00:00:01
Speaker 1: From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong and Getty show.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Secondly on the occurrence do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains in the back.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: It's the State Department.
00:00:21
Speaker 4: Did you send them back?
00:00:22
Speaker 1: You're the one that works in Congress.
00:00:24
Speaker 5: You get it on your curtains.
00:00:26
Speaker 1: They were there before I even showed up at the residence.
00:00:29
Speaker 2: Your scrapping here, you want intend to go ahead like this, In fact, we're about it to take a commercial break.
00:00:49
Speaker 3: That gives you a pretty idea what the idea of what the a lot of the debate was like. Although that left out my favorite part of the whole exchange, which is what I wanted. When he starts in on her and she says bring it, Tim, I thought, Man, she she has got a she's got a thing. She is nicky. Haley is good, she has got a thing. She could definitely be if Trump dies or something. She could be president of the United States. You're right, but can you be quiet for just a second. I'm finishing. I just got this app on my phone. The measurement there it goes.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Yep, that clip dropped my IQ by eight points, precisely eight points. We're all stupider for having lived through that clip.
00:01:30
Speaker 3: That was That was my other favorite line from her of the night, when Ramaswami talked and she said, every time you talk, I get dumber, which is fantastic. I'm looking at the New York Times and they're evaluating the Republican debate and I doubt that any of the people they have evaluating it are you know, lean right at all or qualified to judge this sort of thing. But anyway, of course, they have Nicki Haley having the best night ahead of Ron DeSantis.
00:01:55
Speaker 1: And they had Chris Christy third.
00:01:57
Speaker 3: Most U pundits I've come across thought Nicky Hayley, they had the best night last time and this time. And she's good. She is definitely good, and I just like I like her point of view, I like her style. But it's none of it's gonna matter because Trump's gonna run away with this thing.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: Well, and she was hobbled, as they all were, by the fact that Fox News gets an F for their administration moderation of the debate. Is there such a thing as an F minus? Anyway?
00:02:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw a headline, and i'd have to just because you see a headline on Twitter doesn't mean it's real. I might have to track down whether this is true or not. But Fox slashes ad prices for second debate as g a OP primary turns into a snoozer. I don't know if like viewership dropped off enough and they had some sort of deal with the advertisers where they had to drop prices, But it wouldn't surprise me because I know, I know I have to watch this for my job, But otherwise i'd have thought I'm not gonna learn anything from this. I'm sure they slashed.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: Him in advance.
00:02:54
Speaker 3: There they're all talking at the same time, and then.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: It was terrible and one more note. And I say this with sadness. It's you know, it's like the old, the terrible old joke fans of American made motorcycles. I'd rather see my sister in the House of ill repute than my brother on a Japanese product. It's a terrible saying and full of belligerents and the directions that I don't approve of. But I felt like I was watching one of those two things, either the sister or the brother. Or whatever. Watching Tim Scott clearly told by his consultants, you gotta be more assertive, Tim, This kind decent, optimistic man thing isn't working. Jump in, interrupt people, talk over them, bully your way to center stage. And it just was ugly by the way, disappointing.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: By the way. And I don't I don't want to get into the details of the whole drapes thing that that conversation was about. But fact checks left, right and center are she didn't do anything wrong there. That was an Obama thing they bought him. Blah blah blah. It's non story. So that was some bad APPA research by his people to try to bring down Nicky Haley. That was a bad swing.
00:04:03
Speaker 1: What a bizarre tech to take, right.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: Wow, if that isn't at the end of the show most days, Hansen come on moving along. A really interesting revelation, covered as usual only by the New York Post. New text messages involving Hunter Biden and brother James Biden have come out now Big brother James is frequently left out of these discussions. He is, to my mind the point guard or the wizard of Oz of the Biden family influence pedaling. He's probably the key player, right, He is the guy who in the conversations with Tony Bobolinsky, and to this moment, nothing Tony Bobolinsky said in his interview with Hunter with A Tucker Rather or anywhere else, nothing has been contra to did in any way that this guy said. Having said that, you remember Bobolinski frequently dealt with James Biden, and he asked James Biden, hey, why do we never use Joe's name? We just refer to it? And James said, plausible deniability, my boy, plausible deniability. Bengo having said that, Hunter Biden told his uncle Jimmy in December twenty eighteen that he had run out of money and needed financial assistance from his father. According to some new text messages revealed in the Big Bulk of hundreds of pages of IRS whistleblower documents.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: So how old is Hunter at that time? Katie? How old is Hunter? Right now? Fifty mid fifty something like that. So that's twenty eighteen, that's five years ago, a right, fifty three, he's fifteen three, so he's forty eight years old. You're forty eight years old texting your uncle that your dad needs to send you more money because you're out of money. Okay, that's an interesting situation right there.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: He told James Biden that the millions of dollars he'd scored from his business deals abroad was quote all gone, and he could no longer afford school tuition from his three daughters or basic living expenses. Quote. I can work when I'm in New York City all day, every day for the next three months, but I can't pay alimony without Dad, or tuitions or food or gas. Really, it's all gone. I can make it up in fifteen to twenty days, I'm sure. But he's basically made it clear that he's not paying alimony because Mom made clear she won't do it, he added, So obviously the whole Dad, I need money to pay alimony, and doctor Jill saying tell him the pound sand dynamic was going on.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: So you got a guy who is about fifty years old saying, Dad, I need more money. I can't pay my alimony, which is interesting. And then what kind of work do you do where it's I can work ten hours a day for a couple of weeks and get caught back up what doing?
00:06:55
Speaker 1: What kind of job works that way? Then how did gend up broke? If you're that incredible capable, Well it was a crackhead anyway. If you're thinking, what's the point of this, Hunter Biden isn't running for anything. We will get to the point in a minute. We're gonna build a case first.
00:07:09
Speaker 4: But so.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: He also said he was moving into his dad's Delaware mansion after the collapse of his relationship with his sister in law turned lover Hallie Biden.
00:07:18
Speaker 3: Boy just on a human level, I hope I don't ever deal with this. I'm I'm I'm dad, And I got my fifty year old son who's sleeping with my other deceased son's wife widow who's so screwed up the family and stolen all their money gambling in drugs that he's now moving back into my house at almost fifty years old.
00:07:44
Speaker 1: And the aforementioned widow found the illegal gun and threw it in a dumpster next to a school. Other than that, things are going swimming.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: Having destroyed his family and then going over to his deceased brother's family and destroying that family. Now he's moving into my house just from a family drama. That's rough one.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: So Uncle Jimmy, who's kind of like the Now this is a crazy old reference, but well, he's like this sitcom dad. He puts his arms around everybody and says, hey, we can make this work, like the kindly old doctor from those old coffee commercials. That's a really old reference. Anyway, James Biden told Hunter that he thought the new arrangement would work with just a little help from the former VEEP quote, this can work. You need a safe harbor. I can work with your father alone. We as usual, just need several months of his help for this to work. Let's talk about it. It makes perfect sense to me. This is difficult to fully vet without talking now there are more specifics to get to. But the takeaway from this, and it is undeniable, I mean really undeniable, is that the family finances are absolutely intertwined. And we'll get more into that in a moment. The exchange part of a trove of documents released by the Housewaves and Means Committee on Wednesday implicating Hunter and various influence pedaling schemes while landing business deals with foreign entities. Let's see. In a statement accompanying the message, the whistleblower, Joseph Ziegler, explained that James Biden was not asked about this exchange and how the money flowed due to quote an environment established by the assigned prosecutors in which the investigators were afraid to ask questions. This would not allow us to follow normal investigative leads and fully understand the business relationship between James Biden and his family, which brings us to the second main point, the obstruction of justice by the ironically named Justice Department that was clearly pulling the strings in this investigation to protect the Biden family, especially Joe. Obviously, now, the New York Post points out this. These messages complicate a previously reported exchange between Hunter and his daughter Naomi from twenty nineteen the next year, actually just a few months later, in which the first son claimed that he'd had to fork over half his salary to his father, quote, I hope you can all do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for thirty years. It's really hard, but don't worry. Unlike Pop, I won't make you give me half your salary. Uh wow, Okay, and the.
