This Never Crossed My Transom

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand - "This Never Crossed My Transom" Release Date: April 8, 2025

In the latest episode of Armstrong & Getty On Demand, hosts Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty delve into a range of pressing topics, blending political analysis with sharp social commentary. This episode, titled "This Never Crossed My Transom," offers listeners an engaging exploration of U.S. trade policies, media sensationalism, and the perceived threats facing Western civilization today.

---

1. The Turbulent Waters of U.S. Tariffs and Trade Negotiations

The episode opens with a heated discussion about recent developments in U.S. trade policies under the Trump administration. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty analyze the fluctuating stance on tariffs, referencing insider reports that suggest a potential pause in imposing tariffs to facilitate negotiations with trading partners.

Joe Getty highlights the market's positive reaction to rumors of a tariff pause, stating:

“Politico and others are reporting that on the phone with various countries yesterday, Trump was saying, yeah, a pause is coming sooner rather than later and that sort of thing. [...] that's the zeitgeist today.”
[01:14]

Jack Armstrong echoes this sentiment, noting the confusion and mixed signals from the administration:

“The markets are leaping upward like a gazelle. Funny. And the other unspoken thing that is remaining unspoken is that [...] we want much lower tariffs for US Goods. [...] Let's get to something sane. Which is really what I was hoping he was driving at.”
[01:38]

The hosts then pivot to a contentious exchange between Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, Trump's trade advisor. Joe Getty recounts Musk's scathing remarks towards Navarro, emphasizing Musk's criticism of Navarro's qualifications and expertise:

“He was speaking of Peter Navarro. He said specifically in that tweet, peter Navarro ain't built a single thing in his life. And having a PhD from Harvard is a bad thing.”
[02:20]

Peter Navarro responds defensively, defending his trade policies and criticizing Musk's manufacturing practices. However, Elon Musk counters by asserting that Tesla produces the most American-made cars, directly calling Navarro a "sack of bricks":

“Tesla has the most American made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”
[05:56]

This exchange underscores the deep divisions and personal animosities permeating U.S. trade discussions, with Musk leveraging his influence to challenge established trade advisors.

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2. Media Misrepresentation and the De-Extinction Debate

Shifting focus, Armstrong & Getty critique mainstream media's coverage of scientific advancements, specifically the controversial announcement by Colossal Biosciences about the de-extinction of the direwolf.

Jack Armstrong expresses frustration with how media outlets sensationalize such stories without substantive analysis:

“Mainstream media does such a bad job of covering stories like the de extinction of the dire wolf with only isn't this cute? Look at these white puppies. And no of the any interesting intellectual discussion about bringing back extinct species from 10,000 years ago.”
[15:22]

The hosts dissect the claims made by Colossal Biosciences, highlighting that the so-called "direwolf" is merely a genetically modified gray wolf with altered fur color, lacking the distinct characteristics of the extinct species. Joe Getty underscores the misleading nature of the reporting:

“They altered gray wolves to make their hair white. That's almost the end of the story, right? [...] any real news source, unfortunately, like Al Jazeera, their headline has the direwolf come back? No, it hasn't.”
[26:14]

This segment serves as a broader critique of media practices, emphasizing the need for responsible reporting that distinguishes between genuine scientific breakthroughs and sensationalized claims.

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3. Identifying and Analyzing Threats to Western Civilization

Perhaps the most substantial portion of the episode revolves around the identification of three fundamental threats to the United States and Western civilization as a whole. Jack Armstrong outlines these threats with a sense of urgency, prompting a deeper reflection on societal and geopolitical challenges.

Threat 1: Societal Softening and Decadence

“As a society, we are very, very soft. Decadent is the right word. We are so comfortable and wealthy that we have lost the ability to fend for ourselves.”
[35:12]

Armstrong suggests that the prosperity of Western societies has led to complacency, eroding resilience and self-reliance.

Threat 2: Neo-Marxism and the Educational System

“Our educational system, K through graduate school, is the threat to the United States that could bring us down.”
[38:14]

The hosts argue that ideological shifts within education, particularly the rise of Neo-Marxist and postmodernist thought, undermine foundational Western values. Joe Getty references Jordan Peterson's assertion that the university system has become a net negative for the country, aligning with their critique of progressive educational policies.

Threat 3: Islamism and Fundamentalist Movements

“Islamism is fundamentally and flamingly incompatible with Western civilization and our Constitution in particular.”
[39:03]

Jack Armstrong warns of the global rise of fundamentalist Islamic movements, highlighting their incompatibility with Western democratic values and posing a significant security threat.

