December 26, 2025 • 35 mins
Featured in hour three of the Friday December 26, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- Training China's Best Communists
- Butt Breathing/Female spies/fake families & decline of Harvard
- Adolescence Mental Health
- Jack's Delicate Response to Medicaid Text
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Armstrong and Getty and no Kee Armstrong and Getty, Strong
and Art home enjoying the gifts we got for Christmas.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I got a pony finally, so I just been riding
it all around the house.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
I'm not gonna kid you. I got the post Christmas letdown.
I'm down, man, I'm sad. I'm into the nog heavily.
Things are not going where I'm spiraling anyway. Hope you're
doing well. We've got some carefully selected curated Armstrong and
Getty segments. It's the Armstrong and Getty replay. Let's all
enjoy it together.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Takes Seth said.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
China was quote credibly preparing for an invasion of Taiwan,
with Chinese forces staging regular drills around the island and
the use of force has not been ruled out.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's amazing to me what stories get attention and what
stories just don't grab people's attention. But yeah, Hexath gave
a speech over the weekend to our Asian partners in
the Wall Street Journal version of it certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Grabbed my attention. A little quote from Hexath.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
To be clear, any attempt by communist China to conquer
Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the
Indo Pacific in the world.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
We're not going to sugarcoat it.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
The threat China poses is real and it could be imminent,
and saying that we will allow it, it will not
happen on Trump's watch. We have repositioned some sort of
anti ship killing missiles close by, to which China said,
that's really really awful.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
But I mean, this is some serious bluster between the
two most powerful countries in the world that at some
point are going to go to war.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I was just reading those rating about those anti ship
munitions that are so interesting. They're mounted on remote controlled trucks.
They need no humans, so somebody in a bunker far
away drives these trucks around off missiles, then quickly relocate
so they can't be you know, hit by return fire.
It's really quite interesting. We're positioning them in the Philippines
(02:09):
and similar areas. Yeah, the Sabers are a ratlin no doubt.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
As the Wall Street General rights.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In recent years, China has built up the world's biggest navy,
a title once held by the United States, you know
who held it before the United States, Great Britain. Great
Britain ruled the seas for a very long time. Then
it's been US. Is it going to be China in
the next century. Well, that's what China's hoping.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, I'm not sure you'd like their placing of the
seas anyway. I've found this, I mean, I've been on
this jihad for a long time, but more and more
open coverage of the fact that we, the United States
in the Western world in general fell for an absolutely
brilliant plan by the Chinese back in the late sixties
(02:55):
early seventies. They needed help, primarily financial trade from the
Western world, and came up with an absolutely brilliant plan.
Let's pretend that we want to westernize and move away
from communism at our own pace and liberalize in return
(03:15):
for our investment from the West. And this was absolutely
deliberate plan. They knew all along that it was not
sincere although there have been some reformers in you know,
the last several decades in China who are actually like,
you know, maybe that's not such a bad idea. But
then a shijin thing always comes along, and so they
duped us into opening up the relationship with China, which
(03:38):
was bad enough, but a great deal of left America
still hasn't caught on to it, and they are so
motivated by the need to show openness to other cultures.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
There's Zeno files.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
As I often put it, they still haven't caught on
that China as a dire threat to the United States
in our way of life.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
For instance, on universities told the story.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Many times counterintelligence people came on to a university campus
said you've got a bunch of Chinese spies on the campus.
University president said, get off my campus, you racists, and
that attitude persists headline. Harvard has trained so many Chinese
communist officials.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
They call it their party school.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Not like party school, let's get wasted and get laid yo,
the communist parties school. Oh that's not as good a
party not nearly. Yeah, in your rank of party schools.
This is something totally different. ANSU, don't worry, you're safe.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Who is that comedian? I wish I could remember his
name because I'd like to give him credit. So funny,
But anyway, he has a thing he does. On a
piece of paper he lists best parties. At the bottom
was search Party Wow.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
The Kennedy School of Government at Havad is favored by
party cadres seeking career boosts. US schools and one prestigious
institution in particular, have long offered up and coming Chinese
Communist officials a place to study governance. Can you imagine
teaching Communist Party officials about governance so they can twist
(05:13):
it into totalitarianism? A practice that the Trump administration could
end with a new effort to keep out what it
says are Chinese students with Communist Party ties.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
But for decades the party.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Has sent thousands of mid career and senior bureaucrats to
pursue executive training in postgraduate studies on US campuses, with
Harvard University a coveted destination, describe as some in China
as the top party school outside the country. Alumni of
such programs include a former vice president and Chinese leader,
Shijin Paing's top trade negotiator these days. Maybe you heard well,
(05:49):
we talked about it. Last week, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio announced US to authorities will tighten criteria for visa
applications from China and aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,
including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or
studying in critical fields.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, remember last week that new president at Harvard gave
a big speech at the graduation ceremony talking about how
we have always educated people from around the world, and
we had recorded there and he got a one med
standing ovation.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Right, Because it is absolutely.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
A requirement of being a lefty in America that you
must worship all things foreign and loathe all things American
and domestic, or at least most of them. It's just
it's so nakedly approval seeking and so stupid. American universities
have played leading roles in shaping China's overseas training programs
(06:41):
for mid career officials for years.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And years and years.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Other US colleges have offered executive training with Chinese communist officials,
including Syracuse, Stanford, the University of Maryland, and rot Gers
where my dad taught many many years ago.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Blah blah blah. So it's just amazing. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
I was thinking earlier when you were talking about in
Pete Hagg's was talking about the perhaps impending invasion of Taiwan,
and they're running those millet that Chinese are running those
military exercises that are like everything but pulling the trigger.
And can you imagine if the United States, let the
Japanese say, in nineteen forty, you know, put a bunch
(07:17):
of aircraft carriers out in the Pacific and then fly
planes right at Pearl Harbor. Then they said, hey, it's
an exercise, just an exercise. And then they turned around
and went back to the you know, over and over again, we'd.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Be said, no, it's okay, They're just do it an exercise.
I mean, oh, good lord.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
And by the same token, you've got a hostile communist
regime and we're educating their officials in how to govern.
All right, moving along, I think the point's been made
in terms of the exit speech. I'm sure we'll bring
that up with Mike Lyons. When we talked to him
in hour three, our military advisor listen to this, will
(07:55):
you the economic contributions of international students, said we you know,
I'm prime merely interested in Chinese students, but the share
of international students from China is twenty three percent at Harvard.
So about a quarter of all the international students are Chinese.
