WEBVTT - Stupid Joe 0:00:06.850 --> 0:00:11.030 Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio. The George 0:00:11.090 --> 0:00:12.729 Washington Broadcast Center. 0:00:12.789 --> 0:00:14.980 Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:16.980 Armstrong and Getty. And now. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.060 In France, fresh curfews in Paris leave the city relatively 0:00:32.180 --> 0:00:35.479 quiet tonight after days of destructive riots over the economy 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.240 and cuts to education. However, student-led protesters took to the 0:00:39.260 --> 0:00:42.949 streets of Albania, some throwing stones at officials while police 0:00:43.050 --> 0:00:46.750 drenched them with water cannons. Authorities throughout Europe are bracing 0:00:46.790 --> 0:00:48.890 for more protests planned for this weekend. 0:00:49.030 --> 0:00:51.030 Yeah, it didn't get enough attention that there are a 0:00:51.070 --> 0:00:53.890 number of other countries where they had protests over the weekend, 0:00:53.930 --> 0:00:56.450 not as big as France, but they're at the beginning stages. 0:00:56.490 --> 0:01:01.240 That's why... What's her name? The leader of Italy, who 0:01:01.460 --> 0:01:03.520 flits out of my mind. I really like her. 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:03.900 Ms. 0:01:04.020 --> 0:01:08.270 Maloney. What is her first name? I like her act. But, man, 0:01:08.290 --> 0:01:09.930 she put out a video where she was looking at 0:01:09.950 --> 0:01:12.190 the camera. She's like, we ain't putting up with that here. Basically, 0:01:12.209 --> 0:01:13.630 what she was saying, we got lots of cops. We're 0:01:13.650 --> 0:01:16.230 going to arrest you. We're going to throw you in jail. 0:01:16.590 --> 0:01:20.090 This won't last. And where was it? Was that in Italy? 0:01:20.310 --> 0:01:22.740 Did you see the video of the tough guys and 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.530 the socialists meeting in the street? Where was it? I 0:01:26.550 --> 0:01:29.920 think it was Italy. Anyway, you had a bunch of you. 0:01:29.970 --> 0:01:35.960 It's a present. You had a you had a bunch 0:01:36.020 --> 0:01:41.420 of socialist looking dudes, weedy, you know, overly, overly fashionable 0:01:41.580 --> 0:01:46.450 facial hair doing their rioting and screaming and yelling. And 0:01:46.569 --> 0:01:51.130 some and some tough guys showed up basically saying, get 0:01:51.170 --> 0:01:54.140 off the street. And the socialist dudes were like, no, 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:55.480 we can be here if we want. And one guy 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.440 just shoves the... And I don't like violence. I don't 0:01:58.460 --> 0:02:01.920 like violence. Neither do I, theoretically. And there's probably all 0:02:01.980 --> 0:02:04.770 kinds of abhorrent things about the tough guys. But that's 0:02:04.950 --> 0:02:08.610 how this plays out always. You get an equal and 0:02:08.710 --> 0:02:11.210 opposite reaction to that nut job crowd with a different 0:02:11.230 --> 0:02:12.870 nut job crowd that says we ain't putting up with 0:02:12.910 --> 0:02:15.880 it often. But anyway, the tough guys in just like 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.919 big guys T-shirts and jeans like shoving the socialists back. 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.419 And one of the socialists Like, hey, you can't do that, 0:02:21.460 --> 0:02:23.440 and then slaps the guy in the face, which I 0:02:23.460 --> 0:02:25.200 thought was a good move. A slap rather than a 0:02:25.260 --> 0:02:28.870 punch from a dude that looked like he was about 6'2, 240, 0:02:28.870 --> 0:02:33.790 all muscle. Slapped the guy with the man bun. Like, gick. 0:02:36.580 --> 0:02:40.400 Well, again, equal and opposite reaction. I agree completely. We've 0:02:40.419 --> 0:02:42.339 seen some of that in our country. We had not 0:02:42.380 --> 0:02:44.320 planned on this. I did not know Jack was going 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.340 to go off on that screed, but it is a 0:02:46.620 --> 0:02:50.350 