Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Show Kaddy.
Speaker 2: Arm Strong and Dedicating and he Arms Studio, sn.
Speaker 1: Hey dinning in that room, people in the bowels of
Speaker 1: the Armstrong and Getty Communications Compound, And hey y'all, today
Speaker 1: we're under the tutelage of our title of our show,
Speaker 1: the Iran War is enemies with benefits?
Speaker 2: Hey, yuh want to bomb each other for a while?
Speaker 2: Or if you prefer don't look now California, America's stupid estate.
Speaker 2: Maybe New York? Wow? What explain the enemies with benefits?
Speaker 2: To me? That's a clever term.
Speaker 1: You don't say you.
Speaker 2: Don't bomb each other for a while? Alton, what do you?
Speaker 2: Calls him and says, hey, yup, you mind if I
Speaker 2: take out a few of your ports? Sure, well, I'll
Speaker 2: hit your allies. Then you'd send it. A couple of
Speaker 2: days later, you don't see each other for a few weeks.
Speaker 2: So ran is hit? Is it?
Speaker 1: Seven ships in the last three days trying to go
Speaker 1: through the straight twelve sailors that are either injured, dead,
Speaker 1: or missing at sea. According to a report out today,
Speaker 1: that's enough to make a lot of insurance companies say, hey,
Speaker 1: how about you don't send that boat through there if
Speaker 1: we're gonna have somebody die and all the imagine the paperwork, the.
Speaker 2: Weig will not take a lot to close this tree.
Speaker 1: Apparently it takes a threat and a threat has been
Speaker 1: made manifest. Yeah, that's something we will talk more about
Speaker 1: that later. And Trump did an interview and talked about
Speaker 1: bomb on their bridges and infrastructure again, which he has
Speaker 1: said several times. So either he means it or he doesn't.
Speaker 1: And I guess we'll find out.
Speaker 2: How about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate to start with a tragedy, but I
Speaker 1: was just looking at it. That ship that went down
Speaker 1: in the San Francisco Bay area between Alcatraz and the
Speaker 1: Golden Gate Bridge.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I missed that.
Speaker 1: What happened? Oh last night? It was actually a memorial service.
Speaker 1: Somebody had died and they wanted to do some sort
Speaker 1: of memorial service. Sprinkle the ashes out in the bay.
Speaker 1: And if you know we live we broadcast from northern California.
Speaker 1: I said, I was there just the other day and
Speaker 1: it's just glorious there. I mean that that people take
Speaker 1: cruise ships underneath a Golden Gate bridge out there by
Speaker 1: Alcatraz all the time anyway, big giant wave, hits boat,
Speaker 1: flips over, people drown It's it's it's ugly, very ugly.
Speaker 2: Stories. That's terrible.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I don't remember. You know, you can
Speaker 1: get pretty windy out there. I don't remember. It'll be
Speaker 1: in flip giant boats rough out there.
Speaker 2: No, I've never seen that myself. It's a bay, for
Speaker 2: goodness sakes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Yeah, we had getting back, getting back to the
Speaker 1: straight and the the you know, the threat and the
Speaker 1: closing of the strait and the rest of it. As
Speaker 1: you know, I would talk about that for four hours,
Speaker 1: but I know most people don't want to hear about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm struck by, and I'm trying to come up
Speaker 2: with a metaphor or a historical perspective on a situation
Speaker 2: where it will take enormous effort to stop an opponent
Speaker 2: whole only has to do a very little to render
Speaker 2: that enormous effort moot asymmetric. Yeah, I mean, it's the
Speaker 2: asymmetry of it is. Again, I'm struggling to come up
Speaker 2: with an example, a suitable example. Of course, we are
Speaker 2: in one of the first eras perhaps in human history
Speaker 2: where the idea of total war was seen as a
Speaker 2: super terrible, undignified're just a savage, in humane because in
Speaker 2: the past, if you know, a superpower was faced with
Speaker 2: this situation, you would just pound somebody into compliance.
Speaker 1: Right, whether you were a Genghis Khan, or the Roman army,
Speaker 1: or the French or the Germans or the English, depending
Speaker 1: on who had the upper hand at the time. Spain
Speaker 1: had the upper hand on France yesterday apparently, or the
Speaker 1: Persians or the Spartans for that matter. Right, that's the
Speaker 1: way you would do it, and that's why it was.
