Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the
Speaker 1: George Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2: Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now,
Speaker 2: here's Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3: Finally, the last planes got ready to leave with the
Speaker 3: remaining troops. The war was over.
Speaker 4: And I had to go do a press conference and
Speaker 4: report that fact. So I was focused on the press conference.
Speaker 4: I'm the person who announced it. The last C-17 lifted
Speaker 4: off from Hamad Karzai International Airport on August 30th this
Speaker 4: afternoon at 3.29 p.m.
Speaker 2: East Coast time.
Speaker 5: So that was five years ago yesterday, our disastrous withdrawal
Speaker 5: from Afghanistan. That was a, I think, practically criminal failure
Speaker 5: of our government.
Speaker 2: On every level, from military to political to moral to,
Speaker 2: you know, our duty to our fighting men and women.
Speaker 2: It was such a miserable failure. I think I'd let
Speaker 2: the years go by a little bit and had, you know,
Speaker 2: let the details get fuzzy. But the Wall Street Journal said,
Speaker 2: just put out a damn near one-hour documentary on the
Speaker 2: Afghanistan withdrawal that I watched yesterday and tweeted about and
Speaker 2: texted Jack. I found it difficult to go through as
Speaker 2: I was by turns so angry it was hard to watch,
Speaker 2: then so sickened it was hard to watch, then so
Speaker 2: sad it was hard to watch, and then back to
Speaker 2: angry again. It was a delightful 57 minutes spent, but
Speaker 2: it is a brilliant documentary.
Speaker 5: Has Wall Street Journal released this so you don't have
Speaker 5: to be a subscriber to watch it, or do you
Speaker 5: have to be a Wall Street Journal subscriber?
Speaker 2: I do not know the answer to that question.
Speaker 5: I wish everybody would see it. I wish it was
Speaker 5: airing on, I wish it aired on NBC last night
Speaker 5: or something like that. You know, one of those things
Speaker 5: where everybody in America tunes in like they did in
Speaker 5: the old days, and then we talk about it the
Speaker 5: next day.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: One of the reasons we don't do that is because
Speaker 5: we are where we are with our politics. And then
Speaker 5: you have to get into criticizing the Biden administration and
Speaker 5: it becomes a, you know, do you like Biden or
Speaker 5: Trump better or whatever? Which is part of why it
Speaker 5: was the way it was at the time. I mean,
Speaker 5: we were outraged five years ago when this was going on.
Speaker 5: There was enough known at the time that it was
Speaker 5: absolutely depressing and outrageous to the way we exited Afghanistan
Speaker 5: and screwed all those people in Afghanistan who had.
Speaker 2: Helped us, screwed our own soldiers.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just, there's so many bad things going
Speaker 5: on in this story.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Watching that documentary from the Wall Street Journal, and if
Speaker 5: you have access to it, The Path to Zero.
Speaker 2: It's one of the most.
Speaker 5: Affecting documentaries I've ever seen in my life on so
Speaker 5: many different levels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's start it this way. Well, I want
Speaker 2: to throw in as a note, part of the reason
Speaker 2: that this is able to be so good and powerful
Speaker 2: and honest is that a lot of the decision makers
Speaker 2: have now left the military. So they are no longer
Speaker 2: bound by the chain of command. They can't give up
Speaker 2: anything classified. You got to take that with you to
Speaker 2: the grave. But they can now say like Frank McKenzie,
Speaker 2: General Frank McKenzie was the CENTCOM commander.
Speaker 4: He.
Speaker 2: hated biden's announcement that we're going to pull everybody out
Speaker 2: and we're going to do it from the airport and
Speaker 2: we're not going to keep bogram air force base he
Speaker 2: hated the decision and he knew it was a disaster
Speaker 2: and he tried to communicate that but the white house
Speaker 2: wasn't having it and then he watched the horror unfold
Speaker 2: in front of him you know even worse than he'd
Speaker 2: anticipated and he's just he likes so many of the
Speaker 2: people especially the young marines are just still anguished By
Speaker 2: what they witnessed.
Speaker 5: Well, the pullout just in general, leaving behind that Air
Speaker 5: Force base that they made a good point of in
Speaker 5: the documentary, how strategically important that was to us and
Speaker 5: could still be today in its proximity to Russia and
Speaker 5: China and Iran and all the, you know, the important
Speaker 5: countries we got to keep our eye on. And the
Speaker 5: fact that we let that go is just amazing.
Speaker 2: When the entire evacuation could have been done in an
Speaker 2: orderly fashion at our timetable, but Biden was so intent
Speaker 2: on getting everybody out before the anniversary of September 11th.