perfect lead-in to a handful of things France-related, including a 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:53.690 couple of articles from the New York Times that speak 0:02:53.810 --> 0:02:56.570 more loudly than the words in them. The first being, 0:02:56.630 --> 0:03:00.310 to your point, it's not just France. Europe's political center 0:03:00.410 --> 0:03:04.040 is crumbling. Europe's centrist parties are losing ground among young 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.880 people and workers who are increasingly tempted by populist promises 0:03:08.220 --> 0:03:12.730 of radical change. You know, it's true all over the world, 0:03:12.910 --> 0:03:17.570 but particularly in Europe, because of the false promises and 0:03:17.650 --> 0:03:22.760 inevitable crash of socialism. And that's what makes this so surprising. 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.919 This is Ash Nelson and Jim Tankersley. Jim, we've talked 0:03:26.940 --> 0:03:29.630 to through the years, and he's with The New York 0:03:29.669 --> 0:03:30.550 Times at this point. 0:03:30.750 --> 0:03:32.150 God, I wish we could get him on about this. 0:03:32.190 --> 0:03:34.130 He's so good. Yeah, I like Jim. 0:03:34.770 --> 0:03:38.960 A doom loop threatens France as populism confronts markets. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:40.020 The subhead. 0:03:40.380 --> 0:03:44.600 The turmoil shows the profound challenges facing governments stuck between 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:50.620 unhappy citizens and wary bond investors. So you're thinking, bond investors? 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.910 I don't know from bond. No, here's the deal. These 0:03:54.010 --> 0:03:59.690 governments have made utterly unkeepable promises to their populace about 0:03:59.770 --> 0:04:03.860 cradle to grave everything, and everything's a human right, and 0:04:03.900 --> 0:04:06.840 we will tax the rich, and we will deliver all 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.060 of your dreams if you vote for us. Well, they 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.860 voted for them, and these dreams are crumbling because they 0:04:11.900 --> 0:04:15.800 are out of freaking money. They're not only out of money, 0:04:16.020 --> 0:04:18.800 they're out of people dumb enough to lend them money. 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.220 So the reference to the bond market, if you're not 0:04:21.260 --> 0:04:23.860 hip to this sort of thing, is you go to 0:04:23.900 --> 0:04:26.850 people who buy government bonds and you say, hey, we'll 0:04:26.890 --> 0:04:29.750 give you, I don't know, a 7% return on this bond. 0:04:29.770 --> 0:04:33.510 And you're like, you're France. I want 20%. You're like 0:04:33.550 --> 0:04:36.409 a crackhead. I'm not going to trust you with my money. 0:04:36.850 --> 0:04:41.090 Their fiscal problem is that serious now. And for the 0:04:41.250 --> 0:04:45.839 New York Times to have their lead article about France be, well, 0:04:45.940 --> 0:04:49.159 they put it in the acute terms, A doom loop 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:54.360 threatens France as populism confronts markets. I would say as 0:04:54.540 --> 0:04:57.400 populism and socialism confront reality. 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:04.600 I heard Macron over the weekend promise to however many 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.300 gazillion euros or whatever their money is they use in France.... 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.260 Heroes, which factors into the next story. 0:05:12.339 --> 0:05:15.500 To help the store owners who had their stores looted 0:05:15.990 --> 0:05:18.630 and that the government will blah, blah, blah. And I thought, no, 0:05:18.650 --> 0:05:21.690 you ain't. There's no way you're going to. I mean, 0:05:21.710 --> 0:05:25.210 that's the doom spiral you're in. All of these fancy 0:05:25.250 --> 0:05:27.650 stores and churches and everything like that that got smashed 0:05:27.690 --> 0:05:30.250 and burnt down or whatever, the government can't come in 0:05:30.290 --> 0:05:33.430 and bail you out. They got no money. And you're 0:05:33.450 --> 0:05:35.030 robbing Pierre to pay Jacques. 