Speaker 1: We had that same asymmetry going on in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: which made it so difficult. We'd have troops out there,
Speaker 1: we had rules of engagement. They just had to make
Speaker 1: some sort of cheap, crappy bomb that you could set
Speaker 1: off with a cell phone to blow some people's legs off,
Speaker 1: which is horrifying. And what do you do about that
Speaker 1: unless you're willing to just lay waste like has happened
Speaker 1: throughout human history. The most powerful force just lays waste
Speaker 1: until you stop doing that. Right, But that's not what
Speaker 1: we're willing to do or the world will tolerate anymore. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. There hasn't been a good way out
Speaker 1: of this situation yet. It'll tolerate it if we make them.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, does the American electorate to have
Speaker 1: the stomach for that?
Speaker 2: The answers probably know. I would just remind you all
Speaker 2: of Sherman's incredibly gentlemanly and eloquent letter to the leaders
Speaker 2: of Atlanta saying war is hell, War is misery, and
Speaker 2: the kindest thing we can do is to end it
Speaker 2: as quickly as possible, and that's what I intend to do.
Speaker 2: So no, I'm not going to call off the dogs.
Speaker 2: On the contrary, I'm going to be cruel to be kind.
Speaker 1: You also have the unique situation of fighting an opponent
Speaker 1: who doesn't mind dying. That's a fairly unique deal, too, true.
Speaker 2: They think it's a good thing, right, and one could certainly,
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure this is relevant to the discussion
Speaker 2: we're having, but it's certainly relevant to the politics. Point
Speaker 2: out that, you know, the whole uh war with Iran
Speaker 2: in this shape was not a war of necessity. Knocking
Speaker 2: the nuclear programs back way back was certainly this necessary,
Speaker 2: but you know, taking out their whole leadership and calling
Speaker 2: for the people to rise up in the streets and
Speaker 2: the rest of it was. Oh, that was an interesting gamble. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the National Review podcast and Noah Rothman,
Speaker 1: who we had on the air a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: is trying to spin it in such a way that
Speaker 1: this is actually a positive.
Speaker 2: Thing going forward. He could be right. I don't know.
Speaker 2: He could be right, but I don't know. We will see.
Speaker 2: I always darkest before the dawn, Jack, it's always darkest
Speaker 2: before it's totally black.
Speaker 1: We get two percent of our oil coming through the Strait.
Speaker 1: It's a bigger deal for the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: way bigger deal for the rest of the world than
Speaker 1: it is for us. That's one interesting part of this
Speaker 1: is we started the war, the Strait was opened before
Speaker 1: we started the war. The war closes, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: have much effect on us. It has a lot of
Speaker 1: effect on Japan and China and Europe and lots of
Speaker 1: other people, but not us.
Speaker 2: Well, I disagree. There are and I've never used this
Speaker 2: term before in my life. This is exciting. There are
Speaker 2: knock on effects. Jack. Oh, No, I didn't like it.
Speaker 2: It didn't feel good, just because if it strangles the
Speaker 2: rest of the world. We're part of the world economy,
Speaker 2: and it may not impact us as quickly as or severely,
Speaker 2: but it'll impact us for sure, especially as oil reserves
Speaker 2: are running dangerously low. According to experts I have read.
Speaker 1: You would think the rest of the world would want
Speaker 1: the straight open, like really want it open.
Speaker 2: I think they are so flabby and unused to action.
Speaker 2: I don't know where to start. That's me.
Speaker 1: You're listening to an expert on the top. I'm flabby
Speaker 1: and used to an action.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So well, Plus you know, we've we've got a
Speaker 2: significant military force there, so you know, if the if
Speaker 2: Japan decided you know what this is or righteous cause
Speaker 2: I'm not sure exactly what that would look like anyway,
Speaker 2: but I think we may well find out, because we
Speaker 2: they everybody absolutely between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 2: The path out of this is to say it's unclear,
Speaker 2: is to well to underestimate the murkiness of the situation.
Speaker 1: I s that Iran keeps firing on ships. I feel
Speaker 1: like they're good.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I haven't convinced you, But go ahead.
Speaker 1: Why weren't they better off just taking the money, dragging
Speaker 1: their feet on the nuclear stuff while they tried to
Speaker 1: make a bomb in that secret mountain hideaway that we
Speaker 1: saw pictures of in the New York Times over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Why didn't they do that? They have decided control of
Speaker 2: the Strait of Horrmus is their future. It's their nuclear bomb,
Speaker 2: it is their superpower. They must cement it. That is
Speaker 2: their only goal right now. Surely we are in charge
Speaker 2: of the straight period. That's their only goal.
Speaker 1: What's the chances the world allows that to happen? I
Speaker 1: feel like that's zero. We're back to the asymmetry problem.
Speaker 1: Though I agree with you in principle.
Speaker 2: But do does the quote unquote rest of the world
Speaker 2: have the stomach to do it's going to be necessary
Speaker 2: the asymmetry problem if.