The discussion delves into the complexities of multiculturalism, secularism, and the challenges of integrating disparate cultural and political beliefs within a cohesive societal framework.

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4. Concluding Remarks and Future Outlook

As the episode nears its end, Armstrong & Getty reiterate the importance of recognizing and addressing these threats to safeguard the future of Western societies. They call for cultural and policy shifts to counteract the identified dangers, emphasizing resilience, ideological clarity, and strategic governance.

Jack Armstrong concludes with a provocative assertion:

“The three great threats facing the United States of America [...] could bring us down.”
[35:32]

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Joe Getty on Elon Musk's criticism of Peter Navarro:
  “He was speaking of Peter Navarro. He said specifically in that tweet, peter Navarro ain't built a single thing in his life. And having a PhD from Harvard is a bad thing.”
  [02:20]

• Jack Armstrong on societal decadence:
  “As a society, we are very, very soft. Decadent is the right word. We are so comfortable and wealthy that we have lost the ability to fend for ourselves.”
  [35:12]

• Joe Getty referencing media sensationalism:
  “They altered gray wolves to make their hair white. That's almost the end of the story, right?”
  [26:14]

• Jack Armstrong on educational threats:
  “Our educational system, K through graduate school, is the threat to the United States that could bring us down.”
  [38:14]

---

"This Never Crossed My Transom" effectively combines incisive political analysis with robust discussions on societal issues, challenging listeners to critically evaluate prevailing narratives and consider the profound implications of current trends on the future of Western civilization.

Transcript

[Jeremy Scott]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Jeremy Scott]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9th on the iHeartRadio app app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jack Armstrong]

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 Gettysburgs today.

[Joe Getty]

And would you be open to a.

[Jack Armstrong]

Pause in tariffs to allow for negotiations?

[Jeremy Scott]

Well, we're not looking at that.

[Joe Getty]

We have many, many countries that are.

[Jack Armstrong]

Coming to negotiate deals with us, and they're going to be fair deals.

[Joe Getty]

And in certain cases, they're going to.

[Jeremy Scott]

Be paying substantial tariffs. They'll be fair deals.

[Joe Getty]

Okay. Politico and others are reporting that on the phone with various countries yesterday, Trump was saying, yeah, a pause is coming sooner rather than later and that sort of thing. And that's the reason the markets are up today. Trump, of course, can't say out loud that, you know, this tariff thing is winding down or, you know, you lose all your leverage. But anyway, that's, that's kind of the zeitgeist today.

[Jack Armstrong]

The markets are leaping upward like a gazelle. Funny. And the other unspoken thing that is remaining unspoken is that okay, no, I'm not driving towards some sort of isolationism. I just want much lower tariffs for US Goods. That post world war ii period is over. Let's get to something sane. Which is really what I was hoping he was driving at. And I hope it works.

[Joe Getty]

So I've got some polling around tariffs, but I'm not sure they matter anymore, like as of an hour ago. But anyway, first this high school level gossip and snark that we should be above and, you know, what is it?

[Jack Armstrong]

Good, good gossip?

[Joe Getty]

What is the whole thing about, you know, successful people, low level people talk about each other. What is that whole thing?

[Jack Armstrong]

Essentially? Weak minds speak of people, mediocre minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas.

[Joe Getty]

Okay, well, I'm going to speak of people, so probably fits in with where my mind is. So over the weekend, Elon got into it with Peter Navarro. Peter Navarro is the trade advisor to Donald Trump. And you know, and on all the TV shows touting the tariffs and why they're going to work and everything like that, I mentioned the tweet yesterday where Elon Musk said, having a PhD in economics from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. He was speaking of Peter Navarro. He said specifically in that tweet, peter Navarro ain't built s in his life. And having a PhD from Harvard is a bad thing. Musk. I'm reading here from the Daily Beast. Musk, who's openly expressed disdain for Ivy League institutions, commented, yup, under a quote from US Economist Thomas so that read, in every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it. First of all, that's a fantastic quote. Secondly, it's fantastic that Elon retweeted that and attached it to Peter Navarro. Um, it continues on with a variety of things. Now, Peter Navarro has shot back, and then there's a response from Elon after this. But we. Let's hear the Peter Navarro thing first. Commenting on Elon.