0:05:35.570 --> 0:05:36.309 Sorry, couldn't resist. 0:05:36.910 --> 0:05:40.290 So that leads me to the next brick in the wall, 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.020 and that is some really good analysis that wouldn't have 0:05:44.060 --> 0:05:45.920 occurred to me because I'm not as smart. 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.560 As Holman Jenkins Sr., who writes for the Wall Street Journal. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.080 He writes on finance and politics and markets and that 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:52.600 sort of thing. 0:05:52.620 --> 0:05:54.619 I wish my name was Holman. 0:05:56.900 --> 0:05:57.540 Yeah, yeah. 0:05:57.580 --> 0:06:00.300 You know, I'm Joseph III, which is fine. It honors 0:06:00.339 --> 0:06:01.930 my father and my grandfather before me. 0:06:01.990 --> 0:06:02.520 I love that. 0:06:03.250 --> 0:06:10.150 But, you know, Wyndham or Holman or something fancy sounding. 0:06:10.190 --> 0:06:11.529 People would take me more seriously. 0:06:11.589 --> 0:06:11.830 Yeah, I know. 0:06:11.850 --> 0:06:13.490 I feel like people would listen to me more if 0:06:13.510 --> 0:06:14.190 my name was Holman. 0:06:16.089 --> 0:06:17.950 I've thought of going with the first initial and the 0:06:17.990 --> 0:06:19.489 middle name because that sounds fancy. 0:06:19.510 --> 0:06:21.589 Jay Walter. Yes. 0:06:22.490 --> 0:06:23.430 That does sound fancy. 0:06:23.850 --> 0:06:30.890 We must take him much more seriously than Joe. Stupid Joe. Anyway, 0:06:30.950 --> 0:06:31.430 where was I? 0:06:31.450 --> 0:06:31.849 Stupid. 0:06:35.140 --> 0:06:36.919 Oh, ignore him. He's named Joe. 0:06:37.820 --> 0:06:41.210 So, Holman Jenkins is talking about how, first, he leads 0:06:41.250 --> 0:06:45.310 with the Euro, and the whole Eurozone thing was looking 0:06:45.350 --> 0:06:48.990 a little weak before Putin jumped ugly with Ukraine, but 0:06:49.029 --> 0:06:51.270 it's brought Europe together, and so the Euro is here 0:06:51.310 --> 0:06:54.320 to stay, which I thought was interesting. I don't think 0:06:54.380 --> 0:06:59.020 about that too much. But then he goes into. 0:07:00.980 --> 0:07:04.680 The fact that France is in a financial death spiral. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.520 They have a desperate need to cut budgets, to restore 0:07:10.580 --> 0:07:14.250 fiscal sanity, and it's going to be really, really painful. 0:07:14.710 --> 0:07:17.490 And they have both a political system and a populace 0:07:17.710 --> 0:07:18.570 that won't put up. 0:07:18.530 --> 0:07:20.630 With the tiniest bit of pain. 0:07:21.030 --> 0:07:24.550 Even raising the retirement age from 62 to 63, they went. 0:07:24.450 --> 0:07:27.990 Wild in the street. Well, Marine Le Pen, the far-right 0:07:28.090 --> 0:07:31.680 candidate that currently would win the election if it were 0:07:31.710 --> 0:07:34.820 held today, but it's in six months, she's talking about 0:07:34.980 --> 0:07:38.620 lowering the retirement age to 60. It's kind of like 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:44.320 Trump on the trail saying, we'll give you all $ 5, 000. 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.500 You vote me in, and I'll lower the retirement age. 0:07:45.540 --> 0:07:47.950 The other bad people are trying to raise it. 0:07:48.550 --> 0:07:48.850 What? 0:07:49.550 --> 0:07:50.570 That's the right winger. 0:07:50.590 --> 0:07:52.050 Oh, Lord. 0:07:52.170 --> 0:07:52.670 Yeah. 0:07:53.570 --> 0:07:58.030 So Jenkins points out that France is too big to 0:07:58.110 --> 0:08:00.670 fail and also too big to bail out, which leaves 0:08:00.710 --> 0:08:04.070 only one realistic choice. France pulls itself together or takes 0:08:04.270 --> 0:08:08.020 Europe down with it. This is an unbelievable rock in 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.120 a hard place situation. He says there's really no other alternative, 0:08:11.180 --> 0:08:14.450 no matter the winner of next year's presidential election. There's 0:08:14.490 --> 0:08:17.690 likely no alternative to self-help except France flaking out of 0:08:17.730 --> 0:08:21.560 the Eurozone, seeing its living standards plummet, and seeing all 0:08:21.580 --> 0:08:24.480 those nice chateaus and paintings bought up by rich Chinese 0:08:24.540 --> 0:08:25.280 and Americans. 