Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe, Katty arm Strong, and Jetty and he Armstrong and Yetty.
Honestly serious question, I should put this to the listeners. I don't even know if I want to be this kind of person or not. I'm not a boycott person. I'm not a well I'm not a boycott person. But I don't think I could have listened to that screed from Springsteen and stayed for the rest of the concert.
It was just one step too.
Far for me.
For me, i'd held my breath and waited it out like a painful dental procedure, than when the second chapter began. That's when I would have said, all right, f this, pardon me, I'm out. The painful part is you can't boo them, because you'll think you're just saying Bruce well right.
As I mentioned earlier, The part that bothers me the most is it's got that whole I'm cool and all you people are cool that agree with me, and we're the cool people, and people that don't agree with this are uncool people. That is enough to drive me out of the arena.
Not just uncool but stupid and down with fascism. Right, oh good lord? And then you agree, of telecasters.
Your point earlier just from a I mean, you know, just narrow Bruce Springsteen's audience thing, he used to be the champion of the working class, and the working class is clearly maga. I mean they're like sixty five percent of his audience is probably maga.
Now, if you could take every character from every single Bruce Springsteen's song and animate them, they would vote in the eightieth percentile for Trump. Yeah that's correct. Yeah, what what he's just He is a very wealthy, creeative artist, a very old, very wealthy creative artist who's utterly out of touch with the people he thinks he represents. You know, the most annoying, pretentious thing is that ever happened? And this was how many Christmases a go, now, maybe five?
When him and Obama Thank you gladys, When him and Obama did that DVD book set thanging Did you.
Ever see any of that?
And then the bookstores you could get this big, giant coffee table book and it had Bruce and Obama's faces on the cover, laughing, And then pictures of them together having a conversation about America, and then there's a video that goes with it and stories from Bruce. I mean, it's just it was the most over the top, two completely out of touch rich people.
It was vomit worthy.
Oh yeah, what would be the example, like the reverse.
For the other crowd.
I mean it'd be like if Trump and I don't even know what it would be Obama springs to sitting around like bathed in their own self enjoyment is Ah, it's just too much.
He either missed that or blotted it out because it was too terrible. I send you a Lincoln in white.
It's got a real and he lebo. It's so artistic, you know, we're.
A the whole thing. I hate everything about it.
If I ever walked into somebody house and they got that on their coffee table, I'm not even gonna say anything about why I'm leaving.
I'll just turn and walk out, like where'd he go? I'm setting fire to it. You're gonna make a stubber, all right. So Final hour of the Week, got a lot of stuff to squeeze in. You gonna have to choose carefully. There's fifteen pounds a show for a five pound bag. But let's kick it off with the Friday tradition. It's fun look back at the week that was. It's cow clips of the week. You're saying, he's dead. Lights are blinking, the sirens are turning. Whip the week.
America, I love, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for two hundred and fifty years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treesonistric administration.
The drastic d escalation in the trade war between the United States and China, so there is a chance to rebalance together. This is not a political conference, this is a business conference. I want to make a deal with Iran. I want to do something of as possible.
There's two steps. Is a very very nice step and there's a violent step. I don't want to do the second step.
The equipment that we use, much of it, we can't buy parts for now. We have to go on eBay and buy parts.
Any of the representatives that were there, you lay a finger on them, we are going to have a problem.
You can intimidate me, come back, give me a break.
I was one of a green uniform barbitu rel agent for five years before she was even born.
The bottom line is the was lying. I think some of the criticism is fair. To be honest of me again, it makes me mental. It was clear with me. Now. Two of the heroic reporters were covering this intensely during the Biden years. We're coming up close to the one trillion dollar amount is lost every year a fraud. You saw it coming?
Oh yeah, I mean it was like they threw money in the air and just let people run around and grab it.
Sow.
I'm Dinny Combs.
The so called freak offs happened weekly, many of the sessions photographed and filmed. She even testified about him, you know, threatening to blow up Wrapper Kid Cutty's part.
I think he convicted. Trump's gonna impart me President. Could I asked you a question.
What I'm in London and I just paid for this damn fat drug I take?
I said, it's not working.