[Peter Navarro]

When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House and the American people understand that Elon's a car manufacturer, but he's not a car manufacturer. He's a car assembler. In many cases, if you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that. That he gets, which in the EV case is the batteries come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan. The tires come what what we want. And the difference is in our thinking and Elon's on this, is that we want the tires made in Akron, we want the transmissions made in Indianapolis, we want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw, and we want the cars manufactured here. It's like this business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartansburg, South Carolina, and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions. That doesn't work for America. It's bad for our economics, it's bad for our national security. We want them to come here. And with Elon, it's fine. He's a car man. He's a car person. That's what he does. And he wants the cheap foreign parts, and we understand that, but we want him home. We want him home. National security, economic security, and everything's good with Elon.

[Joe Getty]

So him calling Elon a car assembler, I guess, is seen by some as a shot. Elon responded to that, and this is like 15 minutes ago. Navaro is truly a. What he says here is demonstrably false. So now he's just flat out called Peter Navaro, somebody that he is, I'm sure been in the Oval Office with on Multiple occasions over the last couple of months as two of the top advisors of the President. Truly a moron. I don't know what Navarro was talking about there. I don't know about the other stuff. I know I've bought a lot of tires for Teslas and they've all been American tires. But. So I don't know what he's talking about there.

[Jack Armstrong]

But how about this follow up tweet from Elon? Tesla has the most American made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.

[Joe Getty]

I love this sort of thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

The AG Hamilton account on Twitter, which is one of my favorites. Navarro has no idea what he's talking about and doing substantial harm.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I don't know about the computers and various things he mentioned there, but I know for a fact the tires that I've purchased for my Tesla or American made tires from an American company, I think actually in Akron. What you just said, you know, speaking.

[Jack Armstrong]

Of gossip, it was so good and I don't know what I did with it.

[Joe Getty]

Navarro is truly a moron.

[Jack Armstrong]

Dumber than a sack of bricks. There was a great Twitter thread from one of Elon's baby mamas calling him out as well. His, his family life is at the outer 1% of crazy.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Well, that separate topic, I, I do not dig his, his view on parenthood at all, as I've said many times.

[Jack Armstrong]

No. Or reproduction or marriage or whatever.

[Joe Getty]

But you know, you know, it's not. While I enjoy snark and that sort of thing, it's not insignificant. That. And I, I can't believe I'm the guy saying this, but the world's richest man is jumping into this and calling like the brains of the whole tariff structure a moron. And dumb as a sack of bricks.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. I would love to hear Donald J. Actually describe his relationship with Peter Navarro and how he utilizes his skills. I'm going to, you know, put that charitably. I think Navarro may be the crazed attack dog straining at the leash that Trump will put back in the kennel the minute that he's not useful, but he is acting out the pretense that, yes, I'm going to put up enormous trade barriers around the United States from now till the end of time. Putting aside that that's impossible given our system where you get elected every four years, blah, blah, blah, but. And Navarro is his. His attack dog straining at the leash. But it's becoming more and more clear that no, Trump just wants sane levels of tariffs against the United States finally. Which is admirable. And A good goal.

[Joe Getty]

How popular are these right now, though? This polling was yesterday, before stock market rebounds. And all these rumors are going around that Trump is telling people on the phone, no, no, no, no, you know, we'll negotiate. And not sounding quite as absolutist on this stuff. This is interesting to us, Joe and I, on, you know, how much should we talk about this? How much have you been hearing about or paying attention to the tariff stuff? A lot. 56%. A lot. I don't know how many stories 56% of people pay a lot of attention to ever. Right. And then some was 25%. So between a lot and some, that's, you know.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, and I would suggest to you that in the universe of humans who might be inclined to listen to the Armstrong and Getty show, that number is substantially higher because that's a random sample of humans. That's 56%.

[Joe Getty]

If someone a lot adds up to, you know, 80%.

[Jack Armstrong]

Need my caveat there.

[Joe Getty]

Then when you get to support or oppose among that crowd, oppose 55, support 37. Oppose 55, support 37. You break it down by party. It's somewhat predictable for Democrats. 90% oppose independents, 52% oppose Republicans, only 20% oppose. Hanging in there.

[Jack Armstrong]

So here's a question for you. Unless you, you had more to get through.

[Joe Getty]

The only interesting thing, Democrats are paying a lot of attention at higher numbers than Republicans for whatever reason, the resistance.

