requires a brand of
grand strategic thinking on our part to strengthen the alliances
of the free world against them. It now appears, however,
that the Trump Advanced team wants our strategic posture to
(26:15):
move in precisely the opposite direction. This is a debate
that will go on and on and should That's an
oversimplification of a handful of things.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But that's number four in his list, and fifth the
hardest one to pin down. Have we lost our American
character of resilience and flexibility? And he points out America
used to not only build things quickly, you know, physical
things and institutions, but also rebuild them quickly, and he's
(26:45):
quoting himself, in wartime time is a vital factor, the
Union's victory over the Confederacy, the American victory over Imperial Japan.
We're heavily dependent on our capacity to turn out warships
at a speed and volume unmatched by our adversaries. He
goes into the history.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
In the past, the complacement America could afford on to
skimp on armaments in peace time because it could ramp
up quickly at need. But today's America is a jungle
of red tape, in which the going in any project
a building is slow and laborious. The Ukraine War has
illustrated the dangers to the army of the perilously slow
pace of production for ammunitions. And it's not just war fighting,
(27:22):
he points out, it's being tested in the rebuilding of
California after the devastating wildfires, and even progressives like Ezra
Klein have recently been discussing how red tape and constituency
politics make it impossible to build things quickly in America.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I saw the other day, what is it. They're like,
there's been like two permits granted so far or something.
I mean, some shockingly low number. Right, they're in the
Palisades area.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, I think it's a four, So it's twice as
many as you said, Yousenic. Four people have gotten permits
out of tens of thousands. And then he also mentions
that you bundle woke politics into that, which not only
doesn't you know, recognize the beauty of meritocracy, it poops
on it, and more broadly, the unresponsive and decay of
(28:09):
many of the institutions.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
We're hurting. We're hurting, and it all goes back to
the fundamental principles of America and being an American. Don't
apologize for those principles or think they don't mean anything,
or well, I don't want to get into the culture
wars or anything like that. No, that is the only
thing that matters, because everything, everything rests on it, the
(28:39):
principles that made this country great. So inflation's inflation numbers
are out today and they're a little lower than they expected,
So that's good news. Eggs hit an all time high
up by chickens by chickens, up five point six percent
from last month, when they were already at an all
time high. I'm glad. I don't eat a lot of eggs,
(29:00):
I guess. I mean again, my wife does, and I
got to have a word with her. But how many
eggs did does if you eat a lot of eggs?
How many eggs scrambling us broke honey? Even if you
eat a lot, how many do you eat? Three a day?
Does that? That would be a huge number, including baking
and such. That's that's pretty aggressive. Yeah, I just don't know. Uh,
(29:26):
back to the hole. It was a little lower than expected,
expected by whom? What is their methodology? What the hell
do I care what they expected? Just wait for the
number to come out. So Los Angeles loves a good
police chase thing. And it happened in the middle of
the day, and you had all the helicopters around and
everybody's watching it. And it was a weird one. Lots
of weird stuff. The guy who stripped down to his
(29:48):
underwear jumped a fence and got into a family's backyard
pool to try to seem like I'm just a guy
in a pool. What are you talking about? Because it's
least day today, isn't it? A officer before the police
kept him, for instance, There's a lot to this story,
including the bass players, the bass player of Weezer's wife
getting shot. There's a lot here. Stay tuned. Will you
(30:14):
be able to enjoy Weezer hits like this one this
weekend at Coachella where Weezer's expected to play now that
their bass player's wife is in jail charged with attempted murder.
Oh my, that is upsetting right. Yep, yep, it'd be
hard to pay attention. You're playing the bass, your wife's
(30:35):
in jail tempted murder. Huh? You start singing your yips
out of place, blown core changes, but then the crowd
could go wild. This is how the whole thing goes
down yesterday. It's just kind of interesting on a number
of different levels. So it's middle of the afternoon, it's
like three point thirty. There is a hit and run
on the Ventura Freeway. Some guys there's a crash and
they decide to run from the scene, which you're not
(30:56):
allowed to do. Three dudes take off running for whatever reason.
A number of like regular citizens decide to chase these dudes.
I've never done that, but I mean, like I'm like
a really bad guy. I might, but like just somebody
who's involved in a car wreck running from it. I
not gonna depends, I suppose, I don't know. Anyway, they
(31:18):
started chasing these guys and so they are on the run.
Then cops get there with backup, and the cops are
running through the Eagle Rock neighborhood chasing the dudes. One
of the dudes, well, one dude falls down as he's
being chased and he's all bloody. So he's laying on
the street bloody, So cops got attend to him. Then
one of the other guys runs, climbs over a fence,
takes off his clothes down to his boxer shorts, jumps
(31:41):
in the pool, and starts watering plants to try to
seem like he lives there, which is pretty clever, but
it didn't work. They apprehended him too. Worth a try. Anyway,
It turns out to be the neighborhood. And this part
I just figured out now as TMZ is reporting it
this morning. One of the houses in the nameghborhood belongs
to the bass player from Weezer. That's the band we
(32:03):
just played their very popular band from back in the day.
