May 23, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 4 of the Friday. May 23,2025 A&G Replay contains:
- Joe New Political Parties & Biden Cancer Farce
- Need Brown People
- Craig Gottwals
- CA Bullet Train Locations
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 (00:00):
Damn broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the
George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Caddy arm.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Strong and Jettie Gee Armstrong and Jetty Strong.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
A friend of mine who's slightly overweight, to put it mildly,
went to a drug store in London and he was
able to get one.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Of the fat shots. I caught the fat shots, said.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Jan, if you lose weight, he knows exactly who I
was talking about.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
He called, He said that was interesting. He said he
was very concerned that I might use his name. It
might slip. Now he doesn't have to work, but he
called me. He said, Hey, a strange thing happened.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I just bought the drug, same company, plan, same everything.
Everything was the same in New York thirteen hundred dollars,
and in London.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm paying eighty eight dollars. He said, what's going on now?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
He knew not that he's a very smart guy, he's
a very rich guy. His big problem is he's seriously overweight.
But I don't think the drug worked. Okay, to be
honest with you, but it makes him feel good anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
That's like day three of Trump's story about his fat
friend his drugs.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
He so workshops his comedy routine, you know, tries it
for different audiences.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I don't want to. I'm gonna get into the foreign
policy speech he gave yesterday. I want to get sidetracked
by this whole drug prescription thing. It is so complicated, though.
I've listened to a number of podcasts where they got
into the details, and it's so easily easy to be
misled by a lot of statistics. So a lot of
the now it sounds like they're his fat friend, very fat,
(01:55):
incredibly fat. His fat friend there was paying thirteen hundred
dollars in New York, can pay eighty dollars in London.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Want to know why. That's a perfectly reasonable question, like.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Why am I paying so much in the United States
and so cheap here when we developed in the reasonable question.
But just in general, a lot of the stuff you
hear about drugs, the statistics for costs, it's for the
name brand, which practically none of us are actually getting.
We're getting the generic, so it's the tiniest percentage of that,
so it misleads the statistics. There's all kinds of things
(02:26):
going on in that world that make it hard to
nail down and the.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Way money flows into and out of various entities, from
your insurance company to the pharmacies, to the drug companies
to the pharmacy benefit managers. An unholy group of humans
if there ever was. When yes, so complicated.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I'm on eight drugs for the whooping coth right now,
which is crazy. But like so, I went to the
doctor on Saturday after spending time there, and I think
I picked up four new drugs, just like everybody else
when they go to pharmacy. I have the slightest idea
what the little screen was gonna say they cost, had
no idea. I wasn't very worried about it because it
(03:05):
probably wasn't gonna be very much.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So, like one of them was three cents, one.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Of them was a dollar five, one of them was
forty four bucks, and then the other one was like
four and I just pressed okay and tapped my card
and walked out the door.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And I don't have any imagine if groceriy st are
like that. Let's see, this ham will be one hundred
and seventy five dollars, this bread is two cents, this
cheese will be a dollar one. And you think.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Okay, right, and I don't have Well, it's way more
complicated than even that example, because like somebody may have
that one that cost eight cents, my insurance company might
have paid a five hundred dollars for and I got
spread around everybody else that's insured by that company for
some reason.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
I don't know any idea what it actually cost the
insurance company. And then what are what are my options
anyway to not press? Okay, I will not pay forty
four dollars for whatever that drug is.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It should be much less than that and incur the
wrath of the already surly pharmacy employee.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
No way, I feel bad for those people. The other day,
I got to the pharmacy. I've been there way too
much lately. I get there and some old guys walk
in my way and he says he said something old time.
He says, like railroading. Me, it's train robbery or something
like that. I said, what's that and he said, it's
train robbery around here, that's what it is. I just
(04:27):
kind of said, tell you, like the poor girl who's
you know, at pharmacy school, has any role in it whatsoever?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What's she supposed to do. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
It's your insurance. I work for CBS. They I don't
know what am I what do you want?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Such a mess?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Okay, different topic than Trump's fat fat friend. Who people
who know Trump and his friends are trying to figure
out which fat friend that he's talking about. So Donald
Trump gave like a forty five minute sp each yesterday
in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And this was Mark Halprin's ride up of.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
It today, in which he said Trump's Tuesday speech, which
shockingly gets almost zero coverage in the American media, was
one for the ages, with some observers not unreasonably calling
it extraordinary and some supporters saying it was one of
the best and most important addresses by a US president
in many, many years. It warn't your time to watch
it and full if you have not to understand Trump's
(05:26):
unusual distinctive worldview. And I'm gonna read a little bit
from you that will portray that worldview. But I also wonder,
since Trump is a very interesting guy. He's primarily interested
in economics and that sort of stuff, although he was
pretty hardcore anti the Iraq war back in the day, Like,
how much of this speech did he sit down with
(05:46):
speech writers and explain to them what he wanted to communicate.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Did Jade Vance write most of this?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
And Trump is like, sure, fine, I don't care, or
what I don't I don't actually know, but let me
read some of it. He's talking about the success of
all the people in that room, because he had people
from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and you know, those incredibly
rich areas of the Middle East that we see with
their gleaming buildings and more modern than anything we've got
(06:14):
in the United States. It's crucial for the wider world
to know this great transformation has not come from Western
interventionists or flying people in beautiful plains giving you lectures
on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.