00:10:21
Speaker 3: New York polls. Such an awful human being. Now he's a crackhead, and crackheads tend to not have the best, uh you know, unselfish, charitable view of the world. But dude, the only reason you're making all that money is because your dad is who he is and what he's accomplished. He makes me give half that the only reason you have any money is because of your dad. So complaining about the amount he lets you keep it's really kind of weird.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: So if you're suggesting one of his crack horse stepped on his moral compass, Oh that was such a good line, And I said campus instead of compass.
00:10:56
Speaker 3: Damn it, Donald I talk.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: I wish I was as smooth as Chris Christy comedian.
00:11:00
Speaker 4: No one appears gonna call you Donald Trump anymore. We're gonna call you Donald duck.
00:11:04
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:11:04
Speaker 1: See he didn't scrull up his punchline.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: Diddy idiot, but he practiced that in the mirror.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: Yeah I should have anyway, that's off the top of my head. What am I gonna do anyway? Where was I?
00:11:13
Speaker 5: Ah?
00:11:13
Speaker 4: Yes?
00:11:14
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah. So this is a guy who is running the Biden influence pedaling. He's the point man and the charmer, because Hunter, when he's not wasted, is a bright guy and quite charming, and so he was the point man. Uncle Jim was obviously the brains behind the curtain. But what Hunter's griping about is he's had to pay a huge cut of the take to the old man all this time. Then he gets in trouble because of his crack headery and is broke, and all of a sudden, his dad is making him bag on his knees for money, and doctor Jill is telling him to go to hell, and he resents the hell out of it.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: Which is probably maybe even advice they were geting from a bunch of people on how to deal with a drug addict kid who is right running through everybody's money. You gotta stop giving him money, right, So.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: There are those who've said, wait a minute, he's talking about he has to give his dad half of it, but now he's begging for money. No, that makes perfect sense given the timeline of events. So at any rate, the post is previously reported Hunter was routinely on the hook for his father's household expenses, as itemized by longtime business partner Eric Schwerin. Keep in mind that all of this stuff, including the itemized records of household expenses, exist in a world where Democrats and every major media outlet in America practically has said Republicans without evidence are investigating the president with no specific evidence. It's well, it's lying, They're lying. The texts also shed further light on the financial entanglements of the Biden family, which we discussed earlier in June. The House panel revealed that Hunter threatened to Chinese this isn't associate and the text message saying he was sitting next to his father and would forever hold a grudge if their business arrangement was not fulfilled. Bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee have shown that the first family and their associates neanded more than twenty million dollars from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan while his father was vice president more than twenty million dollars. And you may remember the other day it came out that there was a money transfer of millions to Hunter that listed Joe's address as the relevant.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: Address, which also got no news coverage. None of this is anywhere but Fox and the New York Post for major broadcasting, which is just amazing. I mean, there's a media blackout on this story.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: There are a couple more examples in the Post article about who's paying what bills and that sort of thing, but it's all kind of more of the same. But they're clearly all drawing from a huge pot of money.
00:13:51
Speaker 3: A couple more of the debate clips for you or among other things, stay with us.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: And what you've got.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you.
00:14:08
Speaker 1: Say last debate. He said we were all bought and paid for.
00:14:11
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how you could say that knowing that you were just in business with the Chinese Communist Party.
00:14:19
Speaker 6: We opened a subsidiary in China, but you know what I did that was different than every other company.
00:14:23
Speaker 3: We got the hell out of there.
00:14:25
Speaker 1: That's just wrong. And let's just get real here. My plan will get the job done. You literally bring it.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: Put fifty thousand dollars on curtains at a fifteen million dollar subsidized location.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: Next, you got bad information. They were there before I even showed.
00:14:43
Speaker 3: Up at the residents Haley bringing tim arguing over curtains. Yeah, let me let me check that list of issues Americans are concerned about not finding curtains, so talking time. Ramaswami for the second debate in the Rogue, got the most talking time on the stage. He jumps in, he talks a lot, He gets referenced a lot, so he gets to respond a lot. They need to create referencing him because he's not going to be the nominee. I'm looking up at the National he's at five percent. Don't waste your time on attacking ramas I think they all personally hate him so much.
00:15:18
Speaker 1: Yes, he's a.
00:15:19
Speaker 3: Con man, and he called them all crooks. Basically, last time around, you're all bought and paid for. Screw you, dude.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: So this time, this time he opened with these are good people on this stage. That's that's that's.
00:15:32
Speaker 3: Vivacant, right, as a lot of people said, he must have done focus groups where people didn't like the way he handled things last time, because he he mentioned at one point he said, I know I come off as a know it all sometimes, because I'm sure that was straight out of a focus group.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: Right.
00:15:46
Speaker 2: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
00:15:49
Speaker 3: That sounds like every date I was ever on quit playing that. But yeah, don't waste your time on attacking vivike Ramaswami. He's not going to be the nominee, but he got the most talking time for the second and debate row, followed by DeSantis, then Tim Scott third place at twelve minutes. Jumped in there enough to get a lot of talking time, but then he wasted it on like the worst appo research I've ever heard of, an issue nobody would care about if it were true and turns out not to be true. Man, that's some bad APPO research.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: And six of his twelve minutes was spent talking over other people and you couldn't understand damn word that had been said.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: Poor guy. His biggest problem is the current system is not set up for a nice guy who's substance based.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: It's just not He could have won in eighteen eighty yeah exactly.
00:16:36
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, but right after that, as a black man, it might have been difficult.
00:16:41
Speaker 1: True, but his style and intelligence and compassion and goodness.
00:16:46
Speaker 3: He might have been able to win in you know, nineteen eighty eight. But uh, yeah, it's just that style is not gonna work anmore. You're not gonna get a chance to talk.
00:16:53
Speaker 1: Right right, So if you didn't watch it, good for you. Good for you.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: In the headline, of course changed nothing. Think Trump's gonna be the nominee outside of some just monumental event.
00:17:04
Speaker 4: You're not here tonight because you're afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You're exducting these things. And let me tell you what's gonna happen. You keep doing that. No one appears gonna call you Donald Trump anymore. We're gonna call you Donald Duck.
00:17:18
Speaker 1: That was the worst thing I have ever seen, that debate. I need counseling Armstrong and Getty.
00:17:28
Speaker 5: After months of secret negotiations, Army Private Travis King is in US custody on his way home from North Korea, Officials saying he appears to be in good health and good spirits and is eager to see his family. He's released some seventy days later, facilitated by Sweden and China. Swedish officials then driving King from North Korea across the border to China, where he was met by the US Ambassador to China official saying North Korea got nothing in rich.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, we claim we made no deal for it. Maybe that's true. I find it hard to believe. There must have been some reason North Korea decided to give him back. But anyway, I'm glad to hear he's in good health and he's obviously a troubled human being who decided to run into North Korea. But I'm glad they didn't beat him near to death while he was there.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a feeling he's just an idiot. Honestly, you know, what are you gonna do? My final statement for some time on a topic that we've been discussing this morning will will be this. I have been to several crime scenes. I have been to the scene of a murder. I have passed a terrible vehicle wreck that included a motorcyclist in which there was a severed head involved. Wow, and the debate last night is the worst thing I've ever seen.