Lit more expensive than slower than a bus.
Hanson has been working on AI songs about California's idiotic just spectacularly evil theft bullet train more expensive and slower than bus. That was the jingle. I wrote, Oh, that's fantastic, fleshed out via AI. That has to be that has to catch on. The bullet train more expensive and slower than a bus. They play fifteen for us right, bullet.
Train borens expay a body down the drain, said, but it will make news.
I'm not like less of a man. The bullet train.
More expense, so man slower than a bus?
Hop on d it? What was I saying before you laugh? I laughed. If it's hilarious, let's run that five million times? Please? I love I hear it again right now.
I love that Hanson has become like the show's AI voice, like we can't hear him, but he just sends us all of these nuggets.
Especially when Newsom finally announces and he's trying to make his way through the Democratic primary.
Every time we mention him, it's got to be that hook. The bullet train.
More expensive and slower than of us.
Bullet train.
Born tax, pay a bonnet down the train you won't see or.
Said, but he will make news look.
Like let's super Man.
The bullet train.
More expensive, that slow than a bus.
That is just gold.
Oh, I want to be the person who plays a tambourine on that song. All I do is I just hit it on my hip and shake it.
Yeah. Hey, it's good work if you can get it. Hey, let's uh is this is thirteen the Metal one Michael play that it's a.
Scammaboon dogle, a waste of our time from Mercy Bakersfield.
Who would say, right.
Than a play more expensive than a bus? It's a song cost this fuss.
I think it's interesting cost getting into economic principles in the.
Middle of the ah. You don't hear that so much metal. I like the fact that AI, which is all knowing, pronounces Merced merst even though there is no word mersed the only way you would ever write me e r c ed in English languages. You know the town of Merced, But AI, with all its genius, doesn't know that.
You haven't walked into the mall and found yourself. You look around and I was mersed. No, no, I haven't you know.
I like to medal, but I like the airy, dopey, poppy feel of the Heart Family issue. Yeah, it's just so relentlessly pleasant in describing the utterly indefensible theft of billions and billions of hundreds of billions of dollars bullied hop on, bore a body down the drink. I feel like I'm but it will make news.
I'm not like less of a man, more expensive than slow than a bus.
Bullboard, folks, the California Bullet Train coming to you in the year twenty seventy six.
Well, that's the other part that was great is that they said most of it will be done in two decades.
If I didn't even say all of it two decades from now, MERCE said to Gilroy, Palmdale, Gilroy to Palmdale, Oh all right right, all right, Palmdale. Yes, check out a map, folks, if you're not familiar with the sprawling geography of cal Unicornia.
Because Hanson loves when I suggest things that give him more work.
Could we get a shirt? Could we get a shirt? The bullet train more expensive and slower than a bus. I will wear that shirt. I will wear it all. I will wear it all the time. It's got to have the California the cal Unicornia state flag on it too. Yeah, walking billboard right here?
Yeah, well I love that, fitting in with the Bruce Springsteen working man thing.
I listened to a podcast yesterday with Senator Phil Graham.
Anybody remember him? Senator from Texas Republican PhD in economics. I didn't remember that he ran for president a couple of times. Didn't get a whiff. You know why, because he was like a serious guy about small government and
fiscal sanity. We want a game show host, yay. But he's got a new book out about the myths of he'd written a book called The Myth of American Inequality a couple of years ago, and he's got a new one out called The Triumph of Economic Freedom that point out some interesting things about kind of the whole Bruce Springsteen thing. Really that is I thought, really interesting. Maybe I'll pass that along among other things on the way, stay here.
This guy's I read that the Denver Airport was recently hit with an outage and some pilots couldn't contact air traffic control for six minutes. Meanwhile Newer Airport was like six minutes, please cost when he hit six days that.
Way six minutes?
Yeah, air traffic controller in the Wall Street Journal today talking about how close call that he had a week or so ago at Newark and now he's really worried there's going to be a crash soon because of these various outages and he just barely caught one and was able to straighten it out two planes that were headed.
Toward each other.
He can't do this endlessly where you have you know, two minutes here, two minutes there, drop out at busy airports.