Speaker 2: He said, no, no, no, just abandon the air base
Speaker 2: and go to the airport. Everybody knew it was a
Speaker 2: horrible idea.
Speaker 5: That's a horrifying decision, even if it had been a
Speaker 5: somewhat orderly withdrawal. But it ended up being, if you remember,
Speaker 5: one of the most hellish scenes that has existed on
Speaker 5: planet Earth with all of those people. attempting to get
Speaker 5: to the airfield so they could get on a plane
Speaker 5: and get out of there, crawling across razor wire, handing
Speaker 5: their babies across.
Speaker 2: We remember talking about this at the time. Those babies
Speaker 2: who are still alive. It's worth noting.
Speaker 5: Our military being put in the position of having to
Speaker 5: reject babies or whatever they were supposed to do. All
Speaker 5: of a sudden, you're trained to fight in wars and
Speaker 5: you're doing some sort of personnel mission at a.
Speaker 2: A razor wire fence doing crowd control. Getting conflicting instructions
Speaker 2: every hour.
Speaker 5: With the Taliban about 20 feet away laughing at you,
Speaker 5: readying to shoot the people that you don't let in.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just as awful as anything could be. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was so affecting. One young Marine spoke of doing
Speaker 2: an eight hour shift in the middle of the night
Speaker 2: with an Afghan woman begging him the entire eight hours. Please, sir,
Speaker 2: let me in. the Taliban are pointing at me. They're
Speaker 2: going to kill me. I don't have a husband. Please
Speaker 2: let me in. And he couldn't for eight hours. He
Speaker 2: sat there listening to it. And we're going to get
Speaker 2: into a little bit of what that does to a
Speaker 2: human being. Um, Well, it's difficult to summarize other than
Speaker 2: saying it was a horrifying disaster and a preventable one
Speaker 2: on every single level.
Speaker 5: We should get to some clips of the documentary. Let
Speaker 5: me just throw this in now. I thought I wonder
Speaker 5: how the Sunday shows are going to handle the anniversary,
Speaker 5: the five year anniversary. NBC didn't talk about it at all.
Speaker 5: ABC This Week and Face the Nation did, but they
Speaker 5: did a segment on it. And it was just so
Speaker 5: tepid compared to this. It was just like a nothing, really.
Speaker 5: I was so disappointed. And again, as you pointed out,
Speaker 5: nobody's paid a price for this. Like nobody, nobody, certainly
Speaker 5: nobody went to jail or was hung the way it
Speaker 5: should have been.
Speaker 2: Or resigned.
Speaker 5: Or resigned or even paid a political price for it.
Speaker 2: Right, right. Partly because of the aid of the media,
Speaker 2: although they did report on this at the time. Give
Speaker 2: us 83 and 84 back to back, Michael.
Speaker 7: The way I like to discuss it is, from a
Speaker 7: tactical perspective, is we accomplished the mission that we were given.
Speaker 7: And those young men and women executed that mission and
Speaker 7: got 124,000 people off of the runway that otherwise would
Speaker 7: not have gotten off.
Speaker 6: But how many of those people were the ones that
Speaker 6: we were trying to get out? That's the question I
Speaker 6: think I wrestle with, is I do think that we've
Speaker 6: left a lot of people behind, including... my brother's interpreter.
Speaker 6: He never made it out, and he should be here
Speaker 6: in the States, and we left him. It's hard to
Speaker 6: think about these people that we left behind.
Speaker 5: So you had a rush toward the airfield, toward the
Speaker 5: gates to try to get in, of families, and What
Speaker 5: ended up happening is young, strong men were able to
Speaker 5: push their way to the front and have a shot
Speaker 5: at maybe getting into the gate while women, children and
Speaker 5: old people were left behind. That's pretty awful. And so
Speaker 5: that's why sometimes when you look at those big, giant
Speaker 5: planes full of people, it's like all 20 something dudes
Speaker 5: because they knocked over kids and women to get to
Speaker 5: the front of the line to get out.
Speaker 2: And the Marines who were tasked with figuring out who
Speaker 2: to get in, who to get out, all the paperwork
Speaker 2: was faked. Again, they were getting conflicting instructions and had
Speaker 2: no idea what to do as tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: people who were dying in the streets, literally dying in
Speaker 2: front of them, including little children in their own feces.
Speaker 2: They were begging to be let in. And these poor
Speaker 2: Marines were having to deal with this with terrible, terrible
Speaker 2: support from above, from the White House and the State
Speaker 2: Department on down. I want to get into this part.