And she hears all the commotion. I wonder if maybe
she was watching about the high speed chase and all
that sort of stuff on TV. Maybe even I don't know,
realized it was her neighborhood. She comes out of the
house with a gun because there's craziness going on in
her neighborhood. So she's standing in the driveway with the gun.
Cops come running down the street around the corner. There's
(32:24):
a woman with a gun. You know, they don't know
what all is going on, and they start yelling drop
the gun, Drop the gun. The cops say, they they
yell drop the gun repeatedly. We'll let body cams determine that.
I don't have any reason to think they didn't. I
just always remember that scene in Better Call Saul, where
the cop when he's testifying as to how he shot
(32:45):
the dude. His story is way different than what happened.
But anyway, I don't think that happens very often test
a lying the cops come around the corner. There's a
woman with a gun. They yell for her to drop
the gun. Drop the gun. This is the bass player
from Weezer's Wife, who is a gun enthusiast and might
have just been doing what any of us with guns
would do if we think something really bad is going
(33:07):
on in the neighborhood. I wouldn't do this. However, she
turns around. She does. She not only does not drop
the gun, she points the gun at the cops. Were
they uniformed, I believe so. I don't know that, but
that's what I was picturing. But I don't know if
I have any reasons. I'm pretty sure they come out
your driveway with anyway, they're lad LAPD patrol that. Yeah,
(33:28):
I think they were just you know, yeah, I don't
know why she pointed at the gun. That's where the
attempted murder comes in. I'm looking up at the picture
on the TV all the cops that are pointing their
the gun at the guy in his shorts who jumped
in the pool to try to pull off. Hey, I'm
just trying to swim in. What are you doing. They're
all a regular uniformed cops. Anyway, she points a gun
(33:49):
at the cops, which I guess gets you booked for
attempted murder. They shoot her, but not very badly, because
she then goes in the house and hangs out in
the house for quite a while with the baby. Then
she comes out later with the babysitter and says that
she's willing to uh surrender. So I'm kind of surprised
that she's not dead. I'm glad she's not dead, since
(34:10):
it seems to be like a misunderstanding. But I'm surprised
that if you got multiple cops you're pointing gum at them,
that she's not dead.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
That's yeah, there is something missing from this story.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like fact. So according to TMZ,
she was only hitting the shoulder. They take her to
the hospital, but she's fine in talking. She is a
self described rock star wife. That's what she told the police.
I'm a rock star wife. Is that what she puts
on her tax forms? That's fine. I don't know. She's
got a bit of a wacky background, including this nugget.
(34:45):
She wrote a book called Some Girls, My Life in
a Harem, in which she chronicles her time as a
guest in quotes of the Prince of BRUNEI, Oh my,
so apparently, oh I remember that book? Really? Yeah, so
she like was a model sex toy for the Prince
(35:06):
of BRUNEI perhaps, or just arm candy.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
I don't know exactly how the you know, the flow
chart looks in the harem world. What sort of positions
are available.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Isn't it funny how many women they're all their dating situations.
Jeff Bezos's wife is a little bit like this. It's
all like rock stars, super wealthy businessman, princes of Bruneis
you know that they just say run.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
In those circles up breaking news, the common law wife
of the drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was
seen with a hatchet on Sunset Boulevard. We go to
Live team coverage has been maceed by the copses in custody.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I tell you what, it all feels like.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
It's flying apart, trade war with China, rock star wives
with guns too much in man.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
You point to gun at multiple cops and you're not
dead and you're not even like badly wounded.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
That is amazing, like gunshot wounds badly enough. But I
see your point definitely. So, speaking of trade wars with China,
what's that going to look like? It's everybody's got the
feeling of who the ninety day pause, it's all gonna
be okay? Oh no, the poop Show's just begun.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Oh okay, that's exciting. If you missed that segment, get
the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Ketty arm Strong
and Getty Enough he Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
He finally A bronx man recently threatened to blow up
the Department of Motor Vehicles after he was told he
would have to wait up to two hours to apply
for an ID. Unfortunately for him, the line to blow
up the place was three hours long.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
That's a good joke. Having spent two hours of the
DMV yesterday, I spent two hours of the MVS today.