00:18:53
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha, I'm just ranking them in my memory. Oh Lord, I'll run through a couple of headlines for you, including this, I fifteen pro owners are complaining about overheating problems. Have you heard this? Getting too hot to hold? This is the item that makes Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world, but their top of the line phone is what really drives Apple more than anything in terms of revenue, and it's the new titanium. One gets super it's cash cow gets so hot you can't hold it and bends. So we'll see if they add bends and bends.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Yes, that's hot, so uh so.
00:19:37
Speaker 3: Anyway, they'll see if they can fix that.
00:19:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, goodness.
00:19:42
Speaker 3: We were talking a little bit earlier about the war in Ukraine that came up. Saw this article in the Wall Street Journal how the technological revolution in Ukraine is reshaping modern warfare. The history of warfare is it's all about who's got the latest technological edge. You come up with an idea for a weapon, they come up with something that counters that. Then you have to come up with a new one, back and forth, and that it's been the history since bows and arrows. New systems are eliminating surprises. You can't surprise anymore. The era of a surprise anything might be over for warfare and making it harder to gain ground and armored assaults as we were talking about earlier with the tanks and whatnot. So hopefully with our backing, Ukraine will be able to stay on the top side of that in terms of who's got the best tech or the latest ideas.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: Just thinking out loud, I can almost envision a moment in the future when most military tools I'm talking about among superpowers, most military tools are rendered ineffective except the most devastating tools. And what does that look like in terms of future conflict? When does diplomatic conflict, economic conflict turn into kinetic conflict warfare? If you start at devastating exchange, whether nuclear or otherwise, does that change the face of diplomacy?
00:21:09
Speaker 3: Right?
00:21:10
Speaker 1: It's as if I, you know, I was a little hot tempered as a kid and got into a couple of scrapes. But if I knew every punch I threw was capable of causing death like I'm Bruce Lee or something, or at least devastating injury, every time I threw a punch, bones would be broken. That would absolutely change your orientation toward physical conflict.
00:21:33
Speaker 3: It would for you, It might not for other people. That's the problem.
00:21:38
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, as a moral human being, might not compliment, might not bother North Korea or Iran, for instance, if every punch you through caused that sort of right, Although if you knew the other side would immediately go to that as well.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: That's what you hope if they're normal, rational human beings.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, deterrence, Yeah, certainly.
00:21:57
Speaker 3: Elon Musk yesterday, I think he xed out or did he tweet out or whatever.
00:22:02
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm gonna say tweet he said.
00:22:05
Speaker 3: The shoplifting he was talking about the shoplifting epidemic videos is giving him late stage Roman Empire vibes. America is going full Joker. You brought that up yesterday, the idea of America going Joker. I've not seen that movie. What is that a reference to.
00:22:20
Speaker 1: Well, it's a fairly beautifully done but fairly typical dystopia of the future in which there is rampant crime, no regard for human beings, no social contract, and ugliness reigns, and the Joker character, Joaquin Phoenix, in his devastatingly weird performance, decides, screw it. I'm gonna I can't fight these forces anymore. I'm just gonna I'm gonna direct them. I'm gonna ride that wave and direct that ugliness. Let's tear it all down.
00:22:52
Speaker 3: Well, I hope that Elon is wrong about that, but I think a lot of us watch that and feel It's got a bit of an end of the Roumpire feel to it. Speaking of Twitter, by the way, I didn't know anything about this. It's funny. Yesterday I saw somebody reference Blue Sky and I just I just kind of skipped it because I thought something I don't know anything about. Then somebody brought it up last night, Are you on blue Sky yet? And I said, what now? Dorsey? Jack Dorsey, who invented Twitter and ran it and made it what it was before Elon bought it from him, has started a new thing called Blue Sky that looks exactly like the old Twitter, with the blue and the same sort of logos and the same look and everything like that. Wow, and all your favorite Twitter people that you aren't on Twitter you listening, Almost nobody is. But the people that were on Twitter all the time are migrating over to Blue Sky. It's invitation only at this point, meaning liberal only, liberal only, and so all those people are going to go over to Blue Sky and that could blow up and become the big conversation place for all of lefty America. And I hope we're going to end up with like an MSNBC that is Blue Sky and a Fox that is Twitter. Or how this is going to shake out. I don't know, it's free market at work, but I kind of like all the conversations to be in one place, you don't have to switch around. But there's no no way to make that happen.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that is that there's more meaning to that than just to split off of a social media you know contingency. I think it has to do with the fact that there are forces within America, primarily on the left, who just cannot be anywhere where they hear ideas that are contrary to their own. They just find it so threatening or angering or something they've got to go off and start there. Out there taking their ball and going home. They're going to start their own you know social media thing. Right, all those stories about how hate is running rampant on Twitter, that really, no, there's some there, but stupid is everywhere these days. I don't know if you've noticed it. Speaking of Roman Empire vibes, I love this story even as I hate it. You know, the COVID relief program loans that were so ripped off by inmates and scammers, just billions of dollars in taxpayer money disappeared. Well, court records revealed that ten Cent, the giant Chinese conglomerate which owns TikTok right, ten Cent, am I thinking of the wrong company. It owns we chat and has a large steak in the parent company a TikTok.
00:25:33
Speaker 3: Byte Dance owns TikTok Right.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: Right, has a big steak in Byte Dance.
00:25:42
Speaker 3: Anyway, wears gold chains.
00:25:44
Speaker 1: It's a good point. So the court records revealed that ten Cent co owned one of the main investors in Womply, a San Francisco startup that raked in two billion dollars in twenty twenty one by helping businesses get expedited Paycheck Protection Program loans PPP loans, which was a thank used a profiting from rampant fraud in the application process. Ten Cent, which owns also ons we chad in a large steak in Byte Dance, has faced scrutiny from the government over national security risks blah blah blah. So they gained hundreds of millions of dollars of fraudulent US tax money. This giant Chinese communist tied company by exploiting the weakness and stupidity of our giant taxpayer handouts. So that's a little frustrating.
00:26:30
Speaker 3: Don't trust China. I would say that reminds me the governor of California, who did a great job from his standpoint of injecting himself into the debates. Last night he tweeted out, welcome to the Freedom State, GOP, because the debate was in the Freedom state.
00:26:50
Speaker 1: Good lord.
00:26:51
Speaker 3: The debate was in California at the Ronald Reagan Library, and I was telling my kids, I can't believe we've never visited that before. I got to make that put that on my short list of places to go anyway. Gavin Newsom tweeted out, we believe in these crazy things here called free speech, gun safety, healthcare, social security, and climate change, Oh and democracy. See you tonight.
00:27:13
Speaker 1: What the hell? That was utterly incoherent free It was alternating between things people agree with and then cutting free speech at the knees, cutting it off at the knees during COVID, threatening doctors who dared go against the orthodoxy, silencing people at school board meetings who disagree with radical queer theory, the freedom state.
00:27:37
Speaker 3: Wow, all your big universities, if anybody to the right of Bernie Sanders speaks there, they get beaten down the Freedom State. But anyway, he found a way to inject himself into the thing, and he was in a spin room before and after and got a fair amount of attention getting back to.