Speaker 2: This is the narrator with a retired Marine who now,
Speaker 2: to his credit, heads up a nonprofit that deals with
Speaker 2: soldiers who suffer from moral injury, which they do a
Speaker 2: good job of explaining. Some of you may be familiar
Speaker 2: with the term. It's different from PTSD. It can be related,
Speaker 2: but it's when you have to either do something or
Speaker 2: watch something that is so repugnant to your own morals,
Speaker 2: you can never let it go. Breaks you. It does
Speaker 2: break you, including when the gates got crashed and there
Speaker 2: were tens of thousands of people in the airport. You
Speaker 2: may recall this. They couldn't fly anything in or out.
Speaker 2: The evacuation came to a standstill and the U.S. didn't
Speaker 2: have the people and policies to do what it took.
Speaker 2: So they called in these zero units. They're So. sponsored
Speaker 2: intelligence units of the Afghan army or Afghan military that
Speaker 2: literally ran people over in trucks and shot him till
Speaker 2: everybody was so panicked. They left the airport. That's how
Speaker 2: they cleared the tarmac and the Marines watched this happening
Speaker 2: and And then the higher-ups throughout the documentary say, we
Speaker 2: didn't get any official reports of that happening. And the
Speaker 2: narrator's like, all these Marines told me it happened. Well,
Speaker 2: I will not tell you they're lying. But it just
Speaker 2: kind of got lost, the way something too horrific doesn't
Speaker 2: make its way up the chain. Anyway, I'll shut up now.
Speaker 2: Start with 86, please, Michael.
Speaker 3: For the Marines who manned the gates, those days haunt them.
Speaker 3: They suffer from moral injury. which is very different than PTSD.
Speaker 6: Moral injury is when you bear witness to or you're
Speaker 6: the perpetrator of actions that go against your moral compass
Speaker 6: or a code of values. Throughout HKIA, these guys were
Speaker 6: just stuck in a moral dilemma the entire time. You know,
Speaker 6: playing God to people's lives choosing whether or not that
Speaker 6: they got rescued or that they'd take them to the
Speaker 6: exit and potentially be harmed by the Taliban. It was
Speaker 6: a lot to weigh on these guys.
Speaker 2: Next clip, Michael.
Speaker 8: And what can you do about moral injury?
Speaker 2: I mean, how can you deal with that?
Speaker 6: The biggest key to it, though, is that our leadership,
Speaker 6: they need to answer to these things. They need to
Speaker 6: be held accountable for it. And if not, moral injury
Speaker 6: just persists and it can metastasize into mental illnesses or disorders.
Speaker 6: And it's just something that we deserve. We deserve to
Speaker 6: have our leaders address or talk to us, just simply
Speaker 6: talk to us about what happened. And maybe if it's
Speaker 6: within them, to seek forgiveness through us. And I think
Speaker 6: that we would be more than receptive as a community
Speaker 6: to go down that path with them.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that much about that. I thought that
Speaker 5: was really interesting moral injury. I think we've all we
Speaker 5: all know we've all felt that at some level on
Speaker 5: various things. Anytime there's just like that's completely unjust and
Speaker 5: nothing is being done about it. There's a there's there's
Speaker 5: a specific feeling that that is. And apparently when you
Speaker 5: have it at the level that they dealt with it,
Speaker 5: it can really break you. And one of the keys
Speaker 5: to lessening the pain of it is, and again, I
Speaker 5: think we've all felt this a little bit, is there
Speaker 5: being some correction to it, some price. Somebody paid a
Speaker 5: price for the fact that that bad thing happened or
Speaker 5: something is being put in place so that bad thing
Speaker 5: can't happen again. And one of the reasons these guys
Speaker 5: are struggling so much is nobody paid a price for that.
Speaker 5: And there's no indication that that couldn't happen again.
Speaker 2: In short, justice. Balancing the scales. They need justice. Next clip, Michael.
Speaker 8: It doesn't seem like that's actually happening, though, does it?
Speaker 2: It does not. No, it does not.
Speaker 6: And it seems like they turned their back to us.
Speaker 6: You know, they've lived their life. They're living on while
Speaker 6: we're still here, living with what we had to do
Speaker 6: on their behalf, on their mistakes.
Speaker 2: And I know we're running late, but can we squeeze
Speaker 2: in General McKenzie? Let me be clear.
Speaker 4: All of this happened because we did not make a
Speaker 4: decision in April to bring out our embassy, our citizens,
Speaker 4: and our at-risk Afghans. Let's be very clear where blame
Speaker 4: lies for this. It doesn't lie with the joint force.
Speaker 4: It doesn't lie with the military people who are executing
Speaker 4: this operation. It lies with the political leadership that chose
Speaker 4: to turn a blind eye to the situation in Afghanistan
Speaker 4: and allow this to boil to a point in August
Speaker 4: when it became out of control and was beyond control
Speaker 4: of any reasonable military capability to impose order on it.
