February 23, 2023 • 37 mins
Hour 4 features our guest, immigration expert Todd Bensman on the dire state of our southern border. Plus, Jack revisits the NYT op-ed on the failed mask mandate and we take a glance at the Murdaugh murder trial
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio and the George Washington
Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Jetty Armstrong and Getty
show this Tusson sector is different than any other part
of the border. This sector is known for evaders, criminals,
and goataways. It's got remote, rugged desert all over the place,
(00:32):
and this Tusson sector had the most known gotaways of
anywhere on the Southern border last year, with more than
one hundred and seventy five thousand Border patrol in this
sector report almost everybody they apprehend is a single adult
man dressed in camouflage, sometimes wearing carpet shoes to master
their footprints in the sand. Almost everyone here is trying
(00:52):
to get away. They are not turning themselves. In tens
of thousands, hundreds of thousands of adult men, we don't
know where they're from, what they're up to pouring into
the country. Wow, who does this? Well? In what sense
do we have a border? Let's talk about that and
all the related subtopics with Todd Benzman, Senior National Security
(01:13):
Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. His new book
is out. It's titled Overrun. How Joe Biden unleashed the
greatest border crisis in American history. And the thing that
really appeals to me about the book is even the
good reporting on this tends not to be in depth,
and Todd's book is in depth, not only about how
the crisis got started about but about the effects it
has in the homeland. Todd Bensman, how are you, Todd.
(01:37):
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
So before we get into the policies that brought us this,
or maybe the policies that could end this, or any
of that sort of stuff, just lay the table or
set up that's set up the situation. How bad it
is right now or has been over the last year. Well,
actually you can trace this to inauguration day of the
(02:00):
Biden administration. That day is when it started. Hundreds of
thousands pouring over. On the first day, we are at
about four million apprehensions. Typically we get about now two
hundred plus thousand every month. Just imagine three or four
(02:21):
Super Bowl football stadiums full of people crossing every month.
You were talking a minute ago about gataways and runners.
You can add to that four million another million and
a half of those people that we were not able
to apprehend or detect, got right in through to the interior.
(02:42):
This is literally the greatest mass migration crisis ever to
have stricken the United States by far. Every single record
on the books is smashed. Every month. There's a new
record of every type of you know, terrible you know,
(03:04):
statistic criminality. I mean the just the the collapse of
the border of defenses, and the policies that are in
place that are enticing this. Who never had policies like this?
Well let's talk about that, because obviously on as of
(03:24):
Immigration Day, the cartels in the would be immigrants from
various belieguered countries said to themselves, Wow, the opportunity is now.
What changed? Why? Why was that message received so clearly? Well,
remember during the presidential campaign on the Democratic side, you
had every candidate there were mess I think there were
(03:47):
fifteen at one point promising who would be the most open,
who would open the border or the widest, who would
give the most free stuff, free healthcare? Who wants to
raise your hand to that? Everybody raised their hand on
the stage. Who here would decriminalize illegal entry? Everybody raised
their hands. Well, the whole world was watching that, and
(04:10):
that's when they started coming because they knew that Trump,
you know, the polls were showing that Trump was going
to lose, and they were like, Man, I'm hedging my
bets now and laying my money down by smuggling money.
And that's when it started. And then the President followed
through on the very first day with all of his
(04:30):
promises ending deportation, putting forth a big giant amnesty bill,
and making huge exemptions and exceptions in the title forty
two Pandemic Pushback Program measure that Trump had put in place,
just opening the door wide for exemptions to the pushbacks
(04:55):
that Trump had been doing. And so the word spreads
all along the trail. They're letting us in, hutting us in,
hurry up. Look at these selfies of me on the
bus in New York. Look at the selfies of me
getting on the airplane. Look at the selfies of it.
So it became an avalanche that has never stopped. Well,
where are most of these people going? Where do they
(05:15):
end up? The people the goataways? Do we have any
idea where they're mostly settling? Not the gotaways, but um,
just from from reporting, you know, we'll just be before
you go on from that So the Goataways, which numbers
in the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands, we
don't have any idea where they go as a nation. Millions, Yeah, oh,
(05:37):
I mean right there. They're they're going to every major
city in America, from coast to coast, everywhere in between,
wherever they can find work, wherever they find a community
that speaks their language, relatives. And they're just spreading out
across America, from Florida to Washington State, from southern California
(06:01):
to Maine. They are They're just pouring into the country.
And why should Americans? Why should Americans care? Though? I mean,
we need workers, right, I see help b on it. It
It signs everywhere. Why why should we be concerned about this? Well,
for a lot of reasons. You know, if you're talking
about the runners and Goataways, that is a pool of
(06:24):
people where there is a high concentration of criminality. The
reason those people are running is that if they get caught,
they can see a record's check shows the criminality they've
been convicted before, and they'd be deported. So you're getting
a tremendous number of people that are convicted criminals of
(06:46):
I mean every possible thing, homicide, rape, child molestation, armed robbery,
the whole thing, gang banging. And then as for the
rest of them that are turning themselves in, they're strangers.
The problem with illegal immigration is that people are coming
in without any identification at all. They toss them in
(07:07):
the river, they throw them on the ground. A lot
of them have no identification, and they're coming from one
hundred and fifty different countries. The greatest assortment of nationalities
are hitting that border than have ever hit that border
in the history of the country. Forty three percent are
(07:30):
not from Mexico or Central America. They're from all the
nations of Africa and the Middle East, China, Southeast Asia,
South Asia, the entire world. And there is a national
security threat. We've caught ninety eight people who are on
the terror watch list just last year. We've caught fifty
(07:52):
one so far this year. People who are already on
the watch list are crossing the border. People coming from
war torn African nations where we don't know if they
were the persecuted or the persecute tours. We have no
idea who's coming through, and that's one of the big problems.
(08:12):
And lastly, you know We're just getting up our sovereignty.
No country on the planet does this, nobody ever does this,
and nobody ever has done this dating back to ancient
times where you just let anybody and everybody through not
knowing who they are. And that's that's just something that
(08:34):
nations don't do because and well said, well said Todd clearly,
and we appreciate it, indeed. Todd Bensman, Senior National Security Fellow,
Center for Immigration Studies. The new book is out Overrun,
How Joe Biden and leashed the greatest border crisis in
American history. We're up against a break, Todd. But good
to talk to you, and good luck with a book.
Thank you very much. I appreciate the attention to what
(08:55):
he said at the end. There is something I've been
saying for a long time. This is not something that happens.
Nobody else is doing this anywhere in the world. And
when does it ever happen in human history when you
had any control of your borders, When does this ever happen?
By many counts, it's the greatest migration in world history
into an area that has borders. And you know, the
(09:16):
only caveat I would throw to that that rhetorical question
is that in the past there didn't exist massive welfare states. Right, everybody,
everybody who could fog a mirror in a particular geographic
area that we call a country, they would get food, medication, housing,
(09:37):
Housing is a human right, jack the rest of it
at enormous expense. The two can't go together, the super
libertarian view of immigration and a welfare state. You're right,
that is a huge difference because when people want to
make the argument, you know, we're a melting pot, and
what about your Irish grandparents or whatever you came here. Yeah,
well if you if you set off across the plains
back in a day as Germans like I was just
(09:59):
in a part of the country where everybody's German, because
that's where they settled there in Kansas during the dust Bowl.
You had to figure out a whey to make your living.