In the end, the so called nation builders racked far
more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening
(06:34):
in societies they did not understand themselves. No, the gleaming
marbles of Riad and Abu Dhabi were not created by
the so called nation builders, neo cons or liberal nonprofits
like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing
to develop Bagdad and so many other cities.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's a good point. Now, this is very JD. Vanside.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
That's what I thought, solidly reasoned so far decent point.
Though we poured trillion I don't know about trillions, but
lots of money into Baghdad. It's still everything it's ever
been Abu Dhabi and ryodd that was ground up from
the inside.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Anyway, back to every mind the zillions of dollars spent
in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been
brought by the people of the region themselves, the people
that are right here, the people that have lived here
all their lives, Developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your
own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your
own way. They told you how to do it, but
they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity,
(07:39):
and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of
your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and
embracing the same heritage that you loved so dearly. You
achieved a modern miracle, the Arabian way. No wonder.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
People respect you so much. I thought that was a really.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, agreed, it's really good outreach too. I think it's savvy.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
The most gleaming modern.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Looked like something from the jets and cities in the
world did come from those local societies. Whether you hate
their culture or politics or the way they treat women
or whatever, they were able to build these unbelievable cities.
And we've tried so hard to turn Kabul and Baghdad
and a whole bunch of other different places in the
(08:31):
Middle East into god, you know, anything close to Cincinnati,
and we haven't come within a million miles.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, this it gets a little more complicated, but you know,
the broad outlines of your point I think are true.
It helps to have unlimited numbers of petro dollars. And
the whole modern gleaming thing is partly because there wasn't
anything there twenty years ago. So yeah, it's it's modern
gleaming because what else would it be. Yeah, but I
think a certain amount of it has to do with.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Taking off the restrictions of here's the way we feel
like you need to treat women, gay people, minorities, the disentrenchised,
all this different sort of stuff, all these ties that
come with it. As opposed to Trump saying, hey, it's
your society, it's your customs, it's your heritage.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, you're building it the way you want, and hey,
look at your city. And honestly, in spite of the
lack of success with China doing this, I think there's
probably a fair amount of Hey, let's get these guys
up and involved in world economics and international diplomacy and
have them intertwined with bunches of other countries and it'll
(09:37):
drag them into the modern era much more effectively than
browbeating them will. Anyway, Well, there's.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Zero is there any Are there any good examples of
us trying to build from the ground up one of
these uh, turn one of these citters around having it work.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Certainly not in the Middle East. Yeah, it depends you know,
how much involvement over what period of time you're t
talking about. And interestingly enough, there were some pretty good
success stories in Africa, but those have gone completely to
hell now and you could argue that, well, that's because
they didn't build up the infrastructure. It's like we're watching
(10:15):
the we're doing a bit of a remodel on our house,
and it's been super interesting to see how they dig
the hole for the footings and then pour the foundation
and all the rebar and the cinder blocks and stuff
like that. And we've made the point many times that
our system of government, our rights that we enjoy, our
constitution are built on the concrete and rebar and cinder
(10:39):
blocks of hundreds of years of English common law, Judeo
Christian principles, the rest of it. And then if you
try to build, at the risk of belaboring the metaphor,
if you try to build the house of that sort
of thing on sand, it's not going to work. And
so Trump is saying, y'all build your foundations the way
(11:01):
you want and then let's do business.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
So you think JD. Vance had a hand in that
whole speech, both hands. It was completely It's a complete
rejection of George Bush's ideas of nation building, and it's
a rejection of democratic presidents with their coming in there
(11:27):
with we'll give you money, but here's the way we
think you should live. It's a complete rejection of that too.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm still for the record, I'm super uncomfortable with
the fact that Cutter, for instance, is trying to buy
influence in America hundreds of billions of dollars, perverting our colleges,
having them become just viper's nests of Islamism, anti Israel rhetoric,
the rest of it. There are huge supporters of the
(11:54):
Muslim Brotherhood on Islamist organization that would like Sharia law
to conquer the entire earth, and they're not spending hundreds
of billions of dollars backing that because they don't believe
it or don't agree with it. But things, we don't
have to let them do that.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
We can let them build their big, gleaming city, we
don't have to let them, you know, influence our colleges.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Well right now, well right, yeah, for instance, that's not
going to happen, but more on that later. Uh yeah,
Well the argument would be, well, we don't want to
participate in enriching them so they have even more finances
to back terrorism. But you know, if jdve Aansw were
to say to me, dude, that'll go away of its own.
(12:35):
That's what I think on a cord. It's not a
stupid argument. I'm not sure I agree with it, but
it's it's worth considering.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
They play, they beat, they more than play footsy with
the terrorists, no doubt about it. But I don't think mbs.