00:27:54
Speaker 1: The Wompley story, which was not done. So oh, I didn't realize that. Sorry, don't worry about it, doesn't matter. M Wompley pulled in over two billion dollars in fees through its PPP work. Their late lending partner told congressional investigators that the company's fraud prevention practices appeared to be put together with duct tape and gum, and there was rampant fraud in the program. Police also intercepted messages between gang members in Florida telling each other that Wompley was really hitting and that everybody in the hood was using it. Gang members reportedly used PPP loans to fund their drug trafficking operations, all under the guiding hand of ten Cent partially owned by the Chinese government. Unbelievable.
00:28:36
Speaker 3: Wow, so much of the federal money that went out the door, and California led the way with their money going out the door being ripped off by people. That's just fantastic.
00:28:49
Speaker 1: So on a totally different topic. You may remember a week or so ago we talked about the New York Times they did a big piece on Melissa Kearney's new book, The Two Parent Privilege, and how were remarkable It was that they were actually printing something that said, look, intact families. That's why achievement suffers in America, lack of intact families. Well, Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal, who is brilliant, has come out with a your right but think piece that I thought was just terrific. Like to share that with you.
00:29:20
Speaker 3: Cool. We got a lot of stuff on the way. In an hour three, we're going to talk to one of our favorite political pundits, Gary Dietrich. Who was Was he at the debate? I know he was in the I think he was, Yeah, yeah, cool. So we'll get an idea what it was like in the arena.
00:29:33
Speaker 1: And he'd rather be at a crime scene.
00:29:36
Speaker 3: And see if he can convince us that it mattered at all. Now he can't convince me it mattered. Say whatever you want, You're not going to convince me it mattered. Stay with us.
00:29:44
Speaker 4: No one appears going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We're gonna call you Donald Duck.
00:29:47
Speaker 3: Oh you laugh, I laughed.
00:30:00
Speaker 5: The Armstrong and Getting show, Bruce Springsteen now postponing all concerts for the rest of the year.
00:30:08
Speaker 6: The Boss, who was now seventy four's being treated for peptic ulcer disease, his doctor telling him to rest.
00:30:13
Speaker 3: No three hour plus concerts.
00:30:15
Speaker 6: Springsteen posting a message tonight thanking friends and fans for their good wishes, encouragement and support. He says he's on the mend and can't wait to see you all next year.
00:30:24
Speaker 3: Maybe we were born to shuffle around the mall. If you'd like more of our thoughts on that important topic, we did it in our One More Thing podcast, which we caught after the show every single day, so check that out.
00:30:37
Speaker 1: Actually I have some more Bruce comments, but I'll withhold them for now as I wanted to get to this. Jason Riley's piece in the Wall Street Journal. We talked about this last week Melissa Kearney and economists who wrote a new book called The Two Parent Privilege, and The New York Times bravely covered it. The premise of the book being that having an intact family is an incredible advantage to kids, and Jason Riley rights and this is so good, and trust me, this is going somewhere. Melissa Kearney's new book, The Two Parent Privilege is an attempt to explain the importance of marriage to her fellow liberal intellectuals. Sadly, she has a work cut out. The author is an MIT trained economist, and is the book jacket explained. She makes quote a provocative, data driven case for marriage by showing how the institution's decline has led to a host of economic woes, problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. And he compliments the tone of the book, in the writing and the rest of it, but he says, I'm not sure how provocative it is, however, as The New York Times had labeled it. When Ms. Kearney writes that the absence of a father from a child's home appears to have direct effects on the children's outcome, and not only because of the loss of parental income, or that we need to quote restore and foster a norm of two parent homes for children, it not only makes perfect sense to me, but it also sounds very familiar. Then again, I'm not the reader she's he explains he hardly needs convincing that there are strong links between family structure and well being of children. He points out research that began in nineteen sixty five and unequivocally.
00:32:10
Speaker 3: Stated that and common sense. Do I need research of any kind to lead me to this conclusion.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: By a leading economist? Yeah, yeah, exactly, So he goes through this. George Gilder wrote about the importance of the nuclear family in sexual suicide in nineteen seventy three and men in marriage in nineteen eighty six. Charles Murray touched on it in his landmark study Losing Ground nineteen eighty four, made similar arguments in Coming Apart in twenty twelve. In nineteen ninety four, David Blankenhorn published Fatherless America ninety six brought David Popeno's Life Without Father compelling new evidence that fatherhood and marriage are indispensable for the good of children and society shocking. Other books that cover the same ground as MS. Kearney include, and I'm not going to list them all, but a book by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallaher, a book by James Q. Wilson, kay Himowitz, Richard Banks, which was specifically about African American families, all making the same arguments in the same way, using the same data. Forthcoming value from the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox is called Get Married. Why Americans must defy the elites for strong families and save civilizations. Mister Wilcox's subtitle neatly encapsulates missus Kearney's dilemma. Conservatives likely are familiar with at least a few of the aforementioned titles, yet those books, in many cases have been denounced or simply ignored by the same left wing intellectuals miss Kearney is trying to win over. In a recent podcast with fellow economist Steph Dubner, who's part of the Freakonomics team, ms Kearney said that writing the book felt like taking a quote big risk professionally because her tears tend to her peers rather tend to avoid addressing the role of family structure and discussions of social inequality and look down on those who do.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: Find that horrifying that anybody would have the view that this is like risky material or you need research in books to point this out.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: But well, and there are stacks of books that point it out.
00:34:13
Speaker 3: But I will say again, if you, if you go to marriage counseling or therapists or anything like that, I've never heard one ever bring up the idea, you know, parenting it's going to be hard on the kids. Nobody ever says that, even though it's clearly true.
00:34:31
Speaker 1: Wow, the whole truths that I don't find comfortable, I will ignore completely. School of thinking. Right, here's another quote from Ms Kearney, who again has written a good book, A skillful way.
00:34:44
Speaker 3: Yes, I would think you'd start there, of course, start what this is going to be devastating for the kids, if.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: You have any honesty or courage. Yes, of course. Anyway, Kearnie says, my saying it's not discussed is probably more reflective of the circles I run in, which is you know, higher ed academia, which of course skews liberal and progressive, left leaning conversations about kids well being and concerns about social mobility. In those circles. In those conversations, I often find that this topic has met with discomfort. The author recalled being asked by mister Dunner while still researching the book if she was concerned about being labeled as a social conservative if she published. I took that to heart, Miss Kearney said, because I knew what you were saying, which is, really, do you worry that academics aren't going to take you seriously if you sound socially conservative?
00:35:29
Speaker 3: I want to punch somebody in the face. I'm not exactly sure who, but this is this story is making you want to punch somebody in the face. Are you concerned that you'll be labeled a social conservative? Kind of question? Is that kind of answer?
00:35:44
Speaker 4: Is that?
00:35:45
Speaker 1: Riley goes on to point out what an enormous problem this is in the country, the tattering of the family. Still, it's unfortunate we've reached a point where scaredy cats social scientists are more interested in being popular than following the facts, weighing the evidence, and supporting the finding. Whether the topic is family structure, climate change, or the New York Times sixteen nineteen project. The intellectual cowardice on display in recent years has been stunning. It's clear that our intellectual class, like every other special interest group, has its own agenda and its own blind spots. For too many academic scholars, integrity has become a secondary concern. I would say To label any pursuit an intellectual pursuit that ignores not only facts, but most of the facts. In the most compelling facts to reach a predetermined outcome, to call them a social science is bizarre. It's practically hilarious. It's certainly misapplied.
00:36:40
Speaker 3: Lil More in the debate. Coming up an hour three and a bunch of other stuff you miss an hour, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty
Speaker 1: From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong and Getty show.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Secondly on the occurrence do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains in the back.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: It's the State Department.
00:00:21
Speaker 4: Did you send them back?
00:00:22
Speaker 1: You're the one that works in Congress.