0:08:25.380 --> 0:08:28.300 Or it can become North Korea. 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.000 On the Cote d'Azur, shutting itself off from the world 0:08:31.060 --> 0:08:34.670 in pursuit of, he uses the term, penurious. If I 0:08:34.710 --> 0:08:37.729 was Jay Walter, I would say things like penurious, but 0:08:38.490 --> 0:08:40.050 economic self-sufficiency. 0:08:41.350 --> 0:08:44.870 They're hurting for certain. Fancy French paintings are going to 0:08:44.890 --> 0:08:49.030 be in the hands of actual oligarchs, Russian style or 0:08:49.090 --> 0:08:49.750 Chinese style. 0:08:50.750 --> 0:08:51.530 Yeah, exactly. 0:08:51.870 --> 0:08:54.250 Yeah, they're going to buy the whole country. Hell, I 0:08:54.270 --> 0:08:57.470 may put my bid in. I searched this just to 0:08:58.429 --> 0:09:01.830 confirm it. Yes, Marine Le Pen is pushing to bring 0:09:01.910 --> 0:09:06.030 France's retirement age back down to 62 and then 60 0:09:06.030 --> 0:09:10.150 for people who started working young. At a debate just 0:09:11.190 --> 0:09:14.070 about six weeks ago, she confirmed she would keep this pledge. 0:09:14.790 --> 0:09:21.120 That's the conservative right-winger wants to lower the retirement age 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.370 in a country that has just fallen apart because the 0:09:24.420 --> 0:09:28.350 socialism has gone too far. That's unbelievable. 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.270 This is politically better metaphor, the unstoppable force meeting the 0:09:33.390 --> 0:09:37.730 immovable object. The immovable object being French sentiment. 0:09:37.950 --> 0:09:40.030 Yeah, and it's the whole race to the bottom thing 0:09:40.070 --> 0:09:41.930 that I always worry about. Once you start a race 0:09:42.030 --> 0:09:45.110 to the bottom, swirling, and then when people, and I 0:09:45.150 --> 0:09:46.929 think this is where they are in France, where she's saying, 0:09:47.970 --> 0:09:50.490 I can talk about raising it. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.740 To 65 or lowering it to 40. It doesn't make 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:53.320 any difference. 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.319 We're doomed. But if I say the lower direction, I 0:09:56.620 --> 0:09:59.890 get elected. and then can do the hard stuff theoretically. 0:10:01.260 --> 0:10:03.740 Or it doesn't make any difference. It's all falling apart 0:10:03.780 --> 0:10:05.760 whether I get elected or someone else gets elected. But 0:10:05.820 --> 0:10:08.180 I'd rather I get elected. I mean, they might be 0:10:08.220 --> 0:10:11.010 at that point of cynicism where they think it's done. 0:10:11.090 --> 0:10:11.630 It's over. 0:10:12.170 --> 0:10:14.890 So I'll get the money from the Chinese oligarchs. I 0:10:14.910 --> 0:10:16.030 might as well get those checks. 0:10:16.090 --> 0:10:16.390 Exactly. 0:10:16.790 --> 0:10:19.790 Penurious means extremely poor or poverty stricken. 0:10:20.670 --> 0:10:21.650 And they will be. 0:10:21.910 --> 0:10:25.750 So that's enough like big picture why I keep saying 0:10:25.790 --> 0:10:28.370 this could be the most important story of our time 0:10:28.429 --> 0:10:29.350 and not in a good way. 0:10:31.100 --> 0:10:32.700 Europe is wobbling. 0:10:33.059 --> 0:10:37.020 It's a prize fighter that clearly isn't sure which direction. 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:37.620 His corner is. 0:10:38.300 --> 0:10:40.440 And this could end not great. 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.890 I want to get into the specifics of the politics, though, 0:10:44.230 --> 0:10:48.490 in the next segment. Because the stench of what got 0:10:48.570 --> 0:10:52.250 France into this position is on our doorsteps. Hell, it's 0:10:52.330 --> 0:10:54.970 in our living room right now in the United States. 