Speaker 4: So we should just be clear on this.
Speaker 5: The Sunday talk shows did not touch on the political
Speaker 5: aspect of this at all, as you heard there from
Speaker 5: the general. But that is the whole ball of wax.
Speaker 5: More to say about this coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just one final note that this preceding segment goes
Speaker 2: out to Nicole G's family, one of the Marines lost
Speaker 2: there at the gate, a virtual neighbor of ours at
Speaker 2: the radio ranch. And everybody lost folks there and is
Speaker 2: dealing with the pain. So on a much cheerier note,
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Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show. What was
Speaker 2: that like when that order came through? Um, I, I think,
Speaker 2: is it alright if I cuss a little bit? Yes, sure. Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course. Okay. They've been f * * * ing
Speaker 2: me for the past two weeks. Why are they not
Speaker 2: going to continue to do that?
Speaker 6: And in the most ridiculous and kind of demeaning way
Speaker 6: that they can.
Speaker 5: That's from the Wall Street Journal documentary that's getting no
Speaker 5: attention in the path to zero. I'm disappointed that it
Speaker 5: isn't like everywhere and everybody's talking about it on the
Speaker 5: five year anniversary of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: This is the last chance for any justice of a
Speaker 5: conversation or anybody to pay a price, and it seems
Speaker 5: to me that it's going to go by. It said
Speaker 5: at the end of the documentary that Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan,
Speaker 5: General Mark Milley, and General Lloyd Austin did not respond
Speaker 5: to requests for interviews for that documentary. Nobody's going to
Speaker 5: make them. They will not be forced by mainstream media,
Speaker 5: and that's that. Nor probably subpoenaed by Congress. If Accountability
Speaker 5: for our greatest failures becomes either left coded or right coded.
Speaker 2: We're through as a country. No doubt. No doubt.
Speaker 5: We need to talk more about this later because we
Speaker 5: didn't even get into Abbey Gate. That's the one horrible day,
Speaker 5: which the anniversary was last Thursday, I guess, when we
Speaker 5: lost 13 men and women and 150 Afghanis got killed
Speaker 5: and tons of people got injured and just such a failure.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 5: On every level. And again, nobody paid a price for that. Unbelievable.
Speaker 5: One of the most disappointing things that has happened in
Speaker 5: my lifetime that our U.S.
Speaker 2: Government did. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Horrific at every level.
Speaker 5: And a horrible job by the media other than the
Speaker 5: Wall Street Journal of covering this over the weekend on
Speaker 5: the five year anniversary.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm drained talking about it. It's it's one
Speaker 2: of those things. You're not going to enjoy it, but
Speaker 2: I think it's important to see it.
Speaker 5: I was thinking I was going to have my kids
Speaker 5: watch it, then got toward the end of some of
Speaker 5: the stuff was, that's too much. I don't want my
Speaker 5: kids watching that. That was hard to take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so grim. So grim.
Speaker 5: We'll talk more about that later. We got plenty of
Speaker 5: other stuff that's, you know, way easier to take coming up.
Speaker 5: Cell phone ban in schools all across the country. Lots
Speaker 5: of people are doing it. Wall Street Journal says it's
Speaker 5: not working for some reason.
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 5: I just was praising the Wall Street Journal. This one
Speaker 5: made me angry. And lots of other stuff to talk about.
Speaker 5: If you miss a segment, get the podcast, Armstrong and
Speaker 5: Getty On Demand.
Speaker 2: I have assembled what I believe to be the quintessential
Speaker 2: New York story, the quintessential L.A. story. Likewise, Portland and Seattle.
Speaker 2: A potpourri, a buffet, if you will. Coming up. Armstrong
Speaker 2: and Getty.
Speaker 9: The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2: That music really gets me going, man. I'm telling you what.
Speaker 2: You play that at all your raves, right? When you DJ?
Speaker 5: You need to explain to us about how golf's hottest
Speaker 5: company is kind of getting pushed out of the golf
Speaker 5: business now because they got on the wrong side of
Speaker 5: a media firestorm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was an interesting story.
Speaker 2: So maybe later. Yeah, I do, too. It's just it's
Speaker 2: the modern world, which tires my ass out in brief.
Speaker 2: It is the modern world. Welcome to a brand new feature,
Speaker 2: stupidity coast to coast. Actually, it leans a tad heavily
Speaker 2: on the left coast. Oh, that's shocking. Well, I feel
Speaker 2: bad giving short shrift to the East Coast, which has
Speaker 2: plenty of stupidity. Yeah, nothing like.