[Jack Armstrong]

We're back. That was a joke. So is this all a giant art of the deal style negotiation? A important element of which, and this is what always gets me with Trump, I don't, I don't like it. And maybe I'm wrong. That's fine, I've been wrong before. But a significant element of Trump's art of the deal thing is to sow confusion and chaos, which he believes leads people to be more enthusiastic about making a deal. Cuz not only do they want to reach the best negotiated settlement they can in classic negotiation theory, but there's also a feeling of this is craziness and I'm getting a little freaked out here. He might be a nut. I. Let's, let's, let's go ahead and cut a deal. Does it feel like that to you? I mean, because, for instance, the formula. Here's what I'm thinking about. I should have said this out loud. The formula that they used for assigning the quote, unquote reciprocal tariffs was a mess. I mean, just, just utterly indefensible, silly in a couple of different ways. And analysts all over the world Were saying, this doesn't make any sense, mathematically speaking. Is that part of the sowing chaos? Was that he just said, throw a formula together with high tariffs against people, or was that actual sloppiness? I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

I think it's. Yeah, I. Well, I suppose you could call it sloppiness, but I think it would be. He would say, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what? How I came to the number numbers. That's not the point.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, right. Let's sow a little chaos in the air. Everybody's going to come running to negotiate sane. Actually, reciprocal tariff levels that we haven't seen since World War II.

[Joe Getty]

Well, a combination of sow chaos and convince people that I'm serious about this.

[Jack Armstrong]

Exactly. Yeah. Which is why Peter Navarro's still straining at the leash, you know, barking at Elon Musk saying, no, we're going to have maximalist tariffs for the rest of the history of mankind.

[Joe Getty]

As dumb as a. What, a sack of brick?

[Jack Armstrong]

Sack of bricks. He is truly a moron, according to Elon Musk. And that so will quote.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, that's great. Let me get that again, because that is. That is. That is too darn good. I'd never heard that before. And every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it. That's awesome.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's hilarious. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

And probably true.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, yeah. You take the combination of. I'm one of the nation's leading intellectuals, therefore I espouse ideas that the average working person would find idiotic, which is true. Secondly, look at my status. I have. I have graduated from the most elite of the elite institutions. Thou shalt listen to me. Take those two things in concert, please.

[Joe Getty]

Between economic ideas or, you know, Vietnam and Iraq, which had a lot of Ivy League people behind it. And yeah, there's plenty of examples of that.

[Jack Armstrong]

There are plenty of people coming out of community colleges in Indiana who would listen to the grand theories of Harvard types and say, that's stupid. And they'd be right.

[Joe Getty]

Dumb as a sack of bricks. Okay, a lot to get to, including de extinction this hour.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jeremy Scott]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Jeremy Scott]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Gilbert King]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Jeremy Scott]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Gilbert King]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Jeremy Scott]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Jeremy Scott]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy Jeremy, I.

[Jack Armstrong]

Want to tell you something.

[Jeremy Scott]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Joe Getty]

Mainstream media does such a bad job of covering stories like the de extinction of the dire wolf with only isn't this cute? Look at these white puppies. And no of the any interesting intellectual discussion about bringing back extinct species from 10,000 years ago. So that will get to that coming up.

[Jack Armstrong]

Gigantic wolves stand ten foot at the shoulder with teeth like steak knives. No problem. So we'll have that for you in just a couple of minutes. Brace yourselves in listening to this clip. It is awful, but I have a particular reason for asking for it. Go ahead, Michael.

[Gilbert King]

I would like to see all Republican women or any woman who vote voted for Republicans or Trump to be gang.

[Jack Armstrong]

Raped on national television.

[Gilbert King]

I think that would be just very cathartic for us normal humans to see.

[Joe Getty]

These.

[Gilbert King]

I guess humans just absolutely destroyed on national television. Randy Newman, tell him I for me.

[Jack Armstrong]

He appeared to be in his mid-20s, something like that and that's just not nut picking to illustrate that progressives are monsters, although some are. A couple of things leap to mind. First of all, disturbing new report reveals that violent political rhetoric online, including calls for the murder of public figures like Donald Trump, Elon Musk and other things is becoming increasingly normalized, particularly on the left. Yeah, I would say specifically what is the justification the just is there justification for the murder of Elon Musk and Donald Trump? All respondents, let's see some or at least partially justified is 31%. Well like some for Elon Musk, first left of center, it's 49.

