Visibly Intoxicated

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: “Visibly Intoxicated”

Release Date: May 21, 2026
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on contemporary American issues ranging from tech billionaire Jeff Bezos’s thoughts on AI and inefficiency in public education, to the aftermath of a tragic mosque shooting in San Diego, and recent political developments including insights into LA politics and the Democratic Party’s election autopsy. Throughout, the hosts bring their mix of skepticism, sharp commentary, and dry humor, questioning the intentions of leaders, visionaries, and the practical implications of big societal shifts.

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Key Topics & Segments

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1. The Jeff Bezos Interview: Education, AI, and Economic Mysteries

(02:14–15:03)

Jeff Bezos on Public School Spending

• Summary:
  Bezos criticized the inefficiency of New York City’s public schools, comparing their high per-student spending with worse outcomes relative to other major cities.
• Notable Quote:
  • “If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system... your packages would take six weeks to arrive. We’d have to charge you a $400 delivery fee. And then when the package did finally arrive, it’d have the wrong item in it anyway.”
    — Jeff Bezos (03:22)
• Host Reaction:
  • Jack: “It doesn’t surprise me that Bezos looks at how do you spend more than every other city in America by a lot and get worse results for your students? How do you possibly do that?” (04:28)
  • Joe: “Government schools... are now a grift, Jeff. They don’t exist to educate children. They exist as an employment program for people who vote left.” (05:00)

Bezos, AI, and the Future of Work

• Bezos’s optimism: AI will massively boost productivity, potentially allowing many Americans to forgo dual-income households. He predicts possible deflation and abundance if government doesn’t stifle progress with regulation.
  • “It’s like you’ve been digging out a basement for your house with a shovel and somebody’s about to hand you a bulldozer. You should be so happy.” (06:02)
• Skepticism from the hosts:
  • Jack: “Why is a company going to produce all this stuff and then just give it to me?... Who’s going to collect the money from the productivity and then give it back out? I still don’t understand the mechanism.” (07:35, 08:20)
  • Joe: “If there’s somebody willing to do it for less and every bit as capable, they should get the job... I don’t understand how this works.” (08:50, 09:31)

Memorable exchange:

• Jack: “Maybe I’m just a dunce. Maybe it is just… they’re trying to explain something difficult to a dumb guy.” (13:04)
• Joe: “This jack of dunce will take your calls.” (13:19)

Notable Segment

• The hosts highlight that visionaries like Bezos, Musk, and Altman often “skip over” real-world economic mechanisms, drawing a contrast between utopian productivity and practical redistribution.
• Joe: “The greater the sum of money changing hands, the greater incentive there is for corruption and waste… barring some change in human nature, which ain’t coming, we’re looking at an incredibly corrupt, wasteful, bizarre set of misplaced… incentives.” (13:22)

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2. Breaking News: Democrats’ 2024 “Autopsy” & LA Mayoral Drama

(17:27–22:26; 39:10–41:58)

DNC’s 2024 Loss “Autopsy”

• The Democratic National Committee’s internal investigation into its 2024 loss is leaked; rumors hint it's highly critical of Kamala Harris, with insiders already disavowing the document.
  • “I gotta believe it’s going to be really hard on Kamala.” — Jack (17:34)
  • “People are already disavowing it; that’s why I’m so excited for the details.” — Jack (18:25)

LA’s Mayoral Race & Spencer Pratt’s Political Switch

• Reality star Spencer Pratt runs as a Republican against incumbent Karen Bass, with campaign ads drawing attention.
• Pratt, a former Democrat, recounts that threats and the need for self-defense (and lack of support for gun rights in blue areas) pushed him toward the GOP:
  • “The only people that supported a CCW was the Republican. That was what I aligned with. My safety, my personal saving, my family’s safety.” — Spencer Pratt (40:13)
• Jack and Joe riff on the irony of gun restrictions for law-abiding citizens versus criminal leniency.