No, No, there are problems top to bottom with the system. I believe that firmly, so I mentioned this.
I was listened to a podcast interview with former Senator Phil Graham, who I did not have on my radar in my life. I wish I had because I actually saw our friend Tim Sanderfer, who he had on earlier in the show.
If you missed that, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on the Men.
Tim Sanderfer changed his registration in California to Republicans so he could vote for Phil Graham when Phil Graham briefly ran for president back in the day, although he never got to because Phil Graham dropped out because he's one of those people, like a lot of politicians, it's like actually serious about governance and spending and dealing with things, and those people never.
Get the nomination. Yeah, he's not a pandering whore. Yes, And he's got a book out right now and he's in his eighties. Now he's a very old guy. He was a senator from Texas.
The myth of American inequality came out a couple of years ago, and he's got a new one, the triumph of Economic Freedom, which sounds like very similar, like restructuring, hoping it gets attention again.
But one of the things he pointed out, and I've never heard this before, that.
For all kinds of different like artistic, cultural reasons and some economic reasons, the industrial Revolution gets a bad rap and always has and it continues till this to this day of this idea that there was before the the Industrial Revolution, there was some sort of man, it was great to be a farmer out in the fields, living the good life, free of you know, being bothered and
and everything like that in exploitation. And then the Industrial Revolution came along and forced everybody into this exploitive world and all this poverty, and.
That is the narrative.
Yep. He points out that a lot of that has to do with Charles Dickens and a number of other people who wrote that story, and it just kind of caught on and has lived forever, ignoring the fact that the reason people flowed into the factories and everything like that is because the life they were living was incredibly exploitive and brutal on the farms, almost always farming mostly for someone else, and them getting all your work and you barely getting by, and you living with like fifteen
people in one house and half the kids died, and all these other statistics that got so much better after the Industrial Revolution, right, and that prior to the Industrial Revolution, I thought this was really interesting.
The idea of what do we do about the poor people started with the Industrial Revolution.
It was the first time anybody had ever even considered the fact that maybe we could do away with people who are just so incredibly poor and have such miserable lives.
Prior to that, it was just assumed.
That most of us did and would and always will and because there was like a chance that maybe you could get out of that. Ever since then, there's been this weird belief that it's horrible that there are poor people that are being exploited and have rough lives and we need to have a war against that and eliminate it. It's only because things got so good that you could even have that conversation, So we've kind.
Of have it completely backwards. Our view of that whole thing. Right, what's really interesting to me is the sort of person who becomes a scribbler hasn't changed a ton, I don't think in one hundred and fifty years. In that you have something built that's amazing and complex and incredibly productive, and it has some fairly serious flaws, and people point out those flaws, and to a very very large extent,
they get fixed. But the view of history, because it's written by the very sort of person who is in the mainstream media today, lionizes the fixers of the problems who deserve credit, but it makes into monsters the designers of the giant system that was incredibly successful but just needed some tweaks. Life got so much better. If it was inevitable, all the good stuff would happen.
Right, Life got so much better for the average human being ever since the Industrial Revolution.
But it's portrayed as a horror mostly yes, because of its pretty notable imperfections.
But yeah, but the imperfections and the imperfections they were dealing with before. Right, children are dying, they were being exploited, they were short life spans, et cetera, et cetera. Before the Industrial Revolution, are strong and getty, how are you feeling about Friday?
Huh? Excited? Gonna party? I'm gonna party. I don't believe you're gonna party. Probably not party.
Probably take care of my kids, figure out some meals, do some laundry, get to bed on time.
I usually get to bed early on a Friday. See yes, every night of the week. For some reason, at this point in my life, I cannot say the same. So I started my day with a early morning jabbing. Had to have the standard of blood work done before my visit with my doctor, and got an appointment in all what you need to do these days, and my wife, who's like a week off on the cycle of going to see the doctor, had her blood work done at the same place, and she said, oh, I hope you
get You know what's her name. She's the little gal. She's so bubbly and so cheery and so wonderful. So I got there today and there she is. Not only is she cute and bubbly and cherry Jesus, and she she let us know we are discussing the nice weather, et cetera, blah blah blah, And I thought, okay, great, Yeah that's the gal. Git. He was talking about and then out comes from the bowels of the building, a darker present, this big. There's no reason to go into description A large A woman of large.