Speaker 5: Nothing like your California towns and Portland and Seattle.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on. Yeah, you know, stupidity is a
Speaker 2: lot like wine when you look at the two coasts.
Speaker 2: The East Coast produces some pretty solid stupidity. It's enjoyable,
Speaker 2: but it's not quite as exquisite. It's not the highest
Speaker 2: grade of stupidity like you get on the West Coast.
Speaker 2: Too many tannins. So I have what I believe to
Speaker 2: be the quintessential L.A. story, New York story, Portland and
Speaker 2: Seattle in that order. First of all, briefly, in L.A.,
Speaker 2: I know it could be a thousand different things. We're
Speaker 2: just going to pick on this one. As the fabulous
Speaker 2: Nellie Bowles pointed out, Karen Bass, the leftist union hack,
Speaker 2: career politician who's ruined L.A., is running for re-election against
Speaker 2: a communist, Nithya Raman. But anyway, as a campaign video,
Speaker 2: Karen Bass posted this video about how she was going
Speaker 2: to fix a pothole. Except she got there and there
Speaker 2: was a car parked on it, so she said, I'll
Speaker 2: be back later and try again. And that was the
Speaker 2: campaign video. Nothing happened. She just talked about fixing it. Well, dumb,
Speaker 2: dumb bass, bass hole.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: Wait, what? I think maybe dumb bass would be a
Speaker 2: better one. Okay. Well, certainly more arable. Anyway, um, So
Speaker 2: her communist opponent, city council member Nithya Raman, released her
Speaker 2: own video as a display of strength. The Los Feliz
Speaker 2: neighborhood council alerted our office in 2025 to the need
Speaker 2: for a crosswalk at Sunset Drive and Bates Street, which
Speaker 2: has just been completed. Thanks to our incredible CD4 field
Speaker 2: team for continuing to problem solve, push for solutions and
Speaker 2: make our streets safer. And then there are images side
Speaker 2: by side. And the one is this cracked image. decaying,
Speaker 2: pitted pavement without a crosswalk painted on it. And then
Speaker 2: the after picture is the cracked, decaying, pitted pavement painted
Speaker 2: over with yellow stripes. It's like, wow. Wow. That is
Speaker 2: running a city beautifully. Holy cow. How can you not
Speaker 2: look at that and laugh? That's such a dumb stunt anyway,
Speaker 2: even if it wasn't. What it is.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, you have one crosswalk. What do you do? Now
Speaker 2: I'm going to quote the fabulous Nelly. One year later,
Speaker 2: they painted yellow stripes over the cracked asphalt. This is
Speaker 2: what the politicians in California are celebrating. No wonder our
Speaker 2: great progressive leadership from L.A. to New York City universally
Speaker 2: hate business leaders. The efficiency of private industry must seem
Speaker 2: like dark magic to them. You mean to tell me
Speaker 2: that in a single year, entire movie sets are built
Speaker 2: and the movies are shot and edited? That whole companies
Speaker 2: are founded and sold? It's a lie. He's a witch.
Speaker 4: Right, right.
Speaker 2: But keep expanding the government, everybody. That'll work out great.
Speaker 2: Let's move all the way across the country to New
Speaker 2: York City. Jack, this is the perfect New York story.
Speaker 2: So right at the base of the Queensborough Bridge is
Speaker 2: this beautiful plaza with benches and plants and views of
Speaker 2: the river and stuff like that. It's quite pleasant. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a restaurant that does events that's like right there
Speaker 2: in And they have taken over the plaza and closed
Speaker 2: it over and over again for private events, up to
Speaker 2: $ 300, 000 a pop to rent the space. But it's public space.
Speaker 2: And they just block it off and put guards up
Speaker 2: and tell people in the neighborhood, you can't go there
Speaker 2: and sit there and look at the river or read
Speaker 2: a book or enjoy the flowers or anything. It's a
Speaker 2: private event. But they've never had any authorization. But the
Speaker 2: local cops are on the take. So if anybody tries
Speaker 2: to disrupt the public event or the private event, say, hey,
Speaker 2: this is a public garden. The cops arrest them. And finally,
Speaker 2: this activist went at it so many times and recruited
Speaker 2: more people to do it. Finally, the authorities had to admit, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: they have no authorization to clear this out. And then
Speaker 2: the cops were just taking bribes, apparently. Wow. In modern America,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't think that could happen.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 2: No kidding. No kidding. I mean, 1960s New York? Completely. But, yeah, surprising.