At Harvard, it's fifty percent. At Cornell, it's forty seven
(08:18):
percent at Columbia. Wow, let's see you see Berkeley appears
to be a third.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Why don't you give me the number?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
They just it's a barograph and some of them are labeled,
some of them or not. But just to give you
an idea of why they put up with this, the
economic contributions of international students at top us universities quote
unquote top universities in twenty twenty three. Columbia got nine
hundred million dollars in twenty twenty three from foreign students
(08:50):
nine hundred million. You see Berkeley five hundred and seventy
six million.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Well, if you're getting half a trillion dollars, you ain't
gonna want to end that.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Is that half a trillion?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Yeah? A thousand million is a billion. Well no, so
it's it's almost a billion. Half a billion. What I
don't remember what the number was now I'm confused. Columbia
was nine oh three, Berkeley is five seventy six. Johns
Hopkins five oh four. That's half a billion.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
There you go, half a billion.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
University of Chicago for twenty eight, Duke three eighteen, Yale
two forty one, Northwestern three hundred and twenty four million
dollars in a year. You know, I love capitalism, I
do great is good, Gordon Gecko, look it up. But
when it leads you to betray your country, we are
(09:40):
we are begging for a comeuppance.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
The Armstrong and Getty show or show podcasts and our
hot lakes coming.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Up in a moment.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Breathing through our bucks has been declared safe after the
first human trial.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'm not laughing. I'm coffing, actually a little both. There
was a human trial.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yes, Can I like, if I squeeze really hard, can
I breathe.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Through my You try hard enough? That's right, everybody try No.
I'll explain the minute or two. I found this really interesting.
I'm aware of exhaling that way. A lot of people
do that and they shouldn't. Uh.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
This is from the Times of London.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Female spies are waging sex warfare to steal Silicon Valley secrets.
China and Russia are both sending attractive women to seduce
tech workers, even marrying and having children with their targets.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
In a desperate attempt to get ahead and stay ahead
tech and AI.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You're not a sex worker. If you actually marry them
and have children, you're a I don't know what you are.
Your spy, yeah, oh yeah. Nobody's calling them sex workers there,
they're spies. Chinese and Russian operatives are using sex warfare
to seduce and spy on Silicon Valley professionals. James Mulvanan,
(11:05):
the chief intelligence officer of amer Consulting, which provides risk
assessments for American companies investing in China, said he was
one of the many men recently targeted by Fordes seductresses
hoping to gain access.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
To US secrets.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Quote, I'm getting an enormous number of very sophisticated LinkedIn
requests from the same type of attractive young Chinese women.
It seems to have really ramped up recently, he described
at how at a business conference on Chinese investment risks
hosted in Virginia last week, two attractive Chinese women showed.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Up and attempted to gain entry.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
We didn't let them in, but they had all the
information about the event and everything else.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
He said.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
It's a phenomenon, and now I will tell you it's
really weird.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow, that is a heck of a commitment to your
country that you're going to meet a guy, woo him,
marry him, have kids with him.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I mean, that's really about your wow.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Or you're well, you're in the the spy service. It's
I've read various autobiographies of both men and women who
are in the KGB and how you get recruited young,
and your.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Trains and the all day, every day of raising a kid.
If you've done it, it's a lot of work. It's
your whole life. I mean, you're doing all that as
part of your being a spy.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Right, Uh let's see. Uh oh, here's here's the interesting part.
And I've been trying to tell you this for a
long time. Both Russia and the CCP are using ordinary citizens, investors, cryptoanalysts, businessmen,
academics to target their American counterparts rather than trained agents,
which makes the esponars harder to spot.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
We're not chasing a KGB agent in a smoky guest
house in Germany anymore, said one senior US counter intelligence official.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Our adversaries, particularly the Chinese, are using a whole of
society approach to exploit all aspects of our technology and
Western talent.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Can you imagine you find out your wife and mother
of your two kids, you've been married for ten years,
only did it to spy for the Communists?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yeah? I know, boy, would that be rock your world shattering? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I want to get to the breathing through your butt
thing in a bit, but you don't have time because
I want to wrap this up.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Anyway, what was that going to say? I've been trying
not with that attitude, you can't. I've told this story
many times, but it's worth retelling it. It was about
a decade ago that the FBI went to a particular
large California university and their counterintelligence folks warned the president
of the university, you have a lot of Chinese agents
(13:45):
on your.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Campus masquerading as researchers.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
And they were told, quote, get off my campus, you racists.
There are thousands, tens of thousands Chinese nationals in the
United States right now doing the work of the Communists Party,
spending all day, every day doing.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
The work of the Communist Party. I stand by those words.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Ah So, A couple of notes on Haavid supposedly the
world's greatest university, which has beclowned itself completely. I thought
this was interesting, And Harvard PhD programs are collapsing amidst
amid budget woes.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Faculty of Arts and.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Sciences just to slash the number of PhD student admissions
by more seventy five percent in the Science division and
sixty percent in the Arts and Humanities division in the
past two years.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
If you how much does the world need more PhDs
in most areas? You know?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Quoting Nelly Bowls again, the PhD racket has always been
a weird one. These schools push their smartest, most annoyingly
ambitious kids to get a PhD. During that PhD, the
guys do all the work of being a paid professor,
teaching courses, grading papers, but they're paid next to nothing.
Then the clincher is that at the end there are
no jobs available, maybe one English Department job in Idaho
for a group of three hundred to battle to the
(14:56):
death over.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So I support this belt tightening.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
We will have about f five thousand fewer Antifa soldiers
produced each year. They might even spend their twenties making money.
Love that well, said Nellie. Speaking of Havid, they say
they the university won't say whether they will sanction a
dean who defended rioting and looting is legitimate parts of democracy,
described whiteness as a self described self destructive ideology, celebrated
(15:24):
Charlie Kirk's death, said it was acceptable to wish death
on Donald Trump, etc.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Etc.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
This guy is unbelievable. What's my favorite? In the following
the death of George Floyd, he tweeted, rioting and looting
are parts of democracy, just like voting and marching.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
A month before he got his gig last year, he
posted on Instagram that people should love each other and
hate the police. Describe whiteness as a self destructive ideology
that annihilates everyone around it, like in Trump to Adolf Hitler,
then appeared to celebrate the death of Rush Limbaugh, etc.
Harvard has no comments on it, and the communist himself,
(16:06):
Gregory Davis is his name, said those posts do not
reflect my current thinking or beliefs. One of them was
last year, well, I was a kid Marxist sly, they
lie and they lie and they lie. And then Fox
new has had a panel with conservative Harvard students that
(16:27):
was really interesting. Maybe we could find some of the
audio for it, but they're speaking out about what it's
really like on campus right now, where the university has said, no,
we're going to be fair, but in practice they're not,
said one quote. A good example of this would be
like something like the university is very strict on not
co sponsoring events with outside groups when it comes to
(16:49):
the Republican Club, let's say, putting on events, but the
Democrats get away with that all the time, no questions asked,
and the students described what they believed to be selective
enforcement of various campus rules.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
There have been other things like the Republican Club puts
on a big event and they send a bunch of
administrators to really, you know, enforce fire code rules making
sure the audience is sitting properly in their seats. Whereas
Democrats can host events, the whole place can be jammed
pack and there's no concern whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
That's the opposite of what a university ought to be.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Polar opposite the Armstrong and Getty show, Yeah or Jack
Orgioe podcasts and our hot.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
Links of US high school students reported feeling said or
hopeless in twenty twenty three, and twenty percent had seriously
considered attempting suicide.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I appreciated that Meet the Press on Sunday did not
go with the usual news of the day, particularly around
Donald Trump. They went with the crisis that we've talked
about a lot and should be treated like a crisis.