[Joe Getty]

A lot of it is what I've been talking about. It's the coin of the realm of you have to be just so over the top. You have to be so over the top online to feel like you cut through or it's just the way Everybody talks. I mean, we were talking about this the other day with the stuff we get. I mean, just. Just ridiculously, you know, angry, just beyond anything that makes sense at a radio show. Because that's the way people talk online.

[Jack Armstrong]

And then there's 100% ratio of. You write them back and say, you seem really upset. Here's what's going on. They're like, hey, I'm so sorry I flew off the handle. I was out of line.

[Joe Getty]

So.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, you were. You act like an idiot.

[Joe Getty]

So I think a lot of these people who want to gang rape Republican voters or kill Elon Musk would be the same way. But you can't normalize that kind of talk. You just can't.

[Jack Armstrong]

Left to center, folks says the murder of Donald Trump at least partially justified. 55%. Yeah. How about destroying Tesla dealerships is at least partially acceptable. 58%.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

You can't.

[Joe Getty]

Most of them, like I said, most of them don't mean it at all. But you can't. You can't pretend like that because there are enough crazies that will do this stuff.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. The whole maniacs or people with terrible, terrible ideas getting in reinforcement online. Because if your idea is so effing stupid, only one person out of 75,000 would agree with you. You could find hundreds or thousands of people who agree with you online, but that's still a dumb effing idea. How do we deal with this as a society? Can we. The reinforcement of lunatics online and lunatic movements and ideologies.

[Joe Getty]

Will it never not be the way we talk online to just be, like, incredibly over the top? I don't know. You have to be a major cultural change.

[Jack Armstrong]

More to be said on this, and I'm sure we will.

[Joe Getty]

Bringing back to life ancient species. Is that a good idea?

[Peter Navarro]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jeremy Scott]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Jeremy Scott]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Gilbert King]

Forward and he was just staring at me.

[Jeremy Scott]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Gilbert King]

I'm Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and. And the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Jeremy Scott]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Jeremy Scott]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Jeremy Scott]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2, starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Joe Getty]

So I never watched Game of Thrones. So I didn't know that direwolf was a thing on Game of Thrones. I'm not sure I've ever even thought about a dire wolf for a second in my life. Till yesterday.

[Jack Armstrong]

One of the many extinct beasts that used to roam the countryside.

[Joe Getty]

Jack, I'll take your word for it. For whatever reason, this had never crossed my transom or whatever. I just was unaware of the direwolf. But. So I watched the news last night. It. It's funny. We're just. We're just a dumb people. We're just so comfortable and happy, and our news gives us dumb news so we can float through the day and.

[Jack Armstrong]

Another killer storm raging across the country every damn night.

[Joe Getty]

And I don't know why we're all treated like idiots. Maybe because we act like idiots, but. So I'm looking at the headlines here from today.com Extinct direwolf seen on Game of Thrones has been revived on ABC News, which we're gonna play the ABC News clip. That was not the dire wolves clip. That was Chicken Jockey from the Minecraft movie.

[Jack Armstrong]

Minecraft. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Where's our direwolves? ABC News report.

[Jack Armstrong]

This is going well.

[Joe Getty]

How about not going well? Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

In a first for science, biotech company Colossal Biosciences says it brought the extinct dire wolf back to life. A species that hasn't walked the Earth.

[Joe Getty]

Since the Stone Age. We've taken a gray wolf genome which.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is already genetically 99.5% identical to dire.

[Joe Getty]

Wolves, and we've edited those cells at.

[Jack Armstrong]

Multiple places in its DNA sequence to contain the direwolf version of the DNA. The company tells us they're not stopping there. They plan to have woolly mammoths roaming the earth again by 2028. But critics argue that this de extinction could harm fragile ecosystems.

[Joe Getty]

Back to you. So I played this for my son last night, and he's super into evolution and all this. I mean, he spends so much time, like, watching YouTube videos and reading about this. He's really into this, for one thing. So I knew he would like this. So I play him this new story, and he puts his hands on the side of his head and he starts walking around the room like this.

[Jack Armstrong]

This.

[Joe Getty]

He said, I have so many problems with this. So many problems with this. First of all, dire wolves are not wolves, he said, so this doesn't make any sense. And he. Then he went to his computer and was googling things, everything like that. So, as I pointed out, our domestic news coverage is all. They've brought back the direwolf for the first time in 13,500 years. But any real news source, unfortunately, like Al Jazeera, their headline has the direwolf come back? No, it hasn't. Or, you know, other other news outlets that are like real news, point out that that scientist you just heard from there, she works for a company that is somehow trying to profit off of pretending to bring back extinct animals.

[Jack Armstrong]

Now, I don't know is exactly correct. That is what they're doing. Do you remember a few weeks ago, we brought you the story? They're trying to revive the woolly mammoth. No, they're trying to make hairy elephants.

[Joe Getty]

That's it.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's what they tweak the genes of elephants to make them hairy.

[Joe Getty]

That's what they did here. They made a white, slightly bigger gray wolf. Now, her saying dire wolves and wolves share 99% of the genetics or whatever, what they developed it. Well, you've probably heard before, we're 99% the same as a chimpanzee, but that don't mean we're the same thing. So they did not make a sign.

[Jack Armstrong]

I want to date one.

[Joe Getty]

Doesn't mean that their little direwolf puppy is a direwolf. Just because they got 99% of the way, you know, see the example of humans and chimpanzees, but ABC reports it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Breathlessly with a smile on the little puppies. And then one sentence about critics say it could harm fragile ecosystems. Yeah, good report. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You can't call that news. Well, right, not news. It's eye candy for dopes.

[Joe Getty]

Eye candy for dopes. So they use CRISPR technology, which has been around for quite a few years now and is interesting and highly troubling in the way that you can get there in there and genetically modified genes and for animals or people, they transferred the genetic material from a, from a, a gray wolf to a domestic dog. What they really wanted was white wolves. White gray wolves, that was their main thing. And, and, and, and got where they wanted to be. These three genetically engineered wolves may resemble the extinct dire wolf. But they are just flat. Not according to actual scientists who aren't trying to profit from us. They're going to be pretty big. So what, what is their game here though, this company, Colossus, I think it's called? What is their game? Are they going to have a. I'll use Jurassic park, but. But sort of park and charge a bunch of money for people to go in and watch, look at dire wolves, woolly mammoths, whatever else they claim they brought back. Is that the deal? It's got to be a for profit.

[Jack Armstrong]

Thing or sell them to people. Yeah, yeah. I suspect it's one of those two things. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Huh.

[Jack Armstrong]

So I said that the Dire Wolf stood 10ft at the shoulder and had teeth the length of steak knives. Turns out, no, it was about 132 pounds, 150 pounds maybe, but significantly bigger. Size of the largest modern gray wolves.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Your average male is bigger than the average male wolves that exist on earth currently. And they're. And their biting power is like greater than a lion or anything like that. So that's what they're really amazing at. I didn't know this skull of the.

[Jack Armstrong]

Thing is, is really impressive.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. So my son told me this. We went to the. If you've never been to the La Brea Tar Pits in la. Oh my gosh, you should do that sometime. So fascinating. I'd wanted to go there my whole life and my, my 13 year old and I went there last summer. But they have an entire wall of wolf skulls there. Thousands of wolf skulls.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow.

[Joe Getty]

From, you know, 15,000 years ago whenever it was. And my son pointed out last night, those are all direwolf skulls. That's what those all are. And they would, they would get stuck in the tar pits trying to get other animals that were stuck there and think, oh cool, a free meal. Then they'd get stuck in the tar pit and then eventually die. There's so many direwolf skulls there and they're quite large. But the main point being. Well, I guess my main point is the journalism. Why do we live in a world where ABC and Today want to say, look, they brought back the direwolf from extinction with no caveats or any deeper thought that why, why are we like this?

[Jack Armstrong]

David Muir with his serious face and serious voice and big, giant weightlifting arms, bringing you the news every evening, not even bothering to verify the simplest of facts.

[Joe Getty]

And I'm not trying to just be like a cynic, poo, pooing things. Just. You just told me something that's not true is the thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, right.

[Joe Getty]

Pretended like it was. And you know it's not. That's what bothers me. You know it's not.

[Jack Armstrong]

They care enough to know it's not.

[Joe Getty]

If you scratch the surface, you know that it's not exactly true. So why, why do we do this? And who cares about the direwolf? But it factors in with all our other stuff, our economic reporting and our political stories and all the other stuff. Why do they treat us like we're morons?

[Jack Armstrong]

It's their business plan.

[Joe Getty]

Why does it work? I guess. Although it's not working near as well.

[Jack Armstrong]

As it used to. No, indeed. Well, it's not nearly as good as it used to be. I would like to know. To get inside the head of the media elite would be very difficult because they are, as we've said a thousand times, a very, very small, strange subculture. They live lives totally foreign to the vast majority of Americans. They have attitudes that are just bizarre to the vast majority of Americans. They believe things that practically nobody believes out in the country. And yet they are our source of so much information. It's unhealthy. And people are sensing that and unplugging, which I think is good.

[Joe Getty]

MIT Technology Review, which sounds like a more serious publication. Game of Clones Colossal's new wolves are cute, but are they dire? And then they explain how they're not dire wolves. But like I said today.com, which is NBC, the extinct direwolf is back as seen on Game of Thrones. So I mean, that's just for the dumbest people. Same company that runs today.com though is NBC. And their headline was a much more reasonable scientist. Scientists genetically engineer wolves with white hair like the extinct direwolf. So making no claim whatsoever other than we changed the hair color of gray wolves.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. Okay, so this is getting more interesting to me. So like back in the day when General Motors had, and I don't remember the specific order, but they intentionally had a Buick for entry level car buyers. Then as your salary grew, perhaps you'd move up to a Pontiac and then eventually you're going to buy yourself a Cadillac. But they were all GM cars. So NBC News division evidently has a series of offerings for the half wit, the third wit, and the tragic quarter wit. I mean your true paste eating morons. And that would be today.com or the ABC Nightly News. Yeah, that's for the true knuckle deep nose pickers.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, because what they did is they altered gray wolves to make their hair white. That's almost the End of the story, right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, let's see. That's akin to the Chinese Zeus shaving a chow and calling it a panda and saying, the Chinese welcomed a new panda. No, they didn't.

[Joe Getty]

Yes, Michael.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, that is, that is.

[Joe Getty]

That is really funny.

[Jack Armstrong]

Quick word from our friends at prize.

[Joe Getty]

My son was so angry about this. Although we haven't gotten to the. The main question. The main question after this.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh my gosh, I thought we dealt with so many good questions. But the main one still to come. So prize picks, super easy. All you do is pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to a thousand times your cash. And prize picks is the best place to get real money sports action. You can even mix and match sports. You got a baseball theory and a basketball theory. Combine them in your lineup.

[Joe Getty]

God, I don't know what the more or less was for anybody looking at that Florida player last night, their big giant star who scored 11 points. But man, it's hard to predict sports. If you have strong opinions though, you could turn them into cash with prize picks. The NBA season is really getting into the exciting part. So download the prize picks app today and jump on that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's a great deal too. Use that Code Armstrong to get $50 instantly after you play just a five dollar lineup. That's right, you play five dollars, they give you fifty bucks to play around with. If you use the Code Armstrong, you don't need to win. It's automatic. Again, the prize picks app. Use the Code Armstrong prize picks game.

[Joe Getty]

My son, in a really weird way is stomping around the bedroom, his hands on his head. The dire wolf is more related to a hyena. It split with the dog a billion years ago. It's not even a saw, this sort of stuff. But then he said, but ultimately, why? Why are we doing this? And I thought that is a really good question. Why are we doing this? Why is everybody screaming this direction to where we. At some point, I would imagine we'll have the technological ability to actually bring back a woolly mammoth or a direwolf or whatever.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's conceivably. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Or a dinosaur like, you know, Jurassic Park. Why would mankind do that? Just because. Hey, that'd be cool. Doesn't seem like a good enough reason with all the possible downsides.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. Yeah. Well, I think the current state of things is you have well meaning people who think these species are extinct. That's very sad. Let's make them uninterested, unextinct, which is fine. And then you've got the people who could actually do it, and they're just at this point based on profiting from half wits, I think.

[Joe Getty]

But that's a weird view of the world. If you're concerned about species going extinct today because, you know, they turned a big chunk of the rainforest into a mall and you lost some beast, I can understand being sad about that. But things that went extinct tens of thousands of years ago, that sounds like that was nature's plan to me. So you're sad.

[Jack Armstrong]

What if they're hunted to extinction by man, for instance? Is that a different case or.

[Joe Getty]

That seems like a weird anti man bias for some reason? I mean, 35,000 years ago, you don't think that. That, that's. Are we not part of nature, Mankind?

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a great question. Yeah, Yeah. I was not arguing a point. I was just curious to know your point.

[Joe Getty]

I don't. I don't know where you cut it off.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm pretty sure if animals are big, slow, lumbering, and delicious, they're not going to last. Delicious, right?