Speaker 2: The restaurant in question, Gustavino's, in court said, we acknowledge
Speaker 2: this is a public plaza, and we're working with the
Speaker 2: city to come up with a path forward. Okay, New York,
Speaker 2: forget about it. I didn't see nothing. All right, let's
Speaker 2: move across the country, back to the West Coast in
Speaker 2: beautiful Portland, where Clip 94 is the official welcome back
Speaker 2: to school message from the Portland Unified School District.
Speaker 10: I'm here to wish you all a successful 2026-2027 school year,
Speaker 10: and to thank all the amazing principals, teachers, and staff
Speaker 10: for your dedication to your students and their learning. While
Speaker 10: we can often get caught up in the hustle and bustle,
Speaker 10: it's so important to remember that together we rise with
Speaker 10: excellence and purpose.
Speaker 2: That's drag queen Poison Waters in his full mocking women
Speaker 2: drag queen regalia.
Speaker 5: I know I say this every time, but I don't
Speaker 5: get how drag queens got going.
Speaker 2: I just don't, I don't understand. Portland schools where you
Speaker 2: walk your little kid by the hand through the needles
Speaker 2: and the junkies and the crime and the lunatics in
Speaker 2: the streets and the rest of it. And the tests
Speaker 2: are plunging and the kids aren't learning and the achievement
Speaker 2: is nonexistent. And the school boards and principals want to
Speaker 2: eliminate any sort of tests so nobody knows how badly
Speaker 2: they're failing. The kids are greeted back to school by
Speaker 2: a drag queen because, of course. Portlandia's crumbling. Bang right.
Speaker 2: That's a good point, Metal Guy. Thank you. And then finally,
Speaker 2: let's end in beautiful, and I mean that, mostly formerly
Speaker 2: beautiful Seattle, one of the great cities on Earth. There
Speaker 2: is a gal we're about to meet who left her
Speaker 2: corporate career behind and single-handedly started a movement of picking
Speaker 2: up trash, calling her group We Heart Seattle. Lacking in originality, perhaps,
Speaker 2: but a good name. See, Seattle allows addicts to take
Speaker 2: over parks and walkways and under bridges and roadways and
Speaker 2: everything and drop needles everywhere. Not to mention, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, poop and just garbage and whatever. So this
Speaker 2: wacky lady, Andrea Suarez, goes around and picks up the
Speaker 2: needles with other volunteers to highlight how decayed the parks are. Well,
Speaker 2: the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries has launched
Speaker 2: an investigation into the needles, into the crap, into the
Speaker 2: taking over the parks by the junkies. No, they're investigating
Speaker 2: her for cleaning them up. Start with 90, Michael.
Speaker 1: This is a children's playground. You have men predominantly out
Speaker 1: here in a state of psychosis, high on methamphetamines, using
Speaker 1: the paraphernalia.
Speaker 9: An unexpected interruption to our interview with WeHeartSeattle founder Andrea Suarez.
Speaker 9: She says it's a snapshot of exactly why she's here.
Speaker 9: For six years, her nonprofit has been cleaning up what
Speaker 9: others leave behind.
Speaker 5: So that was a drug-crazed lunatic that all of a
Speaker 5: sudden interrupted her?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, and you don't have to go looking for them.
Speaker 10: No, I know.
Speaker 2: You've been in Seattle fairly recently, as have I, in
Speaker 2: Portland as well. No, they'll come to you. Next clip.
Speaker 1: This is what people cook fentanyl on.
Speaker 9: Suarez says some of that paraphernalia comes from Seattle and
Speaker 9: King County's harm reduction programs. which lets people who inject
Speaker 9: drugs exchange used needles for clean ones.
Speaker 1: This is the bag that the public health department gives
Speaker 1: out that includes the foil and the glass pipes.
Speaker 9: King County defends its approach, saying its programs directly prevents fatalities,
Speaker 9: reduces infectious disease transmission, and creates low barrier entry points
Speaker 9: that connect people to treatment. And that their efforts have
Speaker 9: cut overdose deaths by 30 percent from more than 1,300
Speaker 9: in 2023 to just over 900 last year.
Speaker 5: You're creating low barrier entry points to doing more.
Speaker 2: Meth or crack or whatever drug that is.
Speaker 5: I saw somebody doing that in Vancouver where drug addicts
Speaker 5: are all over the place in Vancouver.
Speaker 2: Depending on what part of town you're walking through. And
Speaker 2: we were in there.
Speaker 5: Hipster secondhand clothing vintage store area. And drug addicts were everywhere,
Speaker 5: and there was somebody there doing that whole tinfoil lightening
Speaker 5: thing up. And I thought, it's just insane that we're
Speaker 5: all walking by this person out in the open doing this.
Speaker 2: Last clip.
Speaker 9: But now the volunteers cleaning up the mess are under investigation.