You weren't going to show up somewhere and go to
the hospital and get free medical care or demand someplace
to say or get food. If you know that very
notion was hilarious, right, So that's what I was thinking.
When people show up, So unless you have a family structure,
(10:21):
wherever you show up, as he said from main to
organ or whatever someplace, deliver whatever you gotta be on
the government done. How else are you going to be surviving? Well?
On those who come to build a better life and
they work hard. I admire them. I would do the
same thing. Have the idea that because they're admirable people,
we should not have coherent immigration policy. That's it's just
(10:43):
the worst sort of emotional illogic. It's idiotic. But it's
not a question whether they're nice people or not. Do
we have a policy. As we were talking about yesterday, though,
the fact that the Biden administration is bringing back the horrifying,
horrifying policies of the Trump administration to try to get
a handle on this, is that an indication that their
internal polling must have led them to believe that this
is worth paying attention to. Oh yeah, yeah, I think so.
(11:06):
I mean, they were getting terrible, terrible marks for their
handling of immigration, and they just thought, well, you know,
if it was just a nakedly political calculation, I think
what they figured out was, yeah, I mean, we'll look
pretty bad going back to the Trump policies, but we'll
look even worse if we continue to let millions of
people flood across the border. Willie Nelly Man, the weather
(11:28):
is weird right now. I'm gonna be like eighty degrees
in New York in February. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, rare
blizzard warnings for LA happening right now. And I was
talking to because you know, all, he's a very big area.
Somebody yesterday said they had lots of hail coming down,
which is not a normal LA thing. Yeah, yeah, blizzards
(11:49):
in LA. Is that one of the signs of the apocalypse?
It seems like, Yeah, it seems like God's angry about something. Una.
What have we done to anger God or the gods?
I don't know how you look at it. It's one
hundred and five degree in you know, northern Greenland. I'm
a monotheist, but maybe you've got a whole bunch of
different gods. I don't know, you know, so I'm not
gonna judge you. It's very big of you, very inclusive
(12:10):
of you. Yeah, and I got so much good stuff.
I know you have so much good stuff. One in
six retirees, for instance, are considering returning to work, which
is a high number, much higher number than we normally have.
Why is that good? News if you're if you're a Walmart,
you needed more greeters. I suppose, among other things, we've
got to talk about going up stay with Armstrong and
(12:33):
Jetty see Armstrong and Jetty Show. We know that you
(13:09):
all heard at least of at least one call that
Donald Trump was on during this period. This is the
infamous call that the whole world has heard as it
was released when he was speaking to Georgia's Secretary of
State Brad Raffinsburger. But in terms of just calls and
recordings of calls, are there others of those? I can
tell you I heard other phone calls. I don't think
(13:30):
I could name all of them right now if I
wanted to. After seventy five witnesses and eight months, it
gets hard to keep all your bits straight. Other calls
that Donald Trump was on, Yes, I'm positive I've heard
the President on the phone more than once. So that's
that jury. For a woman person that's making the rounds
(13:52):
and deciding to talk to everybody in the media, even
though you're not supposed to about the libations and stuff,
can talk to them. You just can't tell them anything. Well,
what's the point of going on and hunting and giggling
and stuff. Oh are you kidding? How about that revelation
she just made she heard the president's voice more than once, Jack,
more than once. Here here's the clip. I actually wanted
to play ask for the wrong one because I think
(14:13):
this is hilarious. She said this yesterday on one of
her many interviews. My coolest moment was shaking Rudy Giuliani's hand.
That was really cool for me. I made a point
of stopping them moving, like weak before you before you
go back to this, can I shake your hand? Because
this an honor to meet the guy is really neat
for me. So does that hurt anything? Legally speaking? If
(14:34):
they decide not to indict Rudy Giuliani and somebody comes
back from the other side says, look at her. She
was awestruck with the celebrity of Rudy Giuliani. How many
of the jurors were like that, I think we need
a new trial. Well it's that wasn't a trial though,
so the I mean that it could be behind the
(14:54):
scenes that the prosecutors who want to press charges would say, well, yes,
chick was in love with Rudy. That's why the grand
jury didn't invite, didn't recommend prosecution. I say, we go
ahead anyway. But that's kind of a behind the scenes
e thing. How many people in a grand jury? Is
it twelve or eight or fifty? Depends where you are.
I think, okay, anyway, this I don't know Georgia. This
(15:16):
is in Georgia and it's over the election interference stuff.
I just I just wonder how they chose this giggle
in twelve year old to be in charge. I don't know,
it's kind of funny. Or if they're all like, I
don't want to do it, neither to lie, I'll do it.
You're gonna go ahead. Yeah, hey, giggles, you got the gig.
Knock yourself out. But she said in one of the
(15:38):
interviews yesterday, she's gonna be really disappointed if something doesn't happen,
which you seem to think. I thought that was a
horrible idea that, because it used a lot of your time,
that somebody needs to be indicted. Well, I just I
think she was saying eight months and seventy five witnesses
and y'all don't get any charges out of this. What's
your process for bringing people in front of the grand jury?
(16:01):
God dang it, eight months and seventy five witnesses. Yeah,
can you imagine? No? I actually can every day that
was your job for eight months over something you may
not care at all about. Oh oh jeez, well, and
you'd think, you know, obviously it's we were joking when
we say, well, they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be on trin.
(16:25):
But I mean, if you're going to spend eight months
and seventy five witnesses and like a year of my
life looking into alleged criminal enterprise, there ought to be
a criminal or two sprinkled in. Otherwise, what's your step?
What are you doing? Did you just drop a net?
Did you just like apprehend everybody at an insurance company
and start bringing them into the grand jury and asking
(16:45):
them where were you Tuesday? How does it work? Okay?
All right, you watch your step next. I mean, what
are we doing here? That reminds me? I think I
missed one of my jury summons recently? I put my
calendar forgot about it. What happens to you then? If
you just don't show up our call or something, jail,
leg irons, heavy fines, heavy fine, heavy fine? How do
you end up? If you don't pay your heavy fines.
Then the leg irons. How do you end up on
(17:06):
a grand jury? Like that? Is it the same story
of jury summons, same sort of thing. Got eight months
of my life over this? I mean if I if
I do an eight months trial, I want to be
like an OJ thing where it's like really really freaking
fascinating and like a great experience. Not listening to it
all day long. Oh that's tear tight trickling down his face. Um,
(17:28):
that reminds me that Alex Murdoch, guy who allegedly killed
his wife and son. He testified today, all right, so
we got to get some clips of that. Yeah, like
that trial, while gruesome, would be you know, I'd keep
your attention if you missed an hour. The show grabbed
the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and get
(18:03):
thee Armstrong and Getty Show, and Lust calls the snow day.
Breaking news US just called the snow day right here
at the student section. Oh my goodness, Oh I've never
(18:24):
seen that before. Breaking news. Lust called the snow day
at Hamilton. No school for me tomorrow and not see
end of the game. Zales out o'clock fifty seven forty five,
Lusk takes it home along with the Hawk guys. My
(18:46):
name is Hayton Leinsters, sophomore broadcaster. That is the end
of the game officially. That's awesome. You can't watch that
video without being happy. You just can't. All that fills
me with joy. It's a high school game and sophomore
kids calling the game. They don't care about the game.
It was just announced there's gonna be a snow day tomorrow,
and the kids pour onto the court, jumping up and
(19:09):
down their arms here because they don't have to go
to school tomorrow. That's awesome. Somebody needs to sell those
young people. If they've lost a day of education, that's
no reason to celebrate. Good job, Principal Skinner. That's the
way it was a namu. I sent this to my son.
I almost called him my brother. That'd be weird. So
(19:30):
yesterday for the podcast One More Thing Read from Tom Sawyer,
did a little reading from Tom Sawyer because I'm reading
Tom Sawyer to my son, Henry. The award winning Armstrong
e Getty One More Thing podcast that's available at all
podcast platforms, including Armstrong e Getty dot com. One Because
I've gotten into the part of the book where they
got a lot of inbombs and stuff, and I was
(19:50):
just asking about how to deal with that. But anyway,
came across this from Tom Sawyer and I sent it
to my son a couple of days ago. Monday Morning
found Tom, You're miserable. Monday Morning always found him. So
because it began another week's slow suffering in school. I
sent that to my son so he would realize. Kids
have been complaining about going to school forever. You're not
unique in this, all right, Wow, wow timeless. Yeah, I
(20:15):
mean I was hoping my kids would love schools like
their cousins did or all girls. Girls seem to like
school a lot more than boys for whatever reason. But anyway,
I have since since my kids have come around a
hating school. Said I hated school every day in my life,
every single day. So yeah, it's just you know, what
are you gonna do? Um speaking of schools where he
(20:40):
had to wear masks for a couple of years, which
is part of the reason my kids hated schools, because
for the last couple of years it's been up until
real recently, you had to wear a mask and all
these different sorts of things were horrible. That's funny because
Europe took the masks off kids many months, many many
months before the US and Red States did it too,
but in Blue States, no, the kids remained masked. I
(21:02):
read from the New York Times Brett Stevens, an opinion
piece full of facts. The mask mandates did nothing. Will
any lessons be learned? The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis
of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for
reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses, including COVID, was published
last month. It's conclusions, say Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist
(21:26):
who is its lead author, were unambiguous. Here's his quote.
There is just no evidence. That's a pretty declarative statement
right there. That's not wishy wash at all. There is
just no evidence that masks make any difference, full stop.
He says. Wow, you do not say full stop unless
(21:47):
you're trying to make it clear. This is unequivocal. There's
no arguing it. We've done lots of tests. We looked
at all data from six hundred thousand people, all these
different countries. It's easy to state, Look, we do this
for a living. There's no evidence that masks make any difference.
How do you like? How there are those who would
(22:07):
argue that an Oxford epidemiologist has no business contradicting a
CNN anchor chick or your county health supervisor. They got
elected because they what well, they got to point it
because they have a degree in public health administration. Right,
let me read on here. But wait, hold on? What
(22:30):
about the N ninety five masks as opposed to the
lower quality surgical or cloth masks? Makes no difference, none
of it, said Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist. What about the
studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates. They
were convinced by non randomized, randomized studies, flawed observational studies.
(22:50):
What about the utility of masks in conjunction with other
preventative measures such as and hygiene, physical distancing, or air filtration.
There's no evidence that many of these things make any difference.
And these observations don't just come from anywhere, writes Brett
Stevens in The New York Times. Jefferson and eleven colleagues
conducted the study for Cochrane. I don't know of this,
(23:11):
but it's a British nonprofit that is widely considered the
gold standard for its reviews of healthcare data. The conclusions
were based on seventy eight randomized control trial, six of
them during the COVID pandemic, with a total of six
hundred and eleven thousand participants in multiple countries, and they
track what has been widely observed in the United States.
States with mask mandates fared no better against COVID than
(23:34):
those without. Now Brett does right here. No study or
study of studies is ever perfect. Science is never absolutely settled.
Whoa wait a second, I thought the science could be settled.
That's what al Gore told me. Yeah, science is one
thing that has one opinion. It's not a continual process
of asserting something, contradicting it, learning from it, and moving on.
(23:58):
What's more, the analysis does not prove that proper masks,
properly worn had no benefit. At the individual level. People
may have good personal reasons to wear masks, and they
may have the discipline to wear them consistently. That choices
their own, But when it comes to population level benefits
of masking, the verdict is in. Mask mandates were a bust.
(24:20):
So those skeptics who were furiously mocked as cranks and
occasionally censored as misinformers for opposing mandates were right. The
mainstream experts and pundits who supported mandates were wrong. In
a better world, it would behoove the latter group to
acknowledge their error, along with its considerable physical, psychological, and
political costs. Don't count on it, he writes, right Well,
(24:45):
one of the main takeaways that anybody who took an
honest look at this came away with was that in
so many cases the mandates were utterly unnecessary because people
who thought they should be careful, they should take this
precaution or that precaution went ahead and did it whether
there was a mandate or not. And that would be
(25:05):
self selected people, the old, vulnerable people in chemotherapy, that
sort of stuff, and so it didn't mean anything that
there was a mandate. Meanwhile, the people who wouldn't have
done anything unless it was mandated generally didn't do it
very well or very carefully, and or the technology didn't matter. Yeah,
you got to differentiate between what we just read there,
(25:26):
the difference of population level mask mandates versus individual wearing masks.
Doctors all across the world aren't going to suddenly stop
wearing masks as they lean over your open body doing operations.
They do work. If I was going to walk into
this room and a bunch of people had COVID, I
would wear a mask if I had to come in here.
I believe they do something. But the mandates to make
(25:46):
everybody wear masks didn't accomplish anything right, and with the kids,
all it accomplished was cruelty. People who insisted on continued
masking of small children, even when we knew better. In
Europe knew better. They should face criminal charges well, and
they are wearing the crappy little masks, barely wearing them
(26:07):
at all, but following the rules just to stay out
of trouble. And yeah, that whole thing. I'm sad. I'll
read thick. It's really sick, it is. I'll read the
last two paragraphs, and so much of it became. I
would love to be able to run some sort of
AI experiment where you'd take Trump out of the equation
and how people would have looked at mask mandates if
it didn't get attached to Trump somehow when he was
(26:28):
mocking Biden, biggest mask I've ever seen, You know, that
sort of stuff, which I found hilarious or some alternate
universe where evil Trump, who probably has a goatee, is
saying everybody should wear a mask at all times. Masks
are very important. What would the CNN anchorettes have said then? Yeah,
good point. But whatever the reason, mask mandates were a
(26:49):
fool's errand from the start they may have created a
false sense of safety and thus permission to resume semi
normal life. They did almost nothing to advance safety itself.
The Cocker report ought to be the final male in
this particular Coffin, there is a final lesson. The last
justification for masks is that, even if they proved to
be ineffective, they seemed like a relatively low cost, intuitively
(27:11):
effective way of doing something against the virus in the
early days of the pandemic. But do something is not science,
and it shouldn't have been public policy, and the people
who had the courage to say as much deserve to
be listened to, not treated with contempt. They may never
ever get the apology they deserve, but vindication ought to
be enough. I feel vindicated. Yeah, you think a mask
(27:33):
is a good idea. It is a good idea if
you're in a room, But the government telling you you
have to in your town is no good. This meta
study will disappear as quickly as it was issued and
be a little, if at all, discussed in the mainstream
(27:55):
media or the media at large, because it goes against
the very identity that so many people assumed. It wasn't
just an opinion you ought to where a mask. It
became who they were, and it's tough for people who
admit it's humiliating. Yeah, I was completely wrong, and I
like badgered and bludgeoned and oppressed other people in favor
(28:18):
of my wrongheaded anti Trump cult you know, beliefs, and
I apologize for that. Not many people are going to
say that it's a hard thing to do. We got
this text. Are you going to address your advocating masks?
I think we just did. It's on an individual, a person.
That person isn't able to grasp the subtlety between you
(28:39):
do what you want and the government telling you what
to do. I advocate all sorts of crap, my friend,
that I don't think the government ought to mandate you
to do. I do it because I think it's a
good idea, which is how human beings ought to behave.
If that subtlety is still lost on you. I'd be
happy to write it out for you. Okay, Well, maybe
(29:03):
these texts came in before I got through this story.
I don't know. Then, why do they wear masks and surgery? Again,
it's it's not an indication that an individual wearing a
mask it doesn't do anything. It's that a mandate for
a population large it doesn't make any difference. The towns
that didn't mandate it got no different results than the
towns that did mandate it. Guess again, vacating people and
(29:27):
let them live their lives. Well, there probably won't be
another one of these pandemics for a hundred years, and
all of this knowledge will have been lost, and good
luck to you. All will be dead, or there will
be one in a month, the bird flu will start
spreading to human beings, and we humankind will ignore everything
(29:48):
we learned. Well, you know what, that's even too cynical
for me. I think we will learn some stuff from
the recent pandemic if it goes more five or ten years, though, no,
everything will be forgotten. If there's one thing we learned
from history, it's that we learned nothing from history. Restaurants
some of your biggest chains considering subscription programs like Netflix.
(30:12):
Have you heard about this? It's a catching off restaurants. Yeah,
I have to tell you about that. Also, if you've
been following that Murdoch trial, which we talked a little
bit about, he the guy accused of killing his family,
testified today, Yeah, that's a that's a gamble. You don't
see that much. We got a little mash up of
some of the highlights of that coming up also to
(30:32):
stay with us me. So, I don't know if you've
(31:09):
been following the trial of Alex Murdoch, the red haired
prominent South Carolina attorney who was alleged to have killed
his wife and son, not to mention bilking all of
his clients out of millions of dollars, doing pills, faking
his own suicide, etc. But and this is a gamble.
His attorneys decided to put him on the stand. We've
(31:30):
got a bit of a highlight reel from today's testimony.
I'm hoping my Google TV dv ard it today because
I want to see as much as I can. I've
been a juror on a couple of occasions and observed
a bunch of trials and man it's a rarity when
the defendant testifies, and often when they do, everybody regrets it.
(31:51):
So let's see how he did. And I didn't shoot
my wife or my son any time ever. I would
never intentionally do anything either one of them or Once
I lied, I continued to lie, yes, sir, why you know?
(32:13):
Or what a tangle where we weave? Normally, when these
paranoid thoughts would hit me, I could take a deep
breath real quick, just think about it, reason my way
through it. Wow, I want to hear more. Okay, So
that was that was a great tease for me, wanting
to hear a lot more. I was. I was tipped
(32:35):
off that the questions had to do with the fact
that when the coppers showed up on that evening and
the folks were dead already, they asked, you know, where
he'd been and whether he'd been there at the dog
kennels on their gigantic hunting estate. And he said, no,
not at all today, and he had been earlier and
his kid had his voice on a video he'd made
(32:57):
for friends, like an Instagram video. Well, why would you
lie about that? Well, see, he says, it has to
do with the he had paranoid thoughts, and you know,
he just he the tangled web is is this quote
from Shakespeare right? Or what a tangled web we weave
with our whatever our lives. And what he's saying was
(33:18):
I was caught up in so much crap between the
pills and the client financial stuff, and when I found
him dead, I freaked out and just was paranoid, and
so said, No, I haven't been anywhere near it. That's
not impossible. So why do they not recommend you go?
(33:39):
You testify? I mean, because if I like I'm innocent,
I feel like I want to testify. Is it? Because
it just comes down to the end up with that stupid,
stupid conversation we've had so many times, we're gonna have
jury saying I don't think he seemed sad enough like
that sort of thing. Yes, yeah, absolutely. If the jury
does not buy you as be incredible, the tirety of
(34:00):
the case your defense has put together vanishes. It doesn't
matter anymore, partly because a lot of jurors are not
rational imperature on multiple occasions, it'll scare the crap out
of you. Yeah, that's that's a pretty good reason too.
Even if you're innocent, to not testify, because you know,
if you're the sort of person that can keep it
together in a setting like that, even if you're talking
(34:21):
about the murder of your family, well then you're gonna
have some of the soft headed jurors that he'd be
more upset than that. Yeah, exactly, he's not grieving, right,
Or if you fall apart, you're gonna have some of
the soft headed jurors saying it's faking. I can tell
fake crying when I see it. Yeah. Yeah, it's taking
a hell of a gamble. Who wants final thoughts? Who
(34:43):
wants final thoughts? Go have some final thoughts. Here's your
host for final thoughts, Joe Getty, an increasingly obscure reference. Oh,
let's get a final thought from everybody on the crew
to wrap things up for the day. There, he is
our technical director. He's kept us on the air. Michael Angelo. Michael, Well,
we didn't get to the story about the subscription restaurants,
(35:04):
but I do know that I would have a subscription
to a pizza restaurant. I'd be as big as a house,
but that would beat my thing. Man. I love pizza.
I love it so much. Jack a final thought for us, Oh,
what a tangled web we weave when first we practice
to deceive is one of the best things that anyone
could ever learn in their lives. It is not Shakespeare, however, though,
(35:25):
Yeah it was. Whoever you think wrote it stole it
from Shakespeare. It comes from nineteenth centuries Scottish author, Sir
Walter Scott. But that is a great line. That's a
good thing. I don't think I've ever said that to
my kids. That's a good one. And because it rhymes
and everything, it sticks in your head. But it's it's
completely accurate. It is fabulous. Yeah, timeless wisdom from Shakespeare.
(35:48):
Moving off, got this snow, Willard Scott. We were decrying
the proposed Florida law that would make it illegal for
your dog to hang its head out the window. We
got this note from from some lady. I think he says, Hey,
occasionally dogs are injured and their heads are lopped clean off.
(36:09):
It's happen to horses too, etcetera. Yeah, how often does
that happen? And if I might quote Thomas Jefferson or
Willard Scott or Shakespeare, I would rather be exposed to
the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending to
small a degree. How many of y'all you or your
friends have had their head? There's dogs head lopped off
(36:32):
because it was sticking out the window where you drove
down the street. Hell, I can't drive to the Walgreens
without seeing three four severed dogheads laying in the streets.
Come on, there's a sentence to end the show on
Armstrong and Getty, wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.
I apologize for the gruesome imagery and the misquoting of
various authors. Good lord, so many people, thanks so little time.
(36:55):
Good Armstrong and Getty dot com. We got your hot
links for you. There. We got that one more thing
podcast that we mentioned earlier. Yesterday's was charming. Jack was
reading Mark Twain to us. We'll see tomorrow. God bless America.
What this community needs now? Are no school for me
to mom? I'm strong and gets so bad it's almost good,
(37:17):
you know what I'm saying. That was really cool for me.
Come on, I yield the rest of my time. But
oh my goodness, so let's go with the bune have
a beautiful view of this nineteen seventy eight to Winnebago
and a pile of human pooh. Out this window you'll
see uh super fornicating in the bushes that high note.
Thank you all very much, Armstrong and Getty
From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio and the George Washington
Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Jetty Armstrong and Getty
show this Tusson sector is different than any other part
of the border. This sector is known for evaders, criminals,
and goataways. It's got remote, rugged desert all over the place,
(00:32):
and this Tusson sector had the most known gotaways of
anywhere on the Southern border last year, with more than
one hundred and seventy five thousand Border patrol in this
sector report almost everybody they apprehend is a single adult
man dressed in camouflage, sometimes wearing carpet shoes to master
their footprints in the sand. Almost everyone here is trying
(00:52):
to get away. They are not turning themselves. In tens
of thousands, hundreds of thousands of adult men, we don't
know where they're from, what they're up to pouring into
the country. Wow, who does this? Well? In what sense
do we have a border? Let's talk about that and
all the related subtopics with Todd Benzman, Senior National Security
(01:13):
Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. His new book
is out. It's titled Overrun. How Joe Biden unleashed the
greatest border crisis in American history. And the thing that
really appeals to me about the book is even the
good reporting on this tends not to be in depth,
and Todd's book is in depth, not only about how
the crisis got started about but about the effects it
has in the homeland. Todd Bensman, how are you, Todd.
(01:37):
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
So before we get into the policies that brought us this,
or maybe the policies that could end this, or any
of that sort of stuff, just lay the table or
set up that's set up the situation. How bad it
is right now or has been over the last year. Well,
actually you can trace this to inauguration day of the
(02:00):
Biden administration. That day is when it started. Hundreds of
thousands pouring over. On the first day, we are at
about four million apprehensions. Typically we get about now two
hundred plus thousand every month. Just imagine three or four
(02:21):
Super Bowl football stadiums full of people crossing every month.
You were talking a minute ago about gataways and runners.
You can add to that four million another million and
a half of those people that we were not able
to apprehend or detect, got right in through to the interior.
(02:42):
This is literally the greatest mass migration crisis ever to
have stricken the United States by far. Every single record
on the books is smashed. Every month. There's a new
record of every type of you know, terrible you know,
(03:04):
statistic criminality. I mean the just the the collapse of
the border of defenses, and the policies that are in
place that are enticing this. Who never had policies like this?
Well let's talk about that, because obviously on as of
(03:24):
Immigration Day, the cartels in the would be immigrants from
various belieguered countries said to themselves, Wow, the opportunity is now.
What changed? Why? Why was that message received so clearly? Well,
remember during the presidential campaign on the Democratic side, you
had every candidate there were mess I think there were
(03:47):
fifteen at one point promising who would be the most open,
who would open the border or the widest, who would
give the most free stuff, free healthcare? Who wants to
raise your hand to that? Everybody raised their hand on
the stage. Who here would decriminalize illegal entry? Everybody raised
their hands. Well, the whole world was watching that, and
(04:10):
that's when they started coming because they knew that Trump,
you know, the polls were showing that Trump was going
to lose, and they were like, Man, I'm hedging my
bets now and laying my money down by smuggling money.
And that's when it started. And then the President followed
through on the very first day with all of his
(04:30):
promises ending deportation, putting forth a big giant amnesty bill,
and making huge exemptions and exceptions in the title forty
two Pandemic Pushback Program measure that Trump had put in place,
just opening the door wide for exemptions to the pushbacks
(04:55):
that Trump had been doing. And so the word spreads
all along the trail. They're letting us in, hutting us in,
hurry up. Look at these selfies of me on the
bus in New York. Look at the selfies of me
getting on the airplane. Look at the selfies of it.
So it became an avalanche that has never stopped. Well,
where are most of these people going? Where do they
(05:15):
end up? The people the goataways? Do we have any
idea where they're mostly settling? Not the gotaways, but um,
just from from reporting, you know, we'll just be before
you go on from that So the Goataways, which numbers
in the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands, we
don't have any idea where they go as a nation. Millions, Yeah, oh,
(05:37):
I mean right there. They're they're going to every major
city in America, from coast to coast, everywhere in between,
wherever they can find work, wherever they find a community
that speaks their language, relatives. And they're just spreading out
across America, from Florida to Washington State, from southern California
(06:01):
to Maine. They are They're just pouring into the country.
And why should Americans? Why should Americans care? Though? I mean,
we need workers, right, I see help b on it. It
It signs everywhere. Why why should we be concerned about this? Well,
for a lot of reasons. You know, if you're talking
about the runners and Goataways, that is a pool of
(06:24):
people where there is a high concentration of criminality. The
reason those people are running is that if they get caught,
they can see a record's check shows the criminality they've
been convicted before, and they'd be deported. So you're getting
a tremendous number of people that are convicted criminals of
(06:46):
I mean every possible thing, homicide, rape, child molestation, armed robbery,
the whole thing, gang banging. And then as for the
rest of them that are turning themselves in, they're strangers.
The problem with illegal immigration is that people are coming
in without any identification at all. They toss them in
(07:07):
the river, they throw them on the ground. A lot
of them have no identification, and they're coming from one
hundred and fifty different countries. The greatest assortment of nationalities
are hitting that border than have ever hit that border
in the history of the country. Forty three percent are
(07:30):
not from Mexico or Central America. They're from all the
nations of Africa and the Middle East, China, Southeast Asia,
South Asia, the entire world. And there is a national
security threat. We've caught ninety eight people who are on
the terror watch list just last year. We've caught fifty
(07:52):
one so far this year. People who are already on
the watch list are crossing the border. People coming from
war torn African nations where we don't know if they
were the persecuted or the persecute tours. We have no
idea who's coming through, and that's one of the big problems.
(08:12):
And lastly, you know We're just getting up our sovereignty.
No country on the planet does this, nobody ever does this,
and nobody ever has done this dating back to ancient
times where you just let anybody and everybody through not
knowing who they are. And that's that's just something that
(08:34):
nations don't do because and well said, well said Todd clearly,
and we appreciate it, indeed. Todd Bensman, Senior National Security Fellow,
Center for Immigration Studies. The new book is out Overrun,
How Joe Biden and leashed the greatest border crisis in
American history. We're up against a break, Todd. But good
to talk to you, and good luck with a book.
Thank you very much. I appreciate the attention to what
(08:55):
he said at the end. There is something I've been
saying for a long time. This is not something that happens.
Nobody else is doing this anywhere in the world. And
when does it ever happen in human history when you
had any control of your borders, When does this ever happen?
By many counts, it's the greatest migration in world history
into an area that has borders. And you know, the
(09:16):
only caveat I would throw to that that rhetorical question
is that in the past there didn't exist massive welfare states. Right, everybody,
everybody who could fog a mirror in a particular geographic
area that we call a country, they would get food, medication, housing,
(09:37):
Housing is a human right, jack the rest of it
at enormous expense. The two can't go together, the super
libertarian view of immigration and a welfare state. You're right,
that is a huge difference because when people want to
make the argument, you know, we're a melting pot, and
what about your Irish grandparents or whatever you came here. Yeah,
well if you if you set off across the plains
back in a day as Germans like I was just
(09:59):
in a part of the country where everybody's German, because
that's where they settled there in Kansas during the dust Bowl.
You had to figure out a whey to make your living.
You weren't going to show up somewhere and go to
the hospital and get free medical care or demand someplace
to say or get food. If you know that very
notion was hilarious, right, So that's what I was thinking.
When people show up, So unless you have a family structure,
(10:21):
wherever you show up, as he said from main to
organ or whatever someplace, deliver whatever you gotta be on
the government done. How else are you going to be surviving? Well?
On those who come to build a better life and
they work hard. I admire them. I would do the
same thing. Have the idea that because they're admirable people,
we should not have coherent immigration policy. That's it's just
(10:43):
the worst sort of emotional illogic. It's idiotic. But it's
not a question whether they're nice people or not. Do
we have a policy. As we were talking about yesterday, though,
the fact that the Biden administration is bringing back the horrifying,
horrifying policies of the Trump administration to try to get
a handle on this, is that an indication that their
internal polling must have led them to believe that this
is worth paying attention to. Oh yeah, yeah, I think so.
(11:06):
I mean, they were getting terrible, terrible marks for their
handling of immigration, and they just thought, well, you know,
if it was just a nakedly political calculation, I think
what they figured out was, yeah, I mean, we'll look
pretty bad going back to the Trump policies, but we'll
look even worse if we continue to let millions of
people flood across the border. Willie Nelly Man, the weather
(11:28):
is weird right now. I'm gonna be like eighty degrees
in New York in February. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, rare
blizzard warnings for LA happening right now. And I was
talking to because you know, all, he's a very big area.
Somebody yesterday said they had lots of hail coming down,
which is not a normal LA thing. Yeah, yeah, blizzards
(11:49):
in LA. Is that one of the signs of the apocalypse?
It seems like, Yeah, it seems like God's angry about something. Una.
What have we done to anger God or the gods?
I don't know how you look at it. It's one
hundred and five degree in you know, northern Greenland. I'm
a monotheist, but maybe you've got a whole bunch of
different gods. I don't know, you know, so I'm not
gonna judge you. It's very big of you, very inclusive
(12:10):
of you. Yeah, and I got so much good stuff.
I know you have so much good stuff. One in
six retirees, for instance, are considering returning to work, which
is a high number, much higher number than we normally have.
Why is that good? News if you're if you're a Walmart,
you needed more greeters. I suppose, among other things, we've
got to talk about going up stay with Armstrong and
(12:33):
Jetty see Armstrong and Jetty Show. We know that you
(13:09):
all heard at least of at least one call that
Donald Trump was on during this period. This is the
infamous call that the whole world has heard as it
was released when he was speaking to Georgia's Secretary of
State Brad Raffinsburger. But in terms of just calls and
recordings of calls, are there others of those? I can
tell you I heard other phone calls. I don't think
(13:30):
I could name all of them right now if I
wanted to. After seventy five witnesses and eight months, it
gets hard to keep all your bits straight. Other calls
that Donald Trump was on, Yes, I'm positive I've heard
the President on the phone more than once. So that's
that jury. For a woman person that's making the rounds
(13:52):
and deciding to talk to everybody in the media, even
though you're not supposed to about the libations and stuff,
can talk to them. You just can't tell them anything. Well,
what's the point of going on and hunting and giggling
and stuff. Oh are you kidding? How about that revelation
she just made she heard the president's voice more than once, Jack,
more than once. Here here's the clip. I actually wanted
to play ask for the wrong one because I think
(14:13):
this is hilarious. She said this yesterday on one of
her many interviews. My coolest moment was shaking Rudy Giuliani's hand.
That was really cool for me. I made a point
of stopping them moving, like weak before you before you
go back to this, can I shake your hand? Because
this an honor to meet the guy is really neat
for me. So does that hurt anything? Legally speaking? If
(14:34):
they decide not to indict Rudy Giuliani and somebody comes
back from the other side says, look at her. She
was awestruck with the celebrity of Rudy Giuliani. How many
of the jurors were like that, I think we need
a new trial. Well it's that wasn't a trial though,
so the I mean that it could be behind the
(14:54):
scenes that the prosecutors who want to press charges would say, well, yes,
chick was in love with Rudy. That's why the grand
jury didn't invite, didn't recommend prosecution. I say, we go
ahead anyway. But that's kind of a behind the scenes
e thing. How many people in a grand jury? Is
it twelve or eight or fifty? Depends where you are.
I think, okay, anyway, this I don't know Georgia. This
(15:16):
is in Georgia and it's over the election interference stuff.
I just I just wonder how they chose this giggle
in twelve year old to be in charge. I don't know,
it's kind of funny. Or if they're all like, I
don't want to do it, neither to lie, I'll do it.
You're gonna go ahead. Yeah, hey, giggles, you got the gig.
Knock yourself out. But she said in one of the
(15:38):
interviews yesterday, she's gonna be really disappointed if something doesn't happen,
which you seem to think. I thought that was a
horrible idea that, because it used a lot of your time,
that somebody needs to be indicted. Well, I just I
think she was saying eight months and seventy five witnesses
and y'all don't get any charges out of this. What's
your process for bringing people in front of the grand jury?
(16:01):
God dang it, eight months and seventy five witnesses. Yeah,
can you imagine? No? I actually can every day that
was your job for eight months over something you may
not care at all about. Oh oh jeez, well, and
you'd think, you know, obviously it's we were joking when
we say, well, they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be on trin.
(16:25):
But I mean, if you're going to spend eight months
and seventy five witnesses and like a year of my
life looking into alleged criminal enterprise, there ought to be
a criminal or two sprinkled in. Otherwise, what's your step?
What are you doing? Did you just drop a net?
Did you just like apprehend everybody at an insurance company
and start bringing them into the grand jury and asking
(16:45):
them where were you Tuesday? How does it work? Okay?
All right, you watch your step next. I mean, what
are we doing here? That reminds me? I think I
missed one of my jury summons recently? I put my
calendar forgot about it. What happens to you then? If
you just don't show up our call or something, jail,
leg irons, heavy fines, heavy fine, heavy fine? How do
you end up? If you don't pay your heavy fines.
Then the leg irons. How do you end up on
(17:06):
a grand jury? Like that? Is it the same story
of jury summons, same sort of thing. Got eight months
of my life over this? I mean if I if
I do an eight months trial, I want to be
like an OJ thing where it's like really really freaking
fascinating and like a great experience. Not listening to it
all day long. Oh that's tear tight trickling down his face. Um,
(17:28):
that reminds me that Alex Murdoch, guy who allegedly killed
his wife and son. He testified today, all right, so
we got to get some clips of that. Yeah, like
that trial, while gruesome, would be you know, I'd keep
your attention if you missed an hour. The show grabbed
the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and get
(18:03):
thee Armstrong and Getty Show, and Lust calls the snow day.
Breaking news US just called the snow day right here
at the student section. Oh my goodness, Oh I've never
(18:24):
seen that before. Breaking news. Lust called the snow day
at Hamilton. No school for me tomorrow and not see
end of the game. Zales out o'clock fifty seven forty five,
Lusk takes it home along with the Hawk guys. My
(18:46):
name is Hayton Leinsters, sophomore broadcaster. That is the end
of the game officially. That's awesome. You can't watch that
video without being happy. You just can't. All that fills
me with joy. It's a high school game and sophomore
kids calling the game. They don't care about the game.
It was just announced there's gonna be a snow day tomorrow,
and the kids pour onto the court, jumping up and
(19:09):
down their arms here because they don't have to go
to school tomorrow. That's awesome. Somebody needs to sell those
young people. If they've lost a day of education, that's
no reason to celebrate. Good job, Principal Skinner. That's the
way it was a namu. I sent this to my son.
I almost called him my brother. That'd be weird. So
(19:30):
yesterday for the podcast One More Thing Read from Tom Sawyer,
did a little reading from Tom Sawyer because I'm reading
Tom Sawyer to my son, Henry. The award winning Armstrong
e Getty One More Thing podcast that's available at all
podcast platforms, including Armstrong e Getty dot com. One Because
I've gotten into the part of the book where they
got a lot of inbombs and stuff, and I was
(19:50):
just asking about how to deal with that. But anyway,
came across this from Tom Sawyer and I sent it
to my son a couple of days ago. Monday Morning
found Tom, You're miserable. Monday Morning always found him. So
because it began another week's slow suffering in school. I
sent that to my son so he would realize. Kids
have been complaining about going to school forever. You're not
unique in this, all right, Wow, wow timeless. Yeah, I
(20:15):
mean I was hoping my kids would love schools like
their cousins did or all girls. Girls seem to like
school a lot more than boys for whatever reason. But anyway,
I have since since my kids have come around a
hating school. Said I hated school every day in my life,
every single day. So yeah, it's just you know, what
are you gonna do? Um speaking of schools where he
(20:40):
had to wear masks for a couple of years, which
is part of the reason my kids hated schools, because
for the last couple of years it's been up until
real recently, you had to wear a mask and all
these different sorts of things were horrible. That's funny because
Europe took the masks off kids many months, many many
months before the US and Red States did it too,
but in Blue States, no, the kids remained masked. I
(21:02):
read from the New York Times Brett Stevens, an opinion
piece full of facts. The mask mandates did nothing. Will
any lessons be learned? The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis
of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for
reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses, including COVID, was published
last month. It's conclusions, say Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist
(21:26):
who is its lead author, were unambiguous. Here's his quote.
There is just no evidence. That's a pretty declarative statement
right there. That's not wishy wash at all. There is
just no evidence that masks make any difference, full stop.
He says. Wow, you do not say full stop unless
(21:47):
you're trying to make it clear. This is unequivocal. There's
no arguing it. We've done lots of tests. We looked
at all data from six hundred thousand people, all these
different countries. It's easy to state, Look, we do this
for a living. There's no evidence that masks make any difference.
How do you like? How there are those who would
(22:07):
argue that an Oxford epidemiologist has no business contradicting a
CNN anchor chick or your county health supervisor. They got
elected because they what well, they got to point it
because they have a degree in public health administration. Right,
let me read on here. But wait, hold on? What
(22:30):
about the N ninety five masks as opposed to the
lower quality surgical or cloth masks? Makes no difference, none
of it, said Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist. What about the
studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates. They
were convinced by non randomized, randomized studies, flawed observational studies.
(22:50):
What about the utility of masks in conjunction with other
preventative measures such as and hygiene, physical distancing, or air filtration.
There's no evidence that many of these things make any difference.
And these observations don't just come from anywhere, writes Brett
Stevens in The New York Times. Jefferson and eleven colleagues
conducted the study for Cochrane. I don't know of this,
(23:11):
but it's a British nonprofit that is widely considered the
gold standard for its reviews of healthcare data. The conclusions
were based on seventy eight randomized control trial, six of
them during the COVID pandemic, with a total of six
hundred and eleven thousand participants in multiple countries, and they
track what has been widely observed in the United States.
States with mask mandates fared no better against COVID than
(23:34):
those without. Now Brett does right here. No study or
study of studies is ever perfect. Science is never absolutely settled.
Whoa wait a second, I thought the science could be settled.
That's what al Gore told me. Yeah, science is one
thing that has one opinion. It's not a continual process
of asserting something, contradicting it, learning from it, and moving on.
(23:58):
What's more, the analysis does not prove that proper masks,
properly worn had no benefit. At the individual level. People
may have good personal reasons to wear masks, and they
may have the discipline to wear them consistently. That choices
their own, But when it comes to population level benefits
of masking, the verdict is in. Mask mandates were a bust.
(24:20):
So those skeptics who were furiously mocked as cranks and
occasionally censored as misinformers for opposing mandates were right. The
mainstream experts and pundits who supported mandates were wrong. In
a better world, it would behoove the latter group to
acknowledge their error, along with its considerable physical, psychological, and
political costs. Don't count on it, he writes, right Well,
(24:45):
one of the main takeaways that anybody who took an
honest look at this came away with was that in
so many cases the mandates were utterly unnecessary because people
who thought they should be careful, they should take this
precaution or that precaution went ahead and did it whether
there was a mandate or not. And that would be
(25:05):
self selected people, the old, vulnerable people in chemotherapy, that
sort of stuff, and so it didn't mean anything that
there was a mandate. Meanwhile, the people who wouldn't have
done anything unless it was mandated generally didn't do it
very well or very carefully, and or the technology didn't matter. Yeah,
you got to differentiate between what we just read there,
(25:26):
the difference of population level mask mandates versus individual wearing masks.
Doctors all across the world aren't going to suddenly stop
wearing masks as they lean over your open body doing operations.
They do work. If I was going to walk into
this room and a bunch of people had COVID, I
would wear a mask if I had to come in here.
I believe they do something. But the mandates to make
(25:46):
everybody wear masks didn't accomplish anything right, and with the kids,
all it accomplished was cruelty. People who insisted on continued
masking of small children, even when we knew better. In
Europe knew better. They should face criminal charges well, and
they are wearing the crappy little masks, barely wearing them
(26:07):
at all, but following the rules just to stay out
of trouble. And yeah, that whole thing. I'm sad. I'll
read thick. It's really sick, it is. I'll read the
last two paragraphs, and so much of it became. I
would love to be able to run some sort of
AI experiment where you'd take Trump out of the equation
and how people would have looked at mask mandates if
it didn't get attached to Trump somehow when he was
(26:28):
mocking Biden, biggest mask I've ever seen, You know, that
sort of stuff, which I found hilarious or some alternate
universe where evil Trump, who probably has a goatee, is
saying everybody should wear a mask at all times. Masks
are very important. What would the CNN anchorettes have said then? Yeah,
good point. But whatever the reason, mask mandates were a
(26:49):
fool's errand from the start they may have created a
false sense of safety and thus permission to resume semi
normal life. They did almost nothing to advance safety itself.
The Cocker report ought to be the final male in
this particular Coffin, there is a final lesson. The last
justification for masks is that, even if they proved to
be ineffective, they seemed like a relatively low cost, intuitively
(27:11):
effective way of doing something against the virus in the
early days of the pandemic. But do something is not science,
and it shouldn't have been public policy, and the people
who had the courage to say as much deserve to
be listened to, not treated with contempt. They may never
ever get the apology they deserve, but vindication ought to
be enough. I feel vindicated. Yeah, you think a mask
(27:33):
is a good idea. It is a good idea if
you're in a room, But the government telling you you
have to in your town is no good. This meta
study will disappear as quickly as it was issued and
be a little, if at all, discussed in the mainstream
(27:55):
media or the media at large, because it goes against
the very identity that so many people assumed. It wasn't
just an opinion you ought to where a mask. It
became who they were, and it's tough for people who
admit it's humiliating. Yeah, I was completely wrong, and I
like badgered and bludgeoned and oppressed other people in favor
(28:18):
of my wrongheaded anti Trump cult you know, beliefs, and
I apologize for that. Not many people are going to
say that it's a hard thing to do. We got
this text. Are you going to address your advocating masks?
I think we just did. It's on an individual, a person.
That person isn't able to grasp the subtlety between you
(28:39):
do what you want and the government telling you what
to do. I advocate all sorts of crap, my friend,
that I don't think the government ought to mandate you
to do. I do it because I think it's a
good idea, which is how human beings ought to behave.
If that subtlety is still lost on you. I'd be
happy to write it out for you. Okay, Well, maybe
(29:03):
these texts came in before I got through this story.
I don't know. Then, why do they wear masks and surgery? Again,
it's it's not an indication that an individual wearing a
mask it doesn't do anything. It's that a mandate for
a population large it doesn't make any difference. The towns
that didn't mandate it got no different results than the
towns that did mandate it. Guess again, vacating people and
(29:27):
let them live their lives. Well, there probably won't be
another one of these pandemics for a hundred years, and
all of this knowledge will have been lost, and good
luck to you. All will be dead, or there will
be one in a month, the bird flu will start
spreading to human beings, and we humankind will ignore everything
(29:48):
we learned. Well, you know what, that's even too cynical
for me. I think we will learn some stuff from
the recent pandemic if it goes more five or ten years, though, no,
everything will be forgotten. If there's one thing we learned
from history, it's that we learned nothing from history. Restaurants
some of your biggest chains considering subscription programs like Netflix.
(30:12):
Have you heard about this? It's a catching off restaurants. Yeah,
I have to tell you about that. Also, if you've
been following that Murdoch trial, which we talked a little
bit about, he the guy accused of killing his family,
testified today, Yeah, that's a that's a gamble. You don't
see that much. We got a little mash up of
some of the highlights of that coming up also to
(30:32):
stay with us me. So, I don't know if you've
(31:09):
been following the trial of Alex Murdoch, the red haired
prominent South Carolina attorney who was alleged to have killed
his wife and son, not to mention bilking all of
his clients out of millions of dollars, doing pills, faking
his own suicide, etc. But and this is a gamble.
His attorneys decided to put him on the stand. We've
(31:30):
got a bit of a highlight reel from today's testimony.
I'm hoping my Google TV dv ard it today because
I want to see as much as I can. I've
been a juror on a couple of occasions and observed
a bunch of trials and man it's a rarity when
the defendant testifies, and often when they do, everybody regrets it.
(31:51):
So let's see how he did. And I didn't shoot
my wife or my son any time ever. I would
never intentionally do anything either one of them or Once
I lied, I continued to lie, yes, sir, why you know?
(32:13):
Or what a tangle where we weave? Normally, when these
paranoid thoughts would hit me, I could take a deep
breath real quick, just think about it, reason my way
through it. Wow, I want to hear more. Okay, So
that was that was a great tease for me, wanting
to hear a lot more. I was. I was tipped
(32:35):
off that the questions had to do with the fact
that when the coppers showed up on that evening and
the folks were dead already, they asked, you know, where
he'd been and whether he'd been there at the dog
kennels on their gigantic hunting estate. And he said, no,
not at all today, and he had been earlier and
his kid had his voice on a video he'd made
(32:57):
for friends, like an Instagram video. Well, why would you
lie about that? Well, see, he says, it has to
do with the he had paranoid thoughts, and you know,
he just he the tangled web is is this quote
from Shakespeare right? Or what a tangled web we weave
with our whatever our lives. And what he's saying was
(33:18):
I was caught up in so much crap between the
pills and the client financial stuff, and when I found
him dead, I freaked out and just was paranoid, and
so said, No, I haven't been anywhere near it. That's
not impossible. So why do they not recommend you go?
(33:39):
You testify? I mean, because if I like I'm innocent,
I feel like I want to testify. Is it? Because
it just comes down to the end up with that stupid,
stupid conversation we've had so many times, we're gonna have
jury saying I don't think he seemed sad enough like
that sort of thing. Yes, yeah, absolutely. If the jury
does not buy you as be incredible, the tirety of
(34:00):
the case your defense has put together vanishes. It doesn't
matter anymore, partly because a lot of jurors are not
rational imperature on multiple occasions, it'll scare the crap out
of you. Yeah, that's that's a pretty good reason too.
Even if you're innocent, to not testify, because you know,
if you're the sort of person that can keep it
together in a setting like that, even if you're talking
(34:21):
about the murder of your family, well then you're gonna
have some of the soft headed jurors that he'd be
more upset than that. Yeah, exactly, he's not grieving, right,
Or if you fall apart, you're gonna have some of
the soft headed jurors saying it's faking. I can tell
fake crying when I see it. Yeah. Yeah, it's taking
a hell of a gamble. Who wants final thoughts? Who
(34:43):
wants final thoughts? Go have some final thoughts. Here's your
host for final thoughts, Joe Getty, an increasingly obscure reference. Oh,
let's get a final thought from everybody on the crew
to wrap things up for the day. There, he is
our technical director. He's kept us on the air. Michael Angelo. Michael, Well,
we didn't get to the story about the subscription restaurants,
(35:04):
but I do know that I would have a subscription
to a pizza restaurant. I'd be as big as a house,
but that would beat my thing. Man. I love pizza.
I love it so much. Jack a final thought for us, Oh,
what a tangled web we weave when first we practice
to deceive is one of the best things that anyone
could ever learn in their lives. It is not Shakespeare, however, though,
(35:25):
Yeah it was. Whoever you think wrote it stole it
from Shakespeare. It comes from nineteenth centuries Scottish author, Sir
Walter Scott. But that is a great line. That's a
good thing. I don't think I've ever said that to
my kids. That's a good one. And because it rhymes
and everything, it sticks in your head. But it's it's
completely accurate. It is fabulous. Yeah, timeless wisdom from Shakespeare.
(35:48):
Moving off, got this snow, Willard Scott. We were decrying
the proposed Florida law that would make it illegal for
your dog to hang its head out the window. We
got this note from from some lady. I think he says, Hey,
occasionally dogs are injured and their heads are lopped clean off.
(36:09):
It's happen to horses too, etcetera. Yeah, how often does
that happen? And if I might quote Thomas Jefferson or
Willard Scott or Shakespeare, I would rather be exposed to
the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending to
small a degree. How many of y'all you or your
friends have had their head? There's dogs head lopped off
(36:32):
because it was sticking out the window where you drove
down the street. Hell, I can't drive to the Walgreens
without seeing three four severed dogheads laying in the streets.
Come on, there's a sentence to end the show on
Armstrong and Getty, wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.
I apologize for the gruesome imagery and the misquoting of
various authors. Good lord, so many people, thanks so little time.
(36:55):
Good Armstrong and Getty dot com. We got your hot
links for you. There. We got that one more thing
podcast that we mentioned earlier. Yesterday's was charming. Jack was
reading Mark Twain to us. We'll see tomorrow. God bless America.
What this community needs now? Are no school for me
to mom? I'm strong and gets so bad it's almost good,
(37:17):
you know what I'm saying. That was really cool for me.
Come on, I yield the rest of my time. But
oh my goodness, so let's go with the bune have
a beautiful view of this nineteen seventy eight to Winnebago
and a pile of human pooh. Out this window you'll
see uh super fornicating in the bushes that high note.
Thank you all very much, Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Jack Armstrong
Joe Getty
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