Here's Some Absinthe. Have A Good Time.

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

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty, I'm strong and get kid and he armstrong and Yetty.

With regards to the situation in Gaza, the President, echoing what US officials have been saying, both in private and in public over the last twenty four hours, suggesting that a deal could be reached sometime soon, that it could be on the cusp of being announced. You know, it's been a really long time since we have heard this kind of optimism, at least coming from inside the Biden administration.

The next couple of days. Yeah, and those two things go together. They're going to give back the hostages and Israel is going to agree to pull their troops out of Gaza. And even the New York Times says this is all being instigated, pushed by the looming deadline of Biden not being president and Trump being president, And even the New York Times includes Trump warning quote, all hell to pay unless the hostages are freed by the day he becomes president. And apparently Hamas believes that's true.

Right, Well, I would suggest a huge dose of trust, yet verify even in thinking about this alleged agreement. First of all, it has to actually be agreed to. Frameworks have a history of falling apart in this region. But secondly, because I do believe Trump's threats are a legitimate and be motivating the hell out of the scumbags and a mass to make a deal. But then there's the question of implementing it and having everybody live up to their side of the agreement.

I'm sure extremely skeptical.

Being mediated by Katar, Egypt and the United States, and obviously Israel and Hamas are involved with their own particular needs and everything like that. I gotta believe Katar and Egypt are saying to Hamas, look, the jig is up, right, do you want to be pumpled into dust? Or?

I mean, what are you going to gain out of that? Right? Yeah, I would certainly hope.

So I'm more optimistic than you for no reason other than it just has echoes of nineteen seventy nine nineteen eighty when Reagan came in and the hostages came back from Iran and a brand new administration that looks like a hard ass. Everybody thinks, Okay, there's a new sheriff in down.

Yeah, I'm I am really interested to hear what the provisions are for a ceasefire from Israel's point of view, because they still and they no longer suffer under any delusions about this, they are still facing an enemy that has sworn to wipe them off the face of the earth in their founding charter.

So it's difficult to strike up a.

Deal for long term harmony with somebody who answers that description. They are not near as tough as they were before, and they don't have the backing of their really only supporter, Iran anymore because Iran is barely functioning themselves as a military. And to me, the big story is do Israel and the United States together either take out that nuclear program in Iran or go full regime change. I think both of them are on the table, and who knows what Trump.

I would agree, I would agree, And this is the contrast between Trump, for better or worse and Biden is I think Trump and his people get that doing nothing is to do something absolutely.

Barack Obama did not understand that at all. Don't do stupid s was his motto. Well, not reacting to Bushar al Asad's chemical weapons is stupid s. It led to more bad things things.

Yeah, constant passivity is some of the stupidest ask you can do. So a completely different topic, well, it's tangisially related. I guess there are a handful of things that have come together in my head. Pete Haggs, that's hearing is going on right now in front of the Senate between the idiot protesters and the tough questioning of him and his force full advocacy of a more fighting, man oriented military as opposed to a giant, bloated bureaucracy. That's a

She got there, the fire started, and she stayed. She didn't even leave early. Now that's.

Criminal.

I mean, well, that's not criminal, it's malpractice. Oh and again it was just a celebrity junket. There was no reason for her to be there whatsoever other than a vacation. But I'm thinking about, you know, the LA firefighters, how they have done this big DEI thing to get more women firefighters can not that many women want to be firefighters?

And who cares? If who cares?

How many women? How many firefighters in LA County or LA are women?

Who cares? Anybody? Only these activists do gooders.

It's possible not many women want to be And has there been a fire victim in the history of fires, or a medical emergency for that matter, maybe excepting giving birth by the freeway? Has there ever been a person as the firefighters are fighting to put out the fire that's going to reduce your home Dash who said, Yeah, it's cool that they're doing this, but man, I'd like to see some more diversity.

Well, I think we've gone so far the wrong direction. We should flip it around. Is there do you know anybody that seems to be in favor of rejecting a woman who's otherwise qualified physically to do the job?

I course not.

I don't know a single human being that, just from a misogynistic sexist standpoint, wouldn't want a qualified woman to be a firefighter, right, nobody. I've never heard anybody even come close to that opinion. Yet we've gone so far the other direction, as if that's the norm to bring in people that aren't qualified in the military and firefighting cops and all kinds of different examples, you know.