00:00:24
Speaker 5: You get it on your curtains.
00:00:26
Speaker 1: They were there before I even showed up at the residence.
00:00:29
Speaker 2: Your scrapping here, you want intend to go ahead like this, In fact, we're about it to take a commercial break.
00:00:49
Speaker 3: That gives you a pretty idea what the idea of what the a lot of the debate was like. Although that left out my favorite part of the whole exchange, which is what I wanted. When he starts in on her and she says bring it, Tim, I thought, Man, she she has got a she's got a thing. She is nicky. Haley is good, she has got a thing. She could definitely be if Trump dies or something. She could be president of the United States. You're right, but can you be quiet for just a second. I'm finishing. I just got this app on my phone. The measurement there it goes.
00:01:22
Speaker 1: Yep, that clip dropped my IQ by eight points, precisely eight points. We're all stupider for having lived through that clip.
00:01:30
Speaker 3: That was That was my other favorite line from her of the night, when Ramaswami talked and she said, every time you talk, I get dumber, which is fantastic. I'm looking at the New York Times and they're evaluating the Republican debate and I doubt that any of the people they have evaluating it are you know, lean right at all or qualified to judge this sort of thing. But anyway, of course, they have Nicki Haley having the best night ahead of Ron DeSantis.
00:01:55
Speaker 1: And they had Chris Christy third.
00:01:57
Speaker 3: Most U pundits I've come across thought Nicky Hayley, they had the best night last time and this time. And she's good. She is definitely good, and I just like I like her point of view, I like her style. But it's none of it's gonna matter because Trump's gonna run away with this thing.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: Well, and she was hobbled, as they all were, by the fact that Fox News gets an F for their administration moderation of the debate. Is there such a thing as an F minus? Anyway?
00:02:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw a headline, and i'd have to just because you see a headline on Twitter doesn't mean it's real. I might have to track down whether this is true or not. But Fox slashes ad prices for second debate as g a OP primary turns into a snoozer. I don't know if like viewership dropped off enough and they had some sort of deal with the advertisers where they had to drop prices, But it wouldn't surprise me because I know, I know I have to watch this for my job, But otherwise i'd have thought I'm not gonna learn anything from this. I'm sure they slashed.
00:02:53
Speaker 1: Him in advance.
00:02:54
Speaker 3: There they're all talking at the same time, and then.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: It was terrible and one more note. And I say this with sadness. It's you know, it's like the old, the terrible old joke fans of American made motorcycles. I'd rather see my sister in the House of ill repute than my brother on a Japanese product. It's a terrible saying and full of belligerents and the directions that I don't approve of. But I felt like I was watching one of those two things, either the sister or the brother. Or whatever. Watching Tim Scott clearly told by his consultants, you gotta be more assertive, Tim, This kind decent, optimistic man thing isn't working. Jump in, interrupt people, talk over them, bully your way to center stage. And it just was ugly by the way, disappointing.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: By the way. And I don't I don't want to get into the details of the whole drapes thing that that conversation was about. But fact checks left, right and center are she didn't do anything wrong there. That was an Obama thing they bought him. Blah blah blah. It's non story. So that was some bad APPA research by his people to try to bring down Nicky Haley. That was a bad swing.
00:04:03
Speaker 1: What a bizarre tech to take, right.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: Wow, if that isn't at the end of the show most days, Hansen come on moving along. A really interesting revelation, covered as usual only by the New York Post. New text messages involving Hunter Biden and brother James Biden have come out now Big brother James is frequently left out of these discussions. He is, to my mind the point guard or the wizard of Oz of the Biden family influence pedaling. He's probably the key player, right, He is the guy who in the conversations with Tony Bobolinsky, and to this moment, nothing Tony Bobolinsky said in his interview with Hunter with A Tucker Rather or anywhere else, nothing has been contra to did in any way that this guy said. Having said that, you remember Bobolinski frequently dealt with James Biden, and he asked James Biden, hey, why do we never use Joe's name? We just refer to it? And James said, plausible deniability, my boy, plausible deniability. Bengo having said that, Hunter Biden told his uncle Jimmy in December twenty eighteen that he had run out of money and needed financial assistance from his father. According to some new text messages revealed in the Big Bulk of hundreds of pages of IRS whistleblower documents.
00:05:41
Speaker 3: So how old is Hunter at that time? Katie? How old is Hunter? Right now? Fifty mid fifty something like that. So that's twenty eighteen, that's five years ago, a right, fifty three, he's fifteen three, so he's forty eight years old. You're forty eight years old texting your uncle that your dad needs to send you more money because you're out of money. Okay, that's an interesting situation right there.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: He told James Biden that the millions of dollars he'd scored from his business deals abroad was quote all gone, and he could no longer afford school tuition from his three daughters or basic living expenses. Quote. I can work when I'm in New York City all day, every day for the next three months, but I can't pay alimony without Dad, or tuitions or food or gas. Really, it's all gone. I can make it up in fifteen to twenty days, I'm sure. But he's basically made it clear that he's not paying alimony because Mom made clear she won't do it, he added, So obviously the whole Dad, I need money to pay alimony, and doctor Jill saying tell him the pound sand dynamic was going on.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: So you got a guy who is about fifty years old saying, Dad, I need more money. I can't pay my alimony, which is interesting. And then what kind of work do you do where it's I can work ten hours a day for a couple of weeks and get caught back up what doing?
00:06:55
Speaker 1: What kind of job works that way? Then how did gend up broke? If you're that incredible capable, Well it was a crackhead anyway. If you're thinking, what's the point of this, Hunter Biden isn't running for anything. We will get to the point in a minute. We're gonna build a case first.
00:07:09
Speaker 4: But so.
00:07:10
Speaker 1: He also said he was moving into his dad's Delaware mansion after the collapse of his relationship with his sister in law turned lover Hallie Biden.
00:07:18
Speaker 3: Boy just on a human level, I hope I don't ever deal with this. I'm I'm I'm dad, And I got my fifty year old son who's sleeping with my other deceased son's wife widow who's so screwed up the family and stolen all their money gambling in drugs that he's now moving back into my house at almost fifty years old.
00:07:44
Speaker 1: And the aforementioned widow found the illegal gun and threw it in a dumpster next to a school. Other than that, things are going swimming.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: Having destroyed his family and then going over to his deceased brother's family and destroying that family. Now he's moving into my house just from a family drama. That's rough one.
00:08:01
Speaker 1: So Uncle Jimmy, who's kind of like the Now this is a crazy old reference, but well, he's like this sitcom dad. He puts his arms around everybody and says, hey, we can make this work, like the kindly old doctor from those old coffee commercials. That's a really old reference. Anyway, James Biden told Hunter that he thought the new arrangement would work with just a little help from the former VEEP quote, this can work. You need a safe harbor. I can work with your father alone. We as usual, just need several months of his help for this to work. Let's talk about it. It makes perfect sense to me. This is difficult to fully vet without talking now there are more specifics to get to. But the takeaway from this, and it is undeniable, I mean really undeniable, is that the family finances are absolutely intertwined. And we'll get more into that in a moment. The exchange part of a trove of documents released by the Housewaves and Means Committee on Wednesday implicating Hunter and various influence pedaling schemes while landing business deals with foreign entities. Let's see. In a statement accompanying the message, the whistleblower, Joseph Ziegler, explained that James Biden was not asked about this exchange and how the money flowed due to quote an environment established by the assigned prosecutors in which the investigators were afraid to ask questions. This would not allow us to follow normal investigative leads and fully understand the business relationship between James Biden and his family, which brings us to the second main point, the obstruction of justice by the ironically named Justice Department that was clearly pulling the strings in this investigation to protect the Biden family, especially Joe. Obviously, now, the New York Post points out this. These messages complicate a previously reported exchange between Hunter and his daughter Naomi from twenty nineteen the next year, actually just a few months later, in which the first son claimed that he'd had to fork over half his salary to his father, quote, I hope you can all do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for thirty years. It's really hard, but don't worry. Unlike Pop, I won't make you give me half your salary. Uh wow, Okay, and the.