0:10:55.370 --> 0:10:58.420 And by God, we better wake up to it or 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.080 we are heading down that same road. 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.339 What's the name of the guy on the left, Melonhead 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:04.020 or whatever he is? 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:05.319 Melon Sean. 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:10.310 He is, how dare you try austerity? So you got the... 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:15.030 Austerity is a no-go. He was supporting the rioting in 0:11:15.050 --> 0:11:18.610 the streets of the idea of any cutbacks. He's the left. 0:11:18.730 --> 0:11:23.840 The person on the right wants to lower the retirement age. Oh, 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:24.600 my God. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.059 All right, class, and then we need to take a break. 0:11:27.740 --> 0:11:34.160 Why would Mr. Mélenchon support policies that will bring the 0:11:34.300 --> 0:11:36.160 ruin of the French Republic? 0:11:37.450 --> 0:11:37.990 Why? 0:11:38.390 --> 0:11:41.060 Is he that stupid? Jimmy in the back? 0:11:41.580 --> 0:11:44.120 Because he wants it to fail to take it over 0:11:44.179 --> 0:11:45.380 in a Marxist revolution. 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:46.320 Good, Jimmy. 0:11:46.660 --> 0:11:49.300 At least somebody's paying attention. Yeah, that's the point. They're 0:11:49.340 --> 0:11:51.740 trying to crack the system so they can take it over. 0:11:52.940 --> 0:11:54.470 Interesting. Any thoughts? Text line 415295KFTC. 0:12:09.750 --> 0:12:11.750 The Armstrong and Getty Show. 0:12:12.210 --> 0:12:16.850 Mentioning another show, which is probably not the best idea. Apparently, 0:12:16.870 --> 0:12:19.790 Eric Erickson went off on the whole Vivek ad last 0:12:19.890 --> 0:12:23.420 night that we played last hour, declared it disqualifying if 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.340 he doesn't blame a staffer or disavow it. I think 0:12:26.380 --> 0:12:29.660 I'd agree. If you didn't hear that, it's pretty darn interesting. 0:12:29.700 --> 0:12:31.920 It's an hour to get the podcast Armstrong and Getty 0:12:32.059 --> 0:12:32.540 on demand. 0:12:33.420 --> 0:12:37.210 Continuing the discussion of France, if you're an occasional listener, 0:12:37.260 --> 0:12:40.470 don't follow the news much, and you are still thinking 0:12:40.510 --> 0:12:42.839 this is student protests over schools. 0:12:42.980 --> 0:12:43.760 Not enough chalk! 0:12:44.890 --> 0:12:47.089 Yeah, no, not at all, not even close. 0:12:47.130 --> 0:12:49.460 It may have started as that, but we'll get to 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.679 the significance of that in a minute. A couple of 0:12:51.740 --> 0:12:53.620 just quick updates for you, and then we'll get to 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:58.160 the main point. The arsonist who was behind, who ran 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.960 the burning of the Limoges City Hall, this is the 0:13:01.100 --> 0:13:05.350 beautiful 19th century historic building that the Nazis occupied and said, 0:13:05.370 --> 0:13:06.929 this is too beautiful, we're not going to damage it. 0:13:07.630 --> 0:13:11.610 But the rioters burned it to the ground. The arsonist 0:13:11.730 --> 0:13:15.750 has been detained. He is a 40-year-old far-left Antifa activist 0:13:16.170 --> 0:13:19.510 on France's national security watch list for his ties to ultra-radical, 0:13:20.330 --> 0:13:23.090 ultra-left extremist movements. He has a long history of police 0:13:23.110 --> 0:13:26.710 records for violence against a person holding public authority. He's 0:13:27.190 --> 0:13:31.050 a hardcore Marxist, not surprising at all to me. And 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.059 then I saw this on Twitter. It's an argument taking 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.720 place in France. I think it's in Paris. A woman 0:13:40.140 --> 0:13:44.120 had rioters and looters break into her building and threatened 0:13:44.380 --> 0:13:49.110 to rape her. They were immigrant fellows while she was 0:13:49.190 --> 0:13:51.069 holding her child in her arms. 0:13:51.090 --> 0:13:51.170 Yeah. 