That Made The Big Dumb Cup Look Smart

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty and he Armstrong and Getty.

Talk about the US military and how it really does it stands this is this is not cheerleading on my part. I think any any military person in the world would say the same thing. The United States and its capabilities and its power and in its discipline right now certainly seems to be second to nine.

It is, Joe, It's awesome.

The power of the military, the power of the people in the military is incredible. We can do anything we're asked to do.

The US military can do anything. I love how on MSNBC they have to qualify it, you know, I don't want to be too much of a cheer leader here. Same show on Morning Joe Today, they had David Ignatius of the Washington Post and he had to qualify his statement. I don't want to be you know, I don't want to be giving Trump too much credit here. But the point of his article was this sent a message to China and Russia that is going to back them off.

Yeah, the whole narrative, well Trump always chickens out was wildly overrated, the whole taco thing, But the question of does he make blustery threats and doesn't really intend to live up to him, that question was out there. I'd say this changes the calculus significantly.

Well, and stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a different topic than tariffs too, just completely different worlds. A couple of things for you, Well, I do this first, or this first before I get to the let's hear from Mike Lions, and then we'll get to the breaking news. It's not so breaking that I feel like I need to get it on this second. We talked to Mike Lynes, one of our favorite military analysts, this morning. He had a couple of things to say. We thought we'd repeat.

Classic Iranian playbook. They sow fear within our country, saying we're going to really sleeper cells. You know, they must watch the same movies that made here in Hollywood, because I just think that's completely overblown. They will likely try to maybe target some American forces that are in the area, that are close that are all that are all buttoned

So that's to the what could Iran do or will they do something back as a you know, a response. Fox News alert sources to Fox imminent threat of Iranians Iranian strike on US You I'm going to learn to install windows? How long would that take it this age?

Hey, you got an apprentice for a few years, really get it down. But you don't need to be able to talk to do that, right, So maybe the good morning of your your clients and.

Maybe that'd be a better job choice for you. Your coworkers. Sources to Fox imminent threat of Iranian strike on US base in Qatar. So they have some info on that. We'll see if that's true or not. I've been wondering what the Mullahs think they would get out of an attack and what's their endgame. Mike Lions spoke to that a little bit.

There's no negotiation that's going to take place. They're not interested in talking, They're interested in just surviving and delaying. But they're in such a bad point strategically right now. I just I just think they're going to do it. I wouldn't be surprised if they get on planes and left. I think that's gonna the only survival that the switzerlander gets some other place, and that's the only thing. Wow, sure they're survival at this point.

I don't know that I want that.

I thought it was notable that after the devastating American attacks, the Iyatola came out with a blistering statement against Israel, didn't even mention the Great Satan. Now was that a faint Does he or the Republican Guard actually intend Revolutionary Guard intend to go after the US directly? Boy, that seems like a suicide mission to both of us. But they might feel like they have to to have any legitimacy.

Man, I hadn't heard anybody other than Mike Lyons bring up the idea of them. Maybe they jump on a plane and do the whole dictator living out the rest of their life somewhere else routine. But then there's nobody running Iran and it could fall into you know, full on Iraqi chaos.

Right right, that's possible. The interesting question is who's a greed head inside Iran and who's an actual religious fundamentalist nut job, Because if you're the part of the latter group, you're not going to take some sort of golden parachute to live the rest of your life out in Monaco or the UAE or whatever.

No way, and we haven't mentioned this for a while, just in case you don't know. So everybody supporting the Trump administration went on all the talk shows yesterday and said, this is not a war with Iran, and we're not about regime change. We are not interested in regime change. Regime change. No, if you say regime change again, I'm gonna slap you because that's not our thing. And then Trump, like after all those people went on the shows, tweet it out it's not politically correct to use the term

It's a great example of Trump not observing the rules of diplomacy and standard presidential statements, and.

Sometimes I think that's a mistake.

Sometimes I think, who doesn't think everybody wants the iatola to go? Everybody wants him to go. He just set it out loud. It's not that crazy. Well, that empowers forces within Iran to claim that it's a US directed blah blah blah. I don't know how true all that's I'm not worried about that statement. Yeah, so speaking of the Revolutionary Guard, really interesting situation now. Israeli strikes have taken out many of their senior personnel.