00:10:21
Speaker 3: New York polls. Such an awful human being. Now he's a crackhead, and crackheads tend to not have the best, uh you know, unselfish, charitable view of the world. But dude, the only reason you're making all that money is because your dad is who he is and what he's accomplished. He makes me give half that the only reason you have any money is because of your dad. So complaining about the amount he lets you keep it's really kind of weird.
00:10:48
Speaker 1: So if you're suggesting one of his crack horse stepped on his moral compass, Oh that was such a good line, And I said campus instead of compass.
00:10:56
Speaker 3: Damn it, Donald I talk.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: I wish I was as smooth as Chris Christy comedian.
00:11:00
Speaker 4: No one appears gonna call you Donald Trump anymore. We're gonna call you Donald duck.
00:11:04
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:11:04
Speaker 1: See he didn't scrull up his punchline.
00:11:06
Speaker 3: Diddy idiot, but he practiced that in the mirror.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: Yeah I should have anyway, that's off the top of my head. What am I gonna do anyway? Where was I?
00:11:13
Speaker 5: Ah?
00:11:13
Speaker 4: Yes?
00:11:14
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah. So this is a guy who is running the Biden influence pedaling. He's the point man and the charmer, because Hunter, when he's not wasted, is a bright guy and quite charming, and so he was the point man. Uncle Jim was obviously the brains behind the curtain. But what Hunter's griping about is he's had to pay a huge cut of the take to the old man all this time. Then he gets in trouble because of his crack headery and is broke, and all of a sudden, his dad is making him bag on his knees for money, and doctor Jill is telling him to go to hell, and he resents the hell out of it.
00:11:57
Speaker 3: Which is probably maybe even advice they were geting from a bunch of people on how to deal with a drug addict kid who is right running through everybody's money. You gotta stop giving him money, right, So.
00:12:08
Speaker 1: There are those who've said, wait a minute, he's talking about he has to give his dad half of it, but now he's begging for money. No, that makes perfect sense given the timeline of events. So at any rate, the post is previously reported Hunter was routinely on the hook for his father's household expenses, as itemized by longtime business partner Eric Schwerin. Keep in mind that all of this stuff, including the itemized records of household expenses, exist in a world where Democrats and every major media outlet in America practically has said Republicans without evidence are investigating the president with no specific evidence. It's well, it's lying, They're lying. The texts also shed further light on the financial entanglements of the Biden family, which we discussed earlier in June. The House panel revealed that Hunter threatened to Chinese this isn't associate and the text message saying he was sitting next to his father and would forever hold a grudge if their business arrangement was not fulfilled. Bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee have shown that the first family and their associates neanded more than twenty million dollars from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan while his father was vice president more than twenty million dollars. And you may remember the other day it came out that there was a money transfer of millions to Hunter that listed Joe's address as the relevant.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: Address, which also got no news coverage. None of this is anywhere but Fox and the New York Post for major broadcasting, which is just amazing. I mean, there's a media blackout on this story.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: There are a couple more examples in the Post article about who's paying what bills and that sort of thing, but it's all kind of more of the same. But they're clearly all drawing from a huge pot of money.
00:13:51
Speaker 3: A couple more of the debate clips for you or among other things, stay with us.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: And what you've got.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you.
00:14:08
Speaker 1: Say last debate. He said we were all bought and paid for.
00:14:11
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how you could say that knowing that you were just in business with the Chinese Communist Party.
00:14:19
Speaker 6: We opened a subsidiary in China, but you know what I did that was different than every other company.
00:14:23
Speaker 3: We got the hell out of there.
00:14:25
Speaker 1: That's just wrong. And let's just get real here. My plan will get the job done. You literally bring it.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: Put fifty thousand dollars on curtains at a fifteen million dollar subsidized location.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: Next, you got bad information. They were there before I even showed.
00:14:43
Speaker 3: Up at the residents Haley bringing tim arguing over curtains. Yeah, let me let me check that list of issues Americans are concerned about not finding curtains, so talking time. Ramaswami for the second debate in the Rogue, got the most talking time on the stage. He jumps in, he talks a lot, He gets referenced a lot, so he gets to respond a lot. They need to create referencing him because he's not going to be the nominee. I'm looking up at the National he's at five percent. Don't waste your time on attacking ramas I think they all personally hate him so much.
00:15:18
Speaker 1: Yes, he's a.
00:15:19
Speaker 3: Con man, and he called them all crooks. Basically, last time around, you're all bought and paid for. Screw you, dude.
00:15:25
Speaker 1: So this time, this time he opened with these are good people on this stage. That's that's that's.
00:15:32
Speaker 3: Vivacant, right, as a lot of people said, he must have done focus groups where people didn't like the way he handled things last time, because he he mentioned at one point he said, I know I come off as a know it all sometimes, because I'm sure that was straight out of a focus group.
00:15:45
Speaker 1: Right.
00:15:46
Speaker 2: Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
00:15:49
Speaker 3: That sounds like every date I was ever on quit playing that. But yeah, don't waste your time on attacking vivike Ramaswami. He's not going to be the nominee, but he got the most talking time for the second and debate row, followed by DeSantis, then Tim Scott third place at twelve minutes. Jumped in there enough to get a lot of talking time, but then he wasted it on like the worst appo research I've ever heard of, an issue nobody would care about if it were true and turns out not to be true. Man, that's some bad APPO research.
00:16:18
Speaker 1: And six of his twelve minutes was spent talking over other people and you couldn't understand damn word that had been said.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: Poor guy. His biggest problem is the current system is not set up for a nice guy who's substance based.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: It's just not He could have won in eighteen eighty yeah exactly.
00:16:36
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, but right after that, as a black man, it might have been difficult.
00:16:41
Speaker 1: True, but his style and intelligence and compassion and goodness.
00:16:46
Speaker 3: He might have been able to win in you know, nineteen eighty eight. But uh, yeah, it's just that style is not gonna work anmore. You're not gonna get a chance to talk.
00:16:53
Speaker 1: Right right, So if you didn't watch it, good for you. Good for you.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: In the headline, of course changed nothing. Think Trump's gonna be the nominee outside of some just monumental event.
00:17:04
Speaker 4: You're not here tonight because you're afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You're exducting these things. And let me tell you what's gonna happen. You keep doing that. No one appears gonna call you Donald Trump anymore. We're gonna call you Donald Duck.
00:17:18
Speaker 1: That was the worst thing I have ever seen, that debate. I need counseling Armstrong and Getty.
00:17:28
Speaker 5: After months of secret negotiations, Army Private Travis King is in US custody on his way home from North Korea, Officials saying he appears to be in good health and good spirits and is eager to see his family. He's released some seventy days later, facilitated by Sweden and China. Swedish officials then driving King from North Korea across the border to China, where he was met by the US Ambassador to China official saying North Korea got nothing in rich.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, we claim we made no deal for it. Maybe that's true. I find it hard to believe. There must have been some reason North Korea decided to give him back. But anyway, I'm glad to hear he's in good health and he's obviously a troubled human being who decided to run into North Korea. But I'm glad they didn't beat him near to death while he was there.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a feeling he's just an idiot. Honestly, you know, what are you gonna do? My final statement for some time on a topic that we've been discussing this morning will will be this. I have been to several crime scenes. I have been to the scene of a murder. I have passed a terrible vehicle wreck that included a motorcyclist in which there was a severed head involved. Wow, and the debate last night is the worst thing I've ever seen.