And this is such a good topic.

I was actually heading towards going to a more thirty thousand foot view of it, but I liked it. I have heard people say the sexual dynamics in like combat, sure, a combat unit could could be difficult, or managing a submarine for instance. So and that's a legitimate discussion because as Pete Hegseath is forcibly trying to point out in front of the Senate, it's about preparedness for war and winning war. It's not a damn jobs program. What is your first purpose to winning conflict?

Anyway?

Having said that, I've been reading there's a great piece by the editors of the National Review about the British rape gang's scandal and how horrific it is and one of the most horrific aspects, well, every aspect of it's horrific, come to think of it. But they go fairly into depth, and I wish we had time with how the local and national governments covered up for all of this, the rape of children, refrained from pursuing justice to avenge the

Says, Look, don't get caught up in.

Facts, don't let complexity get in the way of just this, And it lands him on network TV and gets some glowing profiles in elite media despite openly aiming to tackle questions way beyond his depth and and how he doesn't operate on a level of rationality.

Zooming through the description of the preliminary part.

Of this, he says, I've heard that side of the.

Story, but he's not obligating to exp explain why the other side of the story is wrong, because right and wrong, true and untrue do not move him. This is what I wanted to get to, because this is the umbrella over every topic we've talked about this segment, from the LA firefighters to soldiers, to illegal immigrants we were talking about earlier, the sanctuary cities. You've got literal child rapists and they won't tell the feds. Hey, we've got to

Goes to die.

Fort Gang REGs his writings are romantic works. They fit perfectly the Encyclopedia Britannica explanation of the late eighteenth century rejection of Enlightenment rationalism. Romanticism quote emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional,

Me from it. Clearly true. How many times have you run into people like that?

The very idea that the conflict he's talking about Israel Hamas could be complicated, says Coates, is horse ass. He repeatedly writes that nothing could justify the status quo in Israel. Really nothing, not even wars of annihilation, genocidal terror groups. You could that babies and murder entire families in their beds.

That doesn't justify the status quo.

A rationalist sees both sides and tries to propose a proper balance between Israel's security concerns and Palestinian's dignity interests.

Right, that's reasonable.

A romantic feels the whole situation is wrong and refuses to entertain evidence that his feelings might not tell the whole story, and proposes overhauling all of it. Categorical refusal to even acknowledge facts or arguments that contradict ones intuitions animates so much of our public discourse on race, gender, crime, about just about anything that can arouse human passions, and it.

Marks our cultural trends.

The subjective has pride of place over empirical, the feelings and the unverifiable over the logical.

He is the leader of It. Doesn't matter what your facts are.

This is what I feel, which is no way to run a society, man.

Right, My lived experience is more important than the fact. Right, Yeah, God, you cannot govern with that. You really can't. No, it was taken hold of a lot of places. Yeah, it has because.

It feels good.

For one thing, it makes people feel really self righteous, and if their peer group are also romantics, they get loads and loads of ego gratification by spouting the nonsense you're right, way to go, man, way to go. We got to take a break. But I'm looking at the TV and Richard Blumenthal, Senator, Democratic Senator, is questioning Pete Hegseth. The fact that he everybody just ignores the fact that he pretended he was some sort of Vietnam hero and it was a complete lie.

Yeah.

Now Dolan valor and now he gets to question incomings deaths with some authority is just amazing, including one guy who actually served and served honorably. Wow, that's some story anyway, Any highlights from that, we'll have for you. Another stuff come on up. This whole TikTok train and keeps getting more complicated, and yet another app from the same company doesn't doing a similar thing. Would it get around the law anyway? Maybe we'll have to talk about that later.

Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot to be said, but we will hang in there and get to it when we can Pete Hegseeth is testifying in from the Senate right now about his nomination to be Secretary of Defense, and he said some really great things so far, and man, he unleashed on the news media, let's hear it.

And time and time again, stories would come out and people would reach out to me and say, you know, I've.

Spoken to this reporter about who you really.