Speaker 1: We're doing perhaps unsanctioned work, just like there's unsanctioned drug
Speaker 1: activity happening all day in our shared park.
Speaker 9: The Washington Department of Labor and Industries is looking into
Speaker 9: whether WeHeart Seattle workers properly disposed of used hypodermic needles
Speaker 9: and fentanyl paraphernalia after receiving an outside complaint alleging harmful mishandling.
Speaker 1: It feels like the government doesn't actually want organizations that
Speaker 1: are helping on. I mean, we are... an emergency response
Speaker 1: to this crisis that you're seeing before your eyes.
Speaker 2: So the state snaps into action. The laws must be followed,
Speaker 2: not by the homeless guy shooting up between his toes
Speaker 2: on the swing set. No, not him. By Andrea, by
Speaker 2: the volunteers, or we will bust their asses.
Speaker 5: So getting a ticket for having your dog off leash
Speaker 5: in a lot of towns where there's, hey, over there
Speaker 5: in the park, they get pit bulls running around.
Speaker 2: Well, they're not accountable, so we don't enforce the law
Speaker 2: with them. Yeah. How angering is that? And how reminiscent
Speaker 2: of the Stop Nick Shirley law that just passed. and
Speaker 2: was signed by Gavin Newsom in California, where you're not
Speaker 2: allowed to investigate fraud among agencies that deal with illegal
Speaker 2: immigrants because you'll be considered to be harassing the people
Speaker 2: who work there, asking them, wait a minute. You're getting
Speaker 2: millions of dollars. I don't see any clients. I don't
Speaker 2: see any facilities here. You will be the one arrested,
Speaker 2: like Andrea there in Seattle. Sorry, East Coast. West Coast
Speaker 2: wins again. It's stupidity coast to coast. Well, well, fantastic.
Speaker 2: God dang it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make
Speaker 2: everybody angry. This is why I'm not invited to the
Speaker 2: better dinner parties.
Speaker 5: So you're making decent money, but you're not like a
Speaker 5: suit and tie sort of guy. And, you know, where
Speaker 5: do you go for financial planning? People that understand your
Speaker 5: lifestyle and that sort of thing. Well, we want to
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Speaker 5: Armstrong and Getty are not talent clients and receive compensation
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Speaker 5: For more additional disclosures, visit Blue Collar Dollar dot com.
Speaker 5: Paid for by Epic Financial. It's very exciting to have
Speaker 5: a brand new disclaimer to read.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Super. Super. Hope all the lawyers are
Speaker 2: happy out there. Protected everybody from harm. Don't step on
Speaker 2: any needles.
Speaker 5: Hey, I know a quick thing I can do when
Speaker 5: we come back since the NFL season is about to
Speaker 5: start up. I did a little going on the chat bots.
Speaker 5: What are all the major publications saying? Who are the
Speaker 5: best NFL teams out there? Who's most likely to win
Speaker 5: the Super Bowl? Pretty interesting, I thought. Can spend like
Speaker 5: just a few seconds on that before we move on
Speaker 5: to other things. There's plenty to talk about today.
Speaker 2: Stay here. Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3: The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 5: Trump is so mad at Canada, he renamed Lake Ontario
Speaker 5: Lake America.
Speaker 2: Now I've got to buy a new globe again. It's
Speaker 2: like the fifth time it's happened.
Speaker 5: Liberals are very pissed at this. They say you can't
Speaker 5: just go around renaming things to suit your political agenda.
Speaker 10: Just ask any Latinx birthing person.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
Speaker 5: That was pretty good. And the crowd, either because they
Speaker 5: agree or they just like Bill Maher and they waited
Speaker 5: in line to see him. I don't know which, but
Speaker 5: a liberal audience laughing at that. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2: Yep. Yep. Good call. Oh, God, we live in a
Speaker 2: weird time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Fight it. Fight it.
Speaker 5: The NFL season is starting real soon. I wanted to
Speaker 5: know who are the best teams. You know, you mentioned
Speaker 5: the other day that you can't remember who won last year's.
Speaker 2: World Series or Super Bowl or whatever.
Speaker 5: And I often can, but like I read the defending
Speaker 5: Super Bowl champion, Seattle Seahawks.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: I watched it. I remember thinking it was pretty good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess it is.
Speaker 5: Anyway, I know if you're a real hardcore football fan,
Speaker 5: it seems ridiculous that we don't remember that. Anyway, your
Speaker 5: overall consensus Super Bowl favorites across almost all of your
Speaker 5: power rankings from all of your big publications and websites
Speaker 5: and stuff like that, your L.A.
Speaker 2: Rams. So there you go.
Speaker 5: With the Seahawks right behind it. So interesting thing about that.