Yes, the latest MTG. I don't think you had this in what you were reading earlier from Marjorie Taylor Green. Only six months in and we're back into foreign wars. It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons. Wow, from Marjorie Taylor Green and the Tucker crowd. Open warfare with Trump seems like a bad idea. Yeah, we can get back to that, man, if you will think, if you won't, think you are maga and Trump is just along for the ride. Well, I guess we're about

But anyway, so the Revolutionary Guard battered Supreme leader Iatola Kamaneeses role depends to a large extent of loyalty from the Guard. Quoting from the Journal, he has empowered the military force to the extent it's likely to outlive him. But if Kamanie were toppled or killed, the Revolutionary Guard most likely to step in and dictate a new ruler and run the show. I just think these organizations are really, really interesting and Americans can't relate to them at all.

The Guard dominates all major.

Infrastruate ructure sectors, including oil and gas, construction, and telecommunications. The Revolutionary Guard is there Exxon, it's their what's a giant construction company, and they're at and t it's also damn near their Amazon dot Com and their Walmart, and they're separate even nominate tourism, and they're separate from the army. Yes, But so my question would be, since Israel has killed the leaders of the army and the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard, do.

We know how they would react the new leaders? No. I mean, you can make educated guesses, but they did. But they wouldn't have the cult of personality that you usually have as a military leader when you're gonna take over a country. No, that's absolutely correct.

Although again, my point in describing this, and there's a little more to it, but is that this is a giant corporation. It is much more like than it is the United States Army because it has its hands in so many different industries and economic activities.

So is your belief that they're motivated by money as opposed to bringing back the thirteenth Madi or whatever of that all stuff is? Yeah, that's the super interesting part of it.

It's difficult to say, I have a feeling you got guys who are ninety ten greed heads versus religious fanatics and guys who are ten ninety in the other direction.

But if they're mostly just businessmen. They're like you know, Putin or the oligarchs in Russia. Then we might be okay with that, right, It'd be like lcc run in Egypt, right exactly.

Yeah, That's one of the reasons I was kind of enthused about bringing this up is I think dealing with the greed heads would be a great option for the rest of the world because you can do business with them.

Now.

Trump one of Trump's blind spots is I think this less now, I guess than I used to.

But he always thinks.

The offer to make a lot of money and bring prosperity to your people, whether it's Putin or the Ietola or whatever, he thinks that's irresistible because that's how he sees the world. And Putin's like, no, I'm going to restore the Great Russian Empire and I'm going to be Peter the Great, So thanks anyway. And the Mullas obviously are like, no, it's all about Allah and and I

Got a little tip for you, based on recent major news events about how you should take in news. If you're doing it the old way. If you hear something's happening and you flip on CNN, man, you are way behind and ain't the way to do it. Plus you got to look at wolf Blitzer. I want to suspend their Saturday evening looking at wolf Blitzer, not even missus Blitzer. Thats mean spirited. That and other stuff on the way. Stay here. So a couple of different things for you.

I could see if you're part of the hardcore, especially young social media crowd, that'd be really attractive.

I don't have the time, but right, yeah, but that'll be interesting to see if Samsung is way ahead in the whole AI in the phone thing, as I've become such a chat GPT guy as opposed to Google. Now again to the changing times, we got a new robotaxi ladies and germs. Tesla announced over the weekend. Robotaxis are here, the Tesla robo taxi. They're launched them in Austin, where

So rioters can surround Tesla's and set them on fire.

Yeah, I don't know how often that's going to happen, if that's a big deal or not. I don't have any idea. And then I came across this. I was going to mention today about how if you're not going to Twitter, or maybe you have a different social media thing you go to Instagram or something. I don't know, for when news breaks, you're just you so far behind. I was kind of monitoring cable news while I was doing Twitter as news came out that we had bombed around and cable news was so far behind. And I

Have, Yeah, that would that would kind of put a fine point on it, though, I think that would illustrate. You know, why would I have Anderson Cooper read it to me?

I can read, so you learned when I was a little kid. So you think MSNBC and CNN they're just holding on to the fact that their old viewers haven't caught on to the fact that they can get all this an hour earlier and from better sources somewhere else. Ding for what.

It's worth, the I heard that Free Press live stream later and it was it was unbelievably good.

Really, I've got a JAP on that Next Time Experts on Tehran and Italy, Italy.

Israel and warfare and stuff up at three o'clock in the morning where they were talking about it in depth.

It was really really good.

I mean, you gotta be really into it to enjoy it because it was in depth, but it was very, very impressive.

There is a YouTube channel our boss turned us on to where a guy basically does sit there and scroll through Twitter and just give you all the latest stuff. And he's pretty good at which Twitter sites to go to. But that's where news breaks. If there's a shooting or anything happens, a protests in La you go on Twitter, you will get more news. You'll get videos that they won't have till the next day on your cable news channels.

Yeah, la boo boos are everything that's wrong with America. I'm not sure we'll have time to get to that today. By tomorrow, la boo boos. So it's creepy looking freaky dolls. The deep are all hot to trot for that made the dumb cup looks smart.

Somehow I missed the labooboo trend. Okay, you'll have to bring me up speed on that.

But Jack, you were hot to trot to discuss the uh.

Friends have morality?

No?

Can you have morality without faith? Discussion Strong and.

Getty, what was the celebration like when you guys got to the locker room, Because we when we got there, there wasn't threwn't.

Bottles being put up like you normally see.

Do we miss that?

And how much. I mean, first of all, none of us knew how to do it, so so it was more like, you know, like it was like YouTube tutorials and so we were just asking Ac how to do it, and so it was it was a kind of not really instanc because no one know.

How to do it.

But yeah, shout out to AC for kind of teaching us how to woo champagne. I guess.

So that's one of the young players of the Oklahoma City Thunder, very young team and uh, the younger generation that doesn't drink much or doesn't drink that they had all the champagne bottles in there for the big pop in the court spray and celebration. None of the young players knew how to open a bottle of champaigne.

So well, let's best they held off till somebody who knew what they were doing was on hand. You can lose an eye that way, Jack, Yeah, they're the youngest team in.

The NBA, the champions. Maybe they needed a bunch of eight pens or something. Yeah, no, kidding, marijuanas to smoke. I think the kids do.

Brought this up briefly at the beginning of the show, and Jack expressed interest in following up on it. Frequent correspondent Pawlow talking about the question.

Of morality without faith.

That sort of thing I believe I quoted Tokeville maybe was the freedom ofving quote of the day. In fact, they probably should have dug it up that you can't have liberty without morality and you can't have morality without faith.

The first one is true, the second one is an open question. Yeah, and Poolo said, I think you absolutely can.

Morality is a set of beliefs about how we behave that lead to the best possible outcome for humanity. Can be a constitutional framework governing human behavior. For instance, faith is a mode of belief that makes the belief immutable. Faith can support morality, promote adherence to it. It can also promote the dogma of Iranian theocrats, can mean the faithful. It can make the faithful immune to logic and reason, and that's scary.

Well, I've never particularly liked the argument against religion that because sometimes it's used poorly, then it's all bad. I've never bought that argument, and sometimes it is used very poorly. As we all know, lots of quotes from the Founding fathers about how this whole thing doesn't work unless we're a moral people. Practically everybody was religious back in the day. The question of do you need to be religious to be moral, while it seems like it should be, you

Right, well, and layer that experiment on top of the layer of the experiment of multiculturalism and not like multi ethnicity or multi you know, huge skins, just literally completely different worldviews, cultural views. Trying to establish a secular morality in that situation is really really hard.

Yeah what what well we won't find out for decades, maybe a century or more. To find out is if you have to have the underpinning of a culture that had religion through and through forever, Yes, and then we've got this morality hangover even as belief in God maybe disappears or church going disappears. The cultural norm of you know, not lying that stealing now whatever has hung around, will that continue to hang around without the underpinning of religion.

Wow, that's an interesting point, kind of a cultural half life of Christian values. Yeah, well, and it is. And I use the term Christian informedly or intentionally. You there are very very, very different moral precepts to each of the world's major religions, although Jadaism and Christianity are very

And so.

I don't know where we go from here, honestly, because it is like the question of organizing society. Without what you were describing, Jack, a general agreement on moral principles. The only thing you can go to, as Paolo pointed out, was like a constitutional framework governing human behavior. Well, I would suggest Polo that it would have to be much

Where do most people's moral compasses come from the Bible? Maybe I went to Sunday School and church as a kid, so maybe it's that. I think it's probably more more that my parents just told me repeatedly as a kid that stealing is wrong, So you know you do, and you just get that into your head and he's like, what I do not not steal? How many negatives is that? Where did I end up with tracking with you? Because I think I'm going to be punished by God. It

Well, it's somebody else's work from them, right, You've denied them the fruits of their labor, which is disgusting.

Have you ever known anybody that didn't have that moral compass. I've known several and it's always just so mind boggling to me. I had a boss one time, gladys if you could tell me I had this boss. He actually was the owner of this night club that I worked at, and I remember the topic came up. Somebody left assigned government refund check. I don't know exactly what it was, but it was in a situation where like, if you had it, you could have taken the bank and cashed it.

But I mean, sociopathya think are just kind of from a tougher life.

And he wasn't. Forget to get your He wasn't from a tough life at all. They were hardcore businessmen, all of them wealthy. His family was wealthy, and he and his brothers were wealthy. They were all wealthy. But it was a very I'm going to get killed for this, I think Trumpian way of looking at the world of just No, it's just a it's a constant battle over,

I'm always going on about how a lot of politicians and a lot of people ignore the fact that post World War Two America was a thing that will never exist again. It was a situation that will never exist again,

We are homogeneous as a culture.

Judeo Christian principles European principles and particularly dominated by the principles of the United Kingdom, were such a thick vein of what we were as a people that everybody just assumed that was so. And there's certainly spice around the edges of different cultures and people and perspectives, but we had such a thick vein of Judeo Christian Magna Carta, English common law declaration of independent principles. It made everything way,

Yeah, And I was just thinking of people I've known that don't have that moral compass, at least that kind of moral compass. Like the examples I'm thinking of, they weren't gonna they weren't gonna rape or kill or anything like that that certainly financially they were willing. You know, it's just if I can, I should, and you should too. And it's whoever wins wins. I've known several successful business people like that.

Well, and there are several very very important countries where that is the cultural norm to cheat somebody successfully is not looked upon as being despicable. It's looked upon as the same as winning a tennis match.

Yeah you were better. Yeah. Yeah. The people I've known that were like, I was better than you, and you should be better next time, which is interesting. Most vast majority of business people have known have not been that way, but I have known several, and then I've also known just like losers who can't get anywhere of life, who believe that because they're just yeah, amoral.

I don't want to get angry letters and have to get dragged into a meeting. Lord knows at this point, but yeah, a fellow who is an immigrant to the United States from a particular land which may or may not be in the news pretty frequently, was it in that whole country? No, well, it kind of is now, but it shouldn't be anyway. He was explaining to me the cultural norms of getting over on somebody in business, and how the deception was not looked upon his fraud.

It's looked upon his cleverness.

It's one of the tools you exercise in a way that is would be extremely unfamiliar to most Americans. In fact, hell, we've got that, you know, thousands of pages of legal codes saying you'll go to jail if you do that. Not there, it's normal. I heard another giant economy being described by somebody who had lived and worked all over the world, had quite an auspicious career. He described that large economy is a nation of thieves.

Huh. So, getting back to the original question, do you need to have the faith to get the morality which is required for us to succeed? I don't know, but nobody's run this experiment as far as I know.

All Right, captain metaphor, this is my final thought. Here's your metaphor. The answer is faith to morality to order is a lot like water to the soil that you're growing your lawn in. For instance, when you cut off the water of coherent religious belief, like the Judeo Christian principles, you cut that water off, the lawn will live for a certain amount of time, but then it'll die.

Yeah. Well it's a two step process. We're going to find out what a powerful metaphor.

Iran breaking news, breaking news, Iran has attacked the US basin cutter.

Oh really, let's come back with details on that. Holy cow, I'm gonna go to Twitter not to see an end to find out what's going on. Stay tuned. So what was it? A couple of hours ago, Fox was reporting that an attack on our military base in Qatar was imminent. And then it turns out as this happened, makes you wonder, does it not? What do you wonder? Well? For instance, Axios reported Israel had detected UH missile launchers being moved in Iran positioned it look like to attack our military base.

But it's a different time, different situation. But and I remember their face saving attack against Israel turned out to be hundreds and hundreds of weapons and may well have been partly face saving, but partly also just trying to exhaust their defensive weaponry, their number of shells.

Yeah, so we'll see. Qatar is temporarily suspended air traffic in its airspace to ensure the safety of citizens, residents and visitors. I was going to vacation. We're on vacation next week and we are going, me and the kids, We're going to Quitar. But I guess we aren't now. I guess we'll have to make it to h Saudi Arabia. What are your other fun countries? To go to. I was actually reading about it. What's the one of your Dubai.

One of those gleaming, super modern mega cities, just astonishing architecture and attractions and recreation and the rest of it. It's a hell of a long trip, but it'd be a wild experience. I know a lot of you listening have probably gone to your Dubais and that sort of thing.

Yeah, someday. My brother has been to all those places and they are quite spectacular. I'm actually going to Florida in June. It is going to be very very hot and very very humid, but not very crowded because nobody wants to be there, So that's the trade off you make.

You gott to warn the boys they got cocker roaches there. You could saddle up and ride to town.

I'm more worried about mosquitoes. Gonna have a lot because we're going to go to the Everglades all the middle of summer. It's going to be very hot, very mosquitoed. What do you canter bait?

M Strong?

Tom Strong? You ready with Katie.

Green and.

Here's your host for final thoughts, Joe Getty.

How about a final thought from everybody on the crew to wrap up the show.

There is pressing the buttons. Michaelangelo lead us off, Michael, do.

You think that if the Iranian people rise up and throughout their leaders, that the Y M c A Dance will come to Iran?

That's a very good question. It is a beautiful dream, Michael. Katie Green or a Steam newswoman has a final thought.

I have several words that make my skin crawl, and you guys added one this morning when Jack said festering.

You don't like the word faster. I don't that word? Not a good word? Uncle Fester from the Adams family. No, Yeah, I don't know fest Range Jack. Final thoughts for us shall we went on vacation one time when nine to eleven happened, and when you came back to work, I was in England. Is there anything that could happen that would bring us back from a vacation At this point, I feel like we've had so many crazy things happen.

Then I don't want to say no, because that feels like tempting fate.

Not that I'm superstitious, but I hope not. Man, I just go with that.

My final thought is I played the best golf I've played in a decade.

Over the weekend, two rounds, both very very good.

But I am old and wise now, and I am fully cognizant of the fact that I will suck again and soon such as the nature of the game.

So you didn't think, Hey, I've finally figured this out. Hell No, Armstrong and Getty wrapping up and other they're grueling, four hour workday, so.

Many people, thanks so a little time. Good Armstrong e Getty dot com. We have a lot of great clicks for you under hotlinks Katie's corner. Pick up some swag, pick up a ng T shirt. For goodness sakes, it helps keep everybody on the payroll during these difficult, difficult time.

Sure we'll have a lot of details on the response tomorrow. See that. God bless America. I'm Strong and Getty. That's made in heavenly. We're all better off. We're all better off. We're all better off, and we're working together. What the hell was that? That was quite entertaining for No.

Joe, So let's go with the bine.

Honey or oh my god, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that. I don't know what to say to that. I'm sorry. I've just been totally thrown Yeah, I can imagine I'm a little thrown by that. Also, if I'm being honest with.

That, I know.

Bye bye. Ar'm strong and Getty