Are, and I was willing to go on the record, but they didn't print my quote, print any of my quotes. Or I've worked with you for ten years, or I was your accountant, or I was your chief operating officer, or I was your board member, or I was with you on one hundred different tour stops for Concerned Veterans for America. No one called me, no one asked about

Which is war fighting.

That's some of it. Trump could have named anybody and they would have made up all kinds of crap to try to bring him down just because it's Trump. That includes today, By the way, New York Times, they're big, splashy front page story today was how the FBI didn't do a real background check. And MSNBC is walled wall on this story and then interviewing every Democrat. Can you believe the FBI didn't do a full background check? I

To think about.

Pete Heigsath is sect def I love your ideas, but this is I think this is a bigger issue we've had. This soco media change from an anonymous source, especially if it's just like one or two, is very very thin gruel to base a story on, particularly a story of any importance, and it probably shouldn't be done, and somebody's got to have a great reason to remain anonymous, and I still publish the story.

We've gone from that too.

Absolutely any half wit, crack pot or mental illness case.

I'm thinking about Judge Kavanaugh's hearings.

Who is willing to trot anything out even if there's contradictory evidence. That's more than good enough because it's exciting. So it is a media failing, as Hegzeth was saying, But we as a society have to understand that it's not the way it used to be.

Now they'll trot out.

Absolute crap and we just have to say, no, you name your sources, let's hear him talk on the record, or I don't care what you just wrote.

New York Times article centers around one of the stories floating around about Pete that he is accused of committing some sort of sexual crime in which at the time no charges were filed when the police were looking at it, and Pete Heggsath wasn't sec def nominee. And this woman claims that the FBI did not interview her. It's possible they got all the information they needed without interviewing, or and thought she's a nut.

I have no idea. Right could be the eye of the beholder. No, I have no idea.

I don't think he can be cynical enough about a couple anonymous sources.

Please, This thing about bringing back duels, the idea of dueling is really interesting. Among other things we got on the way, so stay tuned, Armstrong.

And Getty, And finally, Duncan has partnered with a personal care brand offer a new collection of deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in a Boston cream scent. And in a related story, ben Affleck has.

Been eaten by ants. Wow.

So Pete Hegxath is on the hill being grilled should he be second deaf or not? The senators are trying to advise and confirm or not. And we'll have a clip of that coming up in a little bit where they get into women in combat, which is clearly one of the knocks the Democrats are going with this segment, Joe is going to talk about young people not drinking as much and whether that's good, and I'm going to talk about bringing back duels.

How did I get it here?

So I've been mentioning that I'm reading this book called Paris and Ruins, about the year eighteen seventy to eighteen seventy one in Paris. I got started on that by when I was in Washington, d C. I went to the National Art Museum, one of the great museum's art

Deaths, et cetera, et cetera.

But at one point in the book it mentions, I believe, not Monette but Manet, the father Impressionism, having a duel with some other dude, and the way they described the duel and how they all ended up laughing about it and drinking afterwards and everything like that. And I thought, how weird that dueling ever was a thing ever? And you know, I mean it killed Alexander Hamilton. I mean, it's just so crazy that dueling ever became a thing. Then I come across this in the New York Times

That's wide ranging.

And then this which I want to at least read this portion of the book, Collins, the author sincerely unconvincingly suggests that drug gangs organize pistol duels instead of resorting to chaotic drive by shootings and street fights. And I read a little more about that, and yes, it was a way that developed over time to deal with the whole.

You know.

He gave me a hard lick look in this kind stand situation.

So you had one hat Field and one McCoy square of bite, and everybody considers it.

Done right, considers it over. It has been dealt with, so that doesn't have to go on for weeks or months or years. Now another it's another Chesterton's fence. To me, we didn't understand how this arose in society. It clearly serves a purpose. I don't think there's any bringing it back. But how much better would that be if the bloods and the crips are the the whatever Ms thirteen or whoever the heck had some sort of system of dueling where you settled these sorts of beefs one on one.

Fascinating, go back to selling drugs to school children.

Fascinating culturally though that Yes, somehow a rose a pressure valve release that was less damaging to society.

Well, right, if we let this go, it's going to get completely out of control to an unjustified scale.

Let's settle this.

Yeah, yeah, how interesting. Our time is the opposite of that, just to any and it's it's interesting how hypocritical all of this is because a lot of the very you know, political forces that decry violence are more than willing to participate in it given half an excuse.