[Joe Getty]

And there are plenty of beasts that went extinct without mankind being involved at all. All your dinosaurs, you're sad about that and they need to be brought back. I just. I don't even understand the theory on that anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

The three great threats facing the United States of America, I have identified them for you. We will begin fighting them in a moment.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, boy. On the way.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jeremy Scott]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Jeremy Scott]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Gilbert King]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Jeremy Scott]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Gilbert King]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Jeremy Scott]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Jeremy Scott]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Jeremy Scott]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Joe Getty]

DARPA. You think DARPA's behind bringing back the direwolf? Like we're gonna release it on the Chinese or something? I don't. Maybe.

[Jack Armstrong]

Maybe a certain commentator texted me privately. Never mind the dire wolf. Bring back free market Republicans and make them woolly. I said, why not make them woolly? So these are odd times. Speaking of which. So we could easily have done an hour or two or three on what I'm going to hit you with, but we're up against a heartbreak, so it's going to be very brief and we can elaborate through the hours and days and weeks ahead. But I'm scanning all of the news stories assembled in various groups to talk about today or later on in the week, and they really fall into three distinct threats to the United States Western civilization. Number one is our own bloat and decadence. And we're talking about the labor participation rate among working. You mean me personally? Yes, I was talking about you. I didn't want to be too hurtful, but yes, no, no. As a society, we are very, very soft. Decadent is is the right word. We are so comfortable and wealthy that we have lost the ability to fend for ourselves. And how that works itself out is anybody's guess. The, you know, the unbreakable cycle of civilizations that hard times make for tough people, tough people make for good times, good times make for soft people, soft people make for hard times. I don't, I don't know how you get out of that. But the number, the number two threat is, call it the neo Marxists, the woke, the postmodernists that want to tear down Western civilization. And the thing I want to say about that and this, this one, I could bring you all sorts of details, is that there's a feeling, even I get it now, that partly because of what Trump's doing, reigning in the universities and corporations like hitting reverse on the DEI programs and eliminating those offices, it feels like progress is being made. I can bring you 10 great examples of how the Dei Neo Marxist thing is forging ahead and growing, especially in education in the United States and Britain, too. But our educational system is perhaps, and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here, because I try to avoid that. I think our education system, k through graduate school, is the threat to the United States that could bring us down. I agree with Lincoln. No external threat could bring us down. China's getting fearsome enough that it could be a serious problem. But the internal threat Lincoln spoke of is our educational systems.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. It's interesting. I remember when Jordan Peterson said, our university system is now a net negative for the country. And I thought, wow, that's a pretty strong statement, but.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. Yeah, I agree with him. And then the third fundamental threat, I think, to our beloved republic is Islamism. Fundamentalist Islam, Sharia ism, whatever you want to call it, which is on the march all over the world. We talk about it among the Palestinians and Hamas and how they're willing to, as many of their own children slaughtered to bring the glory of Allah to the earth. Islamism is fundamentally and flamingly incompatible with Western civilization and our Constitution in particular. Sharia law cannot be laid over or around our Constitution. It's impossible.

[Joe Getty]

And Iran's trying to get the bomb, which would not be good.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. And hundreds of millions of people around the world, certainly not all Muslims, but many, many of them, their fondest goal, their most beautiful dream, is that Islam conquers the world. And we all live under Sharia law. And post. Post 9 11, I think a lot of us in the west thought, well, that's over. Thank goodness Osama bin Laden is gone and, you know, we've battered Hamas and Hezbollah. So, okay, we're done. We're not. We're not within a thousand years of being done.

[Joe Getty]

Well, they certainly don't think so in Europe.

[Jack Armstrong]

No.

[Joe Getty]

Germany, France, Great Britain.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Where they bought the argument that multiculturalism is wonderful and that these people just want to assimilate and love Germany and we can all live side by side. No, you can't have people with fundamentally incompatible cultural beliefs, political beliefs, largest beliefs, mixing happily. It doesn't happen. I mean, it could conceivably happen in certain settings that are strictly controlled, but it's a dangerous thing. Anyway, more on all those things to come.

[Joe Getty]

We are so lucky that Joe almost went to Life School, law school, and Life School. That Joe almost went to law school. So he can tell us what the Supreme Court ruling meant yesterday around the whole immigration thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, yeah. I've read, like, three books about the law, too, so I'm ready to go.

[Joe Getty]

Cool, we'll get to that. Hour three. If you missed a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on Demand.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jeremy Scott]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Jeremy Scott]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day. I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Jeremy Scott]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2, starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.