The Dog Must Be Walked!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand — "The Dog Must Be Walked!" (April 9, 2026)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Armstrong & Getty features a blend of sharp commentary and humor as hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty tackle America's growing urban disorder, public dysfunction, and cultural trends—anchored in discussion of Chris Arnade's provocative essay on public order in the United States. The pair also dig into free speech legal battles over burger murals, US foreign policy and ceasefire confusion with Iran and Israel, as well as their trademark tangents on hamburgers, city life, and American culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Opening Story: The Impatient Irish Dog (01:32–02:00)

• Jack introduces a lighthearted story: a dog in Ireland hits the horn impatiently while waiting for its owner, with comic exaggerations from Joe about "lawless Irish dogs."
• Sets the tone for a pivot from light news to weightier social commentary.

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2. America’s Public Disorder—A Choice (02:00–10:49)

Main Source: Chris Arnade’s Essay

• Subway Squalor: Joe brings up Chris Arnade's piece after sharing NYC and Chicago mass transit horror stories: joint-smoking, public urination, "tortilla baths."

• Contrast with Other Countries: Arnade points out that US cities accept levels of public disorder unseen in places like Seoul, South Korea, where public spaces are clean and functional.

• Mixed-Use Zoning: Joe highlights how European and Asian urban vibrancy is achieved due to walkability and public trust, which is lacking in the US because “there’s a fine line between vibrant streets and squalid ones. That line is public trust.” (05:02)

• Public Bathrooms: Jack laments the loss or closure of public bathrooms due to drug use and vandalism:

  "There just aren't any public bathrooms. Why would you allow society to break down like that? It's insane." (07:14)

• The Bathroom Paradox: Joe and Jack discuss an anecdote where people defend a subway urinator due to lack of facilities, missing the larger issue:

  "We don't have public bathrooms because the same people who piss on trains would trash them within days." (07:54)

• Institutionalization Debate: Joe summarizes Arnade's view:

  "Someone peeing on the subway is not of sound mind... For someone actively psychotic, this means civil commitment to a psychiatric hospital..." (08:22)

• Jack wishes for:

  "a get-them-off-the-street plan, get them into a facility." (09:47)

• Responsibility & Compassion: The hosts highlight the split between law-and-order advocates and compassionate approaches—with both ultimately agreeing more intervention is needed.

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3. Broader Cultural Comparison (14:54–16:44)

• Returning to Arnade’s essay, the conversation shifts to why America tolerates public disorder and what differentiates the US from countries with neater norms:

  • In Seoul, even drunkards take care to use public toilets and clean up after themselves.

• Key Quote—Core Cultural Difference:

  "Culture does most of the work. Koreans are raised to be good citizens... Our culture [in the US] focused not on being a good citizen first, but on finding our true self..." —Chris Arnade, paraphrased by Joe (16:18)

• Jack: “We’ve always been that way, though. And we weren’t on the buses.” (16:48)

• Joe reflects on generational change, noting the loss of collectivist duty and the rise of radical individualism.

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4. Summary of Arnade’s Prescription (17:10–19:20)

• Joe: “Some people need strict social guidelines. We don’t have them.”

• Main takeaway: Enforce norms in public spaces—compassion and order aren’t mutually exclusive.

  “If our elevated levels of addiction and mental illness are consequences of our culture of individuality... we have a moral responsibility to take sufferers off the street and care for them. The just thing to do for all of us, society, is to enforce norms in public spaces.” (18:37)

• Both hosts agree: It’s neither compassionate nor just to let people suffer or let public disorder reign.

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5. International Affairs: Iran/Israel Ceasefire Confusion (20:21–29:10)

• The show pivots to foreign policy: miscommunication between the US, Iran, Israel, and Pakistan over a supposed ceasefire.

  • Joe: “I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t.” (20:21)
  • Jack notes the confusion: Groups within Iran and among their proxies don’t agree on terms.

• On Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz:

  • Iranian authorities are demanding cryptocurrency tolls from oil tankers—a potentially lucrative new extortion scheme.

    “Iran is demanding that oil tankers... make toll payments in the form of cryptocurrency... using Trump's crypto, which should make the Trump family money. That’s a bit of an uncomfortable situation.” (26:37)

• Joe warns about global precedent:

  “China, you know, Russia, malign powers all over the world would start restricting shipping and extorting shipping companies.. thanks to the US policing the oceans, which has been an incredible aid to the rising standards of living...” (28:00)

• Jack speculates Trump’s approach may reflect calculation about an inevitable division between “China sphere” and “US sphere.” (28:35)

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6. Legal Battle: Free Speech & The Burger Mural (31:31–38:44)

• Jack tells the story of the Cozy Inn burger joint in Salina, Kansas, fighting city government over a painted mural of hamburgers:

  • The city claims the mural is an advertisement, not art, citing local ordinances.
  • Legal costs have totaled $800,000 for the city. (34:05)
  • Pacific Legal Foundation and Goldwater Institute have joined the case:

    “The city’s arbitrary choice to allow murals, indeed celebrate and highlight them if they say some things but not others... is unconstitutional.” —Goldwater/Manhattan Institute amicus brief (36:05)

• Jack and Joe mock the ridiculousness of such disputes and the legal system’s inefficiency.

• Jack gives local color about the Cozy Inn:

  “It's the only food I've ever eaten where they suggest you have it handed to you through a window, otherwise you'll stink all day.” (38:11)

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7. Light Tangents: Burgers & Cooking (29:54–31:20, 38:44–end)

• The hosts detour into burger-making methods, the virtues of simplicity, and the perils of extra seasoning (with the usual banter and mock-insults).
• Jack’s take:

  “I buy the pre made patties. I cut open the plastic, then I put the burger on the grill. When it’s cooked, I take it off and eat it.” (30:29)

• Joe teases: “Gotta season the meat... eat your plain burger, caveman.” (30:41)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

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On American Cities’ Dysfunction:

• Joe Getty (05:02):

  "American tourists often admire the vibrancy of these [foreign] cities, which can't happen here because there's a fine line between vibrant streets and squalid ones. And that line is public trust."

On Institutionalizing Disorder:

• Jack Armstrong (07:14):

  "Why would you allow society to break down like that? It's insane."

• Joe Getty (08:22):

  "Someone peeing on the subway is not of sound mind. It's a sign of distress that should cause an intervention that results in them being institutionalized for a period of time until they regain sanity and stability."

On Culture:

• Joe Getty (16:18):

  "[In Korea,] Culture does most of the work... Koreans are raised to be good citizens and not break rules with public shame as enforcement. So laws nearly rarely need enforcement. In the US... our culture focused not on being a good citizen first, but on finding our true self."

On Law and Order vs. Compassion:

• Jack Armstrong (19:12):

  "That guy over there who's nuts, out of his mind, he needs to be institutionalized. I want to do it because it makes my life better."

On Regulatory Overreach:

• Jack Armstrong (34:05):

  "The City has spent $800,000 of taxpayer money in this little town trying to force this guy to paint over the burgers he painted on his building."

On Burgers:

• Jack Armstrong (30:29):

  "I buy the pre-made patties. I cut open the plastic, then I put the burger on the grill. When it’s cooked, I take it off and eat it."

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Key Timestamps

• 01:32 — Irish dog story; segue to serious topics
• 02:00–05:14 — Chris Arnade's essay and public disorder in American cities
• 06:41 — Loss of public bathrooms, social breakdown
• 07:54 — Why the US stopped providing public bathrooms
• 09:47 — Jack's personal law-and-order/life quality perspective
• 14:54–17:05 — Cultural comparisons: US vs. East Asia/Europe
• 18:37 — The moral case for enforcing norms and helping the mentally ill
• 20:21–29:10 — Iran/Israel ceasefire confusion, Strait of Hormuz cryptocurrency tolls
• 31:31–38:44 — Cozy Inn burger mural legal battle, free speech implications, “does it look good or bad commission”
• 38:11 — Cozy Inn burgers and lingering smells
• 29:54–31:20; 38:44–end — Burger-making banter, light humor

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Tone & Style

• The conversation is lively, mixes wit with pointed criticism, and intersperses serious concerns with comic relief.
• Armstrong and Getty don’t shy from strong opinions, regularly blending law-and-order views with advocacy for compassionate intervention.
• Observational humor about burger culture, urban dysfunction, and legal absurdities adds to the podcast’s conversational style.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode explores the erosion of public spaces and civic norms in America, the psychological and cultural roots behind it, and what can be learned from societies that enforce higher communal standards. Through Chris Arnade's lens and their own experiences, Armstrong & Getty argue for a return to both compassion and accountability on America’s streets—and recount a small-town burger mural legal battle as a microcosm of national debates over freedom and regulation. The episode contrasts tough policy analysis with light-hearted digressions, making for a rich, entertaining critique of American culture and policy.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

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[Jack Armstrong]

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[Jack Armstrong]

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[Joe Getty]

Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center,

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Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

A dog in Ireland, apparently annoyed by

[Joe Getty]

the weight, jumped in the driver's seat and just kept laying on the horn. With some moral support, it seems, from

[Jack Armstrong]

another furry friend in the back. No word tonight on whether the owners came running. So the dog just kept hitting the horn. Hey, come on, I got things to do.

[Joe Getty]

Irish dogs. Legendarily impatient. Jack, his drivers. Yes, that was a cute little white

[Jack Armstrong]

dog putting his entire. His entire body into it.

[Joe Getty]

And the soft headed news guy, Tony Decouple, who I like claiming it's because the dog was impatient with traffic. No, Tony, he wanted to get to the bar. Lawless Irish dogs. Which brings us to an absolutely great, insightful piece that I'm not sure has made me happy or sad by Chris Arnade about America's public disorder. He says America's public disorder is a choice. America's hands off approach to mental illness and addiction is failing everyone. And as he points out in the piece, he's a writer who's traveled and lived all over the world, including fairly recently. And he starts this article, he's on the one of the subway lines to o' Hare Airport in Chicagoland. A couple of guys smoking joints, sitting in a nest of filthy bags. There was a woman whose eyes were dilated and blank. There was also a man barking into the void, shirtless, washing himself with a flour tortilla. Ah, the old tortilla bath which would disintegrate littering to the subway floor before he took out another and began the same process.

[Jack Armstrong]

Huh.

[Joe Getty]

Is it good for the skin?

[Jack Armstrong]

Or I wonder how fresh you smell after you've bathed in it with a tortilla.

[Joe Getty]

Tortillas smell good. Anyway, they do. Chris writes it didn't shock me or anyone else around me he talks about the Chicago Metro line is just infested with that sort of thing. Double the assault rate per over any other major system in the country. Brandon Johnson's Chicago no coincidence, of course.

[Jack Armstrong]

You got to keep an eye on that kind of person out of the corner of your eye just to make sure they don't, for instance, slit your throat from behind like we all saw in a video not long ago.

[Joe Getty]

Right? Exactly. Because those people have been turned loose over and over again by progressive DAs. But that's kind of a different topic. Well, I guess it's not anyway. But he points out that he's witnessed similar scenes, maybe not as bad or frequent as Chicago, in Duluth, Indianapolis, El Paso, New York, Jacksonville, Louisiana. Phoenix, downtown, Starbucks, no bathrooms, all closed, blah blah blah. That's my oh yeah. He contrasts it with Seoul, South Korea, where he currently is, where the train from the airport is spotless. So is the Ten Mile river park where I walk each day, which, given that large parts of it are shadowy spaces beneath roadways, is especially impressive. In the US it would be made of makeshift homes of tents, cardboard and tarps reeking of the smell of urine and feces. The free to use gym equipment along its length probably couldn't exist for fear of it being vandalized, etc. And he writes after spending 10 years traveling around the US I've spent 5 years traveling the world, flying to different cities, walking around them for days at a time. A city in China, Alice Springs, Australia, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Brussels. It's taught me a great deal about the US Chief among these lessons is how much public disorder we have come to accept. We are the world's richest country, yet our buses, parking lots and city streets, I would add parks are filthy, chaotic and threatening antisocial behavior common in almost every community, regardless of size. A society simply should not be this way. It doesn't have to be this way

[Jack Armstrong]

regardless of size and regardless of how wealthy the neighborhood is in some cases.

[Joe Getty]

Right, right. Yeah. In Japan. Sayer much of Europe's cities are walkable because they are dense, people live close together, but also public transportation tends to be fantastic. And he this is not his main point, but I thought it was interesting. And having just spent a week and a half in London and just loving it. In spite of Britain's growing insanity and Islamization, it's still a wonderful city. But he points out that these cities are defined by something called mixed use zoning, where you might have an apartment on the third floor, an office on the second, and a bar on the first. And American tourists often admire the vibrancy of these cities, which can't happen here because there's a fine line between vibrant streets and squalid ones. And that line is public trust. And he talks about people moving out of cities, why we can't have nice things in our cities. He mentions a couple of examples that are nearly hilarious, like La Sombrita, the laughably expensive LA bus stop that was supposed to provide shade and security lighting, but ended up just being a single pole. It exists if you build a nice. It exists because if you build a nice bus stop in the US it immediately gets broken or turned into a shelter for the destitute. So the response over time is to stop building them. I've seen this in almost every American city I've visited. Then he goes into the all the restrooms, the decent public restrooms which are available all over the world.

[Jack Armstrong]

This has been my complaint for a long time. First hit me when my kids got of the age where they, dad, I need to go to the bathroom. It was about the same time as though we, we really let this explode. There are big parts of California where there just are no public bathrooms. There just aren't any for miles and miles and miles. The businesses either don't have them if they're required by law. They, they, they claim they're out of order. They put signs on them so they don't have to deal with the junkies going in there and washing themselves.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

And so there just aren't any public bathrooms. Why would you allow society to break down like that? It's insane.

[Joe Getty]

Right, right. And we'll get to his kind of philosophical answer to that question. It's a big one. But I love this aspect of the piece he wrote. Here's a tweet from a woman by the name of Daniela. My husband was on a crowded train yesterday when a homeless woman got on, pulled down her pants and peed all over the train in front of everyone. He hasn't stopped talking about it for the past 24 plus hours. It was the single most traumatizing thing that's happened to him in New York City. Gross. Yeah. And then here's the interesting part. This post brought out a lot of absurd arguments. People defended the subway Urinator by noting that stations have no public restrooms. This misses the point entirely. We don't have public bathrooms because the same people who piss on trains would trash them within days. He writes. Someone peeing on the subway is not of sound mind. It's a sign of distress that should cause an intervention that results in them being institutionalized for a period of time until they regain sanity and stability. For someone actively psychotic, this means civil commitment to a psychiatric hospital for violent individuals refusing treatment, secure prison facilities with mandatory programs for severe addiction, a medical detox, and residential treatment without the ability to walk away. These people should not be allowed to do whatever they want because they cannot control themselves enough to have that freedom.

[Jack Armstrong]

Somebody should have said, hey, you're not supposed to pee on the train.

[Joe Getty]

Right? Right. And then he gets into some of the other bizarro arguments that institutionalizing those people is cruel, as if it is empathetic to allow someone to suffer on the streets, tortured by their inner demons, covered in filth, high as a kite. This argument is so backward and immoral that I cannot believe that the activists and politicians who make it have spent any time around these people. They need help, and if they don't accept it, then they must be forced to get help then. Go ahead.

[Jack Armstrong]

Henry and I were eating at a restaurant yesterday, and there was a guy, and Henry said, there's a drug addict across the street. And there was a guy over on the corner who had been there for quite some time, spinning around, itching himself, you know. You know, the look, yelling at the top of his lungs. And I thought, why can't we get enough momentum between the. We need to help these people. It's a tragedy for them. I'm not that person. I wish I was, but I'm not. I'm the law and order. I paid for this effing sidewalk. I should be able to walk down the sidewalk without having to worry about that guy. So I would think between the law and order crowd like me and the. It's a tragedy that blah, blah, blah, blah, this happened to him, that we could come up with a get them off the street plan, get them into a facility.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, you're right. And I think it may happen at some point, and clearly this is going to stretch into the next segment because there's so much good stuff here. For instance, and Jack, this will remind you of some of the progressives you run into at city council meetings or all of us have run into. Others responded.

[Jack Armstrong]

Finger clicks.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, my God, please don't do that. Others responded to the post about the subway urinator by claiming, well, that experience is simply the price of living in a big city. And Chris Arnade writes, that's not true. The rest of the world doesn't tolerate the amount of antisocial behavior we do in the US if someone to piss on someone were to piss on the subway almost anywhere else in the world, they would be removed from society for a period of time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, that's what I always say. Between that, you know, and everything being locked up at the drugstore, you have to get a key to get your toothbrush. We're only, you know, a few years away from nobody remembering that it didn't used to be that way.

[Joe Getty]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

So they will just think, well, it's just the price you pay to, you know, live in a society. Everything has to be locked up. It's just the way things are.

[Joe Getty]

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[Jack Armstrong]

And it's easy to customize the system for your home. You can do it online. They've got an app to guide you to set it all up. No drilling required. I set mine up myself with the sensors and the cameras and all that different sort of stuff. And there's no contract because Simplisafe believes you're going to like this system and

[Joe Getty]

keep using it 247 monitoring for a frac. Monitoring for a fraction of what the traditional brands charge really is as good as it sounds right now. You good folks can get 50 off your new SimpliSafe system at SimpliSafe.com Armstrong that SimpliSafe.com Remember, there's no safe like simply safe. So he's Chris Harnate is writing about how we tolerate much more antisocial behavior than virtually any other civilized civilization on earth. We let people who aren't mentally competent continue to engage in self destructive and aberrant behavior without removing them, which consequently ruins it for everyone else except those wealthy enough to build their own private islands of comfort. And then he writes gratifyingly, I've been very careful up to now not to use the word homeless because it's become an overly broad category that covers families and motels with Section 8 vouchers, people sleeping on friends couches until they get back on their feet, mothers with children in long term shelters and then those who live in tents under bridges or sleep in soiled sleeping bags. The bums and junkies that we are always referring to. On the show here, the term homeless is used by those who would siphon taxpayer funds to hand out to their cronies because they know that term. The publicity stunt is the bums and junkies. And you think the money's going to help get rid of that blight. But they use the term that includes the poor families trying to get back on their feet. Right. That's how the scam works. That's why I always get agitated when people refer to the bums and junkies as the homeless, because it's a specific strategy they use to rip off taxpayers.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I don't even like the term homeless. It's unhoused.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God. And then he points out the vast majority don't cause any problems at all. It's the stubbornly intransigent minority who have options but turn them down for a variety of reasons. Mental demons, drugs, something out of, simply out of preference. All right, what's going on and how do we fix it? That after a short build, more jails.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's how you fix it?

[Joe Getty]

That's part of it.

[Jack Armstrong]

We'd be interested in your comment on this text line. 415295KFTC Good stuff on the way.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty

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[Jack Armstrong]

Can you have a mural of a burger on your restaurant? Is that a sign or art? Cost one town $800,000. Fighting the restaurant that put a burger mural on there. Restaurant. I'm going to be in that town later today.

[Joe Getty]

Stay tuned.

[Jack Armstrong]

Pacific Legal foundation is fighting the fight. We'll tell that story later.

[Joe Getty]

Beautiful. I do enjoy a good burger. So if you are just tuning in via the airwaves, I strongly suggest you grab the Armstrong and Getty On Demand podcast and listen to the previous segment in which you're digging deep into a piece by a fellow by the name of Chris Arnade about how bums and junkies and filth and crime on the streets is practically uniquely American. Nobody else puts up with it, and we didn't used to. And just a couple of quick notes before we get to his real conclusion, and he talks about, well, gosh, let's just jump to it. Beneath all the discussion is the additional question of why we in the US have so many mentally unstable people. Why are so many addicted to drugs? Why so many people have grown comfortable with shocking behavior. He says, I walked 12 miles through Seoul yesterday, and I saw zero destitute people, certainly no homeless. I did see the same group of drunk, drunk men I always see playing cards near the river, because Koreans drink an immense amount. But as far as daytime drunks go, their behavior was exemplary. When they had to urinate, they walked the 200 yards to the public bathroom, which they left as clean as when they came. When they wanted to throw away their empty bottles, they collected them and walked them to the trash can, even putting the appropriate ones into the recycling bin. Almost no Korean, even the drunks, would ever think of peeing on the metro, even if they thought they could get away with it. And, yes, there are legal consequences. But then he gets to the key. But culture does most of the work. Koreans are raised to be good citizens and not break rules with public shame as enforcement. So laws nearly rarely need enforcement. And then he gets into, fairly briefly, the US Has a different model that emphasizes individuality over the communal. With our culture focused not on being a good citizen first, but on finding our true self and exploring that and hopefully making a lot of money along the way. Koreans are citizens. We are entrepreneurs. It's one of our greatest strengths.

[Jack Armstrong]

Lengths.

[Joe Getty]

But I would summarize the rest of his argument, but it's gone way too far.

[Jack Armstrong]

We've always been that way, though. And we weren't on the buses.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly. Exactly right. And, you know, we've been actually been talking about this for a couple of decades now, and. And I. I think Gen Xers, which we barely are.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not a boomer. Not a boomer, Katie. I'm a Gen Xer. I'm the last of the Gen Xers.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, my God.

[Jack Armstrong]

Like a boomer.

[Joe Getty]

That's right. Okay, so. But anyway, I think we are uniquely positioned in a way because we grew up in a distinctly post World War II. Your duty to the country, your family, and your community trumped any individual desire you might have that was born of the necessity of the conflicts of the 20th century and the. And the Cold War and the rest of it. You can do your own thing within limits. You will not betray the trust of your family or your town, etc. And then we saw that morph into a much more affluent, not threatened, reality of everything's great, so you can do whatever you want. Duty sounds, you know, suffocating, and it has something to do with why so few people are having children and families now. But. Which is the chicken? Which is the egg? I couldn't tell you. Let me. Let me finish it then, Jack, if you have anything you want to throw in, obviously have at it. That some people need strict social guidelines. We have a far larger number of people prone to antisocial tendencies and mental illness. Some people need strict social guidelines. We don't have them. If our elevated levels of addiction and mental illness are consequences of our culture of individuality, as I believe they are, then we have a moral responsibility to take sufferers off the street and care for them. The just thing to do for all of us, society, is to enforce norms in public spaces. We can have nice things. We just have to decide we deserve them. We must enforce norms in public spaces. It's good for everyone.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's. It's nice that you look at it. That guy looks at it from the compassion side of it. Again, I look at it from law, law and order side of it. You can end up in the same spot, though. That guy over there who's nuts, out of his mind, he needs to be institutionalized. I want to do it because it makes my life better.

[Joe Getty]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

That other guy, because he's kind and compassionate, fine, whatever. As long as the guy gets off the street and in some sort of institution.

[Joe Getty]

The one perverse view that's not supportable is the one that wins the day in blue states and that it is compassionate to let somebody mentally ill die on the streets or kill themselves with drugs on the streets or back to

[Jack Armstrong]

my side of it, it's okay to let taxpayers who are following the rules have to live with this.

[Joe Getty]

S. Yeah. Those arguments are lunacy and they should never have won the day. We got a roll' em back.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm not hopeful.

[Joe Getty]

Get hopeful.

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Armstrong and Getty.

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[Joe Getty]

And there's a lot of bad faith negotiation and a lot of bad faith, you know, propaganda going on. I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn't. We never made that promise. We never indicated that was going to be the case. What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America's allies, both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

[Jack Armstrong]

So JD says it was just an honest misunderstanding. They thought the ceasefire included Israel not firing on Hezbollah. I don't know what to believe. And part of the mess might be as we kept talking about yesterday, there are different groups speaking out of Iran and there were some groups there might be. One group that made that agreement said yeah, that's fine. And then another group that said, no, that ain't fine. And we're the ones that are going

[Joe Getty]

to put out a press release and add this to that. Looking at the flip side of what JD Was saying, what we have to say to Iran is that, oh no, your proxies that have been sowing terror and death and Sharia law all over the region and killing all of our soldiers and the rest of it. No, no, no, no, we're going to squash the hell out of them. It's got nothing to do with this ceasefire. The IRGC and the mullahs or whoever's in charge are almost certainly going to say, oh, I can't agree to that. I'm not going to agree to that because I don't think you have the balls to wipe us out.

[Jack Armstrong]

Pardon me, we're into day two of the ceasefire. Using my finger quotes, here's Ian panel of ABC News on where things are.

[Joe Getty]

Day two of this ceasefire is already looking shaky. The Iranian regime claiming that the temporary agreement to halt hostilities has already been violated in particular by escalating Israeli attacks against Iranian backed militia Hezbollah in Lebanon. Vice President Vance insisting Lebanon was never part of the ceasefire agreement. But Iran and mediators Pakistan have both said a ceasefire in Lebanon is part of the agreement.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Pakistan, who's the supposed mediator, honest broker between the two sides said that was part of the agreement. That was part of the agreement. We saw it. Part of the agreement was Israel stops firing at Hezbollah. I don't know if they're honest or not. As Mark Halperin pointed out in his newsletter this morning. These are the people that hid bin Laden from us, the Pakistanis.

[Joe Getty]

So I just wish I sounded more like Ian Panel. I mean, how compelling would it be? Domino said the pizza would be here

[Jack Armstrong]

in half an hour.

[Joe Getty]

It's been 42 minutes. Just everything with that intensity.

[Jack Armstrong]

They lied in their advertisement.

[Joe Getty]

The dog must be walked.

[Jack Armstrong]

So the thing was, the Strait of Hormuz was supposed to open and not a single ship, not, not a single oil, oil tanker went through in 24 hours and only four ships. And it was the fewest number of ships going through since the war started. So it didn't become more open, it became more closed after ceasefire.

[Joe Getty]

And the IRGC is thinking, you know, our navy's wiped out in our air force and all, but we've got a brand new super profitable business and we're still in charge raping our country. So. Okay, cool.

[Jack Armstrong]

The New York Times released an excerpt from a new book that's coming out yesterday, written by Jonathan Swan, who we've generally liked over the years, and Maggie Haberman, who I've generally hated over the years of the New York Times.

[Joe Getty]

Utterly unfair.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes, but the, the excerpt. Somebody leaked this out. I mean, this was when. And Trump is a source for this book. He is. He's on the record in the book, throughout the book, and he might be a source for some of the secret stuff is a lot of the speculation because he's a wily guy. But the story that leaked out is that Bibi Netanyahu came, I think, early February to the White House and gave a big presentation on here are your options with Iran and what you should do. The director of the CIA said that's farcical, I think was the term he used that, that we could do that or would do that. Marco Rubio is quoted in the piece as saying, so it's bull s the, the plan that they had to, you know, take over the Strait bomb, grab the uranium. All these different things that we've been talking about doing since this whole thing started. But then it happened. So this piece sort of, I guess, is trying to push readers the direction of we dance to Israel's tune

[Joe Getty]

more. Israel persuaded Trump that the time was right and the opportunity was there. I mean, possible. Charitable. Yeah, possible.

[Jack Armstrong]

He just decided, you know, that's a good idea.

[Joe Getty]

Well, he's been making noise about Iran. Can't have a nuke, like way before he was a politician.

[Jack Armstrong]

70s.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah, that's a. And despising that regime is appropriate.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a misrepresentation by certain crowds out there too, that Trump has misled his base. He ran as the anti war president and look what he's doing. He ran on no forever wars that don't accomplish anything. But he was all about bombing ISIS back to the stone age and in Iraq. We should have taken the oil and all kinds of very aggressive things that he talked about over the years and

[Joe Getty]

did, which was a great thing. Yeah, yeah. That's practically all there is.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is the straight going to open or not without. Because currently this is according to open source intelligence. Currently the way they're. They're running it is this. Iran is demanding that oil tankers passing through the strait make toll payments in the form of cryptocurrency, which would include Bitcoin or Trump's family's USD1 cryptocurrency. Oh, boy. Vessels have been told to email Iranian authorities prior to passage through the area with details regarding their cargo. Then Iran will calculate how much they're going to charge you. Somewhere around a dollar a barrel of oil, which could add up to a couple million dollars per boat that they let through that they would pay in cryptocurrency using Trump's crypto, which should make the Trump family money. That's a. That's a bit of a uncomfortable situation.

[Joe Getty]

I will never utter another word about

[Jack Armstrong]

Hunter Biden since Trump yesterday told ABC News that, yeah, we. We might partner with Iran on charging a toll. That might not be a bad idea. What?

[Joe Getty]

Oh, boy. Katie, that whole situation you just said sounds like one of those token phone scams that we're all warning people about all the time.

[Jack Armstrong]

Just wire us some crypto and we'll get your loved one out of prison or whatever. Right? Right. Yeah. Send us $2,000,000 in cryptocurrency and we'll let the boat through. What boat?

[Joe Getty]

And if you haven't done the math, that would be billions and billions of dollars in revenue every year for the irgc.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. And then you're. You're by definition giving them the ability to close it back down anytime they want for them to say, you know what we've just decided, remember, the whole dollar a barrel, it's $2 a barrel, and it's closed until y' all agree.

[Joe Getty]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

Why wouldn't you do that?

[Jack Armstrong]

If we back down, it's been demonstrated that the world is not willing to

[Joe Getty]

open it back up, force it over. And the precedent that would set would be horrific. China, you know, Russia, malign powers all over the world would start restricting shipping and extorting shipping companies. And boats in a way that hasn't happened Since World War II, thanks to the US policing the oceans, which has been an incredible aid to the rising standards of living of humans all over the globe and the declines in infant mortality and mortality in general and blah, blah, blah. Read Enlightenment now by Steven Pinker. If you get a chance.

[Jack Armstrong]

Part of this, Part of this might just be that Trump thinks this is where we're headed. So let's get there. The world is going to split into two spheres of influence, the China sphere and the US sphere. That's where we're going anyway. It's just a matter of time. They're going to take Taiwan. We're not going to stop them. Then they're going to charge tolls or not allow boats or whatever over there. We might as well start here. That might just be his calculation.

[Joe Getty]

It's not out of the question. Yeah. Huh. I don't think we'd like it.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's just going to be different. Get used to it.

[Joe Getty]

I don't want to. I'm old.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't want to either.

[Joe Getty]

Would you like to hear about the big NATO practicing for drone war exercises? It's pretty heavy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, it is.

[Joe Getty]

Well, yeah. It's war, Jack.

[Jack Armstrong]

War. I've got our free speech around burger murals story that our friends at the Pacific Legal foundation have taken up standing up for the burger. It might end up going to the Supreme Court, which would be very exciting.

[Joe Getty]

It's unlike free speech that a hamburger is called a hamburger, which is a reference to Hamburg, Germany, because I think the mighty hamburger could be ready to take over as the symbol of Americana for the apple pie. Ah.

[Jack Armstrong]

I had a hamburger last night. Pretty good one. I was damn good.

[Joe Getty]

I'm jealous.

[Jack Armstrong]

But. Ketchup on it. Some tomatoes. Did you? The whole thing.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, cheese, you say?

[Jack Armstrong]

I was watching a show. That Katie's gonna hate this. I was watching a show. What was it? Who's the cook that yells at everybody on the TV shows?

[Joe Getty]

Bobby? No, Gordon. Gordon Ramsay.

[Jack Armstrong]

Gordon Ramsay. And my son, who loves cooking videos was watching Gordon Ramsay prepare a burger to grill and God, it looked like a lot of work. Here's what I do for my burgers because somebody was telling me the other day what they do for their burgers to get them ready to grill. And I explained how I. I buy the pre made patties. I cut open the plastic, then I put the burger on the grill. When it's cooked, I take it off and eat it. That's what I do to my burgers.

[Joe Getty]

Got to Season the meat.

[Jack Armstrong]

Got why I like the taste of hamburger

[Joe Getty]

tasting. You. You don't get to say no. You're not allowed to have an opinion on that. That engulf. Sorry, it's just not allowed.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just. I just. I like the flavor of the burger. And it just seems like so much work to get all out all this stuff and you're rubbing oil on it and letting it sit and putting this

[Joe Getty]

and that on and eat your plain burger. Caveman. Go ahead.

[Jack Armstrong]

To be fair, he probably gets a lot of seasoning from the spatula he leaves on the ground.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, my goodness, that's true.

[Jack Armstrong]

I do have ground seasoning from my spatula that I just lay.

[Joe Getty]

Particularly because my little pollen, a little

[Jack Armstrong]

dust, my girl's way down there by my feet. Interesting free speech case we got coming up, among other things. Stay here.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.

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[Joe Getty]

In order to control the expl population, Washington, D.C. is putting rats on birth control. Perfect for anyone thinking, I wish all these rats also had mood swings. Wow. Wow. Did not see that punchline coming.

[Jack Armstrong]

So we were just talking about hamburgers. If you're a fan of hamburgers, like if you look at a book or list of top hamburgers in America, quite possibly you'll come across the Cozy Inn in the middle of the country in Salina, Kansas. It's a burger joint that it's been there for a hundred years. It's known by many burger fans and I remember USA Today featuring it a couple years back and everything like that. If you're ever traveling across the middle of nowhere, stop and get a cozy burger. I've had them. I'm headed to that town tonight. That's where my parents live. It's where Joe and I started our radio careers. But the interesting thing in this story is this really old burger joint decided to paint a mural on the front of their building of hamburgers that look kind of like flying saucers.

[Joe Getty]

It looks cool.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm looking at the picture right now. It just looks cool. It looks old timey and cool. Anyway, it ran up against the city's no murals that are advertisements rule that they Have. And the city told him, you can't put that up to me. Here's the interesting part of the story. And now the Pacific Legal foundation is as a picked up the case. We like them at plf, standing up for what's good and right all the time. Standing up for the burger guy. What's interesting to me, because this happens lots around the country. The little town of Salina, Kansas. Taxpayer money being used. The City has spent $800,000 of taxpayer money in this little town trying to force this guy to paint over the burgers he painted on his building.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, boy.

[Jack Armstrong]

$800,000. Oh, boy. There's a lot of things you could do in a small town with that much money, including give it back to the people it belonged to, since it's taxpayer money. But cities do this all the time, where they wage these battles over things with your money. Happens a lot. Or they screw up sometimes and then they have to pay out a settlement and it's your money. Also, it's gonna be interesting to see how it goes down. A federal district court has already sided with the burger joint in the city's mural versus sign distinction, calling it arbitrary and discriminatory. Salina, Kansas, has appealed it to the 10th Circuit anyway. And some legal experts think this will go to the Supreme Court. I can't imagine why it would have

[Joe Getty]

to, but, boy, I see there are, like, seven national organizations led by, of course, the Great Pacific Legal foundation joining the amicus brief on the cozy INS side.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. It's interesting. Most of the people I know in that town are on the side of the city for some reason.

[Joe Getty]

The argument is not insane. We don't want ugly signage everywhere on every building in the city. And if we restrict it, if we let Cozy into it, we got to let everybody do it. Right? Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's the argument. Sure. I wish. That's why, you know, getting the lawyers involved and getting in the letter of the law is always so difficult because if you could just go with a does it look good or not? This looks good. I can picture things that would look bad. I wouldn't want those. So put me in charge or someone in charge. The. The does it look good or bad commission. It's got to be cheaper than $800,000.

[Joe Getty]

So the Goldwater Institute is part of this as well. Oh, really? Is the alliance defending freedom? Yeah. And let me hit you with a quote from their brief. Even though there are numerous murals in downtown Celina and even though Salina holds an annual festival to celebrate the paintings and add new Murals all over town. Salina contends the Cozy Inns sign is uniquely harmful. That makes no sense.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's why it became a big deal. It's kind of an interesting thing. This particular town decided to paint these giant murals on all kinds of different things. Grain elevators, if you know how big those are. They're like skyscrapers. These big beautiful murals that have been painted on them. And there's, there's that all over the place on, on buildings, grain elevators, everything like that that I've never seen anywhere else. They felt like this was getting in the way of that. You're, you're. Now we're gonna have all those. Our beautiful mural project ruined by every business planning a calling it a mural, but it's just an ad for their business on their walls. That's what kicked it all off.

[Joe Getty]

Good. Quote here from the Goldwater Institute, Manhattan Institute, brief quote. The city's arbitrary choice to allow murals, indeed celebrate and highlight them if they say some things but not others, based on nothing more than the fact that the latter includes some reference to trade, is unconstitutional. Salina may regulate visual expression only by applying neutral time, place and manner restrictions, not by picking and choo choosing between what it considers worthy and unworthy forms of expression.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll take a picture of some of the murals when I'm there tomorrow and show you because it's. It's a pretty cool thing, but. So here's an interesting thing about the Cozy and Burger place, Katie. Nobody goes in. It's only got like six stools anyway. But nobody goes in. You have the burgers handed to you out a window because they're so smelly. You will smell like them all day long and annoy your co workers if you.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, I remember it.

[Jack Armstrong]

It makes it stink so bad, like onions that nobody goes in. They have them handed through the window and then you, like, put them in your trunk and take them to work and eat them.

[Joe Getty]

In fact, the mural that has a delicious cozy burger, which is like a super high quality White Castle burger from any. For anybody who's ever had that sort of thing. It says, don't fear the smell. The fun's inside.

[Jack Armstrong]

Interesting. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It's the only food I've ever eaten where they suggest you have it handed to you through a window, otherwise you'll stink all day. Oh, my.

[Joe Getty]

My buddy worked it in and out

[Jack Armstrong]

and he permanently smelled like it. Really?

[Joe Getty]

Oh, yeah. All the time I've known people in lines of work like that. You can't wash it off.

[Jack Armstrong]

No, I smelled like cow dung all the time working in the feedlots. And you couldn't wash it off. I mean, there's no showering that it has to wear off.

[Joe Getty]

Luckily, chicks really dig that. It's earthy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. So the in n out smell, is it onions?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Kind of an overall greasy burger. They have that distinct smell. I don't know what it is. Yeah, they should sell it as a cologne. We got more on the way. If you missed a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

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[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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