Speaker 1: The word, If the world isn't willing to take on
Speaker 1: those nut jobs in Iran to keep a major waterway open,
Speaker 1: then forget about Taiwan and a bunch of other places.
Speaker 1: There's no way you're taking on China if you're not
Speaker 1: willing to take on the ragtag bunch that is, whoever
Speaker 1: those nut jobs are in Iran?
Speaker 2: Right? I agree? Wow?
Speaker 1: I mean we really are into a new era, flabby
Speaker 1: and unused to action.
Speaker 2: Practically the whole world. Pox Americana has been wonderful, wonderful
Speaker 2: for like every human being on earth for the last
Speaker 2: seventy five years, the Great American led international order. But
Speaker 2: it's made everybody soft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a bunch of euro countries feel. Convinced them
Speaker 1: that you can retire fifteen and take eight weeks vacation
Speaker 1: and not produce anything, right, because you don't need to
Speaker 1: spend money on military. I just saw France's economic growth numbers.
Speaker 1: I think their economy is going to grow by like
Speaker 1: zero point four percent this year or something like that,
Speaker 1: barely a tall as we're going to grow, you know,
Speaker 1: three point six or whatever. And it's just, yeah, the
Speaker 1: Euros are dying. They couldn't even beat Spain in soccer yesterday.
Speaker 1: He couldn't score a single goal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding, nice job, France, Vivola, you suck.
Speaker 1: Spain looked really good though, Oh I watched it every minute.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then England Argentina today, which I'm actually excited about.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for that. What is that game? It's
Speaker 2: it a weird time, I don't know, middle of the night. No, No,
Speaker 2: it's like in the afternoons. Let me figure that out.
Speaker 1: So the localistics, So we've had a lot of security
Speaker 1: all around the country for the soccer matches going on
Speaker 1: because of you know, any big event there's always a.
Speaker 2: Worry about terrorism or something like that.
Speaker 1: But in particular, they they announced that by far they've
Speaker 1: got more security for Argentina England today because of the
Speaker 1: animosity that has existed for so long that you told
Speaker 1: us about yesterday, which I had no idea of. If
Speaker 1: you'd have told me about rivals, I would have never
Speaker 1: thrown out England in Argentina. But the end of God,
Speaker 1: the goal of the century, the Falklands War hatred is that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're tremendous security around that thing. Apparently I should
Speaker 1: tell that story about when I went to a soccer
Speaker 1: match in where I was near a soccer match in
Speaker 1: Siena between Ciena and Florence. I mean, that's what soccer
Speaker 1: is like for the world. We don't care about soccer
Speaker 1: in the United States, so we don't have this sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But the rest of maybe you go, you
Speaker 1: have a beer and a hot dog and say that
Speaker 1: was fun, you go home again. Yeah, let's start to
Speaker 1: show officially much to talk about today. I'm Jack Armstrong,
Speaker 1: He's Joe Getty on this it is how did it
Speaker 1: already get to be? Wednesday, July fifteenth of the year
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, War Armstrong the getting we approve of
Speaker 1: this program.
Speaker 2: Here we go, let's begin officially according to the f
Speaker 2: SEC rules. Rags at Mark One.
Speaker 3: Research that said to me, they use the African fighters
Speaker 3: mostly as cannon fodder. They come over, they're often not
Speaker 3: well trained, and in any case, they then forced them
Speaker 3: towards the front line because they want to use them
Speaker 3: in an assault wave. They want to send this wave
Speaker 3: of bodies forward to try and exhaust Ukrainian and troops
Speaker 3: and ammunition.
Speaker 2: A different horrifying conflicts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Russia has been advertising to the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, the poorest people in the world that hey,
Speaker 1: come to Russia and you get a job or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you get there and your job is you're in
Speaker 1: the military, and they send you to the front. And
Speaker 1: that's where those statistics came from from the New York
Speaker 1: Times a couple of weeks ago, where the average life
Speaker 1: span of people who land once you get to the
Speaker 1: front twenty minutes. Twenty minutes so you're some African guy
Speaker 1: you answer an ad saying, hey, honey, if I'm away
Speaker 1: for six months, it can work as a like mowing
Speaker 1: parks in.
Speaker 2: Russia and your family support us for years. Right right,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go do it. And then they go and
Speaker 2: they put a gun in your hand and a gun
Speaker 2: to your head and say, yeah, attack that village.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they even put a gun in your hand.
Speaker 1: You might just be running at the Ukrainians. Why would
Speaker 1: you waste a gun on somebody's gonna last twenty minutes?
Speaker 1: God dang it, that's all. He takes a certain sort
Speaker 1: of person to be able to do that, I mean,
Speaker 1: to force people to do that, to be in charge
Speaker 1: and know you're doing that. Putin is an evil, evil bastard,
Speaker 1: and those of you come down to the squad level, evil, corrupt,
Speaker 1: murderous bastard, and those of you have been convinced that
Speaker 1: Putin's standing up for Christianity or something.