That people are lonelier than ever, young people are killing
(18:02):
themselves and taking medications.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
To deal with anxiety, and all of blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We know all this stuff as being like a lead story,
which it is should be a lead story, the lead
story every week. B this is what Trump did yesterday
for so cynical about these people.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I wonder whether they're doing that for the right reason
or if their ratings are just dropping off with never
ending Trump hysteria.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
But anyway, back to the very very important topic.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Here, let's hear a little more from Christian Walker of
Meet the Press laying out some of the facts here.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
Two thirds of gen z report feelings of loneliness, and
half of young adults report symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Youth suicide rates are climbing. It is now one of
the leading causes of death in adolescents and young adults.
Almost one in five young adults report rarely or never
receiving the social support they need. In our super connected times,
(18:54):
over fifty five million US adults report frequent loneliness. The
smartphones and social media apps that connect us to the
world are also accelerating the crisis.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
That's one thing about this story.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I feel like every single time we quickly get to smartphones,
social media and everybody's aware of this already, there's a
lot like there's not like the next sentence or the
next whatever comes after that.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So we should what didn't make it?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Have Superman fly around the world, rerual really fast and
turn back time to be four smartphones.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
If that were possible, I'd be all for it.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Right, I'm trying to remember there was a great phrase
by Caitlin Flannagan I think who wrote that we're drowning
in the stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
It's killing us, but we like it under the water. Ahhh,
that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Now, combining a couple of things that are related and
not related, I guess. So this Netflix show Adolescence that's
getting a tremendous amount of attention. It's already got one
hundred and fourteen million views, which is a.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Lot compared to like regular TV shows.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It's based on a horrifying story of a middle schooler
boy who murdered his classmate girl. And one of the
reasons it's getting a fair amount of attention by The
New York Times, and Gavin Newsom talked about how he
had to turn it off as horrifying. It's because they
present a lot of it as right wing toxic masculinity
(20:23):
that is caught on on social media and the Tate
Brothers and that sort of stuff. But and it goes
too far. All of that stuff is true, but it
leaves out, you know, there's plenty on all sides of
what's wrong with social media and what it's doing to
people and their worldviews, especially young men. And then this
(20:45):
story that also fits into it, I think, is this
thing it became a TikTok craze, but the I think
there's a lot of truth in it. It's the idea
of men calling each other at night and saying, hey,
just want to say good night to you. You know
you're a good friend, and saying good night. And I
thought that's because that's a thing that usually gets taken
(21:10):
care of by having a girlfriend or wife or boyfriend
or husband. If you're gay, but you you have a
relationship of somebody that's going to text you goodnight, call
you good night, or is in bed next to you,
and so many people don't. Now it was kind of
presented as like a joke, but I could see how
that could be a thing.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I'm not going to do it, but I.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Can see how that could be a thing because you're
lacking that in your life. Nobody at the end of
the day that says, yeah, thinking about you, goodnight, miss you,
something like that.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, these are very troubling developments.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I'm struck by and I'm trying to find the right words.
How much of this stuff is antiseptic? Is the closest
I'm getting. What I'm driving at is online interaction, including
everything that we've described so far. And you're gonna make
fun of this, but go ahead. First day, laugh at you,
(22:06):
then they laugh at you more, then they really really
laugh at you.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
But then the Haley who's a genius.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I think that's how it ends anyway, an online relationship, porn,
social media, online quote unquote friends.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I remember railing about the term friends.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, when Facebook first caught on, I was ahead of
my time.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, you're right about that.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, the porn chick you're looking at is not going
to text you miss you good night at the end
of the day.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
But here's what just.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Dawned on me, is you're going through these things, all
of those quote unquote relationships or being with those people.
They have no smell, They have no taste, they have
no feelings, physical sensation until the love bots come up
long and the rest of it. They are incredibly antiseptic.
(23:04):
They and they lack all of the like like downside.
All right, So you're you're you're with a girl, maybe
she's got bad breath. Porn doesn't have bad breath.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
For instance.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
It all is so lacking in the rough and tumble
of real life that I think people can no longer
tolerate the rough and tumble of real life of a
lover who's occasionally insensitive or has bad breath or is
sweating from the gym or whatever.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, I don't know. And friends who annoy you and stuff.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I don't know if those are the examples that are
keeping people. I think it's the but it's easy, it's
all so, I think it's the emotional effort. Is a
is a is a problem. I've seen this with my
own eyes, and it horrifies me. They like draw straws
to see who's gonna call to order the pizza because
it's so intimidating that crowd's not gonna ask somebody out
(24:00):
and make the emotional risk that is getting into her relationship.
I mean, I think pretty clearly true.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Or fight through the inevitable part of the relationship where
you realize, Okay, this person is fully human and has
flaws and annoys me at times.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
And are sometimes we're going to have to do stuff
that they want to do and not just stuff I
want to do.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
To go back a second, and I don't want to
get a hung up on this, because the point is
not any of this. The whole point is not any
of the sex stuff. But apparently because I've read about this,
I think I saw on the New York Post, you
can like a lot of these only fans women. You
can get some sort of set up with them where
they text you throughout the day how's your day going,
and text you at night to fulfill that particular desire.
(24:46):
That desire is strong enough that dudes are not doing
it with each other, at least according to a TikTok trend,
you know, just thinking to you good night.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
You can pay somebody to do that. How would that look?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I can't imagine getting any satisfaction.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
From the whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Hey, you've got to delude yourself. You'd have to delude yourself.
The person I'm paying just texted me to say good night.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Hi, good night everybody. John Fetterman, he's mine.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, God, that is horrifying, But I had another brain.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So, the lead on Meet the Press was the Surgeon
General saying a while back that we have a loneliness epidemic.
It's cutting years off people's lives. It's it's a leading
killer because because it causes all kinds of different problems.
So do you think it's just flat loneliness because of
all the stuff where you've just described.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah, I think it's a it's a vicious circle of loneliness.
For the reasons we've been discussing. You have this antiseptic simulacrum,
a faux relationship with various people from you know, and
that you have your only fans, girl texts you think
(25:57):
of you, and then you begin to think, I mean
it's it's a stripper saying, oh, you're handsome on steroids,
and people are primed to actually believe it. It's like,
you know, falling in love with a damn robot. It's
it's it's it's awful.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So if we're at the loneliness epidemic right when AI
is taking off, and like only Fans has only been
around for a few years, it just seems like the
timing is the The cures are coming cures. I guess
I'll use my finger quote because it's not curing the
underlying problem. But I don't know the ointment or the
salve for the problem. They are getting They're getting better.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, the band aids over the gaping wound are getting better.
I would go with, oh, yes, yes, here's a really
nice band aid. Look, it completely covers the gaping wound. Yeah,
I'm telling you the human kind is doomed.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
The Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I got to handle this very delicately.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Okay, I want to handle it delicately for this very
nice mom who sent us a text. I will switch
in too delicate mode on your advice, combined with harsh
mode I think is necessary. So this, this, well, this
is why we can't have nice things. As the cliche goes,
this is why demagoguing issues in politics works. I guess
(27:16):
so an hour three. If you didn't hear it, get
the podcast Armstrong and getting on demand. Joe got into
the whole big beautiful bill Medicaid thing. We're getting ripped
off like crazy with Medicaid. We're gonna get into more
of it tomorrow with Craig Gottwaltsho was an expert in this.
But we're getting ripped off like crazy, all kinds of
(27:37):
healthy people. You're paying for their health care and other
stuff for no good reason whatsoever other than then nobody
keeps track of this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
And because it buys votes, that's that's like the entire
reason you're paying for it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And Phil Graham, former senator from Texas from back in
the day, tried to run for president once, but he's
way too smart to be president. A PhD in economics
wrote a piece about how, no, this is where the
money is. You talk about social Security, you know, and
cutbacks and everything like, No, the money where we need
to do something is in medicaid. So we get this text, Hey,
(28:19):
I have a daughter who's disabled and un Medicaid and
social Security, and I get that you guys who are
trying to get people riled up and listening to show
and I'm a strong Republican, but what you're missing is
and then she lays out the story of how her
disabled daughter can't take care of herself at all, never
will be able to in her life. Unbelievable, what you're
(28:40):
dealing with. I can't even imagine, and how she needs
that money and we don't have the courage to call
her back and talk to her and get the facts
on this story about her disabled daughter and how much
she needs Medicaid.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
There will not be a single disabled person affected in any.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Way by the proposs cuts, not one.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And there isn't a single person us or anybody else
arguing for someone like your daughter having their money cut.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Argue strenuously one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
This is why you demogogue these issues though, because he
even it's sir that yes, her poor daughter, and she
will be left high and dry by the mean Republicans.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
That is one hundred and eighty degrees opposite of the
truth you said. They've convinced her. We convinced her even with.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You only talking about the scammers, right Her takeaway was
like you and I are in favor of cutting her
daughter's money.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I mean, if that's the way it lands, no.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Wonder politicians don't cost with on one hundred miles of
even trying to stop the scumbag liars.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Right, Yeah, it's unfortunate, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
It is a highly unfortand you could stand and we've
seen this, We've been doing this for a long time.
You can, as a politician, stand up in front of
a crowd and say, look, nobody here currently getting Social
Security that's over the age of sixty five.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
We'll see any a dime of that cut in their lifetime.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But and then everything after the butt gets portrayed as you,
as an old person, are gonna starve.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Right, And it's just there's just no getting around it, apparently, right, right, man.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I feel for you, ma'am, what the rough situation you're
in doing God's work trying to deal with that.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
But nobody us or anybody is suggesting cutting the program
for people like your daughter.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Nobody, right, we would have more money for people like
your daughter if the.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Freaking healthy twenty eight year old dude playing video games
and laughing at us wasn't getting all his stuff paid for, right.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I don't know what you do with the reality of this.
I think if you were to sit down with Carl
Rove and.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
James Carvill I'm trying to be by partner, maybe Donald Trump,
Donald Trump, Charles Crouthammer, Jesus and John Wayne.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
They would that's quite a crowd, they would.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Say, Jackie boy, Joseph, here's the story.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
That's what politics is. Grow up.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
You always talk about trying to frighten or entice the
herd in one direction or another, as if you're too
good and too smart for that.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
That's politics.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I understand what you're saying that politicians go out there
and try to frighten you on this stuff. What I'm
concerned about is we made it clear we weren't trying.
We weren't claiming they're coming for your to take your
disabled daughter's medic care. Politicians will say that sort of
stuff medicaid. Yeah, we weren't saying the opposite, and it's
(32:01):
still landed as if we were.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
That's what troubles me.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Yeah, I think that's squarely in the department of things.
I can't do anything about. It's Uh, it's striking. I
totally get your being troubled by that.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Like I said, if you're a politician, you get up
on stage and make it clear that I'm not interested
in cutting your social security. But people walk out of
the room thinking they're going to take my SOLFI security. Yeah, well,
that we're done here, then I guess yes.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
As a as a country, you mean yes, or as
a system of government people, well, self governance doesn't work,
that's my point. Uh yeah, Well the great Scottish philosopher
what's his face? Uh, with the you know, the republic
will last only until the populace realizes they can vote
themselves money from the treasury. And and what he didn't
(32:54):
suspect is that, or maybe he did, was that there.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
That politicians would be able to convince.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Virtually all of the population that any effort to rein
that in was indeed an attack on them and their
well being.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
So yeah, it doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
The great, you know, overarching Joe Getti principle, there are
actually several of them, many of them contradict each other,
is that all systems can last only until those who
had gained the system.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Win over those who would protect a system.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
And it's like, you know, the constant battle between hackers
and cybersecurity experts.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
There comes a point in a.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Like a governmental system, where a combination of manipulating the
voters and then manipulating the systems behind the scenes becomes
so sophisticated that the immune system of a democracy is insufficient.
It's like a septic in in the bloodstream. So monarchy now,
(34:03):
I don't know, I'm old, y'all figured out.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
If you're old already, nobody is gonna touch your social
security period. Now, if you are actually disabled, nobody's gonna
take your money period.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Nobody wants to. Nobody's even suggested it, right, and yet
it is the easiest cell in the world.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
If any Republicans say we're gonna rain in Medicaid waste
fraud abuse, they're gonna come take the money out of
the mouths of your disabled children, and people believe them.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
So what are you gonna do.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
I'm in an accepting mood today. I have accepted it,
probably because I'm excited about my new political part party,
the f y'all it cans.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You gotta have AI design a logo because that's a
good I like the fans.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Capital f capital y apostrophe, A L L.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Dash I dash cans f y'all ackns.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
We need an animal though maybe the turkey.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Is the donkey and the elephant are taken clearly, maybe
we have the turkey.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Has heard in a previous clip which been Franklin wanted
to be our national bird
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Armstrong and Getty and no Kee Armstrong and Getty, Strong
and Art home enjoying the gifts we got for Christmas.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I got a pony finally, so I just been riding
it all around the house.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
I'm not gonna kid you. I got the post Christmas letdown.