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.950 And she was talking about this, and she was confronted 0:13:56.070 --> 0:14:00.550 by the feminist activist Bettina Zorli, who holds a master's 0:14:00.590 --> 0:14:04.559 degree in gender studies and focuses her work on gender norms, motherhood, 0:14:04.620 --> 0:14:10.360 reproductive rights, etc. She describes herself as feminist, child-free, and antifa. 0:14:10.900 --> 0:14:13.870 But she lectured this woman that that's collateral damage. 0:14:14.980 --> 0:14:16.530 You're the bourgeoisie. 0:14:16.670 --> 0:14:18.880 You're going to be heard in this for the people 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:20.040 to rise up and take. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.120 What is theirs. Boy, that's straight out of the French Revolution. 0:14:22.870 --> 0:14:25.630 She's lectured in gender studies, including at the University of 0:14:25.810 --> 0:14:27.510 Lille and University of Rennes. 0:14:28.050 --> 0:14:30.740 Anyway, I thought that was interesting. It's in French. 0:14:30.780 --> 0:14:33.880 Otherwise, I'd run you the audio. But she is a 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.600 she's exactly what you said. She's a terrifying specter of 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.840 the sort of intellectual who will slaughter millions of people 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:45.110 for their goals because Marxism is always run by the intellectual. 0:14:45.130 --> 0:14:48.220 Man, they got to grease up the guillotine. That's what 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:49.760 I say. That's what you just said. 0:14:50.140 --> 0:14:53.120 So I wanted to get to this by Richard Pollack. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.360 He says, France is burning again. The legendary May 1968 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.800 French riots are returning. And he points out getting back 0:15:01.860 --> 0:15:05.520 to the student protest thing, which is another example. 0:15:05.140 --> 0:15:07.400 Of they spend like crazy on the schools in France. 0:15:07.780 --> 0:15:09.540 I mean, lots and lots of money. 0:15:09.820 --> 0:15:13.860 But the schools are terrible because socialism and unions and 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:15.380 the rest of it ruin everything. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:16.160 Yeah. 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.330 But he points out, most Marxist playbooks start with a grievance, 0:15:20.570 --> 0:15:22.730 then morph into revolutionary. 0:15:22.090 --> 0:15:24.170 Violence, and we're seeing that playbook again. 0:15:25.730 --> 0:15:28.270 As the Prime Minister said, a shadowy network of far-left 0:15:28.310 --> 0:15:31.500 and revolutionary agitators were seeking to orchestrate, quote, a profound 0:15:31.510 --> 0:15:33.940 disorder in the country leading up to the presidential election. 0:15:34.540 --> 0:15:37.920 And Pollack writes, he knows quite a bit about Marxism 0:15:37.940 --> 0:15:41.140 and revolutionary violence. One of his, in the 70s, his 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.680 roommate was one of the Chicago Seven defendants, and he 0:15:44.870 --> 0:15:49.470 knew the people who knew Saul Alinsky who wrote the 0:15:49.530 --> 0:15:53.790 Bible of leftist protest rules for radicals, a practical primer 0:15:53.850 --> 0:15:57.810 for realistic radicals. And he goes into all the techniques 0:15:57.850 --> 0:16:02.550 that he's seeing in the French riots and how right 0:16:03.010 --> 0:16:05.450 Alinsky was with his strategies. 0:16:05.610 --> 0:16:09.380 And Herbert Marcuse, who I think is a German, but. 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.480 who was into liberation, Marxism, that sort of thing. 