You know what's interesting years. I have no idea where the dis direction is this story is going. I don't know if we were about to get off on how Christian she was or now. I don't know we're going to got to hang out.
For the ride. That's that's the brilliant that's the brilliance of my artistry. I'm hanging on. I'm hanging on. I don't know what it's about. The old gal radiating hatred for humanity from every pore. She was glowing with hatred of humankind, just visible on our face. And they're book for bottomists.
Yes, uh, Joe, we we refer to those large margin charge So yes, well, large Marge was in charge and something.
Oh give me the sweet little girl. I'll give me the sweet little girl. But no, no, I got the mountain of malevolence. You don't request, I request.
Well, remember I used to have my guy Pong, my non Pong, and I liked Pong, and I would I would, I would show up and say I want Pong, So I'll wait however long it takes until Pong comes up.
Yeah, the place I go, you know, I only go like once every six months was a year. And they're not consistent. They're a bunch of different gals, and I think one dude wants who worked there. But and if I have the one that doesn't look like they've been in prison, you could say that, can I can I get the one who is gonna jab me with the needle whether I need it or not? Can I not
have her? Yeah? She actually is pretty good. It was fine, but you know, I found myself like trying to manage the relationship with being really pleasant and upbeat without being gush, you know, because if you're in a foul mood, and she was clearly in a foul mood. If you're in a foul mood, the super chip or person who's trying to bring you out of it, that's not helping. So I said, all right, you just got to play your
cards right. That my job. It's like, you know, you're being robbed and you're just trying to look you can have my wallet and all. It's just this. I'll end it here. Look at the lay back and think England. Well, exactly. I was getting jaded one way or the other, and I wanted it to be, you know, a good and turned out to be fine to her professionalism intact, more than any other job though. I mean, because we're all human.
Beings and we have good days and bad days, and days when we're in good moods and bad moods, and that job it's got to be particularly difficult. You know, you have your I don't know, in argument with your husband or your teenager says something you hate when you drop off at school or whatever.
And then you got to go in and be delicate, or you can take it out on your kid. Everything I do for that kid. No, No, I've been raising that kid and I feed him and everything, and they have no GODA. Plus you're dealing with the public for your entire shift, and anybody who's dealt with public knows that that alone will put your teeth on edge. But anyway, I worked out all right. I'm just so glad it's over. Anyway.
So I've been wanting to get to this, and I don't know why exactly, but I find the dynamics of this so interesting, speaking of managing a one on one relationship and that is the history of American presidents getting played by Vladimir Putin. And this is written by Tom Rogan. I don't know Tom, I know Joe Rogan, I know what's our Boddy from the Washington Post, Josh Josh Rogan, Right, well, this is yet another Rogan.
But you read the David Sanger version of Putin and Bush and how they hung out together like friends back in the day.
Yeah, yeah, it was rough to read in retrospect. Well, this Rogan leads with Donald Trump says he wants peace in Ukraine. The problem is that mister Trump sees Vladimir Putin for you who he wishes Putin to be. See if you agree with his friends. He wishes him to be a hardened but practical negotiator rather than who he is, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who revels in the dark art of ruthless manipulation. Mister Trump was shaped by the
Wheeler Dealer New York City real estate scene. Mister Putin was shaped by the brutal maximalism of the KGB's Red Banner Institute. But mister Trump is not the first US president to take an unrealistic view of his Russian counterpart consider his predecessor's experiences, and I was reminded of the
patheticness of this going through this. The first American president to deal with Putin was Bill Clinton, and he chose to remain largely silent on human rights concerns in Russia, including the incredible civilian casualties during the Second Chechen War. Mister Clinton instead focused on wooing mister Putin to join the post Cold War democratic international order. Mister Putin did
nothing of the sort. He intimidated the Russian media, cultivating an inner circle of oligarchs, and took the crush down the road of totalitarianism all on. Mister Clinton stood idly by, hoping. But I don't know what Clinton was supposed to do, honestly. But next came George W. Bush, meeting Putin in June oh one. Bush said he quote look the man in the eye and found him be very straightforward and trustworthy, adding that he gained a sense of his soul as
a human being. I have soft feelings for George W. Bush. That is one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard, certainly in retrospect. That was wishful thinking of a Titanic scale. Yeah, mister Bush had been duped by mister Putin's KGB mind games. Mister Putin appealed to mister Bush, a born again Christian, with a story about his mother's Orthodox cross being rescued
from a fire in her datcha. Mister Putin adopted a similar tactic with mister Trump's chief foreign affairs negotiator, Steve Whitcoff, telling mister Whitcroft that he had prayed for mister Trump when he learned of the assassination attempt against him in July. Putin has never prayed for anything in his life. No, the fact that.