00:18:53
Speaker 3: Okay, gotcha, I'm just ranking them in my memory. Oh Lord, I'll run through a couple of headlines for you, including this, I fifteen pro owners are complaining about overheating problems. Have you heard this? Getting too hot to hold? This is the item that makes Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world, but their top of the line phone is what really drives Apple more than anything in terms of revenue, and it's the new titanium. One gets super it's cash cow gets so hot you can't hold it and bends. So we'll see if they add bends and bends.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: Yes, that's hot, so uh so.
00:19:37
Speaker 3: Anyway, they'll see if they can fix that.
00:19:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, goodness.
00:19:42
Speaker 3: We were talking a little bit earlier about the war in Ukraine that came up. Saw this article in the Wall Street Journal how the technological revolution in Ukraine is reshaping modern warfare. The history of warfare is it's all about who's got the latest technological edge. You come up with an idea for a weapon, they come up with something that counters that. Then you have to come up with a new one, back and forth, and that it's been the history since bows and arrows. New systems are eliminating surprises. You can't surprise anymore. The era of a surprise anything might be over for warfare and making it harder to gain ground and armored assaults as we were talking about earlier with the tanks and whatnot. So hopefully with our backing, Ukraine will be able to stay on the top side of that in terms of who's got the best tech or the latest ideas.
00:20:30
Speaker 1: Just thinking out loud, I can almost envision a moment in the future when most military tools I'm talking about among superpowers, most military tools are rendered ineffective except the most devastating tools. And what does that look like in terms of future conflict? When does diplomatic conflict, economic conflict turn into kinetic conflict warfare? If you start at devastating exchange, whether nuclear or otherwise, does that change the face of diplomacy?
00:21:09
Speaker 3: Right?
00:21:10
Speaker 1: It's as if I, you know, I was a little hot tempered as a kid and got into a couple of scrapes. But if I knew every punch I threw was capable of causing death like I'm Bruce Lee or something, or at least devastating injury, every time I threw a punch, bones would be broken. That would absolutely change your orientation toward physical conflict.
00:21:33
Speaker 3: It would for you, It might not for other people. That's the problem.
00:21:38
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, as a moral human being, might not compliment, might not bother North Korea or Iran, for instance, if every punch you through caused that sort of right, Although if you knew the other side would immediately go to that as well.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: That's what you hope if they're normal, rational human beings.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, deterrence, Yeah, certainly.
00:21:57
Speaker 3: Elon Musk yesterday, I think he xed out or did he tweet out or whatever.
00:22:02
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm gonna say tweet he said.
00:22:05
Speaker 3: The shoplifting he was talking about the shoplifting epidemic videos is giving him late stage Roman Empire vibes. America is going full Joker. You brought that up yesterday, the idea of America going Joker. I've not seen that movie. What is that a reference to.
00:22:20
Speaker 1: Well, it's a fairly beautifully done but fairly typical dystopia of the future in which there is rampant crime, no regard for human beings, no social contract, and ugliness reigns, and the Joker character, Joaquin Phoenix, in his devastatingly weird performance, decides, screw it. I'm gonna I can't fight these forces anymore. I'm just gonna I'm gonna direct them. I'm gonna ride that wave and direct that ugliness. Let's tear it all down.
00:22:52
Speaker 3: Well, I hope that Elon is wrong about that, but I think a lot of us watch that and feel It's got a bit of an end of the Roumpire feel to it. Speaking of Twitter, by the way, I didn't know anything about this. It's funny. Yesterday I saw somebody reference Blue Sky and I just I just kind of skipped it because I thought something I don't know anything about. Then somebody brought it up last night, Are you on blue Sky yet? And I said, what now? Dorsey? Jack Dorsey, who invented Twitter and ran it and made it what it was before Elon bought it from him, has started a new thing called Blue Sky that looks exactly like the old Twitter, with the blue and the same sort of logos and the same look and everything like that. Wow, and all your favorite Twitter people that you aren't on Twitter you listening, Almost nobody is. But the people that were on Twitter all the time are migrating over to Blue Sky. It's invitation only at this point, meaning liberal only, liberal only, and so all those people are going to go over to Blue Sky and that could blow up and become the big conversation place for all of lefty America. And I hope we're going to end up with like an MSNBC that is Blue Sky and a Fox that is Twitter. Or how this is going to shake out. I don't know, it's free market at work, but I kind of like all the conversations to be in one place, you don't have to switch around. But there's no no way to make that happen.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that is that there's more meaning to that than just to split off of a social media you know contingency. I think it has to do with the fact that there are forces within America, primarily on the left, who just cannot be anywhere where they hear ideas that are contrary to their own. They just find it so threatening or angering or something they've got to go off and start there. Out there taking their ball and going home. They're going to start their own you know social media thing. Right, all those stories about how hate is running rampant on Twitter, that really, no, there's some there, but stupid is everywhere these days. I don't know if you've noticed it. Speaking of Roman Empire vibes, I love this story even as I hate it. You know, the COVID relief program loans that were so ripped off by inmates and scammers, just billions of dollars in taxpayer money disappeared. Well, court records revealed that ten Cent, the giant Chinese conglomerate which owns TikTok right, ten Cent, am I thinking of the wrong company. It owns we chat and has a large steak in the parent company a TikTok.
00:25:33
Speaker 3: Byte Dance owns TikTok Right.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: Right, has a big steak in Byte Dance.
00:25:42
Speaker 3: Anyway, wears gold chains.
00:25:44
Speaker 1: It's a good point. So the court records revealed that ten Cent co owned one of the main investors in Womply, a San Francisco startup that raked in two billion dollars in twenty twenty one by helping businesses get expedited Paycheck Protection Program loans PPP loans, which was a thank used a profiting from rampant fraud in the application process. Ten Cent, which owns also ons we chad in a large steak in Byte Dance, has faced scrutiny from the government over national security risks blah blah blah. So they gained hundreds of millions of dollars of fraudulent US tax money. This giant Chinese communist tied company by exploiting the weakness and stupidity of our giant taxpayer handouts. So that's a little frustrating.
00:26:30
Speaker 3: Don't trust China. I would say that reminds me the governor of California, who did a great job from his standpoint of injecting himself into the debates. Last night he tweeted out, welcome to the Freedom State, GOP, because the debate was in the Freedom state.
00:26:50
Speaker 1: Good lord.
00:26:51
Speaker 3: The debate was in California at the Ronald Reagan Library, and I was telling my kids, I can't believe we've never visited that before. I got to make that put that on my short list of places to go anyway. Gavin Newsom tweeted out, we believe in these crazy things here called free speech, gun safety, healthcare, social security, and climate change, Oh and democracy. See you tonight.
00:27:13
Speaker 1: What the hell? That was utterly incoherent free It was alternating between things people agree with and then cutting free speech at the knees, cutting it off at the knees during COVID, threatening doctors who dared go against the orthodoxy, silencing people at school board meetings who disagree with radical queer theory, the freedom state.
00:27:37
Speaker 3: Wow, all your big universities, if anybody to the right of Bernie Sanders speaks there, they get beaten down the Freedom State. But anyway, he found a way to inject himself into the thing, and he was in a spin room before and after and got a fair amount of attention getting back to.