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.360 But he makes it infinitely clear that.... 0:16:19.300 --> 0:16:21.500 This is straight out of Rules for Radicals. And this 0:16:21.580 --> 0:16:23.840 is another example of what I'm always yelling about, which 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.120 is these people told us precisely what they were going 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.450 to do, how they were going to do it. Their 0:16:29.510 --> 0:16:31.650 names are on the spines of the book. This is 0:16:31.690 --> 0:16:36.410 not a conspiracy theory. It's a political movement. It's super popular. 0:16:36.490 --> 0:16:39.910 It's well-financed, and they're dead serious. Then the last thing 0:16:39.930 --> 0:16:42.070 I wanted to squeeze in is that he points out 0:16:42.130 --> 0:16:43.460 the thing that was missing in 1968 and the early 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:43.840 70s was Islamism. 0:16:49.990 --> 0:16:50.550 In France. 0:16:50.890 --> 0:16:55.020 So now you've got this huge coalition of angry, alienated 0:16:55.220 --> 0:16:58.730 Muslims who either hate their lives or they hate France 0:16:58.760 --> 0:16:59.990 for not being Muslim. 0:17:00.750 --> 0:17:04.090 And they have a grievance. Back to the first sentence. 0:17:04.570 --> 0:17:07.760 Most Marxist playbooks start with a grievance, then morph into 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:13.300 revolutionary violence. We're seeing that playbook again. France is teetering, 0:17:13.700 --> 0:17:16.610 and Europe is teetering. I don't think most people appreciate 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:17.030 that yet. 0:17:17.450 --> 0:17:21.530 Jung plays a big role in this, too, usually. Sure. 0:17:21.570 --> 0:17:24.669 They buy the politics easier and they got more energy. 0:17:25.090 --> 0:17:29.250 France's youth unemployment is 20 percent. Three times what it 0:17:29.310 --> 0:17:31.230 is next door in Germany, by the way. That's a 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:33.240 lot of unhappy, unemployed young men. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:43.750 Armstrong and Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show. That U.S. 0:17:43.790 --> 0:17:47.010 Citizen held by Russia has just been freed, and it 0:17:47.090 --> 0:17:50.899 comes as Special Envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Russia overnight 0:17:51.220 --> 0:17:54.200 to meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss ending his invasion 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:59.700 of Ukraine. 74-year-old Stephen Hubbard has been in custody since 0:17:59.700 --> 0:18:02.680 2022 when Russia arrested him and accused him of being 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:07.190 a mercenary fighting for Ukraine. Hubbard is a retired schoolteacher 0:18:07.230 --> 0:18:10.909 from Michigan and has been classified as wrongly detained by 0:18:10.930 --> 0:18:11.330 the U.S. 0:18:11.369 --> 0:18:12.090 State Department. 0:18:12.270 --> 0:18:15.609 This seems so transparently cynical to me, or I suppose 0:18:15.650 --> 0:18:18.490 you can take it as a goodwill gesture that shows 0:18:18.550 --> 0:18:23.010 Putin's actual inclination for peace. If you're like a child 0:18:23.109 --> 0:18:26.780 or have an IQ of 40. But who is this 0:18:26.859 --> 0:18:31.600 dude that Russia let loose? He's actually a quirky old bird. 0:18:31.619 --> 0:18:33.080 He left the U.S. 0:18:33.140 --> 0:18:37.680 Decades ago. He didn't like the government. He went to Japan, 0:18:37.700 --> 0:18:40.659 then Cyprus, and finally Ukraine. He was living in a 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.410 small town in eastern Ukraine when the Russians invaded. They 0:18:44.490 --> 0:18:50.030 snatched him up. When was this written? He's 74 years old. 0:18:51.090 --> 0:18:54.040 They snatched him up and accused him of fighting for Ukraine, 0:18:54.060 --> 0:18:59.420 this quirky old bearded, you know, old American who just 0:18:59.460 --> 0:19:01.840 like taught English to feed himself. 0:19:03.109 --> 0:19:04.910 I've known a few people that traveled around the world 0:19:04.950 --> 0:19:07.869 doing that. Apparently, it's really easy to do. You can 0:19:07.890 --> 0:19:09.889 go to all kinds of different countries, and there are 0:19:10.010 --> 0:19:12.750 rich families that would be happier in hell. And you 0:19:12.770 --> 0:19:14.950 don't have to be like a teacher. Just sit around 0:19:14.990 --> 0:19:16.490 and speak English to their kids. 0:19:17.290 --> 0:19:17.510 Yeah. 0:19:17.990 --> 0:19:20.070 Conversational English. I think that's great. And they pay you 0:19:20.090 --> 0:19:22.800 enough to make a living. I've had friends who did that. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.700 If there is reincarnation, I would like to come back 0:19:25.740 --> 0:19:27.880 and do that, because that would be an unbelievable adventure, 0:19:27.900 --> 0:19:28.680 and you'd learn. 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:29.140 So much, I think. 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:30.780 Except you'd talk like a heck if I did. 0:19:33.980 --> 0:19:35.520 No, no, you got to get a Brit in there. 0:19:36.820 --> 0:19:40.550 Give him the accent. But one more thing on this guy. Apparently, 0:19:40.619 --> 0:19:42.950 according to one of the guys he was held with, 0:19:45.690 --> 0:19:47.129 and keep this in mind when you hear some of 0:19:47.150 --> 0:19:48.939 the clips coming up. 0:19:51.260 --> 0:19:54.140 He was regularly beaten, tortured. 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.689 Wow. Um, they, uh, his cellmate, I'm flipping down to it, said, uh, 0:19:58.790 --> 0:19:59.230 they were. 0:19:59.150 --> 0:20:05.169 Regularly, uh, stripped naked, forced to stand at attention all day, 0:20:05.450 --> 0:20:09.409 every day, forced into the splits, and guys would tear 0:20:09.510 --> 0:20:13.840 tendons and not be able to walk normally anymore. Just absolutely, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.020 and the Russians took particular liking to tormenting this guy 0:20:17.060 --> 0:20:18.460 because he was an American. 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.359 Um, and it was allegedly very, very ugly. They should 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:27.940 be more scared of that. I remember Henry Kissinger, who 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:29.939 some people think is a war criminal and too much 0:20:29.980 --> 0:20:32.480 of a hard ass. I like him saying years ago, 0:20:33.859 --> 0:20:36.740 countries around the world should be terrified the idea of 0:20:36.900 --> 0:20:41.419 snatching an American. I love that. Not you get to 0:20:41.460 --> 0:20:45.210 snatch an American and torture them for years, and we 0:20:45.230 --> 0:20:47.690 just consider it goodwill if you give them back. There's 0:20:47.750 --> 0:20:48.649 really no price to that. 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:50.919 Yeah, yeah, no kidding. 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.430 And then, I don't want to steal the thunder, but 0:20:53.790 --> 0:20:55.270 say things like you're about to hear. 0:20:55.710 --> 0:20:57.709 Yeah, so I thought this was pretty interesting. I don't 0:20:57.730 --> 0:20:59.990 know if I'd ever heard this guy before on Fox, 0:21:00.070 --> 0:21:03.420 Fox & Friends, Dan Hoffman, who apparently has been a 0:21:03.580 --> 0:21:07.160 correspondent out of Russia and knows Putin's act really, really well. 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:13.330 He wasn't quite going with the... Happy, happy, joy, joy. 0:21:13.890 --> 0:21:16.950 Isn't it fantastic that Russia gave this guy back? Look, 0:21:17.020 --> 0:21:20.360 Putin is a humanitarian who wants peace. This is Dan 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:21.680 Hoffman on Fox this morning. 0:21:22.140 --> 0:21:26.580 So he was wrongfully detained, a 74-year-old school teacher from Michigan. 0:21:27.140 --> 0:21:29.889 After teaching in Japan, he taught in Cyprus. He moved 0:21:29.930 --> 0:21:34.389 to Ukraine, to Izyum in eastern Ukraine in 2014. And 0:21:34.410 --> 0:21:38.780 then in April of 2022, the Russians wrongfully detained him. 0:21:38.810 --> 0:21:43.120