Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe, Katty arm Strong.
Speaker 2: And Jetty and now he Armstrong and Eddy.
Speaker 3: I'm considering voting yes on DeSantis if he finally admits
Speaker 3: that he has lifts in his boots.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he does.
Speaker 3: I think three inches for inches at least.
Speaker 4: That's a US senator and colleague of Marco Rubio, John
Speaker 4: Fetterman of Pennsylvania saying he will vote for Marco Rubio
Speaker 4: as Secretary of State.
Speaker 1: Ron de Santis.
Speaker 4: N de Santis would vote for Ron DeSantis as Secretary
Speaker 4: of Defense if he's nominated.
Speaker 2: If he admits he has lifts.
Speaker 1: In his boots Senator on Senator violence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if DeSantis would think that was
Speaker 2: funny or not.
Speaker 1: Definitely like the new Fetterman post stroke better than the
Speaker 1: old one, yeah, which is no endorsement of that terrible
Speaker 1: medical melody. But he sure is a different dude.
Speaker 4: So we're not there yet that that Trump needs to
Speaker 4: name DeSantis as the nominee for Secretary of Defense, because
Speaker 4: you still have old Pete Hegseth in there. He hasn't
Speaker 4: gotten out yet here's a little on the reporting on
Speaker 4: that from Bill Malusion on Fox.
Speaker 5: Heg Seth also met yesterday with Senator Roger Wicker. He's
Speaker 5: the incoming chairman of the All Important Arms Services Committee.
Speaker 5: Wicker says Hegseth pledged to him he would stop drinking
Speaker 5: if he set death.
Speaker 3: Issu was made about him being intoxicated several times, and
Speaker 3: so the questions that everry member will be asking him led.
Speaker 6: To and hekill Stuftrina altogether if he becomes secretaries exactly,
Speaker 6: and then the rest of the allegations in the New
Speaker 6: York article on the like.
Speaker 3: How I will not I answered about that, and he
Speaker 3: stated categorically they were untrue.
Speaker 4: So I hadn't thought about that. If you're a big drinker,
Speaker 4: you can very easily. I just finished reading Bob Woodward's
Speaker 4: War Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense. You get phone
Speaker 4: calls at two thirty in the morning and have to
Speaker 4: make some serious decisions very quickly. You can't be drunk
Speaker 4: and or hungover. So it's not just do you drink
Speaker 4: during work hours, because your work hours are literally twenty
Speaker 4: four to seven when your secretary Defense, right, So.
Speaker 2: As Hegxsist said, he doesn't drink at all.
Speaker 4: He told Megan Kelly yesterday, doesn't he's not an alcoholic,
Speaker 4: and he said, yeah, he would.
Speaker 1: Be willing to give up alcohol entirely during his stay.
Speaker 2: As Pentagonchi, that's a good commitment.
Speaker 1: As Senator Wickers said, you know, so, I thought a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago his nomination was shakier than I
Speaker 1: think it is today. And Goodness knows, it could go
Speaker 1: either way. But he is absolutely manfully and intelligently saying this.
Speaker 1: This is a manufactured takedown. I am not going to
Speaker 1: back down in the face of this crap. Okay, I
Speaker 1: admire him for that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to hear that Wall Street Journal stuff
Speaker 4: you have before you get to that. I think this
Speaker 4: will set it up. So a little piece from the
Speaker 4: New York Times. Trump has made clear to people close
Speaker 4: to him that he believes Hegseth should have been more
Speaker 4: forthcoming about the problems he would face getting confirmed, according
Speaker 4: to two people with knowledge of his thinking, So it's possible.
Speaker 4: You know, you never know if this stuff's true or not,
Speaker 4: but it's possible. Trump's like, God, God, dude, you gotta
Speaker 4: let us know so he can be ahead of this stuff.
Speaker 4: Possible Politico is reporting. Well, actually it's a quote from
Speaker 4: Hegzz's lawyer, whose name parlatory, defended Hegzev's communication with the
Speaker 4: Trump team around all this stuff and why he didn't
Speaker 4: tell him. Hegsat's lawyer said, it's not something you would
Speaker 4: necessarily be expected to disclose. Were you ever falsely accused
Speaker 4: of something that the police investigated and clear you of
Speaker 4: That's not a question that comes up in any background check.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, I would, it kind of does. And that's
Speaker 4: absolutely the sort of thing you would disclose. How many
Speaker 4: of you have been investigated by the police and then
Speaker 4: cleared and then you think, once you're cleared, that's a
Speaker 4: non story. In my life, it's not worth you ever
Speaker 4: mentioning to anybody.
Speaker 1: Really, you don't follow politics much for one right, of course,
Speaker 1: this is his attorney who also said that he wasn't
Speaker 1: even the state for the alleged strip club incident where
Speaker 1: he was hammered and wanted to get up on stage
Speaker 1: with the dancers. Who knows what's true, but so one
Speaker 1: the dynamic I've been aware of is that his current
Speaker 1: colleagues and very recent past colleagues at Fox News has
Speaker 1: said he's the stand upist guy they've ever worked with.
Speaker 1: They never sensed any problem. He never maltreated anybody, And
Speaker 1: so I was surprised to see this headline Pete Hexast
Speaker 1: drinking worried? Is Fox News colleagues, sources tell NBC News. Right,
Speaker 1: So I went to this story that happened to be
Speaker 1: on MSNBC. Citing ten current and former Fox News employees,
Speaker 1: NBC News reported that on more than a dozen occasions
Speaker 1: they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air.
Speaker 1: They don't say what time of day or why he
Speaker 1: was on air or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Right, So those are unnamed Fox employees. Doesn't mean it
Speaker 4: didn't happen. But Brian Kilmeat on Fox and Friends said,
Speaker 4: we've all worked with Pete for fourteen years and none
Speaker 4: of us have been contacted by any reporters.
Speaker 1: That's what kill Meat said. I think it was yesterday
Speaker 1: on Fox and Friends. So two of those people said
Speaker 1: on more than a dozen occasions. But those same two
Speaker 1: people who are not willing to put their names forward,
Speaker 1: said that during his time there, he appeared on television
Speaker 1: after they'd heard him mentioned being hung over. All right,
Speaker 1: so he showed up to work slightly hungover and never
Speaker 1: missed a que, never missed a day of work, never
Speaker 1: missed anything, according to these same anonymous rumor mongers.
Speaker 4: Well that gets the question I've been asking along. Shouldn't
Speaker 4: we do you make a decision as a nation on
Speaker 4: what our standards are for people that have some of
Speaker 4: these jobs? Are you not allowed to go to strip clubs?
Speaker 4: Are you not allowed to have affairs? Are you're not
Speaker 4: allowed to ever be hungover? I mean that will have
Speaker 4: eliminated a lot of people that like have statues in
Speaker 4: parks for them in US history, Winston Churchill wouldn't have
Speaker 4: been Prime Minister for instance.
Speaker 1: Right, And, as one of our beloved listeners pointed it
Speaker 1: out quite eloquently via email, this is really good. So
Speaker 1: I want to mention his name. No, that's not it.
Speaker 1: Uh never mind pointed out this stuff only runs one way.
Speaker 1: Democrats always make like it's some big deal when a
Speaker 1: guy was hung over once.
Speaker 4: Oh, for god's sake, this bull shack And ask well,
Speaker 4: I guess we have a clip about the strip club.
Speaker 4: I want to hear this and I have a question.
Speaker 1: So how do you respond to those reports?
Speaker 6: All of those allegations are anonymous, All of them are unsubstantiated.
Speaker 6: No one's putting their name on it. No one can
Speaker 6: point to an actual incidence, an actual place, an actual
Speaker 6: piece of evidence, none of it. I was at my
Speaker 6: brother's house last night where I was talking about where
Speaker 6: did this allegation come of me being in a strip club?
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that is in Louisiana that
Speaker 1: not just in the strip club strict clus storming the state.
Speaker 6: On the stage at a strip club. Where did this
Speaker 6: come from? And they said, Pete, don't you know what
Speaker 6: happened there? I said, no, it was, there was an
Speaker 6: incident at a strip club. Something happened that was addressed.
Speaker 6: You were nowhere near there. You weren't even at the event.
Speaker 6: You weren't even in the state. You're being accused of
Speaker 6: something you weren't even at. So if they're making up
Speaker 6: an instance of something where I didn't even attend, how
Speaker 6: can you believe a single other thing that any of
Speaker 6: these people are saying in any instance?
Speaker 4: Well, I assume that's one hundred percent true, because there's
Speaker 4: no way you'd want to come out and say that
Speaker 4: and have that turn out to be wrong, because then
Speaker 4: you're doomed. So that must be true, And that's a
Speaker 4: pretty good point. If you're going to make those claims
Speaker 4: that I wasn't even in the state on the date
Speaker 4: you're claiming this happened, the rest of the stuff falls apart,
Speaker 4: and then what do you think about the whole Brian Kilmead,
Speaker 4: who's on Fox and Friends daily but also worked with
Speaker 4: him on the weekends, saying, we've all all the people
Speaker 4: on the couch, like the biggest stars of Fox, said,
Speaker 4: we've worked for Pete for fourteen years and nobody's asked
Speaker 4: us and we never saw any of this stuff.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Which is which is why I went to that headline
Speaker 1: from NBC News thinking, oh wow, that contradicts what I've heard.
Speaker 1: But no, it's two anonymous crackpots making ridiculous who cares allegations?
Speaker 2: So did that answer your question?
Speaker 1: Or I think yeah, the fact that everybody works with
Speaker 1: now says no, he's a great guy, there's no problem.
Speaker 1: But his piece in the Wall Street Journal Pete Hexas
Speaker 1: is there available today. I've faced fire before, I won't
Speaker 1: back down. I look forward to an anonymous I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: to an honest confirmation hearing, not a press show trial
Speaker 1: based on anonymous accusations, and he says on these pages,
Speaker 1: eighteen years ago, I penned an article titled more Troops Please.
Speaker 1: I was a young US Army lieutenant who just complete
Speaker 1: a combat tour in Iraq, and I believe we needed
Speaker 1: more troops and a new strategy to turn the war around.
Speaker 1: I had seen a lot, been through a lot, and
Speaker 1: believed in my troops in the mission. Ever since then,
Speaker 1: I've been fighting for our troops. And he goes into
Speaker 1: his background of founding and advocating for organizations that are
Speaker 1: all about the troops. A couple of different ones, including
Speaker 1: one that overspent and went into debt, and he stayed
Speaker 1: there at the Helm until they paid off all their debt.
Speaker 1: Very stand up guy, at least by his description, and
Speaker 1: he has volunteered over and over again to protect his guys.
Speaker 1: Than he re enlisted, he'd missed the sense of purpose
Speaker 1: of being in the military. Then he talks about when
Speaker 1: he came back he founded Concerned Veterans for America. Is
Speaker 1: his background as an organizer and worker and guy who
Speaker 1: cares is really very very impressive. Then he talks about
Speaker 1: his work at Fox News. He says, where I saw
Speaker 1: my work as a continuation of my mission to fight
Speaker 1: for America again, and the legacy Press has used anonymous
Speaker 1: sources to try to discredit even that. Please see my
Speaker 1: ex feed for all the on the record sources whom
Speaker 1: I actually did work with and know what kind of
Speaker 1: person I am and how I conduct myself. I've been
Speaker 1: through a lot combat tours, job changes, divorces and family challenges. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love my mom very much, and she loves me.
Speaker 1: I've always led with honesty, integrity, and passion. Tragically, many
Speaker 1: veterans never find the purpose for the next chapter and
Speaker 1: so come to the bottled depression or worst of all, suicide.
Speaker 1: I understood what they're facing because I've lived it. By
Speaker 1: the grace of God, I took another path. My Lord
Speaker 1: and Savior, Jesus Christ is renewed and restored my life.
Speaker 1: I am saved by his grace. The press is peddling
Speaker 1: anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me
Speaker 1: and tear me down. It's a textbook manufactured media takedown.
Speaker 1: They provide no evidence, no names, and they ignore the
Speaker 1: legions of people who speak on my behalf. They need
Speaker 1: to create a boogey man because they believe I threaten
Speaker 1: their institutional insanity. That is the only thing they're right about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I don't really have an opinion on pedd
Speaker 4: Exit being Secretary of Defense or not, other than some
Speaker 4: of my favorite pundits are really in favor of him
Speaker 4: getting the job, so it makes me think I'd be
Speaker 4: in favor of it. But I definitely have an opinion
Speaker 4: on these snowballing witch hunts that happen in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: Particularly around Republicans, like having Kavanaugh, like happen with Kavanaugh,
Speaker 4: and that's not good. That's not the reason to get
Speaker 4: rid of people. And I like the way the goal
Speaker 4: pulse always move. So it started with he may have
Speaker 4: like raped a woman or something, but that one kind
Speaker 4: of fell apart or went away, and now we're down to.
Speaker 2: He was hungover at work.
Speaker 4: I mean, what are you would you disqualify anybody for
Speaker 4: anything before because they were hung over at work a
Speaker 4: couple of times.
Speaker 1: And you got all sorts of drunks and philanderers and
Speaker 1: stolen valor punks in the Senate on the Democratic side,
Speaker 1: for instance. Yeah, that's funny how these standards change case
Speaker 1: by case.
Speaker 2: More on that.
Speaker 1: Oh, my only concern about Pete is whether he would
Speaker 1: be effective in taming a gigantic bureaucracy because that's a
Speaker 1: specific that requires a specific skill set.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I feel like Ron DeSantis would have that
Speaker 4: skill set.
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Speaker 4: What's the more or less on how many inches the
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Speaker 2: And you don't appear to be What flavor of thing
Speaker 2: do we want coming up?
Speaker 1: How that first sip of coffee? Oh affects you physiologically?
Speaker 2: I love that? Now, that's something in my wheelhouse on
Speaker 2: the way Strong.
Speaker 4: Just see how bright Venus was last night over the
Speaker 4: moon and that was really cool?
Speaker 1: Did not notice?
Speaker 2: Check it out?
Speaker 4: It was at its peak last night. But it'll still
Speaker 4: be really bright tonight and it's right like in the
Speaker 4: crescent of the moon, like a some plan out of
Speaker 4: a painting or something, and super bright.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was actually engaged in one of my beloved hobbies,
Speaker 1: which I want to talk about later. Just that whole
Speaker 1: doing a hobby because it makes you happy and it's
Speaker 1: good for you, as opposed to having an end goal.
Speaker 1: I struggle with that, and I think a lot of people. Yep,
Speaker 1: everybody does. Anyway, more on that to come. So Coffee
Speaker 1: Drinkers of the World Unite came across this rather interesting
Speaker 1: piece about what actually happens when you have your coffee
Speaker 1: in the morning or all day long in some folks case.
Speaker 1: So let's say at eight o'clock you take here first
Speaker 1: sip of coffee. They mentioned that there's there are significant
Speaker 1: differences between the way people process between the ways people
Speaker 1: process caffeine, and it's kind of understood, but only partly
Speaker 1: gender differences.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: Of course there word as sex men and women, and genetics.
Speaker 2: Of course there is.
Speaker 4: I've never thought about it before, but a courser is
Speaker 4: and that explains me, my kids. People I know, and
Speaker 4: the way they re you know, the way they handle
Speaker 4: drinking coffee and the way I do.
Speaker 2: We react completely differently. Yeah, right, or alcohol or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the most liberating things in the world, folks,
Speaker 1: when you realize, oh, different people perceive the world differently
Speaker 1: than I do. They come to different opinions, and that's okay.
Speaker 4: Anyway, There's some things not get like the jag from
Speaker 4: coffee that like you and I get, do some people
Speaker 4: because it's like painkillers don't make me high and happy,
Speaker 4: so I have no desire to take them. But I
Speaker 4: know people they like the first time they ever had
Speaker 4: any painkillers, like this is the greatest feeling I've ever had.
Speaker 4: Do some people not get that from coffee?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, I suppose to, and I know you and
Speaker 1: I differ in that. I drink a fair amount of
Speaker 1: coffee too, but I don't get headaches if I don't
Speaker 1: get coffee. I just think, man, I'd like some coffee.
Speaker 2: I feel like a railroad spike has been driven through
Speaker 2: my eyeball. So the first.
Speaker 1: Mood alteration when you take that sip is likely placebo
Speaker 1: rather than any biological change, especially if you're in the
Speaker 1: routine of consuming caffeine every morning. To actually get any
Speaker 1: effects from caffeine, it's got to get into your bloodstream,
Speaker 1: which takes about twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 4: I've been aware of this from my drinking days. I
Speaker 4: would get that feeling you get after having a beer
Speaker 4: when I decided to have a beer before it even
Speaker 4: opened it up, so the brain was like, Okay, we
Speaker 4: know what's come and release the chemicals. And it does
Speaker 4: the same thing with coffee. That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can attest to that phenomenon. You're not alone.
Speaker 1: About twenty minutes in the first thing he experienced is
Speaker 1: an increase in heart rate if you're in a low
Speaker 1: state of arousal, not that kind of arousal.
Speaker 2: Plain it up walking around and a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he couldn't let folks.
Speaker 2: I begged him. I begged him.
Speaker 1: Let's see, which is why people rely on the cup
Speaker 1: of coffee in the morning. Within twenty minutes, your metal
Speaker 1: performance has already improved. You feel more alert, switched on,
Speaker 1: able to tackle cat tackle tasks. The flow of coffee
Speaker 1: into the bloodstream causes adrenaline to be released.
Speaker 2: Does it say less angry at any point, because that's
Speaker 2: what happened for me, less likely to stop it data.
Speaker 1: It can actually sharpen your vision too, which probably explains
Speaker 1: why morning paper, spreadsheets, whatever are easier to read after.
Speaker 2: A coffee or two. Wow, that's what you.
Speaker 1: Need, Yeah, my mansters start drinking coffee in your vision
Speaker 1: around twenty minutes. Come at the twenty minute mark comes
Speaker 1: the old rush of euphotia. It's when you're feeling good,
Speaker 1: you're feeling positive, you're greeting your colleagues, whatever it's the.
Speaker 2: R Everything's great, always has been, always will be.
Speaker 1: By eight thirty oh, nature calls literally because caffeine is
Speaker 1: a diuretic, and so you gotta pee. If I tell
Speaker 1: people all the time, we would get on get ready
Speaker 1: to go on family vacations, and of course I would
Speaker 1: be in charge of finishing packing the car and pushing
Speaker 1: the rope, hurting the cats trying to get him in
Speaker 1: the car, and the mood was always a little tense,
Speaker 1: and then we go off down the road. But I
Speaker 1: was never hard asked Dad about no, it's too soon
Speaker 1: to stop to go to the bathroom, because I was
Speaker 1: swinging out of coffee.
Speaker 2: I was the first guy who had to stop right anyway.
Speaker 1: By nine thirty am, an hour and a half later,
Speaker 1: much sooner for other people. All of a sudden, your
Speaker 1: your bowels say, well, good morning, haul, I'm feeling excellent
Speaker 1: about the day, and there's something I would like to accomplish.
Speaker 1: I don't have time to explain to you the metaphysics
Speaker 1: of it, but it's unmistaken.
Speaker 2: Why do your bowels have an English accent? More to
Speaker 2: come Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 8: Between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty three junk fees alone
Speaker 8: allowed airlines to pocket billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: This is all.
Speaker 8: Detailed in a multi year Senate study, and the chair
Speaker 8: of the committee says this report pulls back the curtain
Speaker 8: on tactics like dynamic pricing. Of course, the curtain is
Speaker 8: then quickly closed by the first class flight attendant.
Speaker 2: If you don't fly.
Speaker 8: Delta one, you don't get to see Delta one. Now
Speaker 8: go poop in a bucket, you beasts.
Speaker 1: Reminding me of how funny Colbert is when it's not
Speaker 1: just prick pardon me, sorry, folks.
Speaker 2: Sir, like a seller.
Speaker 4: I think about that for ever when I'm in coach
Speaker 4: where I mostly am poop, you beast.
Speaker 1: That is really funny.
Speaker 4: So Senator Josh Holly laid into the CEOs of the
Speaker 4: big airlines yesterday in a very populist way that maybe
Speaker 4: we'll play.
Speaker 2: Some of that coming eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so I thought this was so interesting. Getting
Speaker 1: back to the coffee discussion, then I want to move
Speaker 1: on to France. Roughly sixteen to ninety minutes after consumption.
Speaker 1: Your results may vary. All of us feel.
Speaker 4: Strange rumblings below, and they point out they used to
Speaker 4: make that joke on friends all the time about coffee
Speaker 4: making you poop, and it always struck me his word,
Speaker 4: because it doesn't me and not that you probably want
Speaker 4: to hear this much about it, but it just does.
Speaker 1: It never, it's never had, never been a correlation for me.
Speaker 1: Definitely mobilizes the troops in my case.
Speaker 2: But wow, what's more interesting discussion we've ever had?
Speaker 1: Only if you make it childish, well more than capable
Speaker 1: of carrying this on in an adult way.
Speaker 2: What makes you poop? Katie?
Speaker 1: Oh? So many? Oh lord, what I gotta work with? Kid?
Speaker 1: Don't as if you're going to dignify as stupidity, I
Speaker 1: don't have.
Speaker 2: Does coffee have it? Do you drink coffee?
Speaker 1: Katie?
Speaker 4: I don't even know if I paid attention, I do
Speaker 4: you do? And does it have the effect on your
Speaker 4: bowels that Joe's mentioning? No, now it doesn't perfect and
Speaker 4: women don't do that.
Speaker 2: Jack's right, women don't keep it that way.
Speaker 1: That is that's an excellent point, Katie, thank you. Uh So, Anyway,
Speaker 1: what's interesting is though coffee is a vasodilator, and I've
Speaker 1: heard that it dilates your veins eventually, and and everything
Speaker 1: just gets going more. Uh, there are also compounds in coffee,
Speaker 1: including decalf that cause those rumblings. But no, please, again,
Speaker 1: the adult in the room says, coffee drinking has been
Speaker 1: pretty strongly associated with a lower risk of colorectal cancer,
Speaker 1: and one view is because of those compounds effects on
Speaker 1: gut motility, as they say, getting things up. Going coffee
Speaker 1: also has been shown to lower the risks the type
Speaker 1: two diabetes, among other things. And then they talk about
Speaker 1: the crash and the headache, and then you want more
Speaker 1: and all. But we all know that. So anyway, let's see.
Speaker 4: Now, A long time ago, some radio doctor, I don't
Speaker 4: remember who it was, I remember them saying, the only
Speaker 4: downside of being a coffee addict is you're a coffee addict.
Speaker 4: Other than that, there's not really a problem. Still mostly
Speaker 4: true as far as I can tell. Yeah, as far
Speaker 4: as I've observed.
Speaker 1: One more somewhat interesting thing I came across was this
Speaker 1: doctor who's a neurobiology stea coined the term the ninety
Speaker 1: minute rule about coffee, suggesting the best time to drink
Speaker 1: your morning coffee for optimal productivity is ninety to one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty minutes after waking up.
Speaker 2: Not a chance. Not This is set clip and chance.
Speaker 4: Who's going to wait an hour and a half for
Speaker 4: their first sip of coffee after they get up?
Speaker 2: Good lord?
Speaker 1: This is said to help you avoid the dreaded mid
Speaker 1: morning energy crash and cortisol spike which will affect your sleep.
Speaker 1: Mind his own, damn kidding. We're agreed on that. So
Speaker 1: complete change of topic here, Michael. We haven't played transition
Speaker 1: music in a long time. Do you have something good
Speaker 1: handy there at your fingertips? When we veer wildly from
Speaker 1: topic topics, sometimes it helps to put the palt cleanse
Speaker 1: the palate.
Speaker 2: There we go. That's us. I ain't got no cigarettes.
Speaker 1: That groove is just intoxicating. The great Roger Miller love
Speaker 1: it anyway. This is certainly the co finalist for the
Speaker 1: most important story any American could pay attention to. With
Speaker 1: the you know, small group of stories about how China
Speaker 1: is constantly attacking us. We're in a full on cold
Speaker 1: war as they're hacking into our phone systems and stealing
Speaker 1: our technology, and the America is lousy with Chinese spices.
Speaker 1: But the other one is the problem going on right
Speaker 1: now in France. Don't get hung up on the particulars
Speaker 1: of parliament and prime ministers and presidents. And wait a second,
Speaker 1: I thought Macrone was the president, but they have a
Speaker 1: parliamentary system.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Well they just had a no confidence vote, essentially throwing
Speaker 1: out their prime minister, even though he might stay in
Speaker 1: office because of some of the rules and REGs. But again,
Speaker 1: that's not the important part. The important part is this.
Speaker 1: They are in complete political gridlock because they have overspent
Speaker 1: their revenue so much and they are so saddled with debt.
Speaker 2: And expensive interest.
Speaker 1: Payments that they are going broke, and the measures it
Speaker 1: would take to fix the problem are so politically unpopular.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is crumbling and nobody knows what to do.
Speaker 1: Nobody can form a coalition, nobody can get elected. Telling
Speaker 1: the truth, France is nigh on screwed and we're about
Speaker 1: two strides, you know behind them.
Speaker 4: Well, how did you go broke? Gradually? Then suddenly one
Speaker 4: of the best things ever written about that, because that
Speaker 4: is what happens. It feels gradual till the point that
Speaker 4: it's just okay, now we're screwed. I'm screwed, the family screwed, whatever,
Speaker 4: the country's screwed.
Speaker 2: And then and then there's no fixing it.
Speaker 4: There's no coming back saying oh wait a second, I
Speaker 4: didn't know or something.
Speaker 2: It's no, you're done.
Speaker 1: Maybe you prefer the metaphor of the boiling frog, which
Speaker 1: is especially appropriate because we're talking about French people. There
Speaker 1: surely are their nickname on anybody. Yeah, anyway, So putting
Speaker 1: aside the particular parties and personalities, Marine la Penn, you've
Speaker 1: heard of her, the right winger and unruly alliances of
Speaker 1: leftist parties and Macron's so called moderates and all the
Speaker 1: worry about that, here's the deal. La Penn joined with
Speaker 1: leftist lawmakers backing the no confidence vote for the current
Speaker 1: prime minister dude after he said, look, here's sixty billion euros.
Speaker 1: It's about sixty three billion dollars. It's quaint by US
Speaker 1: monetary foolishness standards, but France is a much smaller country.
Speaker 1: He produced about seventy three billion dollars in spending cuts
Speaker 1: and tax increases. What he's trying to do is narrow
Speaker 1: France's deficit, which is going to reach more than six
Speaker 1: percent of their gross domestic product this year, which is
Speaker 1: double the European Union's limit because they have rules to
Speaker 1: keep everybody from going broken, then making everybody else bail
Speaker 1: them out like Grease did. But this Barnier is this
Speaker 1: guy's name. We just got voted out. He spoke to
Speaker 1: the Lower House as people were shouting at him. He
Speaker 1: had a solemn look on his face, and he said, look,
Speaker 1: we need to fix our finances. Spending more on servicing
Speaker 1: our debt than our entire defense budget. Quote, listen to me,
Speaker 1: this reality is here to stay and it won't disappear
Speaker 1: by the magic of emotion of censure. In other words, Okay,
Speaker 1: get rid of me. Get the next guy in. He's
Speaker 1: gonna have exactly the same problem and they're politically paralyzed.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: I started the show talking about Mitt Romney's speech yesterday,
Speaker 4: his leaving the Senate speech, when he talked about the
Speaker 4: thing that bothered him the most, he couldn't make any
Speaker 4: movement on bringing the parties together and doing something about
Speaker 4: our debt. And he mentioned, you realize that if we
Speaker 4: didn't have so much we are spending on just the
Speaker 4: interest payments on our debt, we could double our defense budget,
Speaker 4: or double our Social Security payments in Medicare payout, or
Speaker 4: double lots of things, he realized if we didn't have
Speaker 4: to pay, But we do, and nobody has any interest
Speaker 4: in doing anything about it, and it's only gonna get worse.
Speaker 1: Our spend thrift ways are a choice and they have
Speaker 1: re consequences, but there is zero political gain in putting
Speaker 1: that out. That is, so you're gonna eat your spinach,
Speaker 1: and we do not have an electric that is willing
Speaker 1: to eat spinach at this point. Just one more note
Speaker 1: on the French thing, and it's gonna be frustrating. And
Speaker 1: I know y'all are with us on this, but when
Speaker 1: the pooh hits the ventilation device, a huge percent of
Speaker 1: the population and a lot of the politicians are going
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 2: How did this happen? Right?
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna be slapping my forehead. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: Marine La Penn, who I agree with on a fair
Speaker 1: amount about immigration that sort of thing, said she was
Speaker 1: prepared to vote in favor of an extension. She was
Speaker 1: railing against Barnier's measures as an assault on working in
Speaker 1: middle class households that have borne the brunt of the
Speaker 1: cost of living crisis. This budget takes the French people hostage,
Speaker 1: she said.
Speaker 2: Good luck, well, good luck to us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 4: And you know that's not good for the United States either,
Speaker 4: because France is one of our main allies. We end
Speaker 4: up in a full on war with China, France will
Speaker 4: be on our side and we'll need them.
Speaker 2: And if they're broke, they're less help.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I just I think
Speaker 1: I'm resigned to the disaster. I just feel I think
Speaker 1: I am too. I think I am too.
Speaker 4: They're going to grow up in a different country than
Speaker 4: I did, a much weaker country with much higher taxes
Speaker 4: and lower services, which I don't care that much about.
Speaker 4: But it'll be a different it'll be a different country.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm looking for the energy that would be behind
Speaker 1: a reckoning with the problem and a summoning the will
Speaker 1: to fix it. And don't I don't find that energy anywhere.
Speaker 4: There are lots of people, slash families that do the
Speaker 4: same thing. You know, you got to get your act together.
Speaker 4: It could be your weight, it could be your credit card,
Speaker 4: it could be lots of different things. You know, you
Speaker 4: got to eat your act together. And when do you
Speaker 4: after the disaster hits, after the heart attack, after you
Speaker 4: actually get your car repossessed or lose your job after
Speaker 4: the disaster, and we are gonna have to have a.
Speaker 2: Disaster before we'll do anything about it.
Speaker 4: Well, not looking forward to super no kicking the gut.
Speaker 4: I'll just mention this briefly before we take a break.
Speaker 4: Did you see the pictures of Hunter Biden at Arby's.
Speaker 1: I missed that somehow.
Speaker 4: I don't think I've ever seen anybody look so happy.
Speaker 4: And when I saw the look on his face, I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, I get it, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: I hate it.
Speaker 4: But he was facing a miserable end to his life,
Speaker 4: he says, his early fifties. He's gonna spend five, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 4: twenty years in prison, right be broke forever. Well, and
Speaker 4: that's just the existing convictions, never mind all the crimes
Speaker 4: he may have, money laundering, Faarah violations, everything that his
Speaker 4: daddy preemptively pardoned him. His daddy declared that for an
Speaker 4: eleven year period, Hunter Biden was not subject to the
Speaker 4: laws of the United States, and if he broke a
Speaker 4: single one, all is forgiven preemptively, no matter what he did.
Speaker 1: Treason, murder, well that's a local church as well. But
Speaker 1: just it's o scene.
Speaker 4: So that guy who is facing prison and a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of other stuff getting uncovered and made his life
Speaker 4: even more miserable and ending up broke. As of Sunday
Speaker 4: Night is a fifty something, rich guy who's never going
Speaker 4: to jail. Every imagine the weight lifted off of his shoulders.
Speaker 4: Kind of funny that I ended up at the Arby's
Speaker 4: and Ventura.
Speaker 2: But the meats. They have the meats, So huh, where
Speaker 2: you're gonna go. You're gonna go where they have the meats.
Speaker 2: Got and so then the other story. If you haven't
Speaker 2: heard this, have you heard about who Joe Biden's talking about? Partning?
Speaker 4: I mean, this was reported yesterday by the great political
Speaker 4: reporter Jonathan Martin. We should tell you about that when
Speaker 4: we come back up on other things.
Speaker 7: I saw that as shopping mall in Los Angeles is
Speaker 7: charging one hundred and sixty five dollars for kids to
Speaker 7: meet Santa. Oh yeah, these kids are so rich Santa
Speaker 7: ask them for presents. Normally, if sitting on someone's lap
Speaker 7: costs one hundred and sixty five dollars, you're not.
Speaker 2: At the mall, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So this is a Los Angeles mall. If you
Speaker 4: know LA, it's a Westfield Mall in Century City, where
Speaker 4: I've been many times, not far from Beverly Hills. They
Speaker 4: have three pricey photo options for parents who want to
Speaker 4: have their kids take a photo and meet Santa. The
Speaker 4: get in price. The cheapest price called an Elf pass,
Speaker 4: is one hundred and nine dollars, which is just a
Speaker 4: regular ticket one hundred and nine bucks for the cheapo version.
Speaker 4: For parents that don't have time to wait as much
Speaker 4: as the peasants next to them, the Reindeer Express passes
Speaker 4: available for one hundred and twenty five. Then you got
Speaker 4: the VIP option one hundred and sixty five dollars, which
Speaker 4: comes with complimentary cookies and the elves will check you.
Speaker 2: In and you don't have to wait in line very long.
Speaker 4: You can't take any of your own photo, by the way,
Speaker 4: you can't stay there with your standard if your phone
Speaker 4: and click a picture of your kid on them saying
Speaker 4: his lap. You got to buy their official photos of course.
Speaker 4: Oh no, they'll tasy.
Speaker 1: If you try to do that, one of the elves
Speaker 1: will run at you with a taser and bring you
Speaker 1: to your knees.
Speaker 4: Take that, as Will Ferrell said, an Elf Santa sits
Speaker 4: on the throne of lies.
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Speaker 4: So Jonathan Martin's one of your top political reporters in America,
Speaker 4: and he put this out yesterday and it got a
Speaker 4: lot of attention. Top Biden aids are conducting a vigorous
Speaker 4: internal debate. So they're actually debating this over whether to
Speaker 4: issue preemptive pardons, which would be an extraordinary step to
Speaker 4: inoculate potential Trump targets from prosecution. At issue, whether to
Speaker 4: err on the side of protecting figures like Anthony Fauci.
Speaker 2: Freaking shift.
Speaker 4: Uh, the mister Russiagate Liz Cheney in case Trump pursues him.
Speaker 2: Hey, yours a people who engage in law fare. The
Speaker 2: Republicans don't do that, you scum bags, ye um.
Speaker 4: And the debate is over whether or not Biden should
Speaker 4: issue a pardon like he did with his son or
Speaker 4: avoid any suggestion of impropriety by handing out pardons. Such
Speaker 4: individuals are not even seeking over things they haven't nobody's
Speaker 4: even I mean, there haven't been pardons like this before.
Speaker 4: I was reading through a bunch of those the legal
Speaker 4: people jumping in as soon as this news broke yesterday.
Speaker 4: This would be a new territory for the pardon power
Speaker 4: of just there's a person that might somebody might come
Speaker 4: after them over something so their part and.
Speaker 2: I like them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just put them above the law whatever might
Speaker 1: have seen. It is horrifying. If this gets through, I
Speaker 1: don't there will be a reckoning over the pardon power.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there has been a fair amount of talk among
Speaker 4: various legal people of whether or not we ought to
Speaker 4: rein that in or do away with it completely.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 4: Who's the guy who got shot in the duel Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 4: He wrote the federal's paper arguing for the pardon power.
Speaker 4: But it perhaps relied on I'm stealing this from others
Speaker 4: smarter than me. It perhaps relied on certain kinds of
Speaker 4: people in the presidency that weren't going to abuse it.
Speaker 4: And then if you get a certain kind of person
Speaker 4: in the presency that's going to abuse it and it
Speaker 4: doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, honorable moral people don't need as many rules. Is
Speaker 1: not honorable people like an entire family that sells influence
Speaker 1: and there's money for instance. Oh boy, yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: imaginate it.
Speaker 4: I almost want Biden to do it kind of practically,
Speaker 4: like taking a page from the whole Marxist playbook of
Speaker 4: let's make things so awful they have to be rebuilt.
Speaker 2: Just you know, go.
Speaker 4: Go whole hog with this, do it, do just crazy pardons,
Speaker 4: and then let's have a real conversation of whether or
Speaker 4: not presidents ought to be able to do this or not,
Speaker 4: and in what way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the media were not the lapdogs that they were,
Speaker 1: everybody would be talking about this all the time. It's
Speaker 1: an enormously important story. The idea of preemptively declaring people
Speaker 1: above the law for a decade or more of their lives.
Speaker 1: What the hell? The Founding fathers would be loading their
Speaker 1: muskets And this is not a call for any sort
Speaker 1: of violence. It's merely a phantasmagorical fantasy. They would be
Speaker 1: loading their muskets and saying time for another one round two?
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 4: What but they're vigor sleep debating it inside the White
Speaker 4: House right now. So who knows which direction they go
Speaker 4: or you know, they don't have to do all of them.
Speaker 4: Maybe they do Liz Cheney or just Adam Shift or whatever,
Speaker 4: but it will still be extraordinary.
Speaker 1: If they'll declare what they think they're guilty of, they
Speaker 1: need to be pardoned. I might be more patient with it.
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