Speaker 2: I do not know what's going on there. You're fools.
Speaker 2: That's what's going on.
Speaker 1: We got some more headlines and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff to talk about. I see more stuff about the
Speaker 1: Odyssey on TV every time I look up that movie.
Speaker 2: It better be good. It better be good.
Speaker 1: I'm going this weekend. He'd better make it back home
Speaker 1: and see his wife or I'm gonna be very unhappy.
Speaker 1: Reviewer Richard Roper said it was one of the best
Speaker 1: movies he's ever seen. I don't doubt if Christopher Nolan
Speaker 1: does good stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, he's amazing. I just
Speaker 1: can't picture Matt Damon in this role. But maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: He's a gifted actor. Give him a chance. Should have
Speaker 1: let Russell Crowe shave his beard, lose a few pounds,
Speaker 1: and he'd have been a perfect different, different movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll get to that stuff next.
Speaker 1: Stay here, so before we get some some other headlines,
Speaker 1: just following up on the one we are talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, bombing people back to the Stone Age or
Speaker 1: making them submit or whatever, which is what Senator Tom
Speaker 1: Cotton has been suggesting with Iran. Trump had a meeting
Speaker 1: in the situation situation room yesterday with all the big players.
Speaker 1: And you meet in the situation room when you want
Speaker 1: things to be super super secret and not leak in
Speaker 1: theory anyway. According to Axios, Trump appears to be willing
Speaker 1: to escalate the war to cause enough damage that the
Speaker 1: Iranian regime will submit and open the straight of horror
Speaker 1: moves and accept the nuclear demands. They're talking about the
Speaker 1: most serious strikes yet on all kinds of different stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: whether they just leak, Mark Halprin says, that's the story,
Speaker 1: you leak out on purpose to let the Iranians know
Speaker 1: you're serious. Problem with that is, are you actually serious
Speaker 1: or not? So?
Speaker 2: So many hollow threats have been made. I suspect it's
Speaker 2: time now for the ass weapon, but who knows. I've
Speaker 2: thought that several times. Yeah, I know, I know, and
Speaker 2: full of headlines for a US inflation rate was three
Speaker 2: point five percent June, down for four point two percent
Speaker 2: in May and below economists expectations, maybe the economists expectations
Speaker 2: or two. But anyway, three and a half percent is
Speaker 2: being hailed as good news. That's almost double the Fed's
Speaker 2: intended rate of two percent. So I'm a little skeptical.
Speaker 1: Well so the lowest since pre pandemic, which is really
Speaker 1: quite amazing because the pandemic was six years ago now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we lived with two percent our entire adult
Speaker 1: lives and it's practically double.
Speaker 2: Like you said, Yeah, but three.
Speaker 1: Point five is better than four point two anyway, so
Speaker 1: it seems to be an improvement.
Speaker 2: Although a note of caution, that was.
Speaker 1: The month, the calmest month in the current conflict with
Speaker 1: Iran so oil prices and the resulting, you know, lowering
Speaker 1: of many other prices.
Speaker 2: We're going on that month. Who knows what the truth is? Well,
Speaker 2: I know there's way too much reporting and it's too
Speaker 2: dumb generally about economics. Point check has made a million times.
Speaker 2: Kathy hokel oh I mentioned New York may be the
Speaker 2: dumbest state. Kathy Hochel and ounsdays statewide moratorium on data
Speaker 2: centers on Tuesday. You can't build any data centers in
Speaker 2: New York reminds one of AOC's idiotic stands against that
Speaker 2: Amazon distribution center that would have provided so many jobs.
Speaker 1: We talked about this yesterday when the news broke, and
Speaker 1: you seem to have some hesitation whether or not that's
Speaker 1: even legal. Can a governor just cancel a big segment
Speaker 1: of industry like that.
Speaker 2: Right exactly? Can you have a moratorium on a sector
Speaker 2: of society? I haven't read the law. I mean it
Speaker 2: might be of above, you know, fifty thousand square feet
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: But wouldn't it be like saying, we are not going
Speaker 1: to have a dairy business in this state. We will
Speaker 1: not be involved in the dairy business. No airplane hangars,
Speaker 1: why exactly? Yeah, hardware stores?
Speaker 2: About five? Where does the coverman get off in banging
Speaker 2: a private enterprise that breaks no other laws?
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's just accepted this headline. I haven't heard any
Speaker 1: analysis on this. Maybe we'll have to ask ten.
Speaker 4: It's a Chinese woman in Las Vegas pled guilty to
Speaker 4: marrying at least fourteen men at the same time. When
Speaker 4: asked if she knew what she did was wrong, she responded,
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 2: Uh in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: So I was there just a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and we were dragging the strip in the classic Mustang
Speaker 1: that I rented, me and my son, and we're going
Speaker 1: by all those little wedding chapels that they have, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to explain to my son about the
Speaker 1: like Quickie Vegas marriage. But don't have a good explanation
Speaker 1: as a why was that ever a thing?
Speaker 2: How is it still a thing?
Speaker 1: There are we probably passed eight different tiny little some
Speaker 1: of them are drive through wedding chapels. I would assume
Speaker 1: they're only open because they get enough business to make
Speaker 1: it profitable. Why are there still so many people doing
Speaker 1: the quickie Vegas wedding? Do you know anything about that?
Speaker 2: No, I really don't. I'd be guessing. I mean, my
Speaker 2: guess is that a certain number of people, a certain
Speaker 2: number of people don't want a big wedding, but they
Speaker 2: want to have fun. They want the wedding to be
Speaker 2: something just not the conventional, and Vegas will do it
Speaker 2: for you with a dozen different varieties, I guess. And
Speaker 2: they're supposed to go down to the justice of the
Speaker 2: piece and signing papers and walking home, and enough people
Speaker 2: do it to keep those places open.
Speaker 1: They're all really small, like the size of a Dutch
Speaker 1: Brother's coffee, and there's lots of them.
Speaker 2: How many folks are still getting the Elvis themed wedding?
Speaker 2: Like an Elvis imitator? I am personator does that because
Speaker 2: that was big for a minute and.
Speaker 1: Drove by that place. Yep, yeah, it still exists. There's
Speaker 1: just one. Do they have some sort of some sort
Speaker 1: of license from the Estate of the King or something.
Speaker 2: I know, you'd think the First Amendment would protect faux
Speaker 2: elvi from prosecution.
Speaker 1: So every six months or so we change the clock
Speaker 1: in this country, and every six months or so we
Speaker 1: have an actual conversation about why do we do this?
Speaker 1: And Congress voted overwhelmingly yesterday.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even close.
Speaker 1: It was three hundred some to one hundred sum to
Speaker 1: make daylight saving time permanent. But the bill faces an
Speaker 1: uncertain fate in the Senate. Why I don't understand the
Speaker 1: resistance to this. Why I wish I were a congress person,
Speaker 1: so I could have suggested an amendment, a sunset clause,
Speaker 1: which is actually kind of funny if you think about it,
Speaker 1: a sunset clause.
Speaker 2: How about we try it for two years, and if
Speaker 2: we decide we don't like.
Speaker 1: It, we'll go back. It's not going to be a disaster.
Speaker 1: We might just decide we like the other one better.
Speaker 1: This isn't a big deal. First of all, I don't
Speaker 1: understand Arizona and Hawaii don't do it.
Speaker 2: There aren't stacks of dead bodies.
Speaker 1: People don't just run around screaming because the time didn't change.
Speaker 2: They don't know how to act.
Speaker 1: It seem to be fine, right to let it go,
Speaker 1: even do it for a year, and then everybody will
Speaker 1: get together and say I thought it was okay, two
Speaker 1: thirds of the world does not do it at all.
Speaker 1: The third of the world does. Let's try it and
Speaker 1: see what happens. We'll either like it or not.
Speaker 2: Putting aside your trademark mirth Ah, what is is this
Speaker 2: uniquely American or twenty first century or yet another example
Speaker 2: of a very comfortable, wealthy people. We fear change. We've
Speaker 2: talked about this with the tax code a million times.
Speaker 2: Anybody who would design the federal tax code as it
Speaker 2: is right now should be permanently held in a mental institution. Okay,
Speaker 2: our tax system is completely insane and bizarre. It's kafka esque.
Speaker 1: And yet whenever a perfectly coherent, reasonable proposal comes along
Speaker 1: to say, hey, how about we totally reformer text system
Speaker 1: and do this instead, people go crazy about the small inconveniences, And.
Speaker 2: I've heard that. Mean to know, we should probably stick
Speaker 2: with their courts.
Speaker 1: This fear of change, that's got to be an evolutionary thing,
Speaker 1: where it's we're alive and our kids are alive, let's
Speaker 1: not mess with things, which is kind of the essence
Speaker 1: of conservatism really, So it's got to be that. At
Speaker 1: the same time, though the pace of change in the
Speaker 1: modern world is is dizzying. But if we all get
Speaker 1: together to vote for some everybody really hesitates. Well maybe
Speaker 1: you've seen it in your own life, your own household,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I have to point out to myself or
Speaker 1: my kids, like.
Speaker 2: You're going to change some minor thing, and then there's
Speaker 2: the there's the but what of this? What if that?
Speaker 1: Okay, if we don't decide we don't like you sitting
Speaker 1: there and me sitting there at the dinner table, we'll.
Speaker 2: Go back to the old way. Nobody's right.
Speaker 1: Guy absolutely anthropologically right. It's got to be anyway. The
Speaker 1: vote was not even close in the House. I don't
Speaker 1: know why they are going to be stumbling blocks from
Speaker 1: the Senate to this major, major thing that they do
Speaker 1: in Arizona, and tons of old people seem to be
Speaker 1: perfectly fine with it.
Speaker 2: Oh that reminds me speaking of changes next door in
Speaker 2: New Mexico.
Speaker 1: They would go, well, they'll set themselves on fire if
Speaker 1: for some reason we didn't change the clocks twice a year,
Speaker 1: dogs lying down with cats, families turning on each other.
Speaker 2: This will not happen. But I love the idea. Did
Speaker 2: you know I should come up with a better form
Speaker 2: of the question, when did Americans start voting for their senators?
Speaker 2: Individual voters? When did they start voting for senator? I'm
Speaker 2: going to go eighteen thirty, nineteen thirteen. Really, yeah, the
Speaker 2: Senate was elected by state legislators until nineteen thirteen. From
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty nine to nineteen thirteen, not a single American
Speaker 2: casta ballot for the US Senate. Then the Seventeenth Amendment,
Speaker 2: one of our were changed senatorial elections to the direct
Speaker 2: popular vote following state level reforms in the years prior.
Speaker 2: In June, a representative of Texas proposed legislation to repeal
Speaker 2: the seventeenth Amendment, ending the direct election of senators that's
Speaker 2: started in nineteen thirteen. As I mentioned repeatedly, I would
Speaker 2: love to see this happen.
Speaker 1: You would, Yeah, I was just trying to noodle it
Speaker 1: through since I hadn't thought about it at all. So
Speaker 1: in your one party states like California, it would end
Speaker 1: the chance of any Republican being a senator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, certainly, certainly would in the current you know state
Speaker 2: of things.
Speaker 1: Or the reverse in your rer read states. I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to make this a partisan thing, so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have the chance to like cast a blow against the
Speaker 1: party in charge by getting one senator from the other
Speaker 1: party in your state, or something right right, the outside
Speaker 1: of it would be I've lost my faith in voters.
Speaker 2: That would be the upside, right right. The original constitutional
Speaker 2: provision that the state legislatures choose the senators, uh, it
Speaker 2: was not only not an accident, it was one of
Speaker 2: the least controversial questions at the Constitutional Convention. There's no
Speaker 2: serious dissent to it. You want to hear the reasoning.
Speaker 2: The Framers built a bicameral congress in which the House
Speaker 2: would represent the people directly and the Senate would represent states.
Speaker 2: As states with their own institutional interest in resisting federal encroachment.
Speaker 2: A senator chosen by an answerable to a state legislator
Speaker 2: had every incentive to defend that state's prerogatives against Washington
Speaker 2: and not be a populist not or a you know,
Speaker 2: Instagram fame seeker or whatever. Senator who needs a national
Speaker 2: fundraising operation, a national media profile, and a national donor
Speaker 2: base to win reelection often has little incentive to be
Speaker 2: just a fierce representative of their state. Right.
Speaker 1: So this sort of fits into the argument that I
Speaker 1: brought up yesterday, which was floating around online over the weekend.
Speaker 1: There was a movement AOC might have brought it up
Speaker 1: or somebody about how why does New York State, which
Speaker 1: has New York City, have two senators when the population
Speaker 1: of New York City alone is bigger than I think
Speaker 1: it was Montana, South Dakota, and North Dakota, Wyoming and
Speaker 1: Alaska added together, and that's ten senators. So and the
Speaker 1: argument would be what you just said there, because then
Speaker 1: it's going to become the federal government or big cities
Speaker 1: making decisions for the entire country. Now, people who live
Speaker 1: in big cities think that that makes sense for the
Speaker 1: rural areas, but it doesn't being a person who's spent
Speaker 1: most of my life in rural areas.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, and the differing interests of the differing parts
Speaker 2: of the country just you know, in general, it's in
Speaker 2: genius design that the founders came up with, and we've
Speaker 2: made the Senate more populist and more to quote James
Speaker 2: Madison to something or other from the people's momentary passions.
Speaker 2: The design is as it was originally said, a body
Speaker 2: removed from the immediate popular passion would provide a defense
Speaker 2: to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions,
Speaker 2: preserving public opinion's true interest until reason, justice, and truth
Speaker 2: can regain their authority. Meaning you know the off heard
Speaker 2: phrase that the Senate is the saucer that cools the milk.