His goal in life is not to establish a Muslim caliphate.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I don't think so. No, he wants to be starving
poor when the oil runs out.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Yeah, exactly, Jack Armstrong and Joe, The Armstrong and Getty Show,
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
You want to know if your marriage is heading to splitsville,
don't check your partner's phone, check their face, like.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Any of that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You know, there's so many.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
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, and stonewalling
(13:53):
are the four horsemen of the apocalypse when it comes
to dooming relationships.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I'll read those four again.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. But contempt is the kiss
of death. That's the one, and you've said that for years.
That's the one you can't get past.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Done. The largest marriage experiment ever done.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
They think of couples that you know, survive and don't
survive body language experts, which we've mocked for years and
all that sort of thing because they're usually stupid. Also
well on cable TV they are. Yeah, brought couples into
a lab. And if one member of the couple shows
a one sided mouth raise, which I had never heard
before as like a physical contempt thing. But I guess
(14:37):
we're just programmed. When we're feeling that feeling of contempt
for something or you know, the old pleaser get out
of here with that BS or whatever feeling, you raise.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
One side of your mouth. It's funny.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
If one member of the couple shows a one sided
mouth raise towards the other, he can tell you if
they're going to get divorced, because it's contempt. He could
predict divorce with an astonishing ninety four percent accurate fear. 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
(15:11):
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 you
get back to a normal level.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Contempt does not go away, you know. In a definition
of contempt, the feeling that a person or a thing
is beneath consideration, worthless or deserving scorn. Yes, coming back
from that.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Right, this is how I feel. This is my priority care. Right.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Otherwise it does.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Just grow and faster, and then it gets into a
situation where it might might not be reversible. They also
believe that many couples get 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,
(16:33):
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, you don't see eye
to eye in this particular thing, and how you've dealt
with it in the past, which.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Is a pretty good key. Yeah, Actually, distracted by the
details or the trivia, you realize, oh, this is argument.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
B Yeah, yeah, and that interesting. 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, mouthcrimping,
and then subtle fidgeting like picking it close or cleaning
fingers mid conversation as signals of disdain. This person said
(17:16):
that they dubbed this move the lint picker, a behavior
that he says, screams contempt.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Louder than words ever could. Interesting. 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? Niff it in the bud, having
lint on your shirt, no contempt in your.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
No arm Strong and Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
Why is spok at a bipartisan 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. But social security
is number one for Joe Biden. Literally, his social Security
number is one.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
That's kind of interesting as a lead into this. Republicans
neverkats 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.
CATO is a serious think tank. It's a conservative think tank.
They worked with you GOV on this survey, and it's
one of your really big, large number of people, wide reaching,
(18:30):
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 is a real
big part of getting anything done in a democracy.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Obviously, if you got big.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
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 2 (19:00):
Five percent. Now that's a big number.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Whenever you get eighty five percent of people in agreement
on something.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
You'd think you could get political will to do something.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Eighty five percent say that spending is either not helped
them or made their lives worse.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Eighty five percent. That's astounding.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
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 2 (19:39):
Wow, that's got to be inflation, which is the greatest
teacher of economic principles in the history of mankind.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Well, ors, it's just I regularly say, and 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 2 (19:57):
Uh, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I mean, and well, do you drive on the roads. Yeah,
we we know you're an idiot. Course else I'm not
even gonna explain why you're moro.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I know, moron.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
And by the 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 2 (20:25):
Boy, this is really heartening. 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 4 (20:38):
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 2 (20:59):
Yeah, and the question of what do you cut and
how and how much? 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.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
You get the opposite message from all of the coverage
of doges, for instance. So almost everyone agrees there is
waste frauden abuse in the federal government. The number is
ninety eight percent. I don't 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. Yeah, but would you like me to
(21:36):
stab you right now? You might get ninety eight percent
saying no, no opinion?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Ninety I'm not sure stab me as what.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Ninety eight percent broadly agree there is waste frauder 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, percent a moderate amount.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
If hundreds of millions of dollars isn't a great deal
to you, what are you elon musk or something?
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Man? 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, which I
thought was really interesting, especially especially given what we were
(22:27):
talking about yesterday on Tax Day, that the top forty
percent or so of income levels pay all of the
income tax, but fifty five percent of American seat or
taxes are too high. Fifty five percent same number believe
they pay more than their fair share in taxes. That
obviously is interesting given the fact that half the country
(22:49):
does not pay federal taxes federal income tax.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Although you do have to remember, you know, a property
tax hammers a lot of people, sales tax, sales tax.
I think it's probably what gets a lot of people. Sure.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
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 2 (23:17):
Eighty five percent. It's a gift of million as and
billion as. How is this a controversial issue? If the
mainstream media was not what they are, could Democrats win
a single election as they're currently constituted. I don't think so.
They need some of the best wordsmiths. Well, actually most
(23:42):
journalists are wordsmiths at all. They're parrots. But they need
the power of the media colossus to polish 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.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
It's illustrative, Jack, I mean, it really makes the point
there's got to be a better doing.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It's got to be a better one, is there? It
got to be that doesn't include the T word. Thoroughly
lipsticking the pig of their policies. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
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
for the future. Three quarters agree with that. 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
(24:38):
too high.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Wow, did you hear the pot about the millionaires?