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3. AI Regulation and the Limits of Government Intervention

(23:34–24:33; 37:45–37:52)

• Governor Gavin Newsom signs an executive order to explore regulations that would require companies to retain workers replaced by AI.
  • “The government’s going to force you to keep your employees whether you need them or not. If you start using AI.” — Jack (24:25)
  • Joe: Unworkable, unconstitutional, pandering nonsense.” (24:25)
• The hosts express skepticism that such regulatory efforts could be effective or constitutional.

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4. The San Diego Mosque Shooting

(24:36–33:51)

Main Discussion

• Two shooters, live-streaming the attack in first-person style, kill three at the Islamic Center of San Diego.
• Jack and Joe analyze the new trend of mass shooters seeking viral infamy and note disturbing psychological trends in youth—difficulty distinguishing online from real-world consequences:
  • “It’s practically like LARPing… it doesn’t seem any more or less real than all the other stuff you see online.” — Jack (28:11)
• The shooters were inspired by the infamous 2019 New Zealand mosque attacker, perpetuating a “high score” culture in extremist online communities.

Controversy and Biases

• The hosts discuss problematic social media responses, conspiracy theories, and hateful rhetoric.
• There’s focus on problematic history inside the mosque (including antisemitic social media posts), but the hosts are clear that such background does not justify violence or diminish heroism shown:
  • “Any morally sane person should unequivocally and immediately condemn this senseless act.” — Joe (30:52)
• Discussion expands on how toxic slogans and a public culture that justifies violence against demonized outgroups is a dangerous road.

Notable Quote

• “Horrifyingly, public discourse has grown increasingly comfortable with slogans that sanctify violence in the name of justice… violence, even mass violence, can be celebrated if its victims are sufficiently condemnable.” — Rabbi essay, read by Joe (32:41)

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5. Bruce Springsteen, Stephen Colbert, & Political Bubbles

(19:02–22:10)

• Briefly addresses Springsteen’s performance and comments on political persecution of Colbert.
• Armstrong avoids the political parts of recent Springsteen concerts.
• Discussion on professional “bubbles”:
  • “In Democrat dominated fields it’s 95% [Democrat]… You never hear that point of view on the left. The left is way more bubbled than the right.” — Joe (21:44)

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6. Hot Dogs, Memorial Day, & The Effort-to-Deliciousness Algorithm

(35:53–37:26)

• Armstrong & Getty lighten the mood by riffing on the glories of grilling hot dogs for Memorial Day versus labor-intensive cooking.

• Joe invents the “effort to deliciousness” algorithm for meal evaluation.

  “I slaved over a meal once… family reunion. It was quite good… next day hamburgers on the grill… took a tenth of the time and it’s like 79 to 85% as yummy.”
  — Joe (36:36)

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7. Healthcare, Social Policy, and “Meth Mouth”

(37:52–40:07)

• Discussion of LA Mayor Karen Bass’s comments on dental care for the homeless.
  • Armstrong objects to public expense for dentures for people who lost teeth to meth, sarcastically suggesting, “Of course, if you give a meth head teeth, the first thing they’re going to do is clean up their act, get a job…” (38:41)

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Notable Quotes

• “Every great cause becomes a business and ends up a grift.” — Joe Getty on public schooling (05:00)
• “Why is a company going to produce all this stuff and then just give it to me?” — Jack Armstrong (07:35)
• “If there’s somebody willing to do it for less and every bit as capable, they should get the job.” — Joe Getty (08:20)
• “Barring some change in human nature… we’re looking at an incredibly corrupt, wasteful, bizarre set of misplaced… incentives and disincentives. Somebody draw me a picture.” — Joe Getty (13:22)
• “The only people that supported a CCW was the Republican. That was what I aligned with. My safety, my personal saving, my family’s safety.” — Spencer Pratt (40:13)
• “It’s practically like LARPing… it doesn’t seem any more or less real than all the other stuff you see online.” — Jack Armstrong (28:11)
• “Public discourse has grown increasingly comfortable with slogans that sanctify violence in the name of justice…” — Joe Getty, quoting a rabbi (32:41)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:14–05:38 – Bezos on education spending and government inefficiency
• 06:02–10:52 – Bezos & AI optimism; hosts’ skepticism about productivity and redistribution
• 17:27–18:30 – DNC’s 2024 election “autopsy” leaks
• 19:02–22:10 – Springsteen/Colbert & political echo chambers
• 23:34–24:33 – Newsom’s AI/layoffs executive order
• 24:36–33:51 – San Diego mosque shooting: details, psychology, extremism, social media fallout
• 39:10–41:58 – Spencer Pratt: Gun rights and his shift to the GOP
• 35:53–37:26 – Grilling vs. elaborate cooking: Joe’s “effort to deliciousness” algorithm

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Conclusion

This episode is a tapestry of current events, skepticism about AI’s utopian promises, concern over increasing violence and conspiratorial thinking, and classic Armstrong & Getty irreverence. The hosts repeatedly push back on simplistic explanations from powerful visionaries and politicians, insist on practical accountability, and expose the weird, sometimes disturbing ways tech and politics intersect with ordinary life.

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For more, listen to the full episode or catch Armstrong & Getty On Demand wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

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broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

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

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know actually what I think of Jeff Bezos. Do you have an opinion on Jeff Bezos? I feel like for some reason I didn't like him, but I don't even remember why. Because he ran the Washington Post. Maybe. But he's been trying to turn it around to a certain extent.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I like that, you know, mixed bag. He's a super ambitious, super creative go getter guy. That's the kind of guy who can impress you and leave some bruises.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, his showy wedding I thought was a bad look. Just that like daily doing this for the public. Why?

[Joe Getty]

Why for a week?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, why? You gotta have all this attention on

[Joe Getty]

you get the astonishing levels of consumption, etc. Yeah, right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Conspicuous consumption. I think that's driven by his wife more than him. Anywho, Jeff Bezos, second richest man in the world, got rich through Amazon mostly. He's got his own big rocket company like Elon and, and is the owner of the Washington Post. Sat down with CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin yesterday, answered a whole bunch of questions on a bunch of different topics, particularly like this shot at Mayor Mondani.

[Jeff Bezos (clip)]

The New York City school system, right, they spent 44,000 DOL per student. 44,000. That's 30% more per student than other big cities like Chicago, Louisiana and Boston. And it's three times more than Miami and Houston. And by the way, New York City doesn't get better outcomes. So this. Listen, let me, let me just say if, if, if we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, right, your packages would take six weeks to arrive. We'd have to charge you dol delivery fee. And then when the package did finally arrive, it have the wrong item in it anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

People like Bezos and Elon, this is why Elon got involved in Doge, because they are businessmen that have to figure out the most efficient way to do everything to survive. And some people who work for Amazon would are well aware of how

[Joe Getty]

perhaps brutally efficient it is.

[Jack Armstrong]

Bezos tries to get the most out of people for the least amount of money, as pretty much all corporations always have to try to get ahead, man, they look at government and it just, they just, they just can't understand how it could possibly happen. Then you get involved like Elon did, and you realize there's all kinds of forces arrayed against you to be efficient in the way that you can be in the private sector. But that's a different topic. But yeah, it doesn't surprise me that Bezos looks at how do you spend more than every other city in America by a lot and get worse results for your students? How do you possibly do that? Right.

[Joe Getty]

Well, he's overlooking the main point that needs to be the takeaway from all of this stuff. And it's a very cynical one, but it's accurate. It goes back to the Every great cause becomes a business and ends up a grift. So it is for government schools. They are now a grift, Jeff. They don't exist to educate children. They exist as an employment program for people who vote left. That's why they keep pumping more money into it, because they achieve their objective, which is distributing the money. Jeff, Their objective is no longer to educate children. That's why it needs to be torn down.

[Jack Armstrong]

So in hour one, we played his response to the AOCs of the world who say, you can't become a billionaire, it's impossible without being a crook. And he pushes back on that and explains why that's stupid, which it is stupid. So if you, if you didn't get the chance to hear that, go get our podcast, Armstrong and Getty on Demand and check out our one. But I haven't actually heard this one about the benefits of AI, which I'm skeptical about. Here's Jeff Bezos on CNBC yesterday.