00:27:54
Speaker 1: The Wompley story, which was not done. So oh, I didn't realize that. Sorry, don't worry about it, doesn't matter. M Wompley pulled in over two billion dollars in fees through its PPP work. Their late lending partner told congressional investigators that the company's fraud prevention practices appeared to be put together with duct tape and gum, and there was rampant fraud in the program. Police also intercepted messages between gang members in Florida telling each other that Wompley was really hitting and that everybody in the hood was using it. Gang members reportedly used PPP loans to fund their drug trafficking operations, all under the guiding hand of ten Cent partially owned by the Chinese government. Unbelievable.
00:28:36
Speaker 3: Wow, so much of the federal money that went out the door, and California led the way with their money going out the door being ripped off by people. That's just fantastic.
00:28:49
Speaker 1: So on a totally different topic. You may remember a week or so ago we talked about the New York Times they did a big piece on Melissa Kearney's new book, The Two Parent Privilege, and how were remarkable It was that they were actually printing something that said, look, intact families. That's why achievement suffers in America, lack of intact families. Well, Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal, who is brilliant, has come out with a your right but think piece that I thought was just terrific. Like to share that with you.
00:29:20
Speaker 3: Cool. We got a lot of stuff on the way. In an hour three, we're going to talk to one of our favorite political pundits, Gary Dietrich. Who was Was he at the debate? I know he was in the I think he was, Yeah, yeah, cool. So we'll get an idea what it was like in the arena.
00:29:33
Speaker 1: And he'd rather be at a crime scene.
00:29:36
Speaker 3: And see if he can convince us that it mattered at all. Now he can't convince me it mattered. Say whatever you want, You're not going to convince me it mattered. Stay with us.
00:29:44
Speaker 4: No one appears going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We're gonna call you Donald Duck.
00:29:47
Speaker 3: Oh you laugh, I laughed.
00:30:00
Speaker 5: The Armstrong and Getting show, Bruce Springsteen now postponing all concerts for the rest of the year.
00:30:08
Speaker 6: The Boss, who was now seventy four's being treated for peptic ulcer disease, his doctor telling him to rest.
00:30:13
Speaker 3: No three hour plus concerts.
00:30:15
Speaker 6: Springsteen posting a message tonight thanking friends and fans for their good wishes, encouragement and support. He says he's on the mend and can't wait to see you all next year.
00:30:24
Speaker 3: Maybe we were born to shuffle around the mall. If you'd like more of our thoughts on that important topic, we did it in our One More Thing podcast, which we caught after the show every single day, so check that out.
00:30:37
Speaker 1: Actually I have some more Bruce comments, but I'll withhold them for now as I wanted to get to this. Jason Riley's piece in the Wall Street Journal. We talked about this last week Melissa Kearney and economists who wrote a new book called The Two Parent Privilege, and The New York Times bravely covered it. The premise of the book being that having an intact family is an incredible advantage to kids, and Jason Riley rights and this is so good, and trust me, this is going somewhere. Melissa Kearney's new book, The Two Parent Privilege is an attempt to explain the importance of marriage to her fellow liberal intellectuals. Sadly, she has a work cut out. The author is an MIT trained economist, and is the book jacket explained. She makes quote a provocative, data driven case for marriage by showing how the institution's decline has led to a host of economic woes, problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. And he compliments the tone of the book, in the writing and the rest of it, but he says, I'm not sure how provocative it is, however, as The New York Times had labeled it. When Ms. Kearney writes that the absence of a father from a child's home appears to have direct effects on the children's outcome, and not only because of the loss of parental income, or that we need to quote restore and foster a norm of two parent homes for children, it not only makes perfect sense to me, but it also sounds very familiar. Then again, I'm not the reader she's he explains he hardly needs convincing that there are strong links between family structure and well being of children. He points out research that began in nineteen sixty five and unequivocally.
00:32:10
Speaker 3: Stated that and common sense. Do I need research of any kind to lead me to this conclusion.
00:32:18
Speaker 1: By a leading economist? Yeah, yeah, exactly, So he goes through this. George Gilder wrote about the importance of the nuclear family in sexual suicide in nineteen seventy three and men in marriage in nineteen eighty six. Charles Murray touched on it in his landmark study Losing Ground nineteen eighty four, made similar arguments in Coming Apart in twenty twelve. In nineteen ninety four, David Blankenhorn published Fatherless America ninety six brought David Popeno's Life Without Father compelling new evidence that fatherhood and marriage are indispensable for the good of children and society shocking. Other books that cover the same ground as MS. Kearney include, and I'm not going to list them all, but a book by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallaher, a book by James Q. Wilson, kay Himowitz, Richard Banks, which was specifically about African American families, all making the same arguments in the same way, using the same data. Forthcoming value from the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox is called Get Married. Why Americans must defy the elites for strong families and save civilizations. Mister Wilcox's subtitle neatly encapsulates missus Kearney's dilemma. Conservatives likely are familiar with at least a few of the aforementioned titles, yet those books, in many cases have been denounced or simply ignored by the same left wing intellectuals miss Kearney is trying to win over. In a recent podcast with fellow economist Steph Dubner, who's part of the Freakonomics team, ms Kearney said that writing the book felt like taking a quote big risk professionally because her tears tend to her peers rather tend to avoid addressing the role of family structure and discussions of social inequality and look down on those who do.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: Find that horrifying that anybody would have the view that this is like risky material or you need research in books to point this out.
00:34:10
Speaker 1: But well, and there are stacks of books that point it out.
00:34:13
Speaker 3: But I will say again, if you, if you go to marriage counseling or therapists or anything like that, I've never heard one ever bring up the idea, you know, parenting it's going to be hard on the kids. Nobody ever says that, even though it's clearly true.
00:34:31
Speaker 1: Wow, the whole truths that I don't find comfortable, I will ignore completely. School of thinking. Right, here's another quote from Ms Kearney, who again has written a good book, A skillful way.
00:34:44
Speaker 3: Yes, I would think you'd start there, of course, start what this is going to be devastating for the kids, if.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: You have any honesty or courage. Yes, of course. Anyway, Kearnie says, my saying it's not discussed is probably more reflective of the circles I run in, which is you know, higher ed academia, which of course skews liberal and progressive, left leaning conversations about kids well being and concerns about social mobility. In those circles. In those conversations, I often find that this topic has met with discomfort. The author recalled being asked by mister Dunner while still researching the book if she was concerned about being labeled as a social conservative if she published. I took that to heart, Miss Kearney said, because I knew what you were saying, which is, really, do you worry that academics aren't going to take you seriously if you sound socially conservative?
00:35:29
Speaker 3: I want to punch somebody in the face. I'm not exactly sure who, but this is this story is making you want to punch somebody in the face. Are you concerned that you'll be labeled a social conservative? Kind of question? Is that kind of answer?
00:35:44
Speaker 4: Is that?
00:35:45
Speaker 1: Riley goes on to point out what an enormous problem this is in the country, the tattering of the family. Still, it's unfortunate we've reached a point where scaredy cats social scientists are more interested in being popular than following the facts, weighing the evidence, and supporting the finding. Whether the topic is family structure, climate change, or the New York Times sixteen nineteen project. The intellectual cowardice on display in recent years has been stunning. It's clear that our intellectual class, like every other special interest group, has its own agenda and its own blind spots. For too many academic scholars, integrity has become a secondary concern. I would say To label any pursuit an intellectual pursuit that ignores not only facts, but most of the facts. In the most compelling facts to reach a predetermined outcome, to call them a social science is bizarre. It's practically hilarious. It's certainly misapplied.
00:36:40
Speaker 3: Lil More in the debate. Coming up an hour three and a bunch of other stuff you miss an hour, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty
