Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Katty.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Katty and He Armstrong and Yetty.
Speaker 3: The food company Purdue Farms announced last week it will
Speaker 3: offer so called six seven chicken nuggets, even though everybody
Speaker 3: who thought six seven was funny is now too old
Speaker 3: for chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I did notice when I was in and out.
Speaker 1: I didn't and out the other day though, they skipped
Speaker 1: sixty seven because we are roughly in that area for
Speaker 1: calling out numbers and they must still see it's a
Speaker 1: burden to their restaurant.
Speaker 4: Is that still a thing among the youngsters? Or is
Speaker 4: that just here today gone today?
Speaker 1: My kids would roll their eyes at it, But I
Speaker 1: find that, like if you're me, if you're like a
Speaker 1: parent trying to amuse your children, you might still go there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I came across in a similar Vein think piece about
Speaker 4: the incredible damage the short video scrolling does to your brain,
Speaker 4: but like really philosophical about it.
Speaker 2: Ooh, I would be into that.
Speaker 4: I mean, not like in a navel gazing way. It
Speaker 4: has to do with the fact that the way we
Speaker 4: as human beings perceive our reality is maybe I shouldn't
Speaker 4: even delve into this because it's so well written, and
Speaker 4: I'll do it poor job. But when you walk into
Speaker 4: a room, you see a series of stories. You don't
Speaker 4: just see individual objects. You see people and the surroundings
Speaker 4: and the objects there, and you understand in a fairly
Speaker 4: complex way the story that's unfolding in front of you
Speaker 4: are multiple stories. And that from the time where little
Speaker 4: children up until like last week, our whole lives were
Speaker 4: about complete stories. Well, even little children's stories that you
Speaker 4: read to your kids before bed has an introduction, a plot,
Speaker 4: a resolution that's sort of a moral perhaps, And these
Speaker 4: videos are just blurbs of blipps of action. That was funny,
Speaker 4: the guy hit his head and there's like no story.
Speaker 4: There's just a moment, over and over again. And now
Speaker 4: that's terrible for your attention span.
Speaker 2: In a way.
Speaker 4: That's a lot more well, I think you get in
Speaker 4: the idea. It's a lot more than just oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: it seems hard to read books. Now you're actually reforming
Speaker 4: your mind.
Speaker 2: Are you susceptible to that sort of thing? I don't
Speaker 2: do it. I really look at it as a danger.
Speaker 1: Oh I know it's a danger, but man, I'm susceptible
Speaker 1: to it and I hate it.
Speaker 2: Like I'll go to YouTube.
Speaker 1: For a specific thing, like piano lesson on a particular song,
Speaker 1: but the YouTube algorithm with its shorts opens up and
Speaker 1: starts playing automatically, and there's a highlight from an athlete
Speaker 1: that knows I like, or a musician that knows I like.
Speaker 2: And it's amazing how often it hooks.
Speaker 1: Me because it's just thirty second, forty five seconds of
Speaker 1: this great guitar solo. It knows I like from previous
Speaker 1: stuff or this sports moment or political moment or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's so good at figuring. Same with Instagram.
Speaker 1: If I open Instagram, it hits me with, oh wow,
Speaker 1: here's Steely Dan doing something. And I mean, it just knows,
Speaker 1: and I think that's just a second, and the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, a half hour's gone by. It is like
Speaker 1: the freaking worst drug, most of drug addictive drug ever.
Speaker 4: Right, right, you can't even open them designed by the
Speaker 4: most brilliant minds of our time, right Yeah.
Speaker 2: I guess it's probably because I'm.
Speaker 4: So annoyingly contrary that I know what they're doing and
Speaker 4: I hate it. So I won't indulge my sets.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing in that it used to be
Speaker 2: a joke back.
Speaker 1: In the nineties, I guess early two thousands. You know,
Speaker 1: you got one hundred and fifty channels and you just
Speaker 1: keep flipping through and can't find anything interesting. We wanted
Speaker 1: to find something interesting. You're sitting there on the couch,
Speaker 1: you got a little time, you've decided I did to
Speaker 1: dedicate to watching television, and you can't find anything interesting.
Speaker 2: Now it's the opposite problem.
Speaker 1: Every single channel has got something that you have already
Speaker 1: designated as among your most favorite things to watch, and
Speaker 1: every channel is that, and it's and then sometimes I
Speaker 1: have the well, I'm gonna spend a half hour of
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 2: Amused and happy.
Speaker 1: Is that a bad thing after having worked all day long?
Speaker 1: But it never feels satisfying in any way. Ah, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting insight. Yeah, yeah, it's amusing. But then when
Speaker 1: it's over, you feel well unsatisfied.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel it's because sometimes I convince myself, what's the
Speaker 1: harm here? Good lord, enjoy some comedy bits from comedians
Speaker 1: you like or whatever it's feeding me.
Speaker 2: But at the end, I'm always unhappy that I did it.
Speaker 4: Always wow, wow, super interesting. Any thoughts on that? Drop
Speaker 4: is a note mail bag at armstrong egetdy dot com.
Speaker 4: I find this stuff absolutely fascinating. Mail bag at I'm
Speaker 4: strung in getty dot com or if emailing your style, wanted
Speaker 4: to text us four one five two nine five KFDC
Speaker 4: as four one five two nine five KFTC and then
Speaker 4: of course imagine if you've come to it as a
Speaker 4: eleven year old or whatever without ever knowing any other
Speaker 4: life or having anything to compare it to, then of
Speaker 4: course you're perfectly fine just scrolling through it eight hours
Speaker 4: a day or whatever.
Speaker 2: Those numbers are on TikTok that are horrifying.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, So a couple of different story slash topics
Speaker 4: that are maybe tangentially political but mostly about dollars and
Speaker 4: cents and that sort of thing. I found this very
Speaker 4: very interesting biz journals with an analysis of the various
Speaker 4: billionaires taxes that are being proposed or enacted, and really
Speaker 4: all the blue states where they are just the state
Speaker 4: budgets have metastasized in like California and New York, for instance,
Speaker 4: but the politicians say we need way, way more money,
Speaker 4: so they're trying to come up with more ways to
Speaker 4: tax and demonizing the wealthy is just super.
Speaker 2: Popular in politics of env They've called it forever.
Speaker 4: But an interesting analysis from biz Journals, The longest short
Speaker 4: of it is that your big dollar philanthropic efforts, your
Speaker 4: billionaires and multimillionaires who support your local symphony, opera, libraries,
Speaker 4: aid to the poor. There are a thousand different examples
Speaker 4: they're giving tends to skew substantially local. They've found, for instance,
Speaker 4: that generous donors to your alma mater, say your university,
Speaker 4: that giving grows and intensifies the closer you are geographically
Speaker 4: to that university. I went to Illinois, I ended up
Speaker 4: in California, blah blah blah. I'm like, yeah, I remember it.
Speaker 4: But who cares? If you live in Champagne or Banna,
Speaker 4: for instance, you're much more likely to kick them a
Speaker 4: little bit of money. Why not, you're part of the
Speaker 4: whole community.
Speaker 1: Well, you're a little venue for art or there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of things. Everybody can name in every town has
Speaker 1: got somebody's name on it. Oh yeah, government or day
Speaker 1: theater everything. Yeah, the government didn't make them do that, right,
Speaker 1: just did it here.
Speaker 4: It is a twenty twenty five Bank of America study
Speaker 4: of private philanthropy. Philanthropy found that seventy nine percent of
Speaker 4: affluent donors gave locally seventy nine percent, and research consistently
Speaker 4: shows that donors at all income levels are most likely
Speaker 4: to give to local causes. So as you drive all
Speaker 4: the billionaires and multimillionaires out of California, out of New York,
Speaker 4: out of the Blue States, giving to charities will dry up.
Speaker 1: I know that's true, and people should be aware of it.
Speaker 1: I almost hate making this argument, though, because in my world,
Speaker 1: if you're spending all your money on chocolate pies, you
Speaker 1: get to keep it, right, I agree, But it's worth
Speaker 1: knowing that they're also you know, building an arts center
Speaker 1: and a hospital and all these different things. But it's
Speaker 1: your money, and I don't just because you got really wealthy.
Speaker 2: I don't get to take a whole bunch of it
Speaker 2: just because on it. Right. Two little bits of analysis.
Speaker 4: Number One, the public employee unions that are sponsoring these
Speaker 4: tax drives, they don't care, they don't give a crap
Speaker 4: about anything, but they're coffers. They make quasi moral arguments
Speaker 4: about income inequality and the rest of it.
Speaker 2: All it's just a grift.
Speaker 4: All they want is money and they don't care about
Speaker 4: anything else. Second thing is the only reason I brought
Speaker 4: this is that I think there are a lot of
Speaker 4: people who are just kind of half paying attention that thinks, yeah,
Speaker 4: these people do have a tremendous amount of money, and
Speaker 4: we're short of tax dollars, so yeah, let's go ahead
Speaker 4: and stick it to them, and pointing out that yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: charitable giving is going to get decimated in your area.
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe it'll make them think. Plus, the
Speaker 4: amounts never add up. The math doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You can tax all the billionaires, it doesn't even come
Speaker 1: close to closing whatever deficit you have federally or in your.
Speaker 2: State, right right.
Speaker 4: And the idea that a one time tax could do
Speaker 4: anything and do any good structurally is hilarious. But again
Speaker 4: the unions make that argument, Hey, we'll get a one
Speaker 4: time giant truckload cash dropped off at our front doors.
Speaker 4: It's all we want, it's all we carry you one time. Right, Well, yeah,
Speaker 4: that too. This I'm not sure we really have time
Speaker 4: to get into this.
Speaker 2: Maybe later.
Speaker 4: But there is a couple of home distiller cases, people
Speaker 4: brewing their.
Speaker 2: Own whiskey at home.
Speaker 4: Specifically, that could well end up upending a lot of
Speaker 4: absolutely terrible precedents on the Commerce Clause at the Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: the huge overreach that began in when was it nineteen
Speaker 4: forty two Wickered v. Philburn, infamous case in which the
Speaker 4: Supreme Court said a farmer growing wheat to feed his
Speaker 4: own livestock might have a tangential effect on the interstate market,
Speaker 4: so the government can regulate his growing of wheat to
Speaker 4: feed his own livestock. A wild abuse of the Commerce clause,
Speaker 4: which grants federal government the right to regulate commerce between
Speaker 4: the state as it's put And that kind of built
Speaker 4: that set of presidents built on that idiotic case.
Speaker 2: But home distillers might be tearing that down.
Speaker 4: And I can explain how in a little bit afterward
Speaker 4: from our friends at Incogny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been talking about for years.
Speaker 1: Is there something that can be done about all the
Speaker 1: spam texts, emails and calls you get?
Speaker 2: Why can't we stop this? Can they write a law
Speaker 2: or whatever? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll have a law someday, but for now, it's
Speaker 1: Incogny and COGNI is the answer to this problem.
Speaker 5: For you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so tough to enforce the laws. They try,
Speaker 2: but it's weak.
Speaker 4: So each scam text, spam call, sketchy email with your
Speaker 4: name starts the same way. Somebody found you on a
Speaker 4: data broker site. So what do you do?
Speaker 2: You disappear?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Cogny can actually go onto all those data
Speaker 1: you know, hard drives and everything that's got all your
Speaker 1: data stored there, and they can force them by law
Speaker 1: to take it off there. You're going to see a
Speaker 1: reduction in the number of spam texts, calls, and emails
Speaker 1: really really fast when you sign onto Incognate.
Speaker 4: Both using it, we've both seen a difference. They can't
Speaker 4: spam you if they can't find you. Right now, get
Speaker 4: sixty percent off with an exclusive deal at in cognity
Speaker 4: dot com slash armstrong. Go to incog ni dot com
Speaker 4: slash armstrong, take back your privacy. That's in cognity dot
Speaker 4: com slash armstrong. And the last thing I wanted to
Speaker 4: bring to you, where did it go? Oh, from the
Speaker 4: Department of Bad Ideas. This is politics. Well I started
Speaker 4: worried about US democracy. Astronauts are launching a political nonprofit
Speaker 4: new nonpartisan group of NASA veterans, says it will advocate
Speaker 4: for rule of law and score political candidates on civic responsibility.
Speaker 4: And if you read into this account happens to be
Speaker 4: in the Wall Street Journal. Again, it's a mix of Republicans, Democrats,
Speaker 4: and independence, but it's one more than one hundred former
Speaker 4: NASA astronauts have formed essentially a political action committee. Is
Speaker 4: there a topic there? Well, like I said, the rule
Speaker 4: of law and civic.
Speaker 1: Responsibility, I smell some particular issue that they're into.
Speaker 4: In an open letter to the American people, of the
Speaker 4: group states quote, for decades, we've seen a steady erosion
Speaker 4: of our founding values and principles that weakens our democratic systems.
Speaker 2: I would agree with them completely. Sure.
Speaker 4: The result has been political polarization and subversion of key
Speaker 4: constitution and institutional norms, including bipartisan cooperation, executive constraint, and
Speaker 4: judicial independence. I would agree with all of that. Without
Speaker 4: naming President Trump or other officials. The group promises quote
Speaker 4: to take officials to task when they ignore the rule
Speaker 4: of law, or distort or disregard the facts.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I wish you luck, because the first time
Speaker 2: you flex your muscles on this, people are going to
Speaker 2: deem you.
Speaker 4: That side and then you're doing Garrett Riseman, aged fifty eight,
Speaker 4: registered Democrat and one of the group's co founders, said
Speaker 4: he decided to start the organization last year after the
Speaker 4: conduct he saw while witnessing an immigration.
Speaker 2: Raid at a local car there you go. Quote.
Speaker 4: What I saw seemed to me just fundamentally Unamerican. It
Speaker 4: seemed to me more like I was used to seeing
Speaker 4: when I lived in Russia, where basically the security services
Speaker 4: can act with impunity.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's fine if you do that, but then you
Speaker 1: come out really strong against what Virginia did yesterday and redistricting.
Speaker 2: Need to see you working both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 4: Here, and you've just politicized astronauts right right, leading to
Speaker 4: exactly what you're decrying, increased partisan you know, polarization and
Speaker 4: subversion of working across the island.
Speaker 2: Stuff should have left you up there.
Speaker 4: Everything, Oh boy, that's strong. Everything doesn't have to be political. Okay, okay,
Speaker 4: go into space, come back, tell us about the moonnocks right.
Speaker 2: Shot you into space once. We didn't have to bring
Speaker 2: you back. Fair warning.
Speaker 1: We got more Monica's thong, what it did for America,
Speaker 1: among other things coming.
Speaker 2: Up, Hey, get this.
Speaker 6: The Carnival cruise passenger just one a three hundred thousand
Speaker 6: dollars lawsuit for claiming that the shift's staff serves her
Speaker 6: fourteen tequila shots in the span of eight hours. Carnival
Speaker 6: was like, how else are we going to kill the
Speaker 6: nora Ins?
Speaker 2: We talked about this.
Speaker 1: This is a woman actually local tour we broadcast from.
Speaker 1: I'm horrified by this. I was wondering when we talked
Speaker 1: about this the other day, what percentage of Americans see, oh,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. They shouldn't have given her so much booze.
Speaker 1: And what percentage of Americans say.
Speaker 2: You ordered him? It's on you, right, nobody made you
Speaker 2: drink them.
Speaker 1: You have a guess where we are is a nation
Speaker 1: on that sort of topic. I don't personal responsibility versus
Speaker 1: it's clearly somebody else's fault.
Speaker 4: I think probably sixty forty the wrong way. If I
Speaker 4: have to guess sixty forty the bad way, I bet
Speaker 4: you're right.
Speaker 1: And those of us who are who have you know,
Speaker 1: bellied up to the bar and stood there longer than
Speaker 1: we should have. Who has ever me and none of
Speaker 1: my friends who have gotten way drunker than we should
Speaker 1: have as far as I know, have ever even contemplated
Speaker 1: the idea that the problem was with the bartender or
Speaker 1: the bar.
Speaker 2: I know, it's how drunk I got last night or
Speaker 2: what I did afterwards.
Speaker 4: You know, as the people, we've been systematically trained away
Speaker 4: from self reliance and being the captains of our own
Speaker 4: ship because.
Speaker 2: It's not useful for leftist politics.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's like a it's like rat poison to
Speaker 4: a rat, self reliance to Marxism.
Speaker 1: You're always talking about how weird it would be to
Speaker 1: be in someone else's brain. This would be a really
Speaker 1: good example, because if you go through life with the well,
Speaker 1: I got really drunk last night and crashed my car
Speaker 1: or hit on somebody I shouldn't hit on or feel
Speaker 1: sick today or whatever, and so that the bar's fault
Speaker 1: or the bartender's fault. Your view of the planet on
Speaker 1: every issue, I'm guessing, is so much different than mine.
Speaker 1: It'd be like being a different species of person.
Speaker 2: Michael, say, how many people on that jury were drinkers?
Speaker 4: I bet the defense selected very very carefully for that.
Speaker 2: I'll bet you're right.
Speaker 4: You know, it strikes me that if you have that
Speaker 4: mind set, well, let me put it to you like this.
Speaker 4: If you're of our point of view that you're the
Speaker 4: captain of your own ship, you need to take responsibility
Speaker 4: for your own actions. Not only are you willing to
Speaker 4: accept that, you like that? How liberating would it be
Speaker 4: to never have to blame yourself for any of your
Speaker 4: stupid moves and screw ups and failures.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So why do I think the way I think?
Speaker 1: This occurs to me a lot. When I was flat
Speaker 1: broke for a long time, never crossed my mind that
Speaker 1: it was anybody's fault other than I didn't apply myself
Speaker 1: enough or choose the right line of work or whatever.
Speaker 1: Never crossed my mind that there was something wrong with
Speaker 1: our system or all. It's all kinds of different examples
Speaker 1: of it. Just never occurred to me to blame somebody
Speaker 1: else for the situation that.
Speaker 2: I was in.
Speaker 1: I hope my kids have that same belief I have.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where I got it. I don't
Speaker 1: remember my parents specifically talking to me about it, so
Speaker 1: it must just kind of throw a bunch.
Speaker 2: Of different circumstances.
Speaker 1: You become aware as a kid that, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: get to blame this on somebody or something. Nobody has
Speaker 1: to like Let sure you about it, because it's said
Speaker 1: a hundred times in a hundred different ways, like every single.
Speaker 2: Day must yeah, yeah, yeah, having our folk tales and
Speaker 2: traditional songs and everything.
Speaker 4: Everything is about you know, you're in charge of you,
Speaker 4: for good or bad, and we're losing that, I think.
Speaker 4: But you know, fight against the teacher kids.
Speaker 2: Folks very troubling. So one of the great what ifs
Speaker 2: of history.
Speaker 1: If Monica Leinsky hadn't worn in the thong that day
Speaker 1: sticking out out of her skirt, how different could our,
Speaker 1: for instance, entitlement problem be Gingrich and Clinton were working
Speaker 1: on that and it got.
Speaker 2: Derailed by a hot, hot chick. So according to some Katie,
Speaker 2: why did you make that face with us? Armstrong and Getty?
Speaker 2: The build is happening.
Speaker 5: That build starts with twelve billion dollars to modernize air
Speaker 5: traffic control, with upgrades now underway to radios, radars, and
Speaker 5: safety systems. The next step in AI system merging airlines
Speaker 5: flight schedules with FAA systems to cut airport delays.
Speaker 7: The software will say, well, listen, we can see this
Speaker 7: forty five days out. Let's move some of those flights
Speaker 7: a little bit.
Speaker 2: And so then you're not delayed.
Speaker 5: The software has a possible price tag of six to
Speaker 5: ten billion dollars.
Speaker 7: AI is a tool, but we do not replace humans
Speaker 7: and how we manage the air space? Am I going
Speaker 7: to replace a controller and have AI manage their space?
Speaker 7: The answer to that is hell, no, that's not going
Speaker 7: to happen.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, to answer the question for simpletons at the end,
Speaker 2: I guess the Oh goodness, ten to twelve billion. What why.
Speaker 1: Could AI do a better job of scheduling planes and
Speaker 1: figuring out how where they need to be?
Speaker 4: When I got to believe it can. Yes, I've talked
Speaker 4: to several friends who've had it. Like you put together
Speaker 4: a vacation plan, you know, as a travel agent innocence,
Speaker 4: and it works wonderfully.
Speaker 2: Oh really, it's just it's a schedule. It's a grid.
Speaker 2: You'd think.
Speaker 1: So, Katie, when I mentioned Monica Lewinsky being a hot chick,
Speaker 1: why did you burst out and laughing and roll your eyes.
Speaker 2: I'm just curious. I didn't roll my eyes. It was
Speaker 2: just the way that you said it. Okay, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was fair. I can't remember the exact honing you used.
Speaker 1: Now, So this book, which actually came out a while back,
Speaker 1: but is back in the news for some reason.
Speaker 2: I don't know why. I don't if they're going to
Speaker 2: make a musical out of it or what.
Speaker 1: But the it's called the Pact Bill Clinton Newt Rich
Speaker 1: in the rivalry that defined a generation. And I guess
Speaker 1: they're because of where we are with our entitlement programs.
Speaker 1: They are hinging on one particular chapter about how Newt
Speaker 1: Gingrich and Bill Clinton were actually going to take a
Speaker 1: big swing at dealing with our social Security Medicare problems
Speaker 1: and like, we're serious about it. And I read this
Speaker 1: chapter and it really gets into weeds on the way
Speaker 1: in ways that you might not want to. But it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting that all of their internal polling, for instance,
Speaker 1: their Clinton's pollster, Mark Penn, who by the way, has
Speaker 1: been writing great stuff about how we're on the right
Speaker 1: path with Iran and Trump is handling this the right way.
Speaker 2: Mark Penn, brilliant administration.
Speaker 1: Anyway, uh, Mark Penn had found that seventy three percent
Speaker 1: of Democratic voters favored some sort of privatization of Social
Speaker 1: Security at that time, and obviously the Republicans did. And
Speaker 1: then a couple of other things, you know, on term
Speaker 1: trying to fix medicare, and it was all as usual,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna have to do some raising of the
Speaker 1: ages and cutting his services and raising taxes and things
Speaker 1: that are easy for both sides to hate. And how
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton and Nuke Gingrich had come to trust each
Speaker 1: other and be friends over a long period of time,
Speaker 1: starting in a position of hating each other and not
Speaker 1: trusting each other at all, and grown over time to
Speaker 1: believe that the other person was was serious. And all
Speaker 1: of these behind the scenes secret meetings they were having
Speaker 1: because of a word. You know, you know how politics
Speaker 1: is now, it's worse now than it was in But
Speaker 1: if word leaked out at all that Newt Gingrich was,
Speaker 1: you know, talking to Bill Clinton about giving on something,
Speaker 1: or Bill Clinton was talking a new about giving on something,
Speaker 1: they'd be destroyed. And so they had to keep it secret.
Speaker 1: And they had this plan to announce it at the
Speaker 1: State of the Union address with as I heard Bob
Speaker 1: Dole say one time, with we both have to have
Speaker 1: one foot in the canoe, where if the other guy,
Speaker 1: you know, jumps out, we all fall in.
Speaker 2: Is the only way you can make these things work.
Speaker 1: But they were really really serious about this in a
Speaker 1: way that could have you fixed this problem and set
Speaker 1: us on a path that would be completely different than
Speaker 1: anything that we've got now.
Speaker 4: And this noting the Clinton administration was the last time
Speaker 4: we had a balanced budget.
Speaker 2: Right part Bill Clinton part knew Gingrich on that whole thing.
Speaker 1: The details were going to be worked out in the end,
Speaker 1: which is always difficult, but the broad outlines are clear.
Speaker 1: Gingrich was willing to give up the tax cut that
Speaker 1: he had been demanding for a proposal that included private
Speaker 1: investment in social security. Bill Clinton was going to allow
Speaker 1: that to happen if Gingrich gave on to a couple
Speaker 1: of his things, and so they actually were going to
Speaker 1: have a shot at this and privatization of social Security.
Speaker 1: Imagine that the mid nineties is now thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: You could have had some of that money that is
Speaker 1: making no money really and well it doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: It got spent.
Speaker 1: Your social security lush fund could have been in some
Speaker 1: sort of market that what would it be worth now
Speaker 1: the money you put in social Security thirty years later,
Speaker 1: with what the market has done.
Speaker 4: If you'd put every time instead of in social Security
Speaker 4: and an index fund, you would be vastly wealthier than
Speaker 4: you are right now. Who my God, not even close, yep.
Speaker 4: But the government wouldn't have had the slush fund. That's
Speaker 4: why it's not going to pass now. And I hate
Speaker 4: to be discouraging, but if you still are under the
Speaker 4: impression that you give them the money and they hold
Speaker 4: it and invest it for you, haw haw haw, now
Speaker 4: they just spend it as fast as it comes in.
Speaker 4: Then they think, how the hell are we going to
Speaker 4: pay the people the money they got coming when they retired.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, We'll just print more.
Speaker 1: What was interesting to me about this reading this is
Speaker 1: how much it comes down to two personalities often. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just like with the war, Trump's personality and whoever's
Speaker 1: in charge in Iran or or or or or putin
Speaker 1: in t or whatever. How often these big issues come
Speaker 1: down to two personalities. And the people around Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: and Nuke Gingrich were telling them that they were being played.
Speaker 1: You're going to agree to this, and Bill Clinton's gonna
Speaker 1: come out and say new Gingrich wants to privatize security
Speaker 1: social security and then you know, throw you under the
Speaker 1: bus right before the midterms or whatever.
Speaker 2: And people are telling nut the same thing. But they
Speaker 2: came to.
Speaker 1: Trust each other to where they could actually do this thing,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if that's even possible anymore for
Speaker 1: anybody to build that kind of trust. Anyway, I'll jump
Speaker 1: to the punchline, which we all know what the punchline is.
Speaker 1: Breaking news early on Wednesday morning, January twenty first of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: I think it was.
Speaker 1: Erskine Bowles, who was in charge of Bill Clinton's policy
Speaker 1: on this, arrived at his office in the White House
Speaker 1: at seven am and saw a daily briefing that included
Speaker 1: a Washington Post story about the President having an elicit
Speaker 1: affair with an unnamed White House In turn, Bulls learned
Speaker 1: about it from that went into Bill Clinton's office.
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton said, Erskine, I want you to know this
Speaker 2: story is not true. Bulls believed him. We all know
Speaker 2: how that turned out.
Speaker 1: Newt Gingrich got tremendous pressure to jump on this affair immediately,
Speaker 1: and you know the rest is history. That was the
Speaker 1: breaking news of oh, the president had an affair. We
Speaker 1: can damage him with. This ended any hope of reforming
Speaker 1: Social Security and Medicare in the way that we absolutely
Speaker 1: have to do to avoid disaster.
Speaker 4: I'm back to thinking this system of government doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Anymore. And that was thirty years ago, the twists in
Speaker 2: turns of history.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, yeah, that's our biggest financial problem.
Speaker 4: Sure, that's the biggest threat China. Please not physical insanity.
Speaker 2: It might not even be our biggest financial problem. It
Speaker 2: might be our biggest problem problem. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And we didn't the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs a
Speaker 4: few years back say this is the greatest existential threat
Speaker 4: to the United States bar none by far. It's just
Speaker 4: tough to get people to pay attention or care. How
Speaker 4: can we come that close?
Speaker 2: Once it gets derailed by you know.
Speaker 4: Of bj in, a vestibule, a star struck horn dog
Speaker 4: of an intern, and a horn dog.
Speaker 2: Of a president. Yes, yes, yes, Hilary waise In.
Speaker 4: I mean that that may be the all time stupid
Speaker 4: and inconsequential derailing, the incredibly serious, inconsequential in American history.
Speaker 4: There are probably other examples of it.
Speaker 1: You're right, I don't know what, I don't know any Yeah,
Speaker 1: on how incredibly unimportant it is in the overall scheme
Speaker 1: of things. It's important to Hillary obviously, but overall the
Speaker 1: fact that President Bill Clinton had yet another affair versus
Speaker 1: the biggest problem we've got in America getting sold right.
Speaker 1: You're right, that might be the greatest mismatch of consequential
Speaker 1: and inconsequential.
Speaker 4: Ever, here's a counterfactual for you. Since the impeachment, which
Speaker 4: really was a waste of everybody's time and money, centered
Speaker 4: around the idea that he'd lied under oath and the
Speaker 4: hole depends on what your definition of is is, which
Speaker 4: actually was a better case than people give him credit for.
Speaker 2: But what was I going to say, Oh, here's your
Speaker 2: counter factual.
Speaker 4: What if when he saw that headline, he'd said to
Speaker 4: both the musically named Erskine Bulls and America after talking
Speaker 4: to Monica, saying, look, we've just got to say, yes,
Speaker 4: it happened.
Speaker 2: We're not terribly proud of ourselves. You know.
Speaker 4: You know if he came out and said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's true, It's absolutely true. I'm ashamed of myself
Speaker 4: my whole life. I've I've been prey to my own
Speaker 4: sexual desires in a way that I am not proud of.
Speaker 4: I apologize to miss Lewinsky. I apologize to the nation.
Speaker 4: It was a lack of self control and I should
Speaker 4: be better, period.
Speaker 2: Amen. William Jefferson Clinton, how.
Speaker 1: Would proud have weathered the storm. The truth came out anyway.
Speaker 4: Right right, we wouldn't have had the delightful Linda Tripp tapes.
Speaker 4: Oh Monica, I guess what I said, right, I love you.
Speaker 4: It's worse than that, Oh Monica, I love you, butt head.
Speaker 2: Oh Monica, twit. I don't know. I read the full
Speaker 2: length of that article and it was so depressing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: how's that even impossible?
Speaker 1: It's almost like, Uh, I was going to go to
Speaker 1: medical school, become a doctor, and be rich for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. But I got a speeding ticket
Speaker 1: on the way to the uh concert.
Speaker 4: You know, I was just going to say, you you
Speaker 4: send your husband or brother or whomever to go buy
Speaker 4: apple stock in nineteen ninety two, and they got hungry
Speaker 4: and stopped at a burger stand and forgot and lost
Speaker 4: the money.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like, what, oh boy, what is he
Speaker 2: going to do?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Dang it? Yeah, I know it.
Speaker 1: Will we ever get to a place where where that
Speaker 1: could even get started again, because it can't with Trump?
Speaker 2: They hate him too much.
Speaker 4: And there's too much money being raised on hating him.
Speaker 2: Oh see, that's problem.
Speaker 4: That's another unrecognized Are we supposed to be doing an
Speaker 4: important commercial message here make far Oh yeah, okay, let
Speaker 4: me get to that then. My fabulous point that I'm
Speaker 4: sure I was about to make a word from our
Speaker 4: friend Trust and Will, speaking of being an adult and
Speaker 4: doing what you need to do. You know you need
Speaker 4: a trust and or will to dictate your desires for
Speaker 4: your assets, for your house, for the care of your
Speaker 4: minor children. If you have minor children, you gots to
Speaker 4: do this. And Trust and Will offers affordable attorney designed
Speaker 4: to state plans online that you can create and as
Speaker 4: little as thirty.
Speaker 1: Minutes, your picture going to a bunch of meetings with
Speaker 1: a bunch of paperwork and all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Maybe how about an easy to use website. Trust and
Speaker 1: Will's platform makes it so easy to create your will
Speaker 1: or trust online. They've got the format already down. It's
Speaker 1: so fast and as little as thirty minutes you could
Speaker 1: create a will legally like this is the real thing
Speaker 1: will that lets you document your wishes for guardians, asset distribution,
Speaker 1: and healthcare planning.
Speaker 2: How amazing is that.
Speaker 4: They have our attorneys to help you in it's state specific,
Speaker 4: of course, Trust and Will affordable estate plans priceless peace
Speaker 4: of mind. Go to trustinwill dot com slash armstrong, get
Speaker 4: twenty percent off. That's trustinwill dot com slash armstrong again,
Speaker 4: twenty percent off. Get twenty percent off at trustinwill dot
Speaker 4: com slash armstrong.
Speaker 2: Uh golly, g you what were we talking about.
Speaker 1: I was gonna get my cancer treatment, but I didn't
Speaker 1: pay my cable bill, so it got canceled.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't come up with any other examples of anything
Speaker 1: this minor to this important.
Speaker 4: Junior needed a bookmark for their book for their book report,
Speaker 4: so I gave them the winning lottery ticket.
Speaker 2: Then they lost it.
Speaker 4: Sorry, but you couldn't just find a scrap of like
Speaker 4: the keep it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So can.
Speaker 4: We ever get back to any sort of bipartisanship.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, That's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's funny how few people are aware
Speaker 4: of this small dollar online donations of perverted American politics,
Speaker 4: far beyond what corporate giving ever could have. The whole
Speaker 4: dark money thing that Democrats used to decry, and now
Speaker 4: they use more dark money than Republicans.
Speaker 2: Follow the money.
Speaker 1: Let me throw it one optimistic note, and I would
Speaker 1: hope since so many people are leaving the Republican Party
Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party and calling themselves independents.
Speaker 2: I wonder if it's possible.
Speaker 1: That that whole you can't be seen talking to the
Speaker 1: enemy thing will go away because there's so many people
Speaker 1: that don't aren't beholden to either party because they're disgusted
Speaker 1: by them, that if they see Mike Johnson, well he
Speaker 1: won't be Speaker at the House at the time. But
Speaker 1: in theory, Mike Johnson the Republican Speaker of the House
Speaker 1: talking to President rama.
Speaker 2: Manuel and trying to work out a deal, and you
Speaker 2: don't like, you know, decide, oh, he's a writer. That
Speaker 2: whole thing.
Speaker 4: Will there be more interest in more donations toward hey,
Speaker 4: let's do this as opposed.
Speaker 2: To how are you? I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think that impulse is there and it's growing, But
Speaker 4: will it reach critical masses?
Speaker 2: I don't know. We'll all find out together. God, I
Speaker 2: hope a lot on the way stay here.
Speaker 1: There isn't a worse organization in America perhaps than the
Speaker 1: Southern Uh, the Southern Poverty Laws Center, and they're lion
Speaker 1: lion crap. For decades that the mainstream media has taken
Speaker 1: as one hundred percent Sincere will Man did a story
Speaker 1: break on them yesterday that we'll get into an hour three.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, finally that force for evil and racism is
Speaker 4: going to be brought down, or so it would seem,
Speaker 4: stay with us. So crime doesn't pay, as the old saying,
Speaker 4: or at least it used to be. Crime does pay.
Speaker 4: You just have to pick the right crime, I think.
Speaker 4: And I've got a couple of stories on crime coming
Speaker 4: up next hour. But I thought it was interesting the
Speaker 4: journal ran these stories like two days apart, violent Colombian
Speaker 4: gang eln runs the Venezuela cocaine trade that Trump vows
Speaker 4: to end. And then I think it was a couple
Speaker 4: of days earlier how a Brazilian prison gang became a
Speaker 4: global cocaine power. These are two different things, one in Brazil,
Speaker 4: one in Venezuela, but now they're each operating in like,
Speaker 4: you know, a few to twenty one country something like that.
Speaker 4: In the case of the Brazilian prison gang, which is
Speaker 4: actually kind of an interesting criminal enterprise in that they
Speaker 4: believe in keeping a low profile, keep the violence to
Speaker 4: a minimum.
Speaker 2: Violence draws it. We don't want that.
Speaker 4: We're business people, but they're operating all over the Americas
Speaker 4: and in Europe now which brings us to this also
Speaker 4: in the Wall Street Journal, how cyber crime became a
Speaker 4: leading industry in Scambodia, as it's being called now.
Speaker 2: Crime syndicates in.
Speaker 4: Cambodia control corrupt officials, They enslaved workers and fleece victims worldwide.
Speaker 4: There is a giant, very Trumpian looking like gold hued
Speaker 4: skyscraper rising in PanAm Penn, the capital of Cambodia.
Speaker 2: I'll take your word for it.
Speaker 4: It is a owned by a Chinese fellow by the
Speaker 4: name of shue I Min, sixty four year old China
Speaker 4: born convict in casino mogul who has shielded himself from
Speaker 4: law enforcement through his political connections. He is like one
Speaker 4: of the magnates of the scam operations that have cropped
Speaker 4: up across Cambodia, and he's making so much money he's
Speaker 4: building the highest skyscraper in the country. Scam compounds some
Speaker 4: of the size of small towns have housed enslaved workers
Speaker 4: doing the gruntwork of online scams, posing his love interests
Speaker 4: investors or police. Prominently predominantly Chinese syndicates operating in Cambodi
Speaker 4: have grown so enormous in scale that some foreign politicians
Speaker 4: refer to the country of eighteen million as Scambodia. As
Speaker 4: we mentioned, these are the people calling you, constantly, texting you,
Speaker 4: constantly emailing you, constantly, incognity dot com, slash Armstrong, and
Speaker 4: they're in bed with the government of Cambodia. I mean
Speaker 4: they are in terms of the Cambodian economy, like I
Speaker 4: don't know, banking is to the United States. It's become
Speaker 4: that big and they're that protected. Cambodian officials deny complicity
Speaker 4: with transnational scam syndicates.
Speaker 2: What scams in Cambodia.
Speaker 1: Why, I never sort of thing that obviously was not
Speaker 1: possible at all pre Internet age for some little country
Speaker 1: on the other side of the world to get involved
Speaker 1: in fleecing Americans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, impossible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So they looked into legal filings, Cambodian corporate records,
Speaker 4: and sanctions from the US and other countries. They document
Speaker 4: the infiltration of Cambodia's ruling class by online scam networks.
Speaker 4: Wall Street Journal interviewed more than a dozen men and
Speaker 4: women who worked in Cambodian scam operations, as well as
Speaker 4: law enforcement officials, activists, helping enslaved workers. They actually are slaves,
Speaker 4: held against their will, beaten and tortured if they don't,
Speaker 4: you know, stick to the scamming and get enough done.
Speaker 4: And former executives and companies associated with alleged cybercrime activities.
Speaker 2: Would you rather have to pick cotton or send out
Speaker 2: spam emails? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I not really picked cotton or build railroads. Sitting at
Speaker 4: a computer terminal versus being out in the hot sun,
Speaker 4: I'd probably take the scamming.
Speaker 2: I suppose, although I like the outdoors.
Speaker 4: Americans alone lost ten billion dollars to online fraud originating
Speaker 4: from Southeast Asia in twenty twenty four alone.
Speaker 2: Wow, what is it? What is it? Mostly?
Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever lost a dollar? I
Speaker 1: don't think, so what is it? Mostly don't?
Speaker 4: I don't know exactly. It's a bilking people out of
Speaker 4: their bank accounts. The love interest thing. Hey, you know,
Speaker 4: we're really hitting it off online. I need two hundred
Speaker 4: dollars because my plane ticket got lost. That sort of
Speaker 4: thing is rampant.
Speaker 2: Wow, don't do that. Don't send them the money. Armstrong
Speaker 2: and Getty