Speaker 2: It would be a very very careful, very slow moving,
Speaker 2: deliberative body. It would be essentially a committee of all
Speaker 2: fifty states getting together and saying, hey, let's be fair
Speaker 2: to everybody here. I don't have to run for reelection
Speaker 2: in a couple of years. In fact, as long as
Speaker 2: I represent Montana faithfully, I really don't have to worry
Speaker 2: about re election at all. But in the you know,
Speaker 2: in the interest of the people of Ontana, I've got
Speaker 2: to tell you, this scheme to drain all of our
Speaker 2: water and send it to Los Angeles ain't good. So
Speaker 2: that's what the Senate was supposed to be. I like it. Populism,
Speaker 2: especially in the age of the Internet, I think is
Speaker 2: a dangerous force. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the Senate being staggered, so you can't have
Speaker 1: a wave that really upsets the Senate as opposed to
Speaker 1: the House where you can where if all of a
Speaker 1: sudden there's a passion about a war we're in, or
Speaker 1: a tax policy or whatever. You can have a giant
Speaker 1: wave happened within two years, right, which is just you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, it's a really an ingenious system.
Speaker 2: As to the night were accidentally building a case here.
Speaker 2: Let me throw in one more thing real quickly, because
Speaker 2: the president now is the party which can ride cause
Speaker 2: wild wild swings in policy. And then you have senators
Speaker 2: who right now, for populist reasons, are kind of afraid
Speaker 2: of opposing the sitting president. I'll admit it. It's true,
Speaker 2: you see it all the time. This would fix that
Speaker 2: to a large extent. Ah, You're right.
Speaker 1: In terms of the national elections thing, though, I was
Speaker 1: reading some piece about how much more we have that
Speaker 1: now than we used to. You run on whether you
Speaker 1: were with Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It used to
Speaker 1: be all my whole life what you heard on the
Speaker 1: like Tim Russert's style, meet the press or whatever. It
Speaker 1: was all politics are local, and that's just not true anymore.
Speaker 1: All politics is national, right, right, It's all about what
Speaker 1: everybody's watching in the news and whatever hot YouTube video
Speaker 1: or whatever, including politics, which is bitterly needs to be local,
Speaker 1: becomes national. Yeah, I mean, I got into a conversation
Speaker 1: sort of with a guy last night about the It
Speaker 1: was a crazy drug addict, homeless person screaming their head
Speaker 1: off violently near a group of people last night, and
Speaker 1: I went out and dialed nine one one and the
Speaker 1: cops talked to him. And then the cops called me
Speaker 1: back and said, yeah, we know this guy. We talked
Speaker 1: to him all the time. And I mentioned to a friend.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, because they talk to him every day.
Speaker 1: Somebody calls nine to one one every day because he's
Speaker 1: dangerous and scary, and they come and talk to him
Speaker 1: every day, and he's still on the street, right, And
Speaker 1: kind of got into the whole idea because of our
Speaker 1: whole nationalized politics, you've got this crowd that well, to
Speaker 1: do anything about the crime or homelessness or this or
Speaker 1: that would be make you a Trump person or not
Speaker 1: a Trump person, which is a ridiculous way to look
Speaker 1: at your local school, your local taxes, your local water,
Speaker 1: your local whatever. You know, just like through the pandemic
Speaker 1: with masks and schools and everything else is Trump order
Speaker 1: against it.
Speaker 2: That's the way we run everything now, right, or you know,
Speaker 2: to put the shoe on the other foot if some
Speaker 2: senator had been willing to stand up to Joe Biden
Speaker 2: and say, hey, this is a gigantic, multi trillion dollar
Speaker 2: COVID bailout is going to cause spiraling inflation. I won't
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: You couldn't threaten to primary him, because the people of
Speaker 1: a state, the legislature of a state is say here,
Speaker 1: I'm glad he stood up to you.
Speaker 2: That's fine. We'll decide who our senator is not you
Speaker 2: pouring a bunch of money into our elections and trying
Speaker 2: to whip up the populace base. Blah blah blah. I
Speaker 2: like it. Probably won't happen, but I like it. M
Speaker 2: I had a physical yesterday.
Speaker 1: Apparently you have to have one every so often according
Speaker 1: to your insurance or something. I hadn't had one in
Speaker 1: a long time.
Speaker 2: You go to Trump's doctor, so he would declare you
Speaker 2: the most physically fit talk show host in history.
Speaker 1: Here's the worst thing, and I'm not going to lie
Speaker 1: about this for the rest of my life. Uh oh
Speaker 1: my height. Oh you'd say, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Freaking gravity man. No, you pastor my yr own business.
Speaker 2: You had your dang old discs between your vertebrae. They
Speaker 2: get squashed it's maddening. I know, I know. My doctor
Speaker 2: actually said, he said, call yourself what you used to be. No,
Speaker 2: it doesn't cost anything. Jack's gone from six foot two
Speaker 2: to four eleven. I mean, it's really really shocking. Had
Speaker 2: to get rid of all his clothes. All right, the
Speaker 2: pants I keep, I gotta like buckle him around my neck.
Speaker 2: It's really kind of a jumpsuit.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I can't go on those amusement amusement rights anymore. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm too short for It's terrible. Damn it.
Speaker 1: We've got mail bag next they here, Are you serious, Hanson?
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: Mike Hanson, our executive producer, just sat in my ear.
Speaker 1: Trump just endorsed Mike Lindell for governor of Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Nobody. He threw back his head with a laughter after
Speaker 2: he did it. You think I don't know? Oh wow, wow.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd like to like to meditate on that
Speaker 1: announcement for a few minutes before I comment, yes, Michael will.
Speaker 2: Vote for me. Get one pillow free.
Speaker 1: It might be two years ago today that I met
Speaker 1: Mike Lindell, because it was the beginning of the Republican
Speaker 1: Convention two years ago today, and I remember meeting him
Speaker 1: and he was not really much interested in talking to me.
Speaker 2: Mm, that's a shame. Here's your freedom loving quote of
Speaker 2: the day, sent along by Brian in Beautiful Santa Rosa.
Speaker 2: Actually he writes on a number of different topics. Ah,
Speaker 2: it's from Thomas Paine. When men he let women vote. Now,
Speaker 2: so we'll say people, when people yield up the privilege
Speaker 2: of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, self governing people has to be a thinking people.
Speaker 2: But oh boy, that's a can of worms. We don't
Speaker 2: have time for the discussion mail bag canned worms delicious? Hmm.
Speaker 2: Drop us a note mail bag at Armstrong you gety
Speaker 2: dot com. Brian also wants to weigh in on the
Speaker 2: topic of the brand new, sweeping the West Coast computerized
Speaker 2: AI dating platform, in which you don't look at pictures
Speaker 2: and swipe right left, you align common interests and attitudes
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing, which might actually be worse
Speaker 2: than basing it on looks the more I think about it, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know's it's funny. Well, we'll let the comment.
Speaker 2: There's comment, but he says it's funny how computer geeks
Speaker 2: don't get the spark that's caused between two people when
Speaker 2: they meet. I've had several in my life. Fortunately I'm
Speaker 2: happy and Mary now don't have to go down that
Speaker 2: missy messy road. But back when I was young, you
Speaker 2: just had a certain something. Oh, we're right.
Speaker 1: There's a line from a counting Crow's song Edam dur
Speaker 1: it sings and then he's heartbroken or whatever. But then
Speaker 1: you look across the room and see the weight, the
Speaker 1: way that light attaches to a girl. There's just something
Speaker 1: that happens sometimes with people. You look at somebody and
Speaker 1: then something what happens in your brain and you have
Speaker 1: no idea why, and they're never going to figure that
Speaker 1: out with I don't think algorithms.
Speaker 2: And Alex actually quotes a lyric from one of my
Speaker 2: favorite Rush songs Entre New which is friends for between us.
Speaker 2: I think it's time for us to realize the spaces
Speaker 2: in between leave room for you and I to grow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Judy has her stuff, I have my stuff. We
Speaker 1: have our stuff, and.
Speaker 2: It works great.
Speaker 1: It's quite possible that if you two listed your interests,
Speaker 1: the algorithm wouldn't put you together.
Speaker 2: Well right, yeah, uh, you know. In describing what makes
Speaker 2: relationships work, there's obviously a biochemical reaction that nobody can
Speaker 2: fully explain. And then her crazy and my crazy matchup.
Speaker 2: There's that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, that's the thing, no doubt about it. My
Speaker 1: worst qualities match up with her highest levels of patience
Speaker 1: and vice versa. Right, Why it works well, You and
Speaker 1: I have talked about how like in dealer with corporate
Speaker 1: stuff in the business, we've never both been too mad
Speaker 1: to deal with it at the same time.
Speaker 2: We've never both lost our ass at the same time.
Speaker 2: One of us storms out and the other is certainly
Speaker 2: willing to discuss this for whatever is not why, I
Speaker 2: don't know why it's not more male bag will sprinkle it. Well,
Speaker 2: we will get to that. We got more stuff on
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 1: If you missed the sec the podcast Armstrong and Getty
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