I Want My Eyes Buggin' Out!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: "I Want My Eyes Buggin' Out!"

Date: March 9, 2026

Podcast by: iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty

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Episode Overview

This episode covers a lively mix of news, social commentary, personal embarrassment, and timely discussions of fraud, shipping trends, gambling addiction among Gen Z, the evolving Middle East crisis, and even bizarre new alarm clocks. As always, Armstrong and Getty bring their characteristic skepticism, humor, and rapid-fire conversational style.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Medicaid Autism Fraud and Systemic Challenges

Timestamps: 02:00 – 05:36

• Audit Revelations:
  Armstrong and Getty discuss recent revelations about widespread Medicaid fraud through fake autism clinics.

  • Example: A scammer in Minnesota made over $6 million by creating false diagnoses and offering kickbacks to parents who enrolled children (03:04).
  • "It's become the go to money spigot for scammers." – Joe Getty [02:41]

• Statistical Confusion:
  The hosts point out how fraudulent diagnoses cloud understanding of autism's actual prevalence.

  • “You got a kid being told they're autistic. Maybe the parents don't know that this is a fake diagnosis. Maybe you do. I don't know.” – Jack Armstrong [04:02]
  • Colorado reportedly saw 99% of Medicaid payments for autism treatment flagged as improper in 2022-23, totaling $285.2 million (04:16).

• Complexity of Diagnosis:
  Armstrong notes autistic diagnosis is not a simple scientific test; results can legitimately vary, making abuse easier and oversight harder (05:10).

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2. Gen Z Sports Betting Addiction

Timestamps: 05:36 – 07:30

• Firsthand Accounts:
  The hosts reference a college footballer’s article about sports betting's destructive rise among Gen Z males, especially those with competitive personalities.

  • “I’ve had friends who’ve lost hundreds, lied to their families, pulled away from the team, all while chasing the rush of winning a bet that may never arrive.” – Joe Getty, quoting the article [06:00]

• Near Wins Mechanism:
  Discussion of how "near wins" activate reward systems in the brain almost as much as real wins, fueling addiction.

  • “Near wins exploit the vulnerability by activating our brain's reward systems almost as strongly as winning…” – Joe Getty [07:07]

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3. Free Shipping Fade & The Power of Free Markets

Timestamps: 07:30 – 12:12

• E-commerce Changes:
  With FedEx and UPS raising prices, companies are incentivizing slower shipping (like Amazon offering discounts for delayed delivery).

  • “We got hooked on fast free shipping. Now retailers are taking it away.” – Joe Getty [07:49]
  • “That’s a great idea. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t need this afternoon or overnight.” – Jack Armstrong [07:58]

• Free Market Dynamics:
  Joe Getty relishes how private sector innovation led to wild delivery options and is now responding to new market pressures:

  • “I am so fascinated by watching free markets work. I get excited about it. I’m such a geek for this stuff... such an illustration of why central planning is a horrific idea.” – Joe Getty [08:25]

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4. Social Rituals & Generational Divide

Timestamps: 12:12 – 13:29

• Making Heart Shapes:
  Funny banter about who does the heart-hand gesture. Most on the show never do it, except ironically.
  • “Are you the sort of person that does the heart thing with your hands? Okay, then I’m not interested.” – Jack Armstrong [13:07]

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5. Personal Humiliation: Scooter Wreck Story

Timestamps: 15:07 – 18:13

• Jack’s Embarrassing Moment:
  Jack shares a chaotic, public fall while riding his son’s scooter, leading to a collective gasp from hundreds at a park.
  • “The whole crowd goes, ‘oh...’ Like I was performing in an arena!” – Jack Armstrong [16:55]
  • “All these younger people ran over: ‘look at the elderly person who just had a fall, right?’” – Joe Getty [16:50]

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6. Middle East Tensions, Iran, and War Skepticism

Timestamps: 14:07 – 28:46

• Bombing Iran: Divided Reactions
  Guest commentary addresses the bombing, making the case that theocratic regime in Iran is behind much regional instability.

  • “You cannot name one horrible thing that has happened in the Middle East in the last 50 years and not connect it to this fascist theocracy.” – Guest [14:24]

• Wariness of Regime Change:
  Hosts cite conservative voices (Charlie Kirk, Tim Carney) cautioning against a full-scale war with Iran due to costs, strategic risk, and unpredictability.

  • “In general, dramatic changes to complex systems always create unintended and unforeseen consequences, and those consequences are often very bad.” – Jack Armstrong, paraphrasing Carney [21:26]
  • “War would worsen our already immense deficit and national debt. Iran is larger than Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan combined.” – Jack Armstrong [21:26]

• Regime Complexity:
  Breakdown of Iran's multiple armed forces:

  • 190,000 in the Revolutionary Guard
  • 300,000 in the conventional army
  • 600,000 in the Basiji militia [26:42]

• Hope for Defanging, Not Regime Change:
  “If it is merely the defanging of the regime, that would be good enough. Although… the unforeseen secondary consequences… that’s the gamble.” – Joe Getty [23:09]

• Metaphor for History:
  “A complicated three-dimensional Jenga game where you don’t realize that that stable thing over there is only stable because of this unrelated factor over here…” – Joe Getty [22:41]

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7. American Self-Image: Alone in Pessimism?

Timestamps: 32:50 – 33:28

• Survey Result:
  U.S. is the only country where the majority view fellow citizens as bad people. Armstrong attributes this partly to school indoctrination.
  • “I think the Marxist won in the schools. I think it’s that simple.” – Jack Armstrong [33:28]

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8. Extreme Alarm Clocks & “I Want My Eyes Buggin' Out!”

Timestamps: 33:32 – 37:13

• The Pavlok Shock Alarm:
  Discussion of alarm clocks designed to physically shock people out of bed.

  • “She has trouble getting up… so both she and her husband got the Pavlok shock clock… shock of about 300 volts to her right wrist… a six or seven on the pain scale.” – Joe Getty [34:12]
  • “I want my eyes bugging out, ringing. I want scars left.” – Jack Armstrong [35:27]
  • Armstrong jokes about peeing the bed, Getty imagines this can't be good for your system [34:41–34:57].

• Financially Punishing Alarms:
  They mention an app that fines users $25 to charity if they don’t scan a code in time after waking.

  • “He started at five bucks, but he’s like, five bucks, who cares? So he raised it… now it works.” – Joe Getty [37:13]

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Memorable Quotes

• "It's become the go to money spigot for scammers."
  – Joe Getty [02:41]

• "Near wins exploit the vulnerability by activating our brain's reward systems almost as strongly as winning..."
  – Joe Getty [07:07]

• "I am so fascinated by watching free markets work. I get excited about it."
  – Joe Getty [08:25]

• "The whole crowd goes, ‘oh...’ Like I was performing in an arena!"
  – Jack Armstrong [16:55]

• "In general, dramatic changes to complex systems always create unintended and unforeseen consequences, and those consequences are often very bad."
  – Tim Carney (read by Jack Armstrong) [21:26]

• "A complicated three-dimensional Jenga game where you don’t realize that that stable thing over there is only stable because of this unrelated factor over here… and you don’t realize that until it falls apart."
  – Joe Getty [22:41]

• "I want my eyes bugging out, ringing. I want scars left."
  – Jack Armstrong [35:27]

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Notable Moments & Humor

• Banter about who does the heart-hand symbol sincerely vs. ironically [12:35–13:16]
• Jack’s over-the-handlebar scooter crash: “hundreds of people saw me” [16:17]
• "Meet the new beard, same as the old beard." (on Iranian leadership) – Getty [31:52]
• Wild ideas for new alarm clock technology—hiring a “little person with a ball peen hammer” [36:14]

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Important Timestamps

• 02:00 — Medicaid autism fraud exposé
• 05:36 — Gen Z sports betting addiction
• 07:49 — Slow shipping and free market discussion
• 12:12 — Heart-hand gesture social commentary
• 15:07 — Armstrong’s scooter mishap story
• 14:07; 18:20–31:52 — Middle East: Iran, analysis, and skepticism on regime change
• 32:50 — Americans’ negative self-image survey
• 33:32–37:13 — Shock alarm clocks & psychological quirks in waking up

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Tone & Style

The episode blends serious social commentary with humor and spontaneous riffing. Armstrong and Getty keep things brisk, insightful, and accessible, punctuating analysis of news and complex systems with self-deprecating stories and comic relief.

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For those who missed the episode:
This installment delivers signature Armstrong & Getty—vigorous skepticism of institutions, concern about government waste, curiosity about market forces, cultural quirks, and a frank look at human fallibility, both global and personal. The hosts pivot with ease between geopolitics, fraud, generational divides, and gadgets-gone-mad, all while lampooning themselves and the news of the day.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Joe Getty]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now, here's Armstrong and Getty.

[News Reporter]

Warner Brothers World, Abu Dhabi is officially developing Harry Potter themed land in the United Arab Emirates. So hopefully they know the spell for misalum.

[Joe Getty]

Deflect us. Wow, That's a good joke.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just thought of this for some reason. If I was an executive at Taco Bell, I would be running a promotion right now with commercials where it says, we've appointed a new supreme burrito.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think that would get lots of attention.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Oh, yes, it would.

[Jack Armstrong]

We've appointed a new Supreme Chalupa.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. We get attention from people with bomb vests strapped to them.

[Jack Armstrong]

Good.

[Joe Getty]

That's almost not even a joke. So we will absolutely get back to covering the conflict in the Middle east and bringing you various angles and updates and that sort of thing, but we thought we'd stray from that momentarily. What? What? You got a look on your face. I thought you were gonna say something. All right, a handful of stories on different topics.

[Jack Armstrong]

I will tease this. I embarrassed myself about as bad as I ever have in my entire life yesterday, which is quite a statement for me.

[Joe Getty]

High bar. Yeah. So among all of us, sure. So a handful of stories on different topics that I found interesting. Human beings are rotten. That's one thing that conservatives understand. And so we have to have a system of incentives and disincentives so that people don't do rotten stuff. Utopian progressives believe that if you just educate people and badger them long enough, they'll behave like angels. And we can, for instance, have communism or socialism. And it'll work. It'll never work. It'll never effing work. Anyway, here's an example. The Medicaid autism fraud. It is a huge well of fraud. Now, autism and speaking, if you don't know this is the father of an autistic child, it is so difficult, given our current systems, to Monitor what's legit and what's not. It's become the go to money spigot for scammers. We're familiar with the Minnesota case. It's worth digging into it a little bit. You've got this 27 year old and you know, I despise this guy, but I admire his entrepreneurial spirit. Abid Najeeb Hassan Yusuf. He set up a fly by night autism center claiming to provide one on one therapy for autistic children. Allegedly worked with corrupt doctors to have children diagnosed with autism. Paid kickbacks to the parents to enroll them in his center. He employed teenage relatives with no education or training, and raked in more than $6 million in Medicaid money, some of which he wired to Kenya before anybody caught on.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, there's a lot of bad here. I, I definitely hate the fake autism clinics where they're not actually gonna help a kid. But how about the fake diagnosis? Man, that doesn't do any kid any good.

[Joe Getty]

No, and it makes it harder to figure out the, the statistics these days. Is it actually on the increase? Is it environmental factors? Is it more awareness, more diagnosis? I mean.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, that's brutal. So you got a kid being told they're autistic. I mean, maybe the parents don't know that this is a fake diagnosis. Maybe you do. I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, no, no. In this scam, they, they actually.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, well then you suck and I hate you and your kids should be taken away from you.

[Joe Getty]

But no, these kids weren't getting any counseling. They just play in a playground or whatever or do what kids are going to do, but the stupid, stupid taxpayer paid for it. Uh, let's see. Nearly all providers. Oh, listen to this, would you? Minnesota's far from alone, judging by audits by the U.S. health and Human Services Department's Inspector General of Medicaid, uh, blah, blah, blah. An IG audit released last week estimated that Colorado. I'm looking at you. 99% of Colorado's Medicaid payments in 2022 and 2023 for autism treatment were improper or likely improper, totaling $285.2 million. Virtually all of it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

You got autism centers, billing, Medicaid, more than $50 an hour for autism treatment, when children were playing games, napping or eating. Oh my God. Paid to nap. That is my dream career.

[Jack Armstrong]

Part of the problem is I know enough about the tests for autism that you can get different opinions from different people, even if they're completely legit. Straight up trying to do their best.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's not a blood test. It's a complicated evaluation and different people interpret the results in different ways. So that makes it tough.

[Joe Getty]

Absolutely true. Touch on this at least briefly. The headline is I'm a college student. Gen Z sports betting is wrecking my friends lives. And he talks about his football player at a north Greenville university, which I believe is in South Carolina. Anyway, he says, darn right.

[Jack Armstrong]

I had a girlfriend for Greenville. She would explain to me how she

[Joe Getty]

had to say Greenville, Greenville, Greenville. If you say Greenville, they're like, we'll run you right out of this house. The sounds will rise again. Actually, you don't hear that much in Greenville these days anyway. So he's talking about all of his friends and teammates who've quickly become obsessed with with sports gambling. I've had friends who've lost hundreds, lied to their families, pulled away from the team, all while chasing the rush of winning a bet that may never arrive. Sports gambling was a major problem for many of my high school classmates, but it's got even worse in college. He sees it all over the place. And one of the most interesting things in this article and if you have a college student warn them about this. Warn them, warn them, warn them, warn them. Is especially males with a strong competitive drive. He says, ah. Why is betting so popular among guys my age? It's partly how we think our brains struggle to deal with the consequences of a $200 or $400 loss. But he quotes this expert on problem gambling warns that younger brains are not developed enough to handle the addictive nature of gambling. This I did not know.

[Jack Armstrong]

Quote, near wins.

[Joe Getty]

Your team just lost by a point or you just missed the over under or whatever. Exploit the vulnerability by activating our brain's reward systems almost as strongly as winning. Make is making losses feel like progress and encouraging us to keep betting.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm so glad I'm not susceptible this. For whatever reason, my brain is not susceptible to the gambling thing.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I love gambling, honestly. But whenever I do it, I think this is a bad idea and I stopped doing it for whatever reason. I don't know. Probably genetics. I like this one. This is a completely different topic. I noticed this. The headline from the Journal. We got hooked on fast free shipping. Now retailers are taking it away.

[Jack Armstrong]

Ooh.

[Joe Getty]

As FedEx and UPS charge more companies are trying options like no rush delivery and fees to make us slow down. The surprising part is it's working.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, that's a good idea. There's a lot of stuff I don't need this afternoon or overnight. So go ahead and charge me less and ship it ground for a week. I can wait that long.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I've, I've ordered more coffee pods because I noticed I was getting low. No, I don't need them today.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or I am kind of addicted to the free tonight though with Amazon because I'm a prime member. Like I needed a battery for my motorcycle tomorrow. That's too long. There's got to be a different one. Here's one I can get tonight.

[Joe Getty]

Wow, that's crazy. But if you're willing to pay for it, it's fine. I've got to confess, I am so fascinated by watching free markets work. I get excited about it. I'm such a geek for this stuff. And oh my God, it's such an illustration of why central planning is a horrific idea.

[Jack Armstrong]

We would have never gotten to this with the postal service if we had no competition.

[Joe Getty]

No, no. And can you imagine if Amazon had to have bureaucrats approve the prime model where they lost money for a very, very long time? Jeff Bezos was a joke in a lot of business communities for a long time. But then he saw the way it was going and he knew if he stuck with it long enough, it'd become an enormous profit making. Enterprise, retail, cloud computing. I get that. Don't bother writing the emails. But now that shipping costs have risen substantially, that's at the heart of the story. Now can you imagine if you had to get Congress or the Department of Shipping or whatever to approve all the different rate cuts? It would take forever and there would be lobbying and big checks being written and the system perverted. No, this is the private economy working brilliantly.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, you can combine both of your stories. Remember from a couple of weeks ago when I was talking about the guy who started FedEx? It was going under, it wasn't working. He went to Vegas and wagered and won to keep it alive long enough to take off. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. That is funny and ironic. So here's what's going on essentially, and this is a good lead. Esther Fung. Remember that package you ordered last week should be arriving any day now. After years of priming us to expect speedy deliveries, the ever growing E commerce economy is weaning us off of them and no one seems to mind. The great pioneer of same day delivery and next day Amazon, whose deliveries were so quick that the rest of the industry hustled to match them, now offers some customers a 7% discount if they select a later arrival date.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a great idea.

[Joe Getty]

Oh yeah. Gap. Gap provides as many as five options including what it labels no Rush Shipping that its website says can take up to nine business days. Typically the cheapest obviously are free, depending on what you're buying.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. It's pretty trendy at the Gap. It might be out of style by the time it gets there.

[Joe Getty]

Birdie Ball Golf, a retailer that sells putting mats and other golf accessories, offers economy shipping with delivery dates that are as long as two weeks. You'll still suck as a golfer in two weeks, trust me. And they give a bunch more examples. But yeah, it came and it's still there, but it's going to cost you a little more. And it's. It's the free market at work. I think it's brilliant.

[Jack Armstrong]

Order my jeans at the Gap. They get here in 10 days. Nobody's wearing these anymore. That is really straight to the thrift store. That is really quite amazing. What a great idea.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, sure. Let's see. And they go into some of the reasons the shipping costs have increased. You know, it's the same reasons as everything else these days. But prices have climbed dramatically in recent years. Since 2020, the two leading carriers have raised their base rates by 5 to 7% annually. In addition, they've increased their ancillary fees, including fuel surcharges, address correction fees and added charge for delivering to res is. They've also imposed stricter rules on package sizes so that dimensions get rounded up. The reason being for the longest time, the shipping industry depended on big shipments. Either big items that were fairly expensive or many, many items shipped to, like, the same place or similar place. The idea of Joe gets one little package and Jack gets one little package and Katie gets two and Michael gets one and we'd be living in different places. That's too costly. So prices are going up anyway. Free market at work. God bless liberty.

[Jack Armstrong]

I got a question.

[Joe Getty]

Economic as well as all other kinds.

[Jack Armstrong]

I got a question before we take a break and then I'll tell my horribly embarrassing story from yesterday. Has any. I just saw this on tv. Has anybody on the show ever made the heart symbol with their hands where you do the thing where you put your, like, knuckles together and you do the thumbs and you make the heart. Has anybody ever done that?

[Joe Getty]

No. In a ironically, in a mocking sense, I have. Katie and I both ironically answered, have

[Jack Armstrong]

you ever done it? So nobody. Has anybody done it? Non. Ironically. I feel like that's a certain sort of person. You're either the sort of person that would ever do that or you're not.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I see it on TV a lot from people. Or apparently are the sort of person that would do that, and they're doing it sincerely.

[Joe Getty]

For what it's worth, Hanson does it to me all the time. That's sweet.

[Jack Armstrong]

You guys are cute.

[Joe Getty]

Hilarious. Michael.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, boy. That might be a good way to divide people. Are you the sort of person that does the heart thing with your hands? Okay, then I'm not interested.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I got arthritis in my thumb, so it looks more like the head of the Grinch from the Grinch who Stole Christmas. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you did that to me, I wouldn't have any idea what you're trying to communicate.

[Joe Getty]

What is that, your kidney? Is that your spleen? That's hard. It's a heart.

[Jack Armstrong]

I almost ruptured my spleen yesterday, among other things. We've got on the way. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Gettysburg. Hey, Sal. Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Too easy.

[Joe Getty]

Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a

[Jack Armstrong]

great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day.

[Joe Getty]

It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.

[Guest Commentator]

We bombed Iran, and it's going on now. Have you expected me to say I hate it? I don't. Sorry. When he puts boots on the ground. Yeah, then I'll hate it. Now I know. Too many happy Iranian Americans. Sorry. And you cannot name one horrible thing that has happened in the Middle east in the last 50 years and not connected to this fascist theocracy. But, you know, when it comes to the war, when it comes to anything in this country, everybody assesses everything by way of, did my team do it then? I love it if their team did. I hate it. I mean, Kamala Harris made a statement. She said, this is a war the American people don't want. And who knows more about what the American people don't want?

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a pretty good joke. Yeah. I saw some of the Democratic senators on various shows yesterday. This is a disaster from the beginning. Is it? All right?

[Joe Getty]

Clearly, no. Could be.

[Jack Armstrong]

We'll have a little more of the latest coverage coming up in a bit. We're now a full week and a couple of days into the war. So yesterday I embarrassed myself horribly, as I often do. Was absolutely gorgeous. Weather where I live could not have been a nicer day. So my son is at the skateboard park on his Little scooter, the little thing with the wheels that you put your foot on and push yourself around. He loves doing that. Coming up, going down in the bowl and coming out and doing flips and. Not flips, spins and that sort of thing. He's really good at it. I go over there and I meet him and he wants me to take his scooter because he's going to go off with his friends. I say, sure, I'll see you later at the house. So I'm going to take his scooter and ride it back to the truck, which I write his scooter fairly regularly around. But there are lots of deep cracks in the bike path. It needs to be, like, repaved or

[Joe Getty]

whatever, spending all the money on bums and junkies.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I wrecked. And there was a. The park was absolutely packed because of the nice day and little League games and everything like, going on.

[Joe Getty]

I.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I get my front wheel into a crack, I go over the handlebars, kind of do a flip and land on the pavement really hard and make a moaning noise.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, no.

[Jack Armstrong]

Bloodied my knee. Really good. Same knee for my motorcycle wreck. So that knee is just really unappealing. I need to hide that knee from everyone. It really looks disgusting. But I wreck really, really hard and in front of. And I told my kids and they said, are you exaggerating? I said no, because there was a little League going on. All these parents and everything like that. Where the bike path was, it easily could be. Hundreds of people saw me, certainly 100 right in front of all of them. And all of these younger people ran over to me. Like, look at the elderly person who

[Joe Getty]

just had a fall, right? Just took a header on his child scooter.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, my God. Everybody was so. Oh, well, first of all, when I flip over and land, the whole crowd goes, oh. Like, it was just. It's like it was like I was performing in an arena and I had,

[Joe Getty]

you know, seen an elderly man have a fall.

[Jack Armstrong]

Like I was at a circus and I'd fallen off the tightrope or something like that. Everybody goes, oh. And I hit the ground really hard and I get up really, really fast, as you do when you do this sort of thing to make it very clear that you're fine and, you know, hope that nobody saw. But anyway, all these guys. Are you okay? You sure you okay? Want me to help you? And I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm the most embarrassed I've ever been, but I'm fine. My knee is throbb. Can tell I really hurt my knee. And then I get home, I pull down my jeans and I'm bleeding all over the inside of my jeans. But yes, that was, that was among the more embarrassing things I've ever done. All these like 35 year old dads running over to me like I was, you know, an 80 year old fallen on the ice was just horrifying. Off to watch it on YouTube and

[Joe Getty]

you're all, you're all cranky. No, I'm fine.

[Jack Armstrong]

Get away from me. I wonder if anybody had their phone out to catch their little girl in the, in the game and accident got me. Boy, if you please go viral, I'll see it myself. It's probably quite spectacular the way the crowd groaned. It must have been quite spectacular.

[Joe Getty]

Use AI have them going off the edge of the Grand Canyon then having them fighting the mullahs or something and get crashing 100 people.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh,

[Joe Getty]

the tears of a clown and Getty.

[Expert/Guest]

So it was a big operation by itself to deceive the Iranians into, to make them feel everything is fine, like every day.

[Joe Getty]

Israeli Brigadier General Effi Defron telling me thousands of Israelis involved in the attack went home the night before the planned assault as part of a deception plan, leaving their cars at home and secretly returning to work in the dead of night.

[Expert/Guest]

If you had a satellite last Friday and you watch Israeli bases in headquarters, you wouldn't notice anything. The parking lots were empty, everything was quiet. The phone calls were as they were supposed to be. And then it happened on Saturday morning.

[Jack Armstrong]

How about that? So similar to the whole pizza meter at the Pentagon where somebody keeps track of how many pizzas are being ordered from surrounding pizza places there in D.C. they know that something's up at the Pentagon. Iran probably certainly had eyes on Israeli military bases, the planning centers. They all went home, then went back like through Uber or something like that. Left their cars at home. Yeah, that, the level of planning, that's amazing, isn't it?

[Joe Getty]

I thought that parking lot's empty. Nothing going on today, boss. We can all go home.

[Jack Armstrong]

Thought that was quite the story. So got coming up this segment, a couple of really smart people I respect and their view of why maybe this isn't a good idea to jump ugly with Iran right now because I know a lot of you feel that way about it. I don't, but I know a lot of you do. So we'll get to that coming up. Also our 360 minute story last night. They've been the, the lead on this for a decade. Havana syndrome, whoever we now know It's Russia had that horrible weapon to scramble diplomats brains and how that whole thing works and the CIA trying to cover it up and all this different sort of stuff. It's really interesting. We'll get into that in hour three.

[Joe Getty]

We have miscommunicated. I thought you were gonna do skeptics here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I can do it first.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I'd love to. Love to hear that. Yeah. Because I have a feeling I might be stealing some of their thunder. So lead the way.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll start with Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated, as you'll remember, last year. Horrifying. But this was April of last year, before he died, long before we launched this war. But he saw it coming. Apparently it's going unnoticed because so much other news is happening. But the war drums are beating again in dc. The warmongers worry this is their last chance to get the white whale that they've been chasing for 30 years. An all out regime change. War against Iran. A new Middle east war would be a catastrophic mistake, said Charlie Kirk. Our military stockpiles are depleted from three years of backing Ukraine. Our effort to reshore manufacturing has only just begun and will take years to bear fruit. War would worsen already our immense deficit. This is costing almost a billion dollars a day. Right. Which is something so far.

[Joe Getty]

You know, everything he said is certainly pretty defensible. Not necessarily true, but defensible.

[Jack Armstrong]

War would worsen our already immense deficit and national debt. Iran is larger than Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan combined. I didn't realize that 90 million people and just geographically huge a war would not be easy and could easy easily become a calamity. And then he thanks for President Trump for keeping us out of wars at that point. So I thought that was interesting. And then this from Tim Carney, who is a conservative writer we used to have on the show all the time. I thought this was really interesting from a conservative standpoint. In general, dramatic changes to complex systems always create unintended and unforeseen consequences. And those consequences are often very bad. I mean, that is classic Burkean thinking right there. This isn't merely a foreign policy view. This is something that deeply conservative people believe so deeply that you might not say it out loud. It's why a conservative is is skeptical of grand new plans and revolutions, whether cultural, economic or otherwise. It's not that we live in the best of all possible worlds. It's that we live in a world more complex than we can imagine. Our power of reason is awesome. But humans trying to rearrange civilization are like amateurs tinkering With a home's electrical system, there's a high risk of disaster.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. I would liken it, if you like metaphors to, you know, a complicated three dimensional Jenga game where you don't realize that that stable thing over there is only stable because of this kind of unrelated factor over here. And you don't realize that until it falls apart. Then in retrospect, you say, oh, man, I wish I'd known that.

[Jack Armstrong]

I still am leaning toward whatever comes out of Iran will be than what we had since it was so awful.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. If it is merely the defanging of the regime, that would be good enough. Although, again, the, you know, the unforeseen secondary consequences are, you know, that's the gamble. And you hope you can handle them in a productive way. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.

[Jack Armstrong]

In General, though, it's 100% correct. You start having cultural revolutions like we've had in this country with all kinds of views of things or actual revolutions of countries, what comes out of it? The fact that it's gonna be better rather than worse. All right.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's why angry young men are generally to be restrained because they always think it's going to be better because they haven't been round the block. So, yeah, they're constantly spouting off about major change and revolution. It's absolutely undeniable and getting more undeniable by the day that there's a limit to what you can accomplish with air power. Never before have warplanes, missiles and bombs been enough on their own rights, one wag to remove one government and replace it with another. The US military has upended governments in the past, but all of those operations have required troops or at least an indigenous force. You cannot get rid of a government without troops. That's just the lesson of history. Trump's made no secret of his desire for regime change. He called on Iranians to rise up against the government, saying, quote, it will probably be your only chance for generations. Just last Thursday, he said he must be involved in picking Iran's next leader. And Weird Beard junior ain't it. By the way, he's rejected that. Categorically. Weird Beard Jr. And he followed that up on Friday, writing on Truth Social that the US Will insist on an unconditional surrender. That's all caps and the selection of a great and acceptable leader before making a deal to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction. But as Admiral Brad Cooper, who's The head of U.S. central Command, if you're hip, you call it sitcom. Which is overseeing the war, told reporters Thursday the US Strikes could benefit Iran's opposition by targeting the headquarters and people who target the protesters. But he urged the Iranian people to stay in their homes and lay low, at least for a while. And as we mentioned yesterday, or I'm sorry, earlier today, you look for cracks in the cohesion of the regime, you got a military unit that starts refusing orders to whatever, fire on us, fire on their own people, blah, blah, blah. You're looking for the secretary of such and such, starts giving hints like, actually, the president, who's just a ceremonial guy. It's not like our president saying, hey, I'd like to apologize for the other statement, the other countries, and for, I'm sorry, I need to apologize for hitting the other countries in the Gulf. That was what were we thinking? And he got, like, dragged off the scene and told harshly, you're not apologizing for anything. If that guy's still above ground, I'm half surprised. I suppose they need all the leaders they can get. But we haven't seen any of those cracks appear. We haven't seen the governor of such and such province say, we seek peace with the United States and are ready to disavow. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing yet.

[Jack Armstrong]

I thought we'd see the young people back out in the street after Trump said that. Here's your chance, you know, whatever it is, 20, 30,000 of them got gunned down. That'll make you hesitate.

[Joe Getty]

So here are some of the numbers. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is established in the infamous year of 1979 to ensure the survival of the revolutionary regime. So it's like they're security forces. Regime security forces, as opposed to an army. Army. It includes 190,000 active duty soldiers. And these guys are pretty hardcore. They know what their job is. They're selected for their loyalty and fanaticism. 190,000. That's separate from the more than 300,000 in Iran's conventional army. And you've heard of the besieged militia that beats people down in the streets, plain clothes, sweeps across the country, kills protesters, etc. The besieged, or the basiji, as they call them, did most of that. About 600,000 of them that can mobilize. They're kind of a reserve force. So we got a hell of a lot of bad actors who are saying, yeah, we would. The status quo is fine. Yeah, I know everything's getting bombed. But no, the status quo is staying. Anybody want to come out of your house again? Huh? It's a tough nut to crack.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. If I had to guess, maybe I'm just being led by the pundits who. This has been the chatter for the last dozen hours or so. I think Trump at some point declares victory and calls it off like late in the week.

[Joe Getty]

He said something I think was today to the effect of this will end when there's a mutual agreement to end it. Which is a little different from the rhetoric last week. He's looking for a pipeline to come up with a solution short of, you know, just decimating Iran and having regime change.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, but I mean, he does 150% on China. Tariff starts tomorrow. And you just say change my mind and that. I mean, there doesn't need to be an explanation. You just do.

[Joe Getty]

Right. One more thought on this afterward from our friends at Rough Greens. I mentioned earlier I'd had a dream about Baxter, my dog last night in which he was in trouble and I had to rescue him and stuff like that. I just think it's, you know, you worry about your pets, you love your pets, especially your dogs. And Rough greens is a way to reinforce your dog's diet with natural antioxidants. Anti inflammatory compounds that reduce oxidative stress, support the immune defense and slow age related decline. In other words, helping dogs stay active, mobile and alert as they age.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. So your dog's food is probably just okay health wise, partially just because, you know, it's a. It's a shelf stable, dead product that has to be able to stay on the shelf for a long time and be okay. Rough Greens is live vitamins, minerals, probiotics, digestive enzymes and omega oils that you put on your dog's food. You can try it for practically nothing. Just add rough greens. Free jump start trial bag. All you do is cover shipping. Use the discount Code Armstrong to claim your free Jumpstart trial [e-mail].

[Joe Getty]

again, it's ruffgreens.com promo code ARMSTRONG. Don't change your dog's food. Just add rough greens and watch the health benefits come alive.

[Guest Commentator]

Woof.

[Joe Getty]

The thought. The thought I had. What's that great saying, Jack? About how. How life's not like the movies because, you know, it's just a question of when you yell cut or when the movie ends.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, there's no such thing as a happy ending. It's all when you roll the credits.

[Joe Getty]

Right, Exactly. And I'm reminded they got married.

[Jack Armstrong]

Or you could roll the credits at the divorce or you could roll the credits at when one of them dies or whatever.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, exactly. I'll wear your Roll the credits. So as a guy been. Has been studying the Middle east since I was a child, and I'm getting tired of could well be Trump decides there's going to be no regime change, we bomb for a little while longer, we accept Weird Beard Jr. And everybody says, I failed, and blah, blah, blah. I didn't get regime change. But the regime is defanged substantially for a long time. And then a year and a half from now, five years from now, a group that's coalesced secretly exploits the weakness, kills a couple of major figures, declares, or it could be, you know, a unit or two of the Republican Guard decides, yeah, these guys are jackasses. And it could be this, you know, they roll the credits, quote unquote, in two and a half, five, ten years, and the face of the Middle east changes completely. This is definitely yanked a Jenga block.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Who knows when it all tumbles or changes? And you know, if you're a new listener, you might be getting the sense, wait a minute. These guys don't worship Trump and say everything he does is perfect, and yet they're not Trump deranged lunatics. Yeah, that's exactly right. This could end very, very well. Could end very, very badly. Or at some point in between, and you never know.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I still lean toward. You had the leader and the 40 people below him. You knew exactly where he was going to be above ground. Hittable. You hit him. I don't know why you wouldn't. But we'll see how it all turns out.

[Joe Getty]

Meet the new beard, same as the old beard.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is he still alive?

[Joe Getty]

New beard?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. How long.

[Joe Getty]

How do you.

[Jack Armstrong]

How long do you give him? I give him till tomorrow.

[Joe Getty]

Boy, I gotta believe he is hidden down deep, the bottom of some well somewhere.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, at some point, it's like George Bush once said about Osama bin Laden. He ain't leading any parades. I mean, at some point. You're so hidden. Are you compl. Are you doing anything?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, true enough.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not accomplishing much. You have any thoughts on this text line? 415295KFTC.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[News Reporter]

The prediction market site Calshi is being sued for failing to pay off $54 million to people who bet that the Ayatollah Khomeini would leave office before March 1. Because technically he never really left the office. Oh, a lot of Ayatollah fans here tonight.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, that was more troubling than amusing, Michael.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hey, we'll get to this next hour. Maybe I didn't dig into this. I saw the headline US Only country in worldwide survey to say most fellow citizens are bad people. Surveyed many, many, many countries around the world. We're the only country in the world where we say, yeah, the rest of the people in this country are terrible. That doesn't surprise me based on our current mood.

[Joe Getty]

Huh? No.

[Guest Commentator]

No.

[Joe Getty]

That's. That's interesting, though. What is it about this country? Is it

[Guest Commentator]

wow?

[Jack Armstrong]

I think the Marxist won in the schools. I think it's that simple.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. Yeah, probably so. Probably so. On a completely different topic. Although that is my favorite topic in the world and will get me out of bed until my dying day fighting those pieces of crap. We're trying to indoctrinate our children. I won't be able to get out of bed unless I have a good alarm clock. It's actually a pretty good transition. I'm pretty proud of that. Some people have trouble waking up in the morning and there is a market now for more extreme alarm clocks. Alarm clocks that shock you. Make you do math or take your money.

[Jack Armstrong]

Make you do math. I understand being shocked. I don't understand an alarm clock. That makes me do math.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll get into it a little bit. So here's this gal who slept through a really important meeting. She has trouble getting up in the morning. So both she and her husband got the Pavlok shock clock. And she gets hit with a shock of about 300 volts to her right wrist to wake her up in the morning. Feels like someone pinching you. Not softly either. She says. Takes. It's a six or seven on the pain scale. What I feel like that would just

[Jack Armstrong]

launch me into a horrible mood. Well, and I'm gonna wet the bed.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and. Or have a heart attack.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm gonna lose my bladder.

[Joe Getty]

I mean, I gotta clean that up.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I'm late for work anyway.

[Joe Getty]

That's no way to wake up in shock. I mean, like, what? And pain.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Good Lord, that's gotta be terrible for your system.

[Jack Armstrong]

But anyway, how many of you sold of these? And we need to track those people who buy them because you're weird.

[Joe Getty]

You're made of sterner stuff than I am. She sets hers to 75%. Her husband sets his to 25%. He has very low tolerance for pain. She says. Or you don't have to, like, wait a second with a kettle prodigy. Wake him up.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Don't turn it into, like a negative character. It's a character flawless that you don't want to get shocked very hard in the Morning when you wake up. She's come on now.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. She's all, my husband's a sissy.

[Jack Armstrong]

I want my eyes bugging out, ringing.

[Joe Getty]

I want scars left. Yeah. Christina Garrison, marking director at Pavlok, says the shot quote lasts for a fraction of a second and is not meant to cause harm or lingering pain. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to George Orwell's 1984 where I'm enforcing Big brother's will.

[Commercial Announcer]

Come on.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I assume, torture clock lady. Assuming I wear, I don't know, plastic pan so I can avoid the cleanup or however I go about this. Is this like the idea you're going to do this rest of your life or is this to. Is there a Pavlovian thing that eventually you will wake up when you hear the alarm clock because you'll be wanting to avoid the shock?

[Joe Getty]

That's a really interesting question. They don't address that at all. Here's a different market or a different method, rather. I'm trying to read as I talk.

[Jack Armstrong]

You hire a little person and you give them a ball peen hammer. Why a little person?

[Joe Getty]

Barbaric with a novelty.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't like the size of a full sized person with a hammer next to my bed.

[Joe Getty]

I've seen some brawny. Brawny little people. Anyway, so here's a different sort of discomfort. Here's a dude who bought an alarm system that's on your smartphone and the alarm goes off. Great. Presumably you wake up, but you hit snooze a bunch of times. If he hits snooze, I think it's more than.

[Expert/Guest]

If he.

[Joe Getty]

It's more than five minutes or something until he gets to the shower and scans a barcode on his shampoo bottle, which you get from the company and you put it on your shampoo bottle. Obviously he's got to scan that barcode within five minutes or it finds him $25 and donates that to charity. Is it like crazy?

[Jack Armstrong]

I would sleep through that one. I'd say, you know, the charity needs it. The four hungry kids.

[Joe Getty]

He started at five bucks, but he's like, five bucks, who cares? So he raised it himself to 25 bucks. Now it works. Armstrong and Gettysburg.