That's with an appointment. But but I tweeted out, and
I've wondered this since I was young. Why are all
life's losers hanging out at the DMV? Where are the
regular people? There are no regular people the DMV. It's
almost entirely losers. Like in line there you hanging out? Yeah,
(01:01):
sitting in line. Ever, either's like with me. It's got
a bit of a Homer Simpson. Why are the things
that happen to stupid people keep happening to me? But
you don't look around and see anybody. I mean, I
thought this when I was twenty five. So this isn't
like me. Now, I've always thought this, It's like, very well,
(01:23):
every car parked in the parking lot is like Dennet
and missing hubcaps and got you know, a plastic bag
over one window. The percentage of people with either a
crutch or a sling is way higher than the regular population.
I don't know what to make of this. I'm uncomfortable
with it, and I don't know why it is. I've
(01:44):
always wondered that. Now. I tweeted that out and some
people said, well, those of that there is a separate
one for those of us who are life's losers. It's
called Triple A. And I did discover that in my
thirties that if you're a member of Triple A, a
lot of the stuff you can do there, But like
the thing I'm doing bringing a car in from another state,
you have to go to the d m V. California
(02:04):
tries to make it impossible to bring a car in
from another state because there are ultimate goals to have
no cars. That is the goal of the state of California.
They hate cars and they would like to get rid
of them. So you're always everybody in evs, which tear
up the highways. Which are already bad. Yeah, and I'm
registerrying to register an EV and it's still just as hard.
But anyway, that aside, I had a point of Oh
(02:28):
somebody did point out though, because I got into a
lot of conversations online because I had two hours to
kill wondering about this question. Is that uh, further down
the ladder of life working out for you, or when
you're young you drive cheap cars that have, you know,
more difficulties, and you swap cars more often, and just
(02:50):
with with other crappy cars, just lots of things happen
that require the DMV more often.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
And yeah, and there's there's a certain percentage of trips
to the DMV which are caused by lack of organization, No,
no doubt.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
I'm speaking for myself.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I know that if I, for instance, had gotten the
form X thirty four or B in on time, I
wouldn't have to be standing in that damn line. And
there's definitely a correlation between ability to be organized and
think ahead and success in life. You either have it
or in my case, you marry it and thereby avoid
a lot of the trips.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
But anyway, it's insane that we can't have a simpler
system though that I know a lot of it has
gone online. But it all should be easily doable online,
shouldn't it. Why not? Yeah, yes, clearly. I wonder if
AI can get a wrap on this someday where there's
a D M v AI thing that can tell you, no,
(03:47):
you need this form, click here and you'll have the form,
and then you fill out the form and it's submitted
on the computer. And all of this is nonsense of
waiting in line for hours, and this happen to me,
thank god, But I saw it happened to practically everybody
around me, waiting in line for hours to be told no,
you need thirty four B, you have thirty four B. A. Oh,
(04:09):
that's so Soviet Union. That is so evil.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Actually, Elon Muskin, the Doge boys, they're getting all the
attention for cutting this and firing them over there, but
one of the main priorities they have is updating the
ridiculously antiquated and unconnected computer systems of the government.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And I would love to see that catch fire.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Just as an aside, after the a half dozen or
so of the DOGE leaders made that great appearance on
the Special Report with Brett Beher I really thought they
would be mounting a charm offensive where more of those
people would be doing more interviews.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It could be that all of the Alphabet networks in
the usual suspects that New York Times have no interest
in it because it undercuts their narrative of it's just
a handful of frat boys on meth running around firing nice,
innocent people with families, when indeed that's not it at all.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I actually hadn't been in a DM being quite a
few years, so I was trying to take the multiple
hours as an opportunity to to just observe, you know,
our government system at work. I also committed myself to
knowing that I wouldn't get accomplished what I wanted to
accomplish in one trip, and I didn't, but to having
a cheerful out look about it as I watched so
(05:19):
many people get angry and thinking, you've made yourself miserable,
You've made the person that works there even a little
more hardened against the public. Nothing good was accomplished by
getting upset about this, no matter what. But I thought,
how do you do that job? How could you do
that job for a day? And not end up the
way a lot of DMV drone people are. The person
(05:42):
I worked with was very cheerful and nice, but a
lot of them aren't. And I don't know how you
could work that job one week without being one just
a mindless boredom of it, and then that everybody being
mad at you. It's really inhumane to subject someone to
doing that. Yeah, I don't know how you do that.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I agree that it's not an excuse exactly for being
mean or abusive, but I understand it having dealt with
the public fair amount, especially in younger jobs.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
I think it's how TSA people end up where they
are too, although with the added benefit for both of
those jobs, you can't be fired because working in retail
is a lot of that too, and you have to
keep your cheerful out look because they can fire you
and get somebody different, So you have to overcome the
whole The customers pissed me off. Yeah, yeah, it's a
big funny.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
My son, who is a gifted actor, though he is
not really acting these days, which is a shame, but
he he once got a job by this person, said,
you know, there's a lot of public interaction blah blah,
blah and can you handle that? And my son said, look,
I'm a trained actor. I can convince your customers. I'm
happy to see them. And they thought, okay, that's good enough.