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
You did?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Oh you're rejecting it. I gotta get to that.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
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 two thirds
disagree with the statement wealth should be taken from the
rich and given to the poor.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Two thirds of Americans disagree with that.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Wow, this is a different country than the media would
have you believe.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
I'd zastly different.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Three out of five Americans strongly agree ninety percent strongly
or somewhat agree that quote there is nothing wrong with
trying to make as much money as you can. Ninety
percent strongly or somewhat agree with that.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
When asked specifically about billionaires, seventy one percent disagree that
it's immoral for society to allow people to become billionaires.
Seventy one percent don't agree with that statement. 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 half of America.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right right. Yeah. And anybody who does think we should
make it impossible to you know, become a billionaire, you
just you're so dumb. You are so dumb. We just
need you to 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.
(26:07):
If a million people like that, idea and give you
a dollar, that's fine. But if a billion people like
that idea and give you a dollar, that's wrong. Moral
to borrow.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Again, you're just so dumb you need to get out
of the way. 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 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 that it seems to be true. Two thirds
(26:41):
think wealth should not be taken from the rich and
given to the poor.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I'm sorry, I just didn't know. 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 say, absolutely do not. This
(27:07):
is going to sound awfully like 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 we have that advantage
(27:30):
and we, all of us friends, have to trust our
own perceptions instead of that of the bizarro funhouse mirror
of the media. I know a lot of you already
believe that the.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Fact that eighty five percent of people say all that
government spending has done nothing for them or made their
lives worse is amazing something.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, and you know over half of people say my
taxes are too high.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
All that fitting together, how do we not get a
government that spends less and keeps taxes low?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
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 4 (28:14):
Right, there are solid majorities, and I could do more
of the numbers, but I don't want to bore you
to death. But the solid majorities of people that thinks
it's the spending, it's not the taxing. I mean that
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. Yeah, yeah,
(28:36):
so true. It's encouraging people believe that in the numbers
that they do. It is discouraging that we are fighting
to make.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Any progress in reigning in the insanity.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
But uh right, yeah, because it's our duty, is citizens,
So I guess we keep trying. Sometimes it's barely uh,
you're barely able to believe that democracy works. I mean,
you know, look at the border issue. That's what I've
been saying for years. It's not controversy at all either.
Like nine people want to secure border, but we haven't
been able to do it in my entire adult.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Lifetime, right right. Very frustrating.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Yeah, yeah, it is nice job of those of you
out there who agree that all this spending has made
your life worse of anything.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Armstrong and.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
See Armstrong and Getty show. Absolutely need a moonshot style
effort to reform education in this country because it is
absolutely killing us. Michael. It's a campus madness update. Good
and bad news editions, Good and bad.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
News can screaming, how's madness, you idiot?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Oh my god, that's quite scream Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
So a disembovement figures into the story somehow, so well
metaphorically speaking. 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,
(30:26):
and he a man of the sane center left, has
them read Frederick Hayek's Road to Serve them at Ininran's
The Nature of Government, and then has lefty writers assigned
as well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
That says, all right, let's talk about this issue.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
And it is a classic American education where you have
to understand both sides before you say which.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
One you're on. And he is systematically steel manning conservative
arguments for the college kids. And the really encouraging part
about this is the kids love it. That's interesting. And
poll after pol 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,
(31:12):
intimidated into silence, and there's a lot more curiosity out
there than I think you would think from looking at
college camp. God, are we.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
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 2 (31:35):
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. We can talk about this
(31:55):
at length.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
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.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
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 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 now retired,
but they go through place after place where because they
(32:30):
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. You see number doubling the previous figure.
You see that number in a year. You know something
(32:51):
funky happen? Yeah? Yeah, Indeed, if it sounds too good
to be true, that's because it was. In Last year,
Oklahoma lowered its cut scores, the score a student needs
to hit on a test to be considered proficient. Unbelievable,
God's good hearts law. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Once, once a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to
be a good measure.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yep. 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 5 (33:29):
We did it.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
It's a lot of blue states, but Oklahoma shocked me.
And we've done it in California a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
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, and
so the measure doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And that's it happens, over and over again.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
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 2 (34:09):
We need to raise the quality shield tradition. Yeah, right right,
lift up the children, don't drop the standards. That'd be
a good slogan. 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,
(34:33):
Virginia Commonwealth, and University of Saint Thomas and Minnesota all
had received giant, multimillion dollar grants, part of a billion
dollars a billion that 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.