I think the example with the two painters.

I mean I can wreck a city, I can burn down stores, I can assault cops. I can beat down anybody who gets in my way, but if a cop raises a billy club, that's a horror that cannot be tolerated, right. I think the example of the duel with the painter and somebody else was he had slept with his other guy had slept with his girlfriend or something like that, which could have, you know, and like in a couple of gangs, could erupt into maybe years long battles with

But anyway, I.

Thought for voking drinking less, you say yes they No, I didn't, but yes they are, as it turns out, and I think after a break we can talk about that.

It is.

Weirdly connected to the previous discussion, but they're drinking way less and it's probably a bad thing, right.

I think, I know where you're going with this.

But as a guy who's got a couple of teenagers who I don't particularly want drinking a lot's an interesting topic. And we got some highlights from the pig pete hegzef hearing as they're getting into women in combat and all kinds of different subjects today.

Stick around, I hope you can.

Yeah, that's TikTok video the other day with a mom and a van with their kids driving into school, jam in this tune and they're all singing along, and I thought, that's kind of funny A bunch of little kids singing about getting drunk in the afternoon.

That's funny, Jack, Because gen Z is ditching the Booze Mordicum. Right.

So, Pete Hegzith, Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Defense is being grilled right now by Tim Kain. Maybe remember him, Hillary Clinton's running mate, wanted to be vice president. And all I do, I'm just reading the words up on the screen. I haven't heard it. Yeah, we're gonna go big on this. An Hour four had some stuff on there. He's saying to Pete, you cheated on your wife, you had an affair, you claim Jesus as your Lord and savior.

That's just all the stuff I read. So that's getting some pretty personal stuff right there.

Wow, Wow, Wow, fireworks and substantive and important discussion of what the nature of our fighting forces ought to be in the way the Pentagon ought to be run.

So something for everyone will go big next hour.

Stay tuned. If you don't get Next Hour, you got to go somewhere.

GRAVI it later via podcast, subscribe to Armstrong and getting on demand. So gen Z is ditching Booze. Now, this piece is kind of new York centric. They're talking about how zoomers want a wild night on the town, they won't wake up regretting. Instead, young adults are getting the social fixes. It's sober friendly gathering hubs and alcohol free bars that have been sprouting up in which some say is a sign of changing times.

Well, clearly, the times are always changing. That's what happens with times, says. Oh, they quote a bunch of we're supposed to call them zoomers.

Do I have to what does that mean? Generation? Z Okay?

Anyway, they quote a bunch of twenty somethings, including aid In spelled really weirdly, age twenty two. I think our generation is very aware, like a lot of us are activists, and I think that awareness influences our junkie habits.

You're right, they drink more.

With all the stuff we're hearing about the world constantly, you'd think we'd want a distraction, But I think our phones are distraction enough, so we don't need as much alcohol.

All right, Aiden, here's some absence. I have a good time.

And they go into describing these various game clubs and alcohol free bars and stuff. Here's another youngster, you're real age twenty six, they may with a normal name. No, When people of the previous generation think of drinking, they think of binge drinking. They think of going to a bar, slamming back twelve drinks and being hammered the next night.

You know, why are you speaking for me, sweetheart?

They think of the idea of cracking up in a six pack before they go to bed.

You know what, this is the mirror image of something else that's unpalatable. So as you get older, everybody has a tendency to think the current young crop of kids are just going to ruin the America.

They're just degenerates.

And then the flip side of that is every new young group of people think the superior to.

All the people older than them. Both of those things are hard to take.

It's a thousands year old tradition as a matter of fact, right, says twenty three year old Lee spelled weird too.

I do drink.

When I do, I'll probably have like one drunk. Says Kathleen, Oh, a normal name quote. I think people in my generation are more conscious of their health and don't say drinking as a social obligation.

You know.

In defense of these youngsters, some reporter ask them, why do you even ask them? They don't know anything. They're young, they're dumb. But there are statistics to back up. The bellies are flat and they're good looking, so there are statistics to back this up, though, right the young people would one hundred percent. Oh yeah, it's it's been a cataclysmic for the hard liquor industry. Beer has plummeted, even the you're like white claw type hard ciders and seltzers and stuff that were.