(06:54):
So on a related note, in about ten seconds, the
idea of privatizing the postals service is getting a lot
of attention again later in the hour, and I cannot
wait to bring this to you. One of my favorite authors,
so smart, the five biggest challenges facing America. And it's
not a gimmickylistical. It is the goods.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And we will bring them to you. I won't say who.
A relative of mine briefly worked for the post Office,
thought that's what he would do, moving from his military career,
and he was there. I don't remember how long, not
very long weeks. He says, the most miserable group of
people he'd ever around in his life. All they talked
(07:38):
about was when their next break was coming up. Said,
I've told the story before of a guitar player I
played with government employee. Bob the guitar player a terrific musician,
but he was a walking black hole of emotions. He
would suck your joy out of you because he was
so miserable with the public and a government job. He
(08:02):
just is the despair come to him like a stench,
even out of work, you know, outside of work hours.
Oh most Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
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Lineup, lose.
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You get fifty bucks just for playing guaranteed prize picks.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Run your game, run it. The higher percentage of people
having crutches or slings? Does that fit in with your
I don't know that's going to be studied at the
university level. I have no idea what explains that.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So Christian Snyder wrote a piece yesterday, I guess about
privatizing the post office.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And I haven't paid that much attention to this issue.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
But as soon as anybody mentions that, the public employee
unions start screaming and progressive congress people start screaming that
they're going to obliterate the postal service, it will be
the end of it. There will be no way to
get mail, and it'll be a disaster unseen since the
explosion of Mount Vesuvius.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I do get two pieces of mail per year that
I need, So yeah, it doesn't mean bliteration. I'm sorry,
take two.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
It doesn't mean obliteration, he writes, It means innovation, allowing
new ideas and to enter the chat, preferably ones not
written on parchment powered by oxen. I believe that is
a shot at the antiquated and idiotic systems of the
postal Service. What's the difference between the public and private sectors.
The answer is simple. In the private sector, if a
business mismanages its operations, it goes belly up.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
In the public sector, if in an organization fails, it's
kept on life support with more tax payer money lesson. Tim.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
The lawyer Tim Sanderfer has been helping us understand here
on the show and you Good folks for many years.
Such is the case with the US Postal Service, which
has lost over one hundred billion dollars since twenty oh seven,
one hundred over one hundred billion dollars. The number of
pieces of the US Posted Service handles has fallen fifty
seven percent since one but the costly infrastructure needed to
(10:46):
deliver every letter to every square edge to the country
continues to hemorrhage money. So why the Government Accountability Office
added the USPS's unsustainable business model to its high risk list,
noting that the office need to take action to address
its poor financial condition. There would probably be a hiccup
or two. There are a couple of bills we still
(11:09):
get via mail for various reasons that are not interesting
enough to go into.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I can I don't get any bills through the mail.
The only thing I can think of that I get
in the mail, uh, Christmas cards, That's the only thing.
So in December I need the post office. The rest
of year, I'm pretty sure I don't. I'm amazed that
flyers of any kind are still worth sending the junk
(11:38):
mail that you get. I'm surprised it's still worth anything.
I don't think young, if you're under fifty, you're not
looking at her. I mean, there's still grandma's looking through
their junk mail every day to see if there's something
important in there. But doesn't it all just go in
the garbage? You know, I glance at it. I don't
call me crazy. I don't even look at it.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Shortly after Trump took office this year, he posited a
Trump has been tinkering with the much more appealing idea
of privatizing the postal service. It's an ideas time came
decades ago, especially with the Internet and fuel drop and
physical mail were just a few years away from every
grandma then mowing the kids their one dollar birthday.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Gets right, which won't be as charming because my mom
still sends stuff to the kids for birthdays, Christmas, that
sort of stuff, and they really really enjoy it. But
the post Office is exactly like the irs and a
whole bunch of other government things where if they didn't
(12:37):
exist and you were going to start today, this is
not what you would create or anything even close.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Final note, there's a federal law that grants the Postal
Service a government monopoly under which only its carriers have
access to mailboxes.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And there are a couple other things.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But Treasury analysis found that the per employee cost it
the Postal Service averaged almost eighty six thousand dollars, compared
to seventy six at UPS and fifty four at FEDEC.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Wow to eighty six grand per employee for the post
Office and almost after that for federal unionized government employees. Wow.
Phrase that should shock. Yet that's the highlight right there. Wow,
God dang it. More on the way Armstrong.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
And inside, alleged local gang members accused of robbery, rape, murder,
crammed at least eighty to a prison cell. They all
share two toilets, no visitors or books allowed, thirty minutes
of exercise each day.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
The lights here don't turn off.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Inmates are never allowed outside, and we're there as inmates
are called out of their cells for an inspection.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
This is bleak, this is brutal. It is difficult to watch.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
But the government of Al Salvador says that these people
are the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Ah. That may be true, but we don't keep the
worst of our worst in conditions like that. Neither do
most places. Although you know, you don't really know what's
going on in China and Saudi Arabia and a lot
of different countries in North Korea. But what's what's the
theory behind a prison that that is that awful? It's
forty thousand dudes, forty thousand and they think of the
(14:23):
eighty in a cell, lights on all night long.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
That's I mean, that's I would think you'd rather be dead, yeah,
or or go out in a blaze of killing guards.
There's always a balance that's struck between uh, you know,
punishment and keeping control of a prison. And if guys
feel like the only reason I'm going to, you know,
(14:50):
be obedient is to avoid death, at some point they
think the hell with it.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
So I don't. I don't know how it's wrong.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
I'd be fascinated to toward the place I'll bet it's troubling, Like, oh,
my cord idicated.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Came across this headline we got Do you want to
tease what you got?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
The five greatest challenges facing the United States. I think
it's fantastic, terrific.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah. And the way Weezer's bassist wife got shot by
LA cops yesterday. What a crazy story in the middle
of the afternoon. That got a lot of coverage in LA.
But the whole thing is nutty. I can get to
that a little bit later. I mean they're doing something
else completely when they happen across the Weezer basist wife
(15:35):
with a gun in the driveway, that was just like
an accidental thing. I don't know if she did that
every day and they're just were cops around or what.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
But I tell you what, keep an eye on Blurs
rhythm guitarist's girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
No kidding, there's madness in the end. She's running with scissors.
This from the New York Post today. Just eight drinks
a week increases your chance of brain lesions by one
hundred and thirty three percent and ups your odds of
a key sign of Alzheimer's. I don't want brain lesions.
That it doesn't seem like what I mean. I'm criticizing
(16:09):
my hobbies, but my main takeaway being between coffee studies,
alcohol studies, and then pretty much everything around diet and exercise.
Is there any point in paying any attention to any
of these studies? Oh boy, I take them all with
a grain of salt, which drives up your heart rate.
Of course, I'm not blood pressure. I'm not sure you
(16:29):
need to take them at all. Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
They're almost always preliminary studies that the media blows up
into like this is the latest knowledge, and it's not
at all. It's just a preliminary study that often gets
reversed by the scientists who came up with it, and
they and they say, because I know some scientists who
have had this happen before, they say, the media shouldn't
(16:51):
have printed that at all. It's just one preliminary study.
It's not worth shouting about.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Right right, or even noticing in particular. Yeah, you know what,
in long time listening will appreciate this reference. I'm the
the the third of the big three of the three
legged stool, if you will, is where is their fecal matter?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
But that's kind of out of fashion on your computer keyboard. Well, yeah,
the handle of the grocery car to your car steering wheel.
There's more fecal matter in a hotel blah blah blah
than you can believe. Yeah, but fecal matters out of
fashion now for some matter. That's right, Johnny Depp, it
had its day, Jack, How are you getting it on
(17:32):
the steering wheel? Where is your lifestyle? Eh? Boy?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
That reminds me we ought to get to Jerry Nadler
is the stinkiest member of FAS.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I don't know if I want to be around for that.
So Trump paused the tariffs yesterday on everybody practically but China.
That's the big deal, and the stock market rows a lot.
Now it's dropped again today as everybody realized, Oh yeah,
China giant. Practically everything is made in China, and the
one hundred and fifty percent tariffs still exist on them
or whatever that number is that Trump put out yesterday.
So that's still a thing. Maybe more on that later.
(18:05):
Enormous degree of uncertainty. Yeah, I would say stay with
us if you mista sake me. Get the podcast Armstrong
and Getty on demand. Armstrong and Getty ladies and gens.
I give you the pride of Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
So I have to go around the country and educate
people about what immigrants do for this country, or the
fact that we are a country of immigrants, right right.
The fact is, ain't none of y'all trying to go
in farm right now? Olry, So I'm ly raise your hands.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
You're not.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
You're not we done picking kott.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
We are.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
You can't pay us enough to find a plantation.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
So, just to get this straight to the rest of
view is black people are now too good to quote
unquote pick cotton.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Therefore medium brown people should do it. If you ever
got these people to flesh out their arguments, it would
be pretty entertaining. I find the whole thing troubling that
we have all kinds of jobs we've decided are beneath us,
manufacturing jobs, farm jobs. Regular Americans shouldn't have to do those.