I'm down, man, I'm sad. I'm into the nog heavily.
Things are not going where I'm spiraling anyway. Hope you're
doing well. We've got some carefully selected curated Armstrong and
Getty segments. It's the Armstrong and Getty replay. Let's all
enjoy it together.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Takes Seth said.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
China was quote credibly preparing for an invasion of Taiwan,
with Chinese forces staging regular drills around the island and
the use of force has not been ruled out.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's amazing to me what stories get attention and what
stories just don't grab people's attention. But yeah, Hexath gave
a speech over the weekend to our Asian partners in
the Wall Street Journal version of it certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Grabbed my attention. A little quote from Hexath.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
To be clear, any attempt by communist China to conquer
Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the
Indo Pacific in the world.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
We're not going to sugarcoat it.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
The threat China poses is real and it could be imminent,
and saying that we will allow it, it will not
happen on Trump's watch. We have repositioned some sort of
anti ship killing missiles close by, to which China said,
that's really really awful.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
But I mean, this is some serious bluster between the
two most powerful countries in the world that at some
point are going to go to war.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I was just reading those rating about those anti ship
munitions that are so interesting. They're mounted on remote controlled trucks.
They need no humans, so somebody in a bunker far
away drives these trucks around off missiles, then quickly relocate
so they can't be you know, hit by return fire.
It's really quite interesting. We're positioning them in the Philippines
(02:09):
and similar areas. Yeah, the Sabers are a ratlin no doubt.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
As the Wall Street General rights.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In recent years, China has built up the world's biggest navy,
a title once held by the United States, you know
who held it before the United States, Great Britain. Great
Britain ruled the seas for a very long time. Then
it's been US. Is it going to be China in
the next century. Well, that's what China's hoping.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Yeah, I'm not sure you'd like their placing of the
seas anyway. I've found this, I mean, I've been on
this jihad for a long time, but more and more
open coverage of the fact that we, the United States
in the Western world in general fell for an absolutely
brilliant plan by the Chinese back in the late sixties
(02:55):
early seventies. They needed help, primarily financial trade from the
Western world, and came up with an absolutely brilliant plan.
Let's pretend that we want to westernize and move away
from communism at our own pace and liberalize in return
(03:15):
for our investment from the West. And this was absolutely
deliberate plan. They knew all along that it was not
sincere although there have been some reformers in you know,
the last several decades in China who are actually like,
you know, maybe that's not such a bad idea. But
then a shijin thing always comes along, and so they
duped us into opening up the relationship with China, which
(03:38):
was bad enough, but a great deal of left America
still hasn't caught on to it, and they are so
motivated by the need to show openness to other cultures.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
There's Zeno files.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
As I often put it, they still haven't caught on
that China as a dire threat to the United States
in our way of life.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
For instance, on universities told the story.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Many times counterintelligence people came on to a university campus
said you've got a bunch of Chinese spies on the campus.
University president said, get off my campus, you racists, and
that attitude persists headline. Harvard has trained so many Chinese
communist officials.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
They call it their party school.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Not like party school, let's get wasted and get laid yo,
the communist parties school. Oh that's not as good a
party not nearly. Yeah, in your rank of party schools.
This is something totally different. ANSU, don't worry, you're safe.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Who is that comedian? I wish I could remember his
name because I'd like to give him credit. So funny,
But anyway, he has a thing he does. On a
piece of paper he lists best parties. At the bottom
was search Party Wow.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
The Kennedy School of Government at Havad is favored by
party cadres seeking career boosts. US schools and one prestigious
institution in particular, have long offered up and coming Chinese
Communist officials a place to study governance. Can you imagine
teaching Communist Party officials about governance so they can twist
(05:13):
it into totalitarianism? A practice that the Trump administration could
end with a new effort to keep out what it
says are Chinese students with Communist Party ties.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
But for decades the party.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Has sent thousands of mid career and senior bureaucrats to
pursue executive training in postgraduate studies on US campuses, with
Harvard University a coveted destination, describe as some in China
as the top party school outside the country. Alumni of
such programs include a former vice president and Chinese leader,
Shijin Paing's top trade negotiator these days. Maybe you heard well,
(05:49):
we talked about it. Last week, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio announced US to authorities will tighten criteria for visa
applications from China and aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students,
including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or
studying in critical fields.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, remember last week that new president at Harvard gave
a big speech at the graduation ceremony talking about how
we have always educated people from around the world, and
we had recorded there and he got a one med
standing ovation.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Right, Because it is absolutely.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
A requirement of being a lefty in America that you
must worship all things foreign and loathe all things American
and domestic, or at least most of them. It's just
it's so nakedly approval seeking and so stupid. American universities
have played leading roles in shaping China's overseas training programs
(06:41):
for mid career officials for years.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
And years and years.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Other US colleges have offered executive training with Chinese communist officials,
including Syracuse, Stanford, the University of Maryland, and rot Gers
where my dad taught many many years ago.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Blah blah blah. So it's just amazing. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
I was thinking earlier when you were talking about in
Pete Hagg's was talking about the perhaps impending invasion of Taiwan,
and they're running those millet that Chinese are running those
military exercises that are like everything but pulling the trigger.
And can you imagine if the United States, let the
Japanese say, in nineteen forty, you know, put a bunch
(07:17):
of aircraft carriers out in the Pacific and then fly
planes right at Pearl Harbor. Then they said, hey, it's
an exercise, just an exercise. And then they turned around
and went back to the you know, over and over again, we'd.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Be said, no, it's okay, They're just do it an exercise.
I mean, oh, good lord.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
And by the same token, you've got a hostile communist
regime and we're educating their officials in how to govern.
All right, moving along, I think the point's been made
in terms of the exit speech. I'm sure we'll bring
that up with Mike Lyons. When we talked to him
in hour three, our military advisor listen to this, will
(07:55):
you the economic contributions of international students, said we you know,
I'm prime merely interested in Chinese students, but the share
of international students from China is twenty three percent at Harvard.
So about a quarter of all the international students are Chinese.
At Harvard, it's fifty percent. At Cornell, it's forty seven
(08:18):
percent at Columbia. Wow, let's see you see Berkeley appears
to be a third.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Why don't you give me the number?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
They just it's a barograph and some of them are labeled,
some of them or not. But just to give you
an idea of why they put up with this, the
economic contributions of international students at top us universities quote
unquote top universities in twenty twenty three. Columbia got nine
hundred million dollars in twenty twenty three from foreign students
(08:50):
nine hundred million. You see Berkeley five hundred and seventy
six million.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Well, if you're getting half a trillion dollars, you ain't
gonna want to end that.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Is that half a trillion?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Yeah? A thousand million is a billion. Well no, so
it's it's almost a billion. Half a billion. What I
don't remember what the number was now I'm confused. Columbia
was nine oh three, Berkeley is five seventy six. Johns
Hopkins five oh four. That's half a billion.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
There you go, half a billion.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
University of Chicago for twenty eight, Duke three eighteen, Yale
two forty one, Northwestern three hundred and twenty four million
dollars in a year. You know, I love capitalism, I
do great is good, Gordon Gecko, look it up. But
when it leads you to betray your country, we are
(09:40):
we are begging for a comeuppance.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
The Armstrong and Getty show or show podcasts and our
hot lakes coming.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Up in a moment.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Breathing through our bucks has been declared safe after the
first human trial.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
I'm not laughing. I'm coffing, actually a little both. There
was a human trial.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yes, Can I like, if I squeeze really hard, can
I breathe.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Through my You try hard enough? That's right, everybody try No.
I'll explain the minute or two. I found this really interesting.
I'm aware of exhaling that way. A lot of people
do that and they shouldn't. Uh.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
This is from the Times of London.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Female spies are waging sex warfare to steal Silicon Valley secrets.
China and Russia are both sending attractive women to seduce
tech workers, even marrying and having children with their targets.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
In a desperate attempt to get ahead and stay ahead
tech and AI.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
You're not a sex worker. If you actually marry them
and have children, you're a I don't know what you are.
Your spy, yeah, oh yeah. Nobody's calling them sex workers there,
they're spies. Chinese and Russian operatives are using sex warfare
to seduce and spy on Silicon Valley professionals. James Mulvanan,
(11:05):
the chief intelligence officer of amer Consulting, which provides risk
assessments for American companies investing in China, said he was
one of the many men recently targeted by Fordes seductresses
hoping to gain access.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
To US secrets.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Quote, I'm getting an enormous number of very sophisticated LinkedIn
requests from the same type of attractive young Chinese women.
It seems to have really ramped up recently, he described
at how at a business conference on Chinese investment risks
hosted in Virginia last week, two attractive Chinese women showed.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Up and attempted to gain entry.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
We didn't let them in, but they had all the
information about the event and everything else.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
He said.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
It's a phenomenon, and now I will tell you it's
really weird.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Wow, that is a heck of a commitment to your
country that you're going to meet a guy, woo him,
marry him, have kids with him.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I mean, that's really about your wow.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Or you're well, you're in the the spy service. It's
I've read various autobiographies of both men and women who
are in the KGB and how you get recruited young,
and your.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Trains and the all day, every day of raising a kid.
If you've done it, it's a lot of work. It's
your whole life. I mean, you're doing all that as
part of your being a spy.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Right, Uh let's see. Uh oh, here's here's the interesting part.
And I've been trying to tell you this for a
long time. Both Russia and the CCP are using ordinary citizens, investors, cryptoanalysts, businessmen,
academics to target their American counterparts rather than trained agents,
which makes the esponars harder to spot.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
We're not chasing a KGB agent in a smoky guest
house in Germany anymore, said one senior US counter intelligence official.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
Our adversaries, particularly the Chinese, are using a whole of
society approach to exploit all aspects of our technology and
Western talent.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Can you imagine you find out your wife and mother
of your two kids, you've been married for ten years,
only did it to spy for the Communists?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Yeah? I know, boy, would that be rock your world shattering? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I want to get to the breathing through your butt
thing in a bit, but you don't have time because
I want to wrap this up.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Anyway, what was that going to say? I've been trying
not with that attitude, you can't. I've told this story
many times, but it's worth retelling it. It was about
a decade ago that the FBI went to a particular
large California university and their counterintelligence folks warned the president
of the university, you have a lot of Chinese agents
(13:45):
on your.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Campus masquerading as researchers.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
And they were told, quote, get off my campus, you racists.
There are thousands, tens of thousands Chinese nationals in the
United States right now doing the work of the Communists Party,
spending all day, every day doing.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
The work of the Communist Party. I stand by those words.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Ah So, A couple of notes on Haavid supposedly the
world's greatest university, which has beclowned itself completely. I thought
this was interesting, And Harvard PhD programs are collapsing amidst
amid budget woes.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Faculty of Arts and.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Sciences just to slash the number of PhD student admissions
by more seventy five percent in the Science division and
sixty percent in the Arts and Humanities division in the
past two years.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
If you how much does the world need more PhDs
in most areas? You know?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Quoting Nelly Bowls again, the PhD racket has always been
a weird one. These schools push their smartest, most annoyingly
ambitious kids to get a PhD. During that PhD, the
guys do all the work of being a paid professor,
teaching courses, grading papers, but they're paid next to nothing.
Then the clincher is that at the end there are
no jobs available, maybe one English Department job in Idaho
for a group of three hundred to battle to the
(14:56):
death over.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
So I support this belt tightening.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
We will have about f five thousand fewer Antifa soldiers
produced each year. They might even spend their twenties making money.
Love that well, said Nellie. Speaking of Havid, they say
they the university won't say whether they will sanction a
dean who defended rioting and looting is legitimate parts of democracy,
described whiteness as a self described self destructive ideology, celebrated
(15:24):
Charlie Kirk's death, said it was acceptable to wish death
on Donald Trump, etc.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Etc.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
This guy is unbelievable. What's my favorite? In the following
the death of George Floyd, he tweeted, rioting and looting
are parts of democracy, just like voting and marching.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
A month before he got his gig last year, he
posted on Instagram that people should love each other and
hate the police. Describe whiteness as a self destructive ideology
that annihilates everyone around it, like in Trump to Adolf Hitler,
then appeared to celebrate the death of Rush Limbaugh, etc.
Harvard has no comments on it, and the communist himself,
(16:06):
Gregory Davis is his name, said those posts do not
reflect my current thinking or beliefs. One of them was
last year, well, I was a kid Marxist sly, they
lie and they lie and they lie. And then Fox
new has had a panel with conservative Harvard students that
(16:27):
was really interesting. Maybe we could find some of the
audio for it, but they're speaking out about what it's
really like on campus right now, where the university has said, no,
we're going to be fair, but in practice they're not,
said one quote. A good example of this would be
like something like the university is very strict on not
co sponsoring events with outside groups when it comes to
(16:49):
the Republican Club, let's say, putting on events, but the
Democrats get away with that all the time, no questions asked,
and the students described what they believed to be selective
enforcement of various campus rules.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Quote.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
There have been other things like the Republican Club puts
on a big event and they send a bunch of
administrators to really, you know, enforce fire code rules making
sure the audience is sitting properly in their seats. Whereas
Democrats can host events, the whole place can be jammed
pack and there's no concern whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
That's the opposite of what a university ought to be.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Polar opposite the Armstrong and Getty show, Yeah or Jack
Orgioe podcasts and our hot.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
Links of US high school students reported feeling said or
hopeless in twenty twenty three, and twenty percent had seriously
considered attempting suicide.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I appreciated that Meet the Press on Sunday did not
go with the usual news of the day, particularly around
Donald Trump. They went with the crisis that we've talked
about a lot and should be treated like a crisis.
That people are lonelier than ever, young people are killing
(18:02):
themselves and taking medications.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
To deal with anxiety, and all of blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We know all this stuff as being like a lead story,
which it is should be a lead story, the lead
story every week. B this is what Trump did yesterday
for so cynical about these people.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I wonder whether they're doing that for the right reason
or if their ratings are just dropping off with never
ending Trump hysteria.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
But anyway, back to the very very important topic.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Here, let's hear a little more from Christian Walker of
Meet the Press laying out some of the facts here.
Speaker 6 (18:31):
Two thirds of gen z report feelings of loneliness, and
half of young adults report symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Youth suicide rates are climbing. It is now one of
the leading causes of death in adolescents and young adults.
Almost one in five young adults report rarely or never
receiving the social support they need. In our super connected times,
(18:54):
over fifty five million US adults report frequent loneliness. The
smartphones and social media apps that connect us to the
world are also accelerating the crisis.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
That's one thing about this story.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I feel like every single time we quickly get to smartphones,
social media and everybody's aware of this already, there's a
lot like there's not like the next sentence or the
next whatever comes after that.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So we should what didn't make it?
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Have Superman fly around the world, rerual really fast and
turn back time to be four smartphones.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
If that were possible, I'd be all for it.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Right, I'm trying to remember there was a great phrase
by Caitlin Flannagan I think who wrote that we're drowning
in the stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
It's killing us, but we like it under the water. Ahhh,
that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Now, combining a couple of things that are related and
not related, I guess. So this Netflix show Adolescence that's
getting a tremendous amount of attention. It's already got one
hundred and fourteen million views, which is a.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Lot compared to like regular TV shows.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It's based on a horrifying story of a middle schooler
boy who murdered his classmate girl. And one of the
reasons it's getting a fair amount of attention by The
New York Times, and Gavin Newsom talked about how he
had to turn it off as horrifying. It's because they
present a lot of it as right wing toxic masculinity
(20:23):
that is caught on on social media and the Tate
Brothers and that sort of stuff. But and it goes
too far. All of that stuff is true, but it
leaves out, you know, there's plenty on all sides of
what's wrong with social media and what it's doing to
people and their worldviews, especially young men. And then this
(20:45):
story that also fits into it, I think, is this
thing it became a TikTok craze, but the I think
there's a lot of truth in it. It's the idea
of men calling each other at night and saying, hey,
just want to say good night to you. You know
you're a good friend, and saying good night. And I
thought that's because that's a thing that usually gets taken
(21:10):
care of by having a girlfriend or wife or boyfriend
or husband. If you're gay, but you you have a
relationship of somebody that's going to text you goodnight, call
you good night, or is in bed next to you,
and so many people don't. Now it was kind of
presented as like a joke, but I could see how
that could be a thing.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I'm not going to do it, but I.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Can see how that could be a thing because you're
lacking that in your life. Nobody at the end of
the day that says, yeah, thinking about you, goodnight, miss you,
something like that.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, these are very troubling developments.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I'm struck by and I'm trying to find the right words.
How much of this stuff is antiseptic? Is the closest
I'm getting. What I'm driving at is online interaction, including
everything that we've described so far. And you're gonna make
fun of this, but go ahead. First day, laugh at you,
(22:06):
then they laugh at you more, then they really really
laugh at you.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
But then the Haley who's a genius.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
I think that's how it ends anyway, an online relationship, porn,
social media, online quote unquote friends.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I remember railing about the term friends.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, when Facebook first caught on, I was ahead of
my time.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Yeah, you're right about that.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Yeah, the porn chick you're looking at is not going
to text you miss you good night at the end
of the day.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
But here's what just.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Dawned on me, is you're going through these things, all
of those quote unquote relationships or being with those people.
They have no smell, They have no taste, they have
no feelings, physical sensation until the love bots come up
long and the rest of it. They are incredibly antiseptic.
(23:04):
They and they lack all of the like like downside.
All right, So you're you're you're with a girl, maybe
she's got bad breath. Porn doesn't have bad breath.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
For instance.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
It all is so lacking in the rough and tumble
of real life that I think people can no longer
tolerate the rough and tumble of real life of a
lover who's occasionally insensitive or has bad breath or is
sweating from the gym or whatever.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, I don't know. And friends who annoy you and stuff.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I don't know if those are the examples that are
keeping people. I think it's the but it's easy, it's
all so, I think it's the emotional effort. Is a
is a is a problem. I've seen this with my
own eyes, and it horrifies me. They like draw straws
to see who's gonna call to order the pizza because
it's so intimidating that crowd's not gonna ask somebody out
(24:00):
and make the emotional risk that is getting into her relationship.
I mean, I think pretty clearly true.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Or fight through the inevitable part of the relationship where
you realize, Okay, this person is fully human and has
flaws and annoys me at times.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
And are sometimes we're going to have to do stuff
that they want to do and not just stuff I
want to do.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
I think that's a big part of it.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
To go back a second, and I don't want to
get a hung up on this, because the point is
not any of this. The whole point is not any
of the sex stuff. But apparently because I've read about this,
I think I saw on the New York Post, you
can like a lot of these only fans women. You
can get some sort of set up with them where
they text you throughout the day how's your day going,
and text you at night to fulfill that particular desire.
(24:46):
That desire is strong enough that dudes are not doing
it with each other, at least according to a TikTok trend,
you know, just thinking to you good night.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
You can pay somebody to do that. How would that look?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I can't imagine getting any satisfaction.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
From the whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Hey, you've got to delude yourself. You'd have to delude yourself.
The person I'm paying just texted me to say good night.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Hi, good night everybody. John Fetterman, he's mine.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Yeah, God, that is horrifying, But I had another brain.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So, the lead on Meet the Press was the Surgeon
General saying a while back that we have a loneliness epidemic.
It's cutting years off people's lives. It's it's a leading
killer because because it causes all kinds of different problems.
So do you think it's just flat loneliness because of
all the stuff where you've just described.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah, I think it's a it's a vicious circle of loneliness.
For the reasons we've been discussing. You have this antiseptic simulacrum,
a faux relationship with various people from you know, and
that you have your only fans, girl texts you think
(25:57):
of you, and then you begin to think, I mean
it's it's a stripper saying, oh, you're handsome on steroids,
and people are primed to actually believe it. It's like,
you know, falling in love with a damn robot. It's
it's it's it's awful.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So if we're at the loneliness epidemic right when AI
is taking off, and like only Fans has only been
around for a few years, it just seems like the
timing is the The cures are coming cures. I guess
I'll use my finger quote because it's not curing the
underlying problem. But I don't know the ointment or the
salve for the problem. They are getting They're getting better.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, the band aids over the gaping wound are getting better.
I would go with, oh, yes, yes, here's a really
nice band aid. Look, it completely covers the gaping wound. Yeah,
I'm telling you the human kind is doomed.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
The Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I got to handle this very delicately.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Okay, I want to handle it delicately for this very
nice mom who sent us a text. I will switch
in too delicate mode on your advice, combined with harsh
mode I think is necessary. So this, this, well, this
is why we can't have nice things. As the cliche goes,
this is why demagoguing issues in politics works. I guess
(27:16):
so an hour three. If you didn't hear it, get
the podcast Armstrong and getting on demand. Joe got into
the whole big beautiful bill Medicaid thing. We're getting ripped
off like crazy with Medicaid. We're gonna get into more
of it tomorrow with Craig Gottwaltsho was an expert in this.
But we're getting ripped off like crazy, all kinds of
(27:37):
healthy people. You're paying for their health care and other
stuff for no good reason whatsoever other than then nobody
keeps track of this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
And because it buys votes, that's that's like the entire
reason you're paying for it.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
And Phil Graham, former senator from Texas from back in
the day, tried to run for president once, but he's
way too smart to be president. A PhD in economics
wrote a piece about how, no, this is where the
money is. You talk about social Security, you know, and
cutbacks and everything like, No, the money where we need
to do something is in medicaid. So we get this text, Hey,
(28:19):
I have a daughter who's disabled and un Medicaid and
social Security, and I get that you guys who are
trying to get people riled up and listening to show
and I'm a strong Republican, but what you're missing is
and then she lays out the story of how her
disabled daughter can't take care of herself at all, never
will be able to in her life. Unbelievable, what you're
(28:40):
dealing with. I can't even imagine, and how she needs
that money and we don't have the courage to call
her back and talk to her and get the facts
on this story about her disabled daughter and how much
she needs Medicaid.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
There will not be a single disabled person affected in any.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Way by the proposs cuts, not one.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And there isn't a single person us or anybody else
arguing for someone like your daughter having their money cut.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Argue strenuously one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
This is why you demogogue these issues though, because he
even it's sir that yes, her poor daughter, and she
will be left high and dry by the mean Republicans.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
That is one hundred and eighty degrees opposite of the
truth you said. They've convinced her. We convinced her even with.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
You only talking about the scammers, right Her takeaway was
like you and I are in favor of cutting her
daughter's money.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I mean, if that's the way it lands, no.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Wonder politicians don't cost with on one hundred miles of
even trying to stop the scumbag liars.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Right, Yeah, it's unfortunate, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
It is a highly unfortand you could stand and we've
seen this, We've been doing this for a long time.
You can, as a politician, stand up in front of
a crowd and say, look, nobody here currently getting Social
Security that's over the age of sixty five.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
We'll see any a dime of that cut in their lifetime.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But and then everything after the butt gets portrayed as you,
as an old person, are gonna starve.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Right, And it's just there's just no getting around it, apparently, right, right, man.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I feel for you, ma'am, what the rough situation you're
in doing God's work trying to deal with that.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
But nobody us or anybody is suggesting cutting the program
for people like your daughter.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Nobody, right, we would have more money for people like
your daughter if the.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Freaking healthy twenty eight year old dude playing video games
and laughing at us wasn't getting all his stuff paid for, right.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I don't know what you do with the reality of this.
I think if you were to sit down with Carl
Rove and.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
James Carvill I'm trying to be by partner, maybe Donald Trump,
Donald Trump, Charles Crouthammer, Jesus and John Wayne.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
They would that's quite a crowd, they would.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Say, Jackie boy, Joseph, here's the story.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
That's what politics is. Grow up.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
You always talk about trying to frighten or entice the
herd in one direction or another, as if you're too
good and too smart for that.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
That's politics.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I understand what you're saying that politicians go out there
and try to frighten you on this stuff. What I'm
concerned about is we made it clear we weren't trying.
We weren't claiming they're coming for your to take your
disabled daughter's medic care. Politicians will say that sort of
stuff medicaid. Yeah, we weren't saying the opposite, and it's
(32:01):
still landed as if we were.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
That's what troubles me.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Yeah, I think that's squarely in the department of things.
I can't do anything about. It's Uh, it's striking. I
totally get your being troubled by that.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Like I said, if you're a politician, you get up
on stage and make it clear that I'm not interested
in cutting your social security. But people walk out of
the room thinking they're going to take my SOLFI security. Yeah, well,
that we're done here, then I guess yes.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
As a as a country, you mean yes, or as
a system of government people, well, self governance doesn't work,
that's my point. Uh yeah, Well the great Scottish philosopher
what's his face? Uh, with the you know, the republic
will last only until the populace realizes they can vote
themselves money from the treasury. And and what he didn't
(32:54):
suspect is that, or maybe he did, was that there.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
That politicians would be able to convince.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Virtually all of the population that any effort to rein
that in was indeed an attack on them and their
well being.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
So yeah, it doesn't work.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
The great, you know, overarching Joe Getti principle, there are
actually several of them, many of them contradict each other,
is that all systems can last only until those who
had gained the system.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Win over those who would protect a system.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
And it's like, you know, the constant battle between hackers
and cybersecurity experts.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
There comes a point in a.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
Like a governmental system, where a combination of manipulating the
voters and then manipulating the systems behind the scenes becomes
so sophisticated that the immune system of a democracy is insufficient.
It's like a septic in in the bloodstream. So monarchy now,
(34:03):
I don't know, I'm old, y'all figured out.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Good luck.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
If you're old already, nobody is gonna touch your social
security period. Now, if you are actually disabled, nobody's gonna
take your money period.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Nobody wants to. Nobody's even suggested it, right, and yet
it is the easiest cell in the world.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
If any Republicans say we're gonna rain in Medicaid waste
fraud abuse, they're gonna come take the money out of
the mouths of your disabled children, and people believe them.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
So what are you gonna do.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
I'm in an accepting mood today. I have accepted it,
probably because I'm excited about my new political part party,
the f y'all it cans.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
You gotta have AI design a logo because that's a
good I like the fans.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Capital f capital y apostrophe, A L L.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Dash I dash cans f y'all ackns.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
We need an animal though maybe the turkey.
Speaker 4 (35:17):
Is the donkey and the elephant are taken clearly, maybe
we have the turkey.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Has heard in a previous clip which been Franklin wanted
to be our national bird
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show
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Jack Armstrong
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