So hot what ten years ago.

If you listen to if you listen to country music, every young person in America is drinking whiskey and white claw all day long.

Yeah, yeah, well not so much apparently.

Anyway, I thought that was interesting, and you know, everybody colding in the article pitches it as laimar hathe and al, and I was reminded of an absolutely brilliant piece I read by kat Rosenfield, who was writing for The Free Press, and she opens it. I can't resist because it's one of my favorite scenes too, and it's not just because

Drinking, whatever Hobbit's drink.

Right, he throws back his pint and she in Cat writes, this moment is good because so many of us recognize it. Many of our best and bravest moments started with a shot or two of liquid courage. And yet contemporary narratives about young people in drinking are all markedly and overwhelmingly negative optimizers.

That's the term I never use.

Warned that alcohol is an addictive poison, activists cite the link between drinking and sexual assault, and young celebrities who might have once made headlines for partying can instead be touting the benefits of sobriety.

And she has links to the various.

Art Why did you quote some things that are true for a tiny percentage of people, as if that's everyone.

I mean, what's the point of.

That tiny percentages of what tiny percentage of drinkers become alcoholics? Tiny percentage of drinkers commit you know, crimes or die of some you know, alcohol related cancer, or get raped or whatever. But then cat gets on to the point that I think is really really good in spite of the narrative that be old the Zoomers in their glorious sobriety so much smarter, healthier, and more sensible than the sloppy barfing generations.

That preceded them.

Now that's good writing, because that's the only kind of drinking you can do, sloppy barfing drinking. But scratch the surface of gen Z's sobriety, and what you find isn't wisdom so much as fear. Fear of vulnerability, fear of failure, fear of being out of control.

And we're not talking about completely out of control.

But out of complete, total, every second control. This is a generation that is both highly conflict diverse and virtually allergic to risk, particularly when it comes to markers of autonomous adulthood, driving, working, sex, going out for a few drinks.

They are terrified of all of that stuff.

Working is a problem because you kind of have to work to support yourself. But I was gonna ask, I said, I was going to say, is this tie in anything to lack of willingness to want to get a driver's license, your lack of willingness to want to drink?

One hundred percent?

The bosses of gen Z employees report that they can't make eye contact, they can't take criticism, and even ask questions when they don't know how to or they're even afraid to ask questions if they don't know how to do something.

Using the word vey a lot. Always got to throw this in on the Armstrong and Getty show. They didn't raise themselves exactly exactly. And I'm you know, I'm always heading there with my free range parenting screed.

Uh, but this generation after you know what? To that point, Cat Rosenfield writes this inability to tolerate the friction of ordinary interaction at worker elsewhere as an obstacle when it comes to connecting with others. But more, perhaps more importantly, it stands in the way of fun, a thing with which Zoomers are not well acquainted. After a highly regimented childhood and an overscheduled adolescence, not their faults.

Packed with resume building activities.

This generation isn't just more anxile and depressed them their predecessors. They're so tightly wound and mistrustful of others that they would rather die than let their guard down, which rules alcohol right out. I'm reminded of the famous move.

I don't look as the Germans for much instruction on anything other than maybe building auto bonds and engineering.

But the German insurance industry.

Came out several years ago in a giant story in Europe that was ignored in the US because it was so uncomfortable.

The German insurance.

Industry said, hey, make playgrounds fun again, and quote unquote dangerous. We have raised generations of kids who have no sense of their own their own abilities. They have no developed risk assessment skills. All of childhood to a large extent, And if you look at it as a strictly anthropological topic,

You're going to have adults who are terrified. That's really interesting.

I'd like my kids to stay away from indebriants as long as possible, but I don't want them to be unable to have a job, or ask a girl out for a date, or call the place in order a pizza or any of those things.

So right, would you send your kids off to college having not tried alcohol?

I went off to college having not tried alcohol, and I don't get me any harm. But yeah, I don't think that bothers me. It depends on I guess it would be the reason. Are you afraid of it? Well?

Right, right, I don't think I was afraid of it.

I just didn't run with a crowd that did that, and everything went great.

Or not depends on the individual.

Of course, my daughters knew what alcohol does to them before they went to college.

I thought that was important. Hum interesting.

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