(34:54):
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 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
(35:18):
of teaching in patient care at the elite medical school
and underscoring how deeply deis penetrated medical education. Again, when
they decide what faculty to promote, they now give DEI
more weight than excellent clinical skills. I saw that over
the week in medicine. I meant to mention on the
air that is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
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 and inclusion into
your your medical practice is more important than your actual skills,
(35:57):
right that is? How or as important is that even possible?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
The Armstrong and Getty Show or Jack your Joe podcasts
and our hotlinks at dot com
Damn broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the
George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Caddy arm.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Strong and Jettie Gee Armstrong and Jetty Strong.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
A friend of mine who's slightly overweight, to put it mildly,
went to a drug store in London and he was
able to get one.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Of the fat shots. I caught the fat shots, said.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Jan, if you lose weight, he knows exactly who I
was talking about.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
He called, He said that was interesting. He said he
was very concerned that I might use his name. It
might slip. Now he doesn't have to work, but he
called me. He said, Hey, a strange thing happened.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
I just bought the drug, same company, plan, same everything.
Everything was the same in New York thirteen hundred dollars,
and in London.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm paying eighty eight dollars. He said, what's going on now?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
He knew not that he's a very smart guy, he's
a very rich guy. His big problem is he's seriously overweight.
But I don't think the drug worked. Okay, to be
honest with you, but it makes him feel good anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
That's like day three of Trump's story about his fat
friend his drugs.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
He so workshops his comedy routine, you know, tries it
for different audiences.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I don't want to. I'm gonna get into the foreign
policy speech he gave yesterday. I want to get sidetracked
by this whole drug prescription thing. It is so complicated, though.
I've listened to a number of podcasts where they got
into the details, and it's so easily easy to be
misled by a lot of statistics. So a lot of
the now it sounds like they're his fat friend, very fat,
(01:55):
incredibly fat. His fat friend there was paying thirteen hundred
dollars in New York, can pay eighty dollars in London.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Want to know why. That's a perfectly reasonable question, like.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Why am I paying so much in the United States
and so cheap here when we developed in the reasonable question.
But just in general, a lot of the stuff you
hear about drugs, the statistics for costs, it's for the
name brand, which practically none of us are actually getting.
We're getting the generic, so it's the tiniest percentage of that,
so it misleads the statistics. There's all kinds of things
(02:26):
going on in that world that make it hard to
nail down and the.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Way money flows into and out of various entities, from
your insurance company to the pharmacies, to the drug companies
to the pharmacy benefit managers. An unholy group of humans
if there ever was. When yes, so complicated.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I'm on eight drugs for the whooping coth right now,
which is crazy. But like so, I went to the
doctor on Saturday after spending time there, and I think
I picked up four new drugs, just like everybody else
when they go to pharmacy. I have the slightest idea
what the little screen was gonna say they cost, had
no idea. I wasn't very worried about it because it
(03:05):
probably wasn't gonna be very much.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So, like one of them was three cents, one.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Of them was a dollar five, one of them was
forty four bucks, and then the other one was like
four and I just pressed okay and tapped my card
and walked out the door.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And I don't have any imagine if groceriy st are
like that. Let's see, this ham will be one hundred
and seventy five dollars, this bread is two cents, this
cheese will be a dollar one. And you think.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Okay, right, and I don't have Well, it's way more
complicated than even that example, because like somebody may have
that one that cost eight cents, my insurance company might
have paid a five hundred dollars for and I got
spread around everybody else that's insured by that company for
some reason.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
I don't know any idea what it actually cost the
insurance company. And then what are what are my options
anyway to not press? Okay, I will not pay forty
four dollars for whatever that drug is.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It should be much less than that and incur the
wrath of the already surly pharmacy employee.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
No way, I feel bad for those people. The other day,
I got to the pharmacy. I've been there way too
much lately. I get there and some old guys walk
in my way and he says he said something old time.
He says, like railroading. Me, it's train robbery or something
like that. I said, what's that and he said, it's
train robbery around here, that's what it is. I just
(04:27):
kind of said, tell you, like the poor girl who's
you know, at pharmacy school, has any role in it whatsoever?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What's she supposed to do. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
It's your insurance. I work for CBS. They I don't
know what am I what do you want?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Such a mess?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Okay, different topic than Trump's fat fat friend. Who people
who know Trump and his friends are trying to figure
out which fat friend that he's talking about. So Donald
Trump gave like a forty five minute sp each yesterday
in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And this was Mark Halprin's ride up of.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
It today, in which he said Trump's Tuesday speech, which
shockingly gets almost zero coverage in the American media, was
one for the ages, with some observers not unreasonably calling
it extraordinary and some supporters saying it was one of
the best and most important addresses by a US president
in many, many years. It warn't your time to watch
it and full if you have not to understand Trump's
(05:26):
unusual distinctive worldview. And I'm gonna read a little bit
from you that will portray that worldview. But I also wonder,
since Trump is a very interesting guy. He's primarily interested
in economics and that sort of stuff, although he was
pretty hardcore anti the Iraq war back in the day, Like,
how much of this speech did he sit down with
(05:46):
speech writers and explain to them what he wanted to communicate.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Did Jade Vance write most of this?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
And Trump is like, sure, fine, I don't care, or
what I don't I don't actually know, but let me
read some of it. He's talking about the success of
all the people in that room, because he had people
from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and you know, those incredibly
rich areas of the Middle East that we see with
their gleaming buildings and more modern than anything we've got
(06:14):
in the United States. It's crucial for the wider world
to know this great transformation has not come from Western
interventionists or flying people in beautiful plains giving you lectures
on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.
In the end, the so called nation builders racked far
more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening
(06:34):
in societies they did not understand themselves. No, the gleaming
marbles of Riad and Abu Dhabi were not created by
the so called nation builders, neo cons or liberal nonprofits
like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing
to develop Bagdad and so many other cities.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's a good point. Now, this is very JD. Vanside.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
That's what I thought, solidly reasoned so far decent point.
Though we poured trillion I don't know about trillions, but
lots of money into Baghdad. It's still everything it's ever
been Abu Dhabi and ryodd that was ground up from
the inside.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Anyway, back to every mind the zillions of dollars spent
in Afghanistan.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been
brought by the people of the region themselves, the people
that are right here, the people that have lived here
all their lives, Developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your
own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your
own way. They told you how to do it, but
they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity,
(07:39):
and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of
your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and
embracing the same heritage that you loved so dearly. You
achieved a modern miracle, the Arabian way. No wonder.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
People respect you so much. I thought that was a really.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, agreed, it's really good outreach too. I think it's savvy.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
The most gleaming modern.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Looked like something from the jets and cities in the
world did come from those local societies. Whether you hate
their culture or politics or the way they treat women
or whatever, they were able to build these unbelievable cities.
And we've tried so hard to turn Kabul and Baghdad
and a whole bunch of other different places in the
(08:31):
Middle East into god, you know, anything close to Cincinnati,
and we haven't come within a million miles.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, this it gets a little more complicated, but you know,
the broad outlines of your point I think are true.
It helps to have unlimited numbers of petro dollars. And
the whole modern gleaming thing is partly because there wasn't
anything there twenty years ago. So yeah, it's it's modern
gleaming because what else would it be. Yeah, but I
think a certain amount of it has to do with.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Taking off the restrictions of here's the way we feel
like you need to treat women, gay people, minorities, the disentrenchised,
all this different sort of stuff, all these ties that
come with it. As opposed to Trump saying, hey, it's
your society, it's your customs, it's your heritage.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
You know, you're building it the way you want, and hey,
look at your city. And honestly, in spite of the
lack of success with China doing this, I think there's
probably a fair amount of Hey, let's get these guys
up and involved in world economics and international diplomacy and
have them intertwined with bunches of other countries and it'll
(09:37):
drag them into the modern era much more effectively than
browbeating them will. Anyway, Well, there's.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Zero is there any Are there any good examples of
us trying to build from the ground up one of
these uh, turn one of these citters around having it work.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Certainly not in the Middle East. Yeah, it depends you know,
how much involvement over what period of time you're t
talking about. And interestingly enough, there were some pretty good
success stories in Africa, but those have gone completely to
hell now and you could argue that, well, that's because
they didn't build up the infrastructure. It's like we're watching
(10:15):
the we're doing a bit of a remodel on our house,
and it's been super interesting to see how they dig
the hole for the footings and then pour the foundation
and all the rebar and the cinder blocks and stuff
like that. And we've made the point many times that
our system of government, our rights that we enjoy, our
constitution are built on the concrete and rebar and cinder
(10:39):
blocks of hundreds of years of English common law, Judeo
Christian principles, the rest of it. And then if you
try to build, at the risk of belaboring the metaphor,
if you try to build the house of that sort
of thing on sand, it's not going to work. And
so Trump is saying, y'all build your foundations the way
(11:01):
you want and then let's do business.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
So you think JD. Vance had a hand in that
whole speech, both hands. It was completely It's a complete
rejection of George Bush's ideas of nation building, and it's
a rejection of democratic presidents with their coming in there
(11:27):
with we'll give you money, but here's the way we
think you should live. It's a complete rejection of that too.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, I'm still for the record, I'm super uncomfortable with
the fact that Cutter, for instance, is trying to buy
influence in America hundreds of billions of dollars, perverting our colleges,
having them become just viper's nests of Islamism, anti Israel rhetoric,
the rest of it. There are huge supporters of the
(11:54):
Muslim Brotherhood on Islamist organization that would like Sharia law
to conquer the entire earth, and they're not spending hundreds
of billions of dollars backing that because they don't believe
it or don't agree with it. But things, we don't
have to let them do that.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
We can let them build their big, gleaming city, we
don't have to let them, you know, influence our colleges.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Well right now, well right, yeah, for instance, that's not
going to happen, but more on that later. Uh yeah,
Well the argument would be, well, we don't want to
participate in enriching them so they have even more finances
to back terrorism. But you know, if jdve Aansw were
to say to me, dude, that'll go away of its own.
(12:35):
That's what I think on a cord. It's not a
stupid argument. I'm not sure I agree with it, but
it's it's worth considering.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
They play, they beat, they more than play footsy with
the terrorists, no doubt about it. But I don't think mbs.
His goal in life is not to establish a Muslim caliphate.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I don't think so. No, he wants to be starving
poor when the oil runs out.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Yeah, exactly, Jack Armstrong and Joe, The Armstrong and Getty Show,
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
You want to know if your marriage is heading to splitsville,
don't check your partner's phone, check their face, like.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Any of that.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You know, there's so many.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
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, and stonewalling
(13:53):
are the four horsemen of the apocalypse when it comes
to dooming relationships.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I'll read those four again.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. But contempt is the kiss
of death. That's the one, and you've said that for years.
That's the one you can't get past.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Done. The largest marriage experiment ever done.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
They think of couples that you know, survive and don't
survive body language experts, which we've mocked for years and
all that sort of thing because they're usually stupid. Also
well on cable TV they are. Yeah, brought couples into
a lab. And if one member of the couple shows
a one sided mouth raise, which I had never heard
before as like a physical contempt thing. But I guess
(14:37):
we're just programmed. When we're feeling that feeling of contempt
for something or you know, the old pleaser get out
of here with that BS or whatever feeling, you raise.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
One side of your mouth. It's funny.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
If one member of the couple shows a one sided
mouth raise towards the other, he can tell you if
they're going to get divorced, because it's contempt. He could
predict divorce with an astonishing ninety four percent accurate fear. 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
(15:11):
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 you
get back to a normal level.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Contempt does not go away, you know. In a definition
of contempt, the feeling that a person or a thing
is beneath consideration, worthless or deserving scorn. Yes, coming back
from that.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Right, this is how I feel. This is my priority care. Right.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Otherwise it does.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Just grow and faster, and then it gets into a
situation where it might might not be reversible. They also
believe that many couples get 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,
(16:33):
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, you don't see eye
to eye in this particular thing, and how you've dealt
with it in the past, which.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Is a pretty good key. Yeah, Actually, distracted by the
details or the trivia, you realize, oh, this is argument.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
B Yeah, yeah, and that interesting. 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, mouthcrimping,
and then subtle fidgeting like picking it close or cleaning
fingers mid conversation as signals of disdain. This person said
(17:16):
that they dubbed this move the lint picker, a behavior
that he says, screams contempt.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Louder than words ever could. Interesting. 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? Niff it in the bud, having
lint on your shirt, no contempt in your.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
No arm Strong and Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
Why is spok at a bipartisan 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. But social security
is number one for Joe Biden. Literally, his social Security
number is one.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
That's kind of interesting as a lead into this. Republicans
neverkats 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.
CATO is a serious think tank. It's a conservative think tank.
They worked with you GOV on this survey, and it's
one of your really big, large number of people, wide reaching,
(18:30):
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 is a real
big part of getting anything done in a democracy.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Obviously, if you got big.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
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 2 (19:00):
Five percent. Now that's a big number.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Whenever you get eighty five percent of people in agreement
on something.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
You'd think you could get political will to do something.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Eighty five percent say that spending is either not helped
them or made their lives worse.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Eighty five percent. That's astounding.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
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 2 (19:39):
Wow, that's got to be inflation, which is the greatest
teacher of economic principles in the history of mankind.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Well, ors, it's just I regularly say, and 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 2 (19:57):
Uh, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I mean, and well, do you drive on the roads. Yeah,
we we know you're an idiot. Course else I'm not
even gonna explain why you're moro.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
I know, moron.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
And by the 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 2 (20:25):
Boy, this is really heartening. 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 4 (20:38):
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 2 (20:59):
Yeah, and the question of what do you cut and
how and how much? 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.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
You get the opposite message from all of the coverage
of doges, for instance. So almost everyone agrees there is
waste frauden abuse in the federal government. The number is
ninety eight percent. I don't 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. Yeah, but would you like me to
(21:36):
stab you right now? You might get ninety eight percent
saying no, no opinion?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Ninety I'm not sure stab me as what.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Ninety eight percent broadly agree there is waste frauder 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, percent a moderate amount.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
If hundreds of millions of dollars isn't a great deal
to you, what are you elon musk or something?
Speaker 4 (22:07):
Man? 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, which I
thought was really interesting, especially especially given what we were
(22:27):
talking about yesterday on Tax Day, that the top forty
percent or so of income levels pay all of the
income tax, but fifty five percent of American seat or
taxes are too high. Fifty five percent same number believe
they pay more than their fair share in taxes. That
obviously is interesting given the fact that half the country
(22:49):
does not pay federal taxes federal income tax.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Although you do have to remember, you know, a property
tax hammers a lot of people, sales tax, sales tax.
I think it's probably what gets a lot of people. Sure.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
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 2 (23:17):
Eighty five percent. It's a gift of million as and
billion as. How is this a controversial issue? If the
mainstream media was not what they are, could Democrats win
a single election as they're currently constituted. I don't think so.
They need some of the best wordsmiths. Well, actually most
(23:42):
journalists are wordsmiths at all. They're parrots. But they need
the power of the media colossus to polish 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.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
It's illustrative, Jack, I mean, it really makes the point
there's got to be a better doing.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It's got to be a better one, is there? It
got to be that doesn't include the T word. Thoroughly
lipsticking the pig of their policies. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
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
for the future. Three quarters agree with that. 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
(24:38):
too high.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Wow, did you hear the pot about the millionaires?