Let's import a brown underclass, says a black woman. It's
(19:31):
an odd circumstance. Dad McLaughlin is a brilliant writer.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
He pens pieces for the National Review, among other places,
and he busted it out a piece the other day.
The Five biggest challenges facing America that I thought, Okay,
I like a listical.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Everybody likes a listical. I'll take a quick look. But
I thought it was absolutely terrific.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
So here are the five issues that come to his mind,
and some have kind of subcategories. And Jack, obviously you
can jump in anytime you want. First, first challenge, do
we still believe in the American idea? And he says
the largest single crisis we have today is whether or
not the American people will remain committed to the American idea.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Well, what are they defining as the American idea?
Speaker 3 (20:15):
He actually has kind of a five point description of it.
He points out first that and as I and philosophers
formal wise than me have pointed out, if the principles
just exist on paper but not in the hearts of
the people, they're done for. And if they're in the
hearts of the people, we can change the paper or
have a revolution or whatever. But he's talking about a
democratic republic in which the government responds to the commands
(20:37):
of the people and has no permanent privileged class immune
to popular pressure.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Also, this is more specific. I was just going to
go with work hard and get ahead. That's in it too.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah, the constitutional rule of written law, on which everyone
is bound by the same rules and agrees to abide
by the outcomes of the political system. Civil liberties for
all on equal terms, including free speech, freedom of religious conscience,
and do process of law, free markets in the right
and responsibility of every individual to live off the fruits
of his or her own labor and improve his or
her own lot in life. And finally, a baseline of
(21:11):
pluralism by which we tolerate disagreement, managed to live with
people who have fundamentally different worldviews and accept the common
rules of the political game. That is, Americans sticking by
the American idea.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I got my tax bill yesterday. It would seem that
I am supporting many people off the fruits of my labor.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
So yes, I would appreciate a thank you note, maybe
just at the holidays or something like that. Or but
as we've said many times, show me the aircraft carrier
I helped pay for.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'd like to at least tore it. But so a
bunch of those you can be somewhat cynical about, or
are a lot of people are cynical about a lot
of those? Is that cynicism, well placed, well earned. Yeah,
it's funny.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Cynicism or being a cynic is an interest word that
I think is sometimes misinterpreted.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But not to quibble, legitimate. Being pissed off and a
little bit bitter that people aren't living by those ideas.
That's healthy. We need more shame, not less.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
So you see Nancy Pelosi and the folks on the
Republican side of the aisle too, getting rich in Congress
and that sort of thing. Yeah, I'm hearings blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I'm beyond cynical about the idea that there's not a
privileged class that gets treated differently and everything like that.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Right, right, But that bitterness is healthy, that's good. We
lose that we're doomed. So anyway, that's point number one.
And then Dan says, the gravest threat to these values
continues to be progressivism and its dissemination through our schools
and Hollywood and the media.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
As you know, this is my jihad. The schools, especially
woke ideology and its variance DEEICRT, cancel culture, all the
rest of it. Attack the essential props of a society
that's based on equality and liberty of the individual, and
then he goes into a little more scholarly discussion of
living constitutionalism. We can interpret the.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Constitution, however we want to solve our problems these days, No,
you can't. And Democrats for the past quarter century have
been attacking the legitimacy of our entire political system, including
the completely reasonable Supreme Court. So anyway, and he takes
a couple of shots at Trump for refusing to concede
the election in twenty twenty. Fair enough, Okay, So that's
(23:33):
number one. Do Americans continue to believe in the idea
of America?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I'm a yes.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Of the things I said, I do fervently, and we'll
go down fighting till to day I die. It's one
of the reasons I'm so conflicted about the idea of
ever retiring from this job. I just as long as
we have any audience. Thank you for listening. It's hard
to not be in the fight anyway. Number two of
the five greatest channel just facing America. Do we still
(24:01):
have enough Americans? Our American idea is only useful as
long as there are people to believe it. And he
points out great periods of growth in our wealth, power,
standard of living, cultural influence, have typically been times when
our population is growing, usually by high birth rates and
relatively high immigration. Yet birth rates are collapsing around the
(24:23):
developed world. America is not immune declining rates of family formation,
resurgent rates of abortion. An era of population decline would
undermine all of the fiscal and financial assumptions behind our
entitlement state, as well as our free market economy. And
he doesn't really get into this, but the antidote to
that is to import millions of young people from around
(24:44):
the world who may or may not give a crap
about concern Number one, do Americans still believe in America?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
So that's a big one. Realizing this is a little
heaviest segments go, but it's worth considering. Or three, are
we going broke? Yes, well, that one's settled. I mean
we could go into detail, but come on.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Now, Nearly a quarter of our GDP is now spent
on just the federal government, never mind the cost of
state and local governments. I warned of this years and
years ago. I should have written a quickie talk show
host book. When the most important lobbyist of government becomes
the government itself, we're doomed.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
And we might be there and it's not sustainable. The
level of spending, the debt, the deficits, blah blah blah.