Some people, including many of our listeners, believe Putin's some sort of protector of Christianity, Good Lord.
One more example, and then you know the main point, which which Jack is certainly hinting at. Then there was Barack Obama. Soon after taking office in on and I, and Obama essentially excused Russia's invasion of Georgia five months prior publicly seeking a reset in relations. At July, Obama travel Moscow to meet with Putin. Obama advisor Michael mcfollo's McFall, who served as ambassador to Russia for a number of years, recounts in his twenty eighteen book How Putin quickly asserted
dominance over the American President. Putin quote Putin spoke uninterrupted for nearly the entire time schedule for the meeting documenting the injustices of the Bush administration. This was a guy, this is the Bush administration, that could see into his soul. This was a guy with a chip on his shoulder. Obama listened patiently, maybe too patiently. It was my assignment to read out this meeting to our press court later that day. I couldn't tell them that Obama merely listened
the entire time. Then they go into the history of the appeasement of Obama. I think, what maybe our presidents under estimate, one after the other after the other, maybe for reasons of their own egos, is that they're up against a master, a master manipulator. Not just a hard ass negotiator and a cutthroat, but a guy whose gift in not coming off as a cutthroat, in anticipating what you want to hear and giving it to you.
Maybe the first time, the first president, that's fine, you can get away with that, But since then, I don't see how you get manipulated by the guy.
It seems obvious what he is.
He's a ruthless he will he would murder your child if it benefited him.
He's that yeah. Yeah, Or even if he thought there was one and four chance it would benefit him, Yeah, your child would be dead. Trump clearly is prone to being swayed by flattery. I mean, that's just beyond denial
at this point. And it was. I've been watching special report with Brett Paar, especially this week, in which he's talked to various leaders in the countries that Trump's visited in the Middle East, in which he's done some really really interesting diplomas that might be like crazy beneficial for the next fifty years. There's some stuff that's bothered me, but I think a lot of it is really really
impressive what Trump's been doing. But it's been unbelievable how every figure Brett Baar interviews goes way over above and beyond the call of duty in praising Trump, Like it's almost like they've got a timer going off every fourth sentence to make sure they throw in some lavish praise for Trump. And soon.
Yeah, on that front, I'm concerned. Trump said earlier today, he said it's time. It's time Putin and I meet. We got to make that happen. And I'm really concerned about how that meeting goes. That Trump might just lavish praise on Putin to his face and bad They both sit there in bad mouth Selensky.
And I don't know what we do with that. That would be tough to take. Yeah, in fact, I almost predict that's what's going to happen. But Putin will, like have a ten million dollar documentary of Joe Biden's deceit and dementia produced and show it to Trump. He will build a shrine to Malania's beauty. He'll cut off his own thumb. Maybe, if he needs to to convince Trump. They're on the same page, and they're the kind of guys who get it. Other people don't get it like we do, but we sure do.
Maybe he can get some of those hair swinging dancers that they had in Abu Dhabi yesterday. Trump seemed to like those the girls that swung their hair. I gotta get the hair swinging dancer video. I missed that somehow something. Yeah, but we'll we'll have to see.
I don't get it either, how one president after another after another makes the same set of mistakes. Well, even doesn't realize they're dealing with an alligator. They're dealing with a reptile.
You don't need to meet with the CIA and have them you read the profile that they've dug up and put together for you.
How about the fact that he.
Burned all those people in that apartment building so he could blame the Chechens and start a war.