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (24:42):
You did?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Oh you're rejecting it. I gotta get to that.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
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 two thirds
disagree with the statement wealth should be taken from the
rich and given to the poor.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Two thirds of Americans disagree with that.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Wow, this is a different country than the media would
have you believe.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
I'd zastly different.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
Three out of five Americans strongly agree ninety percent strongly
or somewhat agree that quote there is nothing wrong with
trying to make as much money as you can. Ninety
percent strongly or somewhat agree with that.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
When asked specifically about billionaires, seventy one percent disagree that
it's immoral for society to allow people to become billionaires.
Seventy one percent don't agree with that statement. 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 half of America.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Right right. Yeah. And anybody who does think we should
make it impossible to you know, become a billionaire, you
just you're so dumb. You are so dumb. We just
need you to 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.
(26:07):
If a million people like that, idea and give you
a dollar, that's fine. But if a billion people like
that idea and give you a dollar, that's wrong. Moral
to borrow.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
Again, you're just so dumb you need to get out
of the way. 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 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 that it seems to be true. Two thirds
(26:41):
think wealth should not be taken from the rich and
given to the poor.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I'm sorry, I just didn't know. 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 say, absolutely do not. This
(27:07):
is going to sound awfully like 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 we have that advantage
(27:30):
and we, all of us friends, have to trust our
own perceptions instead of that of the bizarro funhouse mirror
of the media. I know a lot of you already
believe that the.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Fact that eighty five percent of people say all that
government spending has done nothing for them or made their
lives worse is amazing something.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, and you know over half of people say my
taxes are too high.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
All that fitting together, how do we not get a
government that spends less and keeps taxes low?
Speaker 2 (28:02):
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 4 (28:14):
Right, there are solid majorities, and I could do more
of the numbers, but I don't want to bore you
to death. But the solid majorities of people that thinks
it's the spending, it's not the taxing. I mean that
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. Yeah, yeah,
(28:36):
so true. It's encouraging people believe that in the numbers
that they do. It is discouraging that we are fighting
to make.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Any progress in reigning in the insanity.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
But uh right, yeah, because it's our duty, is citizens,
So I guess we keep trying. Sometimes it's barely uh,
you're barely able to believe that democracy works. I mean,
you know, look at the border issue. That's what I've
been saying for years. It's not controversy at all either.
Like nine people want to secure border, but we haven't
been able to do it in my entire adult.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Lifetime, right right. Very frustrating.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Yeah, yeah, it is nice job of those of you
out there who agree that all this spending has made
your life worse of anything.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Armstrong and.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
See Armstrong and Getty show. Absolutely need a moonshot style
effort to reform education in this country because it is
absolutely killing us. Michael. It's a campus madness update. Good
and bad news editions, Good and bad.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
News can screaming, how's madness, you idiot?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Oh my god, that's quite scream Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
So a disembovement figures into the story somehow, so well
metaphorically speaking. 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,
(30:26):
and he a man of the sane center left, has
them read Frederick Hayek's Road to Serve them at Ininran's
The Nature of Government, and then has lefty writers assigned
as well.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
That says, all right, let's talk about this issue.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
And it is a classic American education where you have
to understand both sides before you say which.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
One you're on. And he is systematically steel manning conservative
arguments for the college kids. And the really encouraging part
about this is the kids love it. That's interesting. And
poll after pol 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,
(31:12):
intimidated into silence, and there's a lot more curiosity out
there than I think you would think from looking at
college camp. God, are we.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
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 2 (31:35):
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. We can talk about this
(31:55):
at length.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
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.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
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 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 now retired,
but they go through place after place where because they
(32:30):
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. You see number doubling the previous figure.
You see that number in a year. You know something
(32:51):
funky happen? Yeah? Yeah, Indeed, if it sounds too good
to be true, that's because it was. In Last year,
Oklahoma lowered its cut scores, the score a student needs
to hit on a test to be considered proficient. Unbelievable,
God's good hearts law. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Once, once a measure becomes a goal, it ceases to
be a good measure.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yep. 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 5 (33:29):
We did it.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
It's a lot of blue states, but Oklahoma shocked me.
And we've done it in California a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
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, and
so the measure doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And that's it happens, over and over again.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
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 2 (34:09):
We need to raise the quality shield tradition. Yeah, right right,
lift up the children, don't drop the standards. That'd be
a good slogan. 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,
(34:33):
Virginia Commonwealth, and University of Saint Thomas and Minnesota all
had received giant, multimillion dollar grants, part of a billion
dollars a billion that 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.
(34:54):
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 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
(35:18):
of teaching in patient care at the elite medical school
and underscoring how deeply deis penetrated medical education. Again, when
they decide what faculty to promote, they now give DEI
more weight than excellent clinical skills. I saw that over
the week in medicine. I meant to mention on the
air that is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
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 and inclusion into
your your medical practice is more important than your actual skills,
(35:57):
right that is? How or as important is that even possible?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
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