We all know that, right. This one's interesting. Fourth is
the world getting away from us. Foreign enemies will likely
always be with us, but we should be alarmed by
the prospect that they are united, uniting their causes and
expanding their spheres of influence. This is the axis of
(25:53):
a holes.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
China, Russia Ran represent a block of resistance to the
American ideas, and they are trying to expand and send
its tentacles anywhere it can. This requires a brand of
grand strategic thinking on our part to strengthen the alliances
of the free world against them. It now appears, however,
that the Trump Advanced team wants our strategic posture to
(26:15):
move in precisely the opposite direction. This is a debate
that will go on and on and should That's an
oversimplification of a handful of things.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But that's number four in his list, and fifth the
hardest one to pin down. Have we lost our American
character of resilience and flexibility? And he points out America
used to not only build things quickly, you know, physical
things and institutions, but also rebuild them quickly, and he's
(26:45):
quoting himself, in wartime time is a vital factor, the
Union's victory over the Confederacy, the American victory over Imperial Japan.
We're heavily dependent on our capacity to turn out warships
at a speed and volume unmatched by our adversaries. He
goes into the history.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
In the past, the complacement America could afford on to
skimp on armaments in peace time because it could ramp
up quickly at need. But today's America is a jungle
of red tape, in which the going in any project
a building is slow and laborious. The Ukraine War has
illustrated the dangers to the army of the perilously slow
pace of production for ammunitions. And it's not just war fighting,
(27:22):
he points out, it's being tested in the rebuilding of
California after the devastating wildfires, and even progressives like Ezra
Klein have recently been discussing how red tape and constituency
politics make it impossible to build things quickly in America.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I saw the other day, what is it. They're like,
there's been like two permits granted so far or something.
I mean, some shockingly low number. Right, they're in the
Palisades area.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Yeah, I think it's a four, So it's twice as
many as you said, Yousenic. Four people have gotten permits
out of tens of thousands. And then he also mentions
that you bundle woke politics into that, which not only
doesn't you know, recognize the beauty of meritocracy, it poops
on it, and more broadly, the unresponsive and decay of
(28:09):
many of the institutions.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
We're hurting. We're hurting, and it all goes back to
the fundamental principles of America and being an American. Don't
apologize for those principles or think they don't mean anything,
or well, I don't want to get into the culture
wars or anything like that. No, that is the only
thing that matters, because everything, everything rests on it, the
(28:39):
principles that made this country great. So inflation's inflation numbers
are out today and they're a little lower than they expected,
So that's good news. Eggs hit an all time high
up by chickens by chickens, up five point six percent
from last month, when they were already at an all
time high. I'm glad. I don't eat a lot of eggs,
(29:00):
I guess. I mean again, my wife does, and I
got to have a word with her. But how many
eggs did does if you eat a lot of eggs?
How many eggs scrambling us broke honey? Even if you
eat a lot, how many do you eat? Three a day?
Does that? That would be a huge number, including baking
and such. That's that's pretty aggressive. Yeah, I just don't know. Uh,
(29:26):
back to the hole. It was a little lower than expected,
expected by whom? What is their methodology? What the hell
do I care what they expected? Just wait for the
number to come out. So Los Angeles loves a good
police chase thing. And it happened in the middle of
the day, and you had all the helicopters around and
everybody's watching it. And it was a weird one. Lots
of weird stuff. The guy who stripped down to his
(29:48):
underwear jumped a fence and got into a family's backyard
pool to try to seem like I'm just a guy
in a pool. What are you talking about? Because it's
least day today, isn't it? A officer before the police
kept him, for instance, There's a lot to this story,
including the bass players, the bass player of Weezer's wife
getting shot. There's a lot here. Stay tuned. Will you
(30:14):
be able to enjoy Weezer hits like this one this
weekend at Coachella where Weezer's expected to play now that
their bass player's wife is in jail charged with attempted murder.
Oh my, that is upsetting right. Yep, yep, it'd be
hard to pay attention. You're playing the bass, your wife's
(30:35):
in jail tempted murder. Huh? You start singing your yips
out of place, blown core changes, but then the crowd
could go wild. This is how the whole thing goes
down yesterday. It's just kind of interesting on a number
of different levels. So it's middle of the afternoon, it's
like three point thirty. There is a hit and run
on the Ventura Freeway. Some guys there's a crash and
they decide to run from the scene, which you're not
(30:56):
allowed to do. Three dudes take off running for whatever reason.
A number of like regular citizens decide to chase these dudes.
I've never done that, but I mean, like I'm like
a really bad guy. I might, but like just somebody
who's involved in a car wreck running from it. I
not gonna depends, I suppose, I don't know. Anyway, they
(31:18):
started chasing these guys and so they are on the run.
Then cops get there with backup, and the cops are
running through the Eagle Rock neighborhood chasing the dudes. One
of the dudes, well, one dude falls down as he's
being chased and he's all bloody. So he's laying on
the street bloody, So cops got attend to him. Then
one of the other guys runs, climbs over a fence,
takes off his clothes down to his boxer shorts, jumps
(31:41):
in the pool, and starts watering plants to try to
seem like he lives there, which is pretty clever, but
it didn't work. They apprehended him too. Worth a try. Anyway,
It turns out to be the neighborhood. And this part
I just figured out now as TMZ is reporting it
this morning. One of the houses in the nameghborhood belongs
to the bass player from Weezer. That's the band we
(32:03):
just played their very popular band from back in the day.
And she hears all the commotion. I wonder if maybe
she was watching about the high speed chase and all
that sort of stuff on TV. Maybe even I don't know,
realized it was her neighborhood. She comes out of the
house with a gun because there's craziness going on in
her neighborhood. So she's standing in the driveway with the gun.
Cops come running down the street around the corner. There's
(32:24):
a woman with a gun. You know, they don't know
what all is going on, and they start yelling drop
the gun, Drop the gun. The cops say, they they
yell drop the gun repeatedly. We'll let body cams determine that.
I don't have any reason to think they didn't. I
just always remember that scene in Better Call Saul, where
the cop when he's testifying as to how he shot
(32:45):
the dude. His story is way different than what happened.
But anyway, I don't think that happens very often test
a lying the cops come around the corner. There's a
woman with a gun. They yell for her to drop
the gun. Drop the gun. This is the bass player
from Weezer's Wife, who is a gun enthusiast and might
have just been doing what any of us with guns
would do if we think something really bad is going
(33:07):
on in the neighborhood. I wouldn't do this. However, she
turns around. She does. She not only does not drop
the gun, she points the gun at the cops. Were
they uniformed, I believe so. I don't know that, but
that's what I was picturing. But I don't know if
I have any reasons. I'm pretty sure they come out
your driveway with anyway, they're lad LAPD patrol that. Yeah,
(33:28):
I think they were just you know, yeah, I don't
know why she pointed at the gun. That's where the
attempted murder comes in. I'm looking up at the picture
on the TV all the cops that are pointing their
the gun at the guy in his shorts who jumped
in the pool to try to pull off. Hey, I'm
just trying to swim in. What are you doing. They're
all a regular uniformed cops. Anyway, she points a gun
(33:49):
at the cops, which I guess gets you booked for
attempted murder. They shoot her, but not very badly, because
she then goes in the house and hangs out in
the house for quite a while with the baby. Then
she comes out later with the babysitter and says that
she's willing to uh surrender. So I'm kind of surprised
that she's not dead. I'm glad she's not dead, since
(34:10):
it seems to be like a misunderstanding. But I'm surprised
that if you got multiple cops you're pointing gum at them,
that she's not dead.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
That's yeah, there is something missing from this story.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like fact. So according to TMZ,
she was only hitting the shoulder. They take her to
the hospital, but she's fine in talking. She is a
self described rock star wife. That's what she told the police.
I'm a rock star wife. Is that what she puts
on her tax forms? That's fine. I don't know. She's
got a bit of a wacky background, including this nugget.
(34:45):
She wrote a book called Some Girls, My Life in
a Harem, in which she chronicles her time as a
guest in quotes of the Prince of BRUNEI, Oh my,
so apparently, oh I remember that book? Really? Yeah, so
she like was a model sex toy for the Prince
(35:06):
of BRUNEI perhaps, or just arm candy.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
I don't know exactly how the you know, the flow
chart looks in the harem world. What sort of positions
are available.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Isn't it funny how many women they're all their dating situations.
Jeff Bezos's wife is a little bit like this. It's
all like rock stars, super wealthy businessman, princes of Bruneis
you know that they just say run.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
In those circles up breaking news, the common law wife
of the drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was
seen with a hatchet on Sunset Boulevard. We go to
Live team coverage has been maceed by the copses in custody.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I tell you what, it all feels like.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
It's flying apart, trade war with China, rock star wives
with guns too much in man.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
You point to gun at multiple cops and you're not
dead and you're not even like badly wounded.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
That is amazing, like gunshot wounds badly enough. But I
see your point definitely. So, speaking of trade wars with China,
what's that going to look like? It's everybody's got the
feeling of who the ninety day pause, it's all gonna
be okay? Oh no, the poop Show's just begun.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Oh okay, that's exciting. If you missed that segment, get
the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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