Speaker 5: They're in the same division with the 49ers being a
Speaker 5: good team, too. So that's a heck of a division,
Speaker 5: your NFC West.
Speaker 2: I was reading an article about how their GM has
Speaker 2: built that great, great team, the Rams. It reminds me
Speaker 2: of Michael Jordan's Bulls. You have your irreplaceable parts, and
Speaker 2: then you have your role players around them who are
Speaker 2: very good at a specific set of stuff, but they're
Speaker 2: more or less interchangeable, so you're not going to pay
Speaker 2: them zillions of dollars.
Speaker 5: Can America live with the Dodgers winning their third straight
Speaker 5: World Series and then the Rams winning the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2: It'll all explode.
Speaker 5: Um, speaking of football, my son got drafted into being
Speaker 5: the water boy for the high school football game on
Speaker 5: Friday night, was on the sidelines running around, giving everybody
Speaker 5: water and really, really had a good time hanging out
Speaker 5: with the team and everything like that was fantastic. I
Speaker 5: was so, so excited that he was part of something
Speaker 5: with his, uh, first time ever being in.
Speaker 2: A regular school. I think they call them team managers.
Speaker 2: You don't get to call them water boys. No water
Speaker 2: boys demeaning. It is.
Speaker 10: Why?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's like calling somebody Latino. It's Latinx. No, it's
Speaker 2: not Waterboy. They're a team manager. Yes, Katie. Have you
Speaker 2: not seen the movie? I actually haven't. I actually have
Speaker 2: not seen the Waterboy. Oh, for the love of God.
Speaker 2: I know. It's crazy. It's idioticalicious. Yeah. That's where I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, you can't call him Waterboy.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll remember that. I'm glad you told me. I
Speaker 2: think they called him that. I think the coach did. No,
Speaker 2: it's not OK anymore. It's like the N word. Oh,
Speaker 2: it's it's not exactly like the N word, but it's
Speaker 2: it's it's a bit of an insult. The W word. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's a slur. Those who distribute hydration around the nation.
Speaker 5: The whole high school football thing is trying to explain
Speaker 5: this to my kids on how it's such a big
Speaker 5: deal coast to coast. And it's just the Friday Night
Speaker 5: Lights thing that they mention in all your modern country songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's such a cultural thing that no other high school
Speaker 5: sport obviously has. And like my older son and all
Speaker 5: his friends from a different school or, you know, they
Speaker 5: go around to the different games. It's just, it's just a,
Speaker 5: a thing. It's a, it's definitely a thing. It's a
Speaker 5: social thing.
Speaker 2: And parents too. It's tribal thing. It's a proxy for warfare.
Speaker 2: It's obvious. It's fast. It's violent. The stronger, more skilled
Speaker 2: team wins. Baseball's just not close enough to warfare, right?
Speaker 2: Soccer is great. It's not close enough to warfare football.
Speaker 2: That's the one.
Speaker 5: The thing with youth sports, I've said this since I
Speaker 5: started watching youth sports is you always have a couple
Speaker 5: of kids that are so much faster than all the
Speaker 5: other kids and whatever youth sport you're watching. And it's
Speaker 5: just like, how are you even on? Oh, I was
Speaker 5: thinking about this the other day. So where I go
Speaker 5: to lift weights, they they do tennis lessons there for
Speaker 5: well-to-do children who need private tennis lessons. And I watch
Speaker 5: it out the window in between sets and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And you can look at these.
Speaker 5: Little kids and like that little kid is just so
Speaker 5: much more naturally talented than all the other little kids,
Speaker 5: even having no idea what he's doing. I mean, you
Speaker 5: can just see it, just his footwork and just his
Speaker 5: arm motion, just everything about it. It's amazing the gifts
Speaker 5: you start out with. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Didn't Malcolm Gladwell write some sort of Dopey book that
Speaker 2: got a bunch of attention a while back saying there
Speaker 2: is no talent. You just have to spend enough time.
Speaker 5: I think that was a blurb to sell the 10,000
Speaker 5: hours thing. But yeah, to that point, you can watch
Speaker 5: and think, that kid's got so much more talent than
Speaker 5: everybody else out there on the court that is age
Speaker 5: seven trying to play tennis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, check back with me in 10 years. Right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: OK, so a lot of good stuff to come.
Speaker 5: Speaking of young people, the ban on cell phones across
Speaker 5: the country in schools. Wall Street Journal says it's not
Speaker 5: working out as good as we thought, which I thought
Speaker 5: was just a stupid article.
Speaker 2: And I want to complain about it.
Speaker 5: Among other things on the way, if you miss the segment,
Speaker 5: get the podcast.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty.