But You Came In Without Pants

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George Washington Broadcast Center.

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, I'm.

Strong and get Katy and he arm Strong and Getty.

If you look at the cost to produce a vehicle with a twenty five percent tariff, economist estimate that this will cost about thirty five hundred dollars to twelve thousand dollars more per vehicle. And then when we talk about the consumer, a lot of economists are suggesting that it could cost upwards of five thousand to fifteen thousand dollars more per vehicle. But let's take the White House's numbers

Yeah, so that kicks in in a couple of days.

In theory I've been there have been another number of tariff deadlines that didn't end up occurring when somebody backs down or perceived as backing down. But if this car one kicks in.

It's well, it'll be something to watch.

Yeah, I just I don't think it's realistic. We don't have time to really get into it now. But and Trump is trying to browbeat the US automakers into not raising prices. I just I don't know that it's realistic to onshore that much manufacturing for a giant, complicated industry in the time Trump's going to have because you make these plans for the next decade, these giant one hundred million dollar plants or whatever.

So these two things fit together a little bit. A story I came across about your phone and being a distraction and how much it rules all of our lives.

Oh, that reminds me.

The one of your anniversary of the fabulous Peter Bagosian book The Anxious Generation is today, and he's out with a screen which includes some principles to just adopt in society. It's like drunk driving at one point was pretty accepted now it's not at all. And he has some social principles we all need to adopt, easy to understand that will save the kids. Anyway, that's later on the hour. I hope you can stay too.

I want to hear that because that definitely fits in with this and the reason I'm looking at this and tying it in with my whole newfound sleep problems, having the hardest time sleeping I've ever had in my life, just kind of started a couple of weeks ago and trying different things. I did some research on melatonin last night. First of all, when I started in on this, I

Conventional wisdom I've always heard is take it then go to bed. There is don't fart around for two hours.

H There doesn't seem to be any conventional wisdom around melatone, and based in all the studies I was reading last night. But anyway, uh, I just I took another one, So like I took one, fell asleep hard, woke up twelve thirty wide away, didn't want to live that again, went and took another one, crashed hard, and slept clear to my alarm, like deep slumber, and it was freaking awesome.

But you came in today with no pants on, so I.

Didn't even notice how till now I am pants genitals are flapping right.

And I didn't want to say anything, but yeah, it's been uncomfortable.

Michael hasn't it? He sure has? But I slept well. But I'll tell you what.

I hope it's not a diffen bad for your brain, because that result last night makes me think tonight I'm gonna.

Double it up again. Oh Elvis, I know Michael Jackson right, for Michael, some.

Of the milk, some of the melatonin milk, doctor Conrad, I'm sure it's good for me.

Any who.

So I'm talking about the whole sleeping thing, and when I bring it up with people, people keep saying the same thing, and I keep ignoring it because I don't want to do it. Are you putting away your phone at least an hour and a half before you go to bed?

Now I'm looking it up.

I'm looking at it up until the second I go to sleep every night and there's there's all kinds of conflicting research on this.

On how I mean.

There are studies to say the blue light is absolute worst thing for you. There are studies that say blue light's a myth, it doesn't do anything. It's the it's the being engaged with information that makes you awake, not the light.

From your phone. I don't have any idea. I do know this.

Me and everybody else used to watch television up to the moment they went to sleep, and it didn't keep us awake. I don't remember anybody thinking the TV was stimulating them to the point that was wake, whether I was watching the.

News or a movie or sports or whatever.

Right.

I don't know if I do this intentionally, but as you were talking, I was thinking about my pattern, and it is definitely as the evening progresses, because you know, I work some in the evening quote unquote, it progresses from the like intellectual and serious to the purely pleasurable. And the last hour of my day is always music or comedy or something like that.

Yeah.

I just and then I read, and I read all my books on my phone too, So.

I just I can't imagine pulling the plug on that.

I would be really really hard for me to put my phone in a drawer or something an hour and a half before betting then go to bed. I mean, I feel like an addic or something just like it kind of scares me to even think about it. But what are you reading like before pad? Is it serious stuff? Weighty stuff for a long Well, that's all kinds of stuff. Could be anything, depends on the mood, but that's what I'm saying. Almost always stuff that porn, Michael. Almost always

Your computer or your phone or any other I.

Just don't buy that because I never had these before, and neither did anybody else. As far as I know, I don't know anybody who said, man, I just I don't know. I start reading readers Digest at eleven o'clock, and I think it keeps me up. I need to put the Reader's Digest down, our Sports Illustrated or watching TV or anything other than this smartphone stuff.

Yeah, I guess I just like I said, I deliberately go from the serious stuff about how to battle Marxism to some rock stars autobiography for.

That last half hour hour of the day.

And it's it's good for me because I noticed you think that hows you get to sleep one hundred percent. Yeah, and you know your results may vary. But like I used to, so, I don't know where it is where you live.

It's dark at night where I live, and I have a black dog and who sleeps in the bedroom, and so I would use my phone as a night light to get me to the bathroom during my inevitable middle of the night stop. As an older fellow, and so I wouldn't step on poor Baxter.

And then here here about Flomax, and then uh, I'm fine.

Uh but so and I would glance at it and see a headline or two and think, oh, that's interesting. The talks in Ukraine are breaking down and blah blah blah, and I would have a terrible time getting back to sleep. Oh that's looking at a weather forecast.

Totally totally abandon it. Now, I just look very carefully for my dog.

Well, that's what that study is basically saying.

It's the information, not the device or light or anything like that.

I'm saying, amen.

Interesting.

Well I do know this.

I mean I understand the scientific method enough for this. I got to at least try it to eliminate that as a possible reason why I can't sleep at night.

So I don't know.

I got to buy a paper book for one thing, I don't own any I'm got to get a paper book.

They got stores full of them, that's what.

They used to I might have to order it on Amazon and then I get one. Got to come up with some sort of light to be able to see the book. I don't know, but I so many logistical challenges a light. Where do you get those? I like laying there in the pitch dark reading on my phone. I just love that. I'm currently reading the memoir from Salmon Rushdie about when he published this Satanic verses and the fat wah and all that sort of stuff ended up getting his.

Eye carved out. And you can't sleep. I wonder why? You know what, folks, I just I give up what you don't think you can read?

Seriously, you don't think you can read serious nonfiction before.

You go to bed. I don't.

I think it'll keep you awake. Wow, that's interesting. I've been doing that my whole life, ramping down, ramping down.

So what should I read?

Like?

I say, I I would read or reread, you know, Keith Richards talking about making the Exile on Main Street album or something like that.

Just purely pleasurable, pleasurable reading.

I only read things that are like a homework assignment, which people often mock me for. I only read things that are like punishingly difficult, that make.

You angry and worry.

Yes again, and I can't think of any connection speaking of Witch, an update on the situation in Ukraine. It is not great for anybody. Also, I really want to squeeze this in. Help me do that. Jack there is a public official in the great state of cal you Cornia who really deserves.

A calling out. Just awful, awful person cool. I would like to do that.

If you think you know anything about the melatonin thing. I do worry about abusing that and altering my brain and putting myself into a bad spiral there going full Elvis slash Michael Jackson, and I'll want to do that.

But man, it sure worked last night.

Then I had doctor Murray pump me full of some uppers this morning, and here I am.

Will it works for a while, I promised you that works for a while. I slept like the dead. Well then will I think you know the rest?

Yeah?

Or you go Elvis and it's just I'm gonna I'll bet have a little trouble in here. We got more on the way shot. Wow, I don't know if I can commit to this. So I just got a text on my personal phone from one of our best clients that we endorse. Not I would mention his name, but I didn't ask him if he was okay with people knowing this. But anyway, this is what he says, and I told Joe who it is. He said, He texted, this is about getting to sleep. I started cold plunging

You jump into.

Wow.

And he said, my sleep scores have gone up twenty five percent since starting.

I don't know how you measure sleep scores.

I guess your smart lots.

I guess. Yeah.

He said, it's absolutely horrible, all caps, but it's the best thing I've done. Sleep, stress, pain, joint pain recovery, all vastly improved.

Wow. Man, even I'm not sure I could do that.

Even if you told me one hundred percent guaranteed you'll sleep like a baby every.

Night the rest of your life.

I still don't think I could jump into an ice bath before bed.

It's when he gets up in the morning, he said, right, is it right?

This thing? It doesn't say either way, oh every morning?

Yeah, okay, either way, No, it doesn't matter when I don't care what time of day it is.

I could not get into a tub of ice.

Well, you could tell me, you know, once a year, a fairy princess will descend in a gossamer gown and hand me a million dollars.

I still wouldn't want to do that.

Well, he said it's horrible in all caps. Yeah, so it's something that he does on a daily basis, and it's absolutely horrible. But it's the best thing I've done, best of money he's ever spent. You know, God, you know, a full night of RESTful sleep. God, what is that worth? But is your brain trying to die before you make it?

Do that again?

Is that why you're sleeping through the night, It's just trying to turn I don't know. That's a good question there, And it's not some sort of evolution thing. We weren't designed to be plunged into ice every morning.

Yeah, I have no idea.

Well, the the old the guy that used to run Twitter, remember he would do ice plunge than hot tub or back and forth or something.

Yeah, I knew a guy who saw by that, very smart successful guy. Oh my god.

Or back and forth heat cold, heat cold, I don't know. Yeah, so of more political nature. Kim Strassel of the Journal Who's just terrific, pointing out of the infamous signal leak situation.

Well, well, if you don't know what happened, I don't know what to do for you.

They were chatting about bombing the Huthi's a bunch of administration officials and it got out because inexplicably, a lefty piece of crap journalist's pardon me, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who is utterly dishonest and a coward, was included in the string. I find myself wondering whether that was deliberate. Was that just a sloppy staffer who meant to include Jonah Goldberg in some string and put down Jeffrey Goldberg's email address. But Jonah Goldberg wasn't part of the signal group.

There's some belief that, either with that or in the afterwards part, this is an effort by a lot of the MAGA crowd in the administration who doesn't like walls because he's too much of a neo Khanish sort of person like interventions, wants to fight these wars, and they want him out because they.

Absolutely traditional conservative. But yeah, that's an interesting theory. Yeah, it's worth exploring anyway. Kim Straussel has a great piece where she points out, Yeah, that was dumb and it was sloppy and they need to do better. But then she talks about the fever pitch of coverage of it and how it wasn't It was literally a leak because it was unintentionally and this case is rare and that we know who did it and how it happened.

Compare that with a torrent of.

Leaks that began in the run up to mister Trump's first election, nearly all of them via unnamed officials who planted selected information incredulous media outlets with the purpose of manipulating politics. This was in the accidental inclusion of somebody's email address. It was completely intentional.

There were leaks about a scandalous fact free dossier and the FBI investigation into Trump Russia collusion to sway the election. Leaks about Michael Flynn's call with a Russian ambassador to further the collusion narrative. Dozens more leaks out of Special Council Robert Muller's investigation, most of which were as wild as they were false.

Adam Schiff leaks.

About mister Trump's confidential phone calls with foreign leaders to cast them as chaotic adult dangerous, which hurt the United States national security because our allies were afraid to talk to Trump because Staffer would leak it all. So, yeah, your selective outrage is pretty selective.

That's an excellent point, Armstrong and Getty.

Well, non citizens are generally guaranteed the same free speech rights as American citizens. The Trump administration says their presence in the US is a quote privilege.

Secretary of State.

Mark Rubio says more than three hundred student visas have now been revoked by the Trump administration for jeopardizing security or being a risk to US foreign policies.

I assume this is.

Going to the Supreme Court. What is it persons or humans or whatever the language is for, you know, due process and free speech and everything like, if you're here, you get it.

With few exceptions.

Now the administration is making the argument, well, these few exceptions apply here. Here's Marco Rubio's Secretary of State who's been making these decisions.

If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you're coming to the United States, it's not just because you want to write op eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.

We're not going to give you a visa. We don't want it. We don't want it in our country.

Go back and do it in your country, but you're not going to do it in our country.

Yeah, you have the right to free speech. You don't have a right to a visa. If you're going to that's it. So yeah, okay, so I see the distinction there. You're a disruptive pain in the ass. We don't want you here. We've got like one hundred million of those already.

Goodbye.

Yeah, I understand it.

I mean it's not like a bright line. Well it is in a way, but and I will always stand up for free speech. But to import somebody, I always use the example of I wanted to go live and work in Germany after college. Said that wasn't a good idea,

It's interesting that you don't hear.

You don't hear lefties talking about how strict Germany's policies were or Canada's. I know somebody who wanted to go to Canada again. So I know somebody wanted to go to Canada years ago. And you had to prove that you weren't going to be a financial burden of the country, that you're gonna be able to support yourself. Either had to have enough money already or a career or something like that. And people weren't going nuts about how awful

Yeah, in spite of the fact that that's utterly, you know, unprecedented at least it was for you know, most of human history, which reminds me I was thinking the other day. I'll bet and I don't know what the name is going to be, but there will be a generally recognized name for the phenomenon of the two thousands, mostly that reached its height under like Angela Merkel and Joe Biden and various authorities in European countries in which their borders were thrown.

Open to.

Just unmitigated, unfiltered immigration from the Third World, particularly the Muslim.

Why did they do it?

Your theory always in the United States is we got to have workers to prop up social security blah blah blah, or the Democratic Party out they were gonna get voters. Is it the same thing for Germany and Great Britain?

You know, there are probably differences around the edges, but yeah, they have low birth rates too, really in fact, lower dinars in a couple of European countries. So I think, yeah, they need to import young workers, is most of it. And the globalists, and I don't throw that around as an insult because there are benefits to globalism as well as costs. But big industry was super in favor of it.

And so.

And remember, for the longest time, those people and others, just soft headed idiots, would say that any expression of I like our country, we have a culture, we've lived here all our lives, we're proud of it. That was decried as racism and xenophobia and nationalism.

Oh, for a long time people were shamed into silence in much of the Western world.

And that needs a name.

That period of insane suicidal self sacrifice on the altar of a couple of different things. Anyway, these are the things I think about. Back to Marco Rubio and his various measures. I thought this was so interesting. There's a lawsuit in New.

York City from families of Israeli hostages against a lot of these Columbia University student groups and activists.

Saying they functioned not as like.

Informal kind of sort of partners of Hamas, but they led hamas as quote US based in house public relations firm, the Columbia University Apartheid divest organization that remember that grad student or they're trying to boot out macmood Khalil.

He represented that organization.

That and the Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine led to Hamas's propaganda arm in New York City and on the Columbia University campus, and should be held accountable for aiding in a betting Hamas's continued acts of international terrorism. So it'll be interesting to see this lawsuit proceed whether the ties were formal or extensive enough to substantiate that.

I'm looking at.

It's breaking news on CNN hearing ends and deportation case of that kid you just mentioned, the Columbia kids. So I don't know if we're gonna get ruling on that today or what.

Yeah, he's a grown ass man by the way, no child, but he's twenties, mid twenties, I think. Anyway, this got no coverage and it just shows you the depth of media bias, as if we need to point that out to you anymore.

But when you really, really really see the bias is when you've got a great story. It's interesting, it's exciting, has like violence and people shouting, and they ignore it anyway. So if it bleeds, it leads, if there's fire, it goes higher.

Unless it kind of makes progressives look bad, then we bury it. The day after the acting President of Columbia announced the the new restrictions on mask wearing protests. Student Workers of Columbia, the university's graduate student union, organized a mask picket protest to protest Columbia's repressive new policies and handed out masks to everybody. And in fact, oh my god, Colombia's Palestine Solidarity Coalition called on students quote to wear a mask on Monday.

This happened a couple of days ago.

Obviously, mask bands and the fascist trustees how are you up with masks?

That's crazy.

The group appeared to poke fun at the new policy, which allows masks for quote, medical reasons. While the campus protest remained relatively tame and highly lamb It calls into question in the school's ability or intention.

Really to enforce its new rules.

See yeah this for medical reasons, says every gd hamas loving protest.

Yeah, that's going to be hard to nail down. Legally speaking, I'll bet it's coming out of COVID. I mean, if it were twenty nineteen, maybe, but I see people regularly wearing COVID.

Masks, so this would have been so easy for the entire history of the United States. Excuse me, these are laws that were developed to stop the Ku Klux Klan from organizing and marching and terrorizing people, they're still valid. If you're so afraid of your health that you must wear a mask everywhere, you got to skip the protest.

It's as simple as that.

Bye bye, Write them a check, write them a letter, write a letter to the editor, tell all your friends about it. Engage in one hundred different sorts of protest, civil disobedience, or persuasion. But you can't come to the protest if you're wearing a mask. In Joe Getty's America, Jack, this would not be difficult to enforce. I guess we're gonna get a ruling later today from the judge, probably on that student so and.

We'll talk about that on Monday.

No justice, no peace, no campus police, they said, banging on plastic buckets. Oh, that reminds me old friend of the Armstrong and Getty show. Maybe I won't to identify him, but he was in Chicago and came out of the courtroom where he was working on a case and saw a weak, pathetic Chicago teachers Union protest against like trying to actually educate kids, school choice and that sort of thing, and he looked out, is you know it's maybe twenty people, just a sad, sad thing on.

Their Facebook page.

Though Classic had the camera in tight and it looked like a throng of.

Angry people fighting against the wrong doers.

It was just sad.

So before we take a break, I want to throw a question out to you. Is anybody trying the cold water plunge to sleep or whatever other benefits you get?

Because we mentioned uh, our friend.

Steve texted the show that he jumps into the does the cold water Plunge every morning and now sleeps.

The best he's ever slept with life.

Thank you for that plunging into water sound, Michael, beautiful Theater of the nine. I don't think I could do this, but is anybody doing it? I would be interested? Four one five here's our text line four one five two nine five KFTC.

If you are trying it.

And coming up the cultural norms we must all adopt to save the souls of our children, tune out and lose the souls of your children.