Yeah, I mean, that's who does that. Yeah, that's the kind of guy you're dealing with.
He would burn a whole bunch of families of the Russians so he could blame it on the Chechens and start a war because he wanted to.
Sure, Yeah, that's straight out of his philosophy and Hitler's and others. No, dang, Michael, this is not a gratuitous Hitler mentioned. This is a specific sighting of very different exactly. But the great Man view of history is, if you are not willing to sacrifice tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives, you will not be one of the great men of history. If you blanche at sacrificing all those lives, you don't deserve the gig you're in
the wrong job. Chum. That's what Vladimir Putin would say. Oh that going in. Man, if they meet, that is gonna be some high steaks drama. I'll tell you that. Wow, we'll finish strong. Next, here's a headline. I think you brought us Katie the other day. And I finally dug into the story. The US engineers found rogue communication devices and Chinese solar panels.
Yeah, which I said, someone who has solar I'm a little concerned.
Yeah, I've got to admit I thought, okay, heck, devices in solar panels. I don't spend a lot of time like spilling national secrets on my roof or anything. So what's the significance of this? Because I'm a bit of a dim wit. But so these Chinese made solar power inverters and batteries had these undocumented communication channels that could allow, according to a source Reuter's talk to the rogue components provide additional undocumented communication channels. They could allow firewalls to
be circumvented remotely, with potentially catastrophic consequences. The story illustrates the security issue that's haunted analysts since the dawn of the Internet of things, the sudden craze for adding Internet connectivity to all manner of devices, from household appliances to industrial machinery. I was thinking about that the other day.
So I have a fountain in my backyard that is connected to an app where I can control the schedule that it runs. But I was sitting there going, dude, even my fountain runs through the Internet.
Yeah, yeah, that is the thing. I've resisted this. Very early on in the Internet of Things era, I ran into an article that explained how, you know, the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world were exploiting the fact that they are now in your thermostat, in your ring, doorbell or whatever. Yeah, and I was so off put by that. I haven't
really dug into it. But so in the case of these vicious Chinese power and vergers, the devices were designed to connect solar panel rays and windmills to power grids, and they have Internet capability, mostly allegedly, so their performance can be monitored and their software can be updated easily.
But these these people set up firewalls, or these companies set up firewalls and their technology teams to prevent the devices from sending on authorized signals, and they physically inspect equipment from China to look for bugs, and they find them with shocking regularity. This is so obviously an effort by the Chinese to get into our power grids and our systems and our circuits, both individual homes and in mass areas so they can like simultaneously send signals that
then f up the grids. That's what the nastiness is going to look like. Everything shuts down. That's what we need. On a Friday way, this is well, we are so asleep anyway. Let's get a final thought from everybody on the crew to wrap things up for the day, beginning with our technical director Michael Angelow. Michael final thought. This means I can now hack into my neighbor's thermostat and make it ninety degrees in their house just because I
don't like him or something. Oh good call then make it fifty.
Uh.
Jack has had to dash off to an appointment Katie Green or esteemed to Newswoman.
As a final thought, Katie, I have sneezed twenty three times during the course of the show.
I just want to let you guys know. Yeah, wow, allergies coast to coast are are terrible. Is it climate change and if so, what the hell are you gonna do about it? Anyway? Get some tissues? Have you taste?
Hey, you've stolen my dreams, You've made me sneeze a lot.
Anyway. My final thought is heavy, great weekend. I'll be on the golf course if you need me. So many people to thank, so little time. Armstrong and Getty wrapping up another grueling four hour workday. We have many pleasures, many pleasures awaiting you at Armstrong and Getty dot com, including the swag store. Pick up an ang T shirt for your favorite AMG fan. We're working on the new T shirt. California's bullet train more expensive and slower than
a bus. Yes, effected to sell it like hotcakes. We will see you on Monday. Thanks so much for listening. God bless America. Armstrong and Getty is an unpredictable beast. I was wondering you know what you felt about that in particularly and listen, Let's go. And that's the type of courage we need in America to stand up here. One final message, the California bullet train more expensive and slower than a bus. Great Friday, The Armstrong and Getty