It's up to you.

Oh you don't care about your child, say wow, okay, fine, then go about your business, get your bagel or whatever else you were gonna do.

Stay here.

Today, President Trump called for Republicans and Congress to immediately defund NPR and PBS.

Yeah, when NPR heard, they went nuts.

They said, this is an outrage, where with a ton of.

Transplanted dangerous came.

If PBS stops airing those old doop concerts, a bunch of eighty year olds are gonna storm the Capitol. That's what I'm telling tell it's gonna have.

It's gonna have.

So we got a gazillion text about what you did to sleep better, or this or that it apparently struck a nerve. Maybe we'll get to some of those. An hour four just came across this headline.

New device.

Allows visually impaired NBA fans to enjoy the action like never before. So finally the blind can enjoy NBA action. I guess with some device they invented. Maybe I'll get that story later. I can't imagine that would.

Be if you don't get our four as some folks don't, or you gotta go somewhere grab it via podcasts subscribed Armstrong and Getty on demand. So Peace just came out and substack written by Jonathan Height and Zach Rausch, who are terrific people talking about but Peter Bogos book The Anxious Generation, that was published a year ago today, and their plan was to promote the book in the spring, then get to work on John's next book, deeply depressing

It's outside the norm.

That's what we've done. Yeah, and look, this is not to guilt anybody. Please don't treat your attacking parent.

I had to because my kid is the epileptic and I am an astronaut and you know whatever else.

All right, Hey, he's up, man, it's it's fine.

He's visually impaired and can't enjoy the NBA right exactly. So the best way to delay the arrival of the phone based childhood wow is that a devastating term is to delay giving your child a smartphone to communicate. My son at he got his at fourteen. I guess he was a last one in his friend group.

Wow wow.

If you need to communicate, give him a simple phone, watch, flip phone or other basic phone with no internet access. Mom, I'm the only one who doesn't have one. I'm being left out was the plea heard by many parents, and many many many parents gave in that is now changing. What was needed was a clear noise, a bright line, a minimum age target that parents could aim for together.

They suggested fourteen.

Always careful when you get into parenting advice, obviously, but like I know of several parents who like they won't let their kids do sleepovers because of all of the bad things that could happen, but they have smartphones. I'm more worried to my kid alone with a smartphone that over at his friend's house of what might happen.

And they mentioned groups in the UK and the US that are promoting this stuff. Norm Number two, no social media before sixteen. Social media is wildly inappropriate for minors.

That's got to be more of a girl thing, like my kids boys. I got two boys that they're just not interested in social media. I wonder if that's way more a girl thing.

It is, It absolutely is.

Yep.

They collect and sell children's data, capture their attention for an average of five hours a day, and routinely expose them to sex, violence, and content that promotes suicide. Although an ideal minimum age would be eighteen, we chose sixteen because it sets an age floor that could realistically.

Emerge as a global norm. And it's working.

And they give a bunch of different examples of states and even countries that are saying no prior to sixteen.

No, it's sick, it's bad for kids.

God, smartphones came into my life when I was forty two, and they've warped my brain.

Norm Number three phone free schools.

Obviously in America, left and right off and disagree on how kids should be educated slash indoctrinated, but there's universal agreement that they should be educated. There's also agreement that kids are texting, playing video games, and watching TikTok videos and class are not being educated. Phones are distraction machines. That's becoming a more and more common norm from Arkansas to California.

Yeah.

La phone free school, second biggest school district in America.

Yeah.

I hope this becomes the absolute norm, just for the sake of the children. I think it's nuts that they're allowed to have phones at school.

And number four or and this is a big one. More independence, more free play, and more responsibility in the real world for children, smartphones are the symptom of a deeper problem, the crisis in childhood itself. Children need vast quantities of free play, independence, and responsibility to guide brain development and social development.

Being a kid is about the fun, risk.

Challenges, and thrills of exploring the richness of life with friends at your side and no parents in sight. Most people born before the mid eighties cherish memories of this kind of childhood, making them receptive to this fourth norm.

I think there are a lot This is gonna be the toughest one. I don't even know if this one's doable. There are lots of kids that don't get an hour of that a week, not an hour where there's no parents hovering over, keeping an eye on it, or organized of some sort.

They mentioned that the term anxious generation in the title of the book applies not only to the kids but their parents, who are stuck in a collective active problem action problem. How do I send my ca kids outside when no one else is doing it what they would prefer to be on their device? There, someone might call the police that my ten year old is playing ball with his friends in the park without a parent. We've got to stop that, America. We must stop it for our kids.

Armstrong and Getty