[Jeff Bezos (clip)]

So there are so many smart people and they are smart and they are saying, oh my God, you know, there's going to be no more radiologists because, you know, AI can read X rays better than a radiologist can. And they're going to be no more software engineers because AI can program better than a software engineer can. These people are wrong. So what's really going to happen is that it's going to elevate all of these people and there's going to. It's like, it's like you've been digging, let's say you're a software engineer, right? What it's, the analogy I can give you is you've been digging out a basement for your house with a shovel and somebody's about to hand you a bulldozer. You should be so happy. If you're digging the basement to your house and somebody says, hey, how about this? I have a tool here that's going to. And what's really going to happen is we're going to have so much productivity in our economy that, for example, example, this is one effect a lot of people who have two earner income households, one of the people is going to drop out of the workforce. That's why we're going to have a labor shortage people. Because of the productivity gains, you're going to be able to afford things. We're going to have, I predict we'll actually have deflation of certain core, assuming we let this technology play out and don't, you know, hamstring it with regulation too early. We will actually have, you know, everything will get, food will get cheaper.

[Jack Armstrong]

So there's another guy who's way smarter than me, Jeff Bezos, saying the same thing Elon's been saying and Altman and Dario from Claude and very that, oh, there's gonna be, there's gonna be so much abundance of everything, you know, no more to work in households. One of you can quit, maybe both of you can quit in the future. Again, skipping over the explanation of why is a company. Why is any company going to produce all this stuff and then just give it to me? Or we're not. I don't understand. Or who's going to collect the money from the productivity and then give it back out? I still don't understand the mechanism for how this works.

[Joe Getty]

Or these now incredibly productive software engineers, to cite, you know, the example he did, they are going to be cut in on the enormous productivity of their companies because there's so much profit, but in defiance of laws of supply and demand, because if there's somebody willing to do it for less and every bit is capable, they should get the job. Yeah, I, Yeah, I know what you're driving at.

[Jack Armstrong]

So, like, if all of a sudden, in the 50s, GM could have made their car for half as much but sold it at the same price, they would have given all those profits to the workers and other people wouldn't have liked, gotten up and moved to Michigan and taken those jobs because they pay so incredibly high, like obscenely high, more than anything else in the world. And then wages are to come down because you got so many people that want the job. Or I just. Again, I, I don't. I don't understand. Like you said, in defiance of all economic laws that have existed in the past, I don't understand how this works.

[Joe Getty]

And in your example, Ford would undercut GM if they were able to do that to lower prices. Then you get the deflation Jeff's talking about, but then that is deflating the profit. Then in theory, we're redistributing somehow to everyone. So somebody can drop out of the

[Jack Armstrong]

workplace and just because we're nice. Yeah. And who's distributing it? The company's gonna send checks to everybody. Or is the government going to take the money and then hand it back out? Because Elon's always talking about the universal uhi, universal high income. But that's. Does he mean from the government?

[Joe Getty]

That's not clear. Well, yeah, they often talk about, you know, 50% taxes and that sort of thing to be redistributed. But when AI. Presumably, if it, if it tracks it all with the way the visionaries are saying it might. The big, most capable AI companies will be much more scary than the government. But don't think what they can do. And so if the government comes and says, yeah, you gotta pay 50% taxes, they'll say, no, I think maybe 30%'s a better number. And at some point a major developed economy, a government will be brought to its knees by an AI company that is going to say in effect, we're going to turn out the lights if you don't come around our point of view.

[Jack Armstrong]

Even before we get to that which you know is not completely fanciful. Doesn't it seem like when Elon and Jeff Bezos and others talk to us, it's like their, their feeling is like, how do you people not understand? I mean it's, it's almost annoying to them that they have to explain this. Like how do you not get how wonderful this is going to be? And are we just all that much

[Joe Getty]

slower of mind than them that it

[Jack Armstrong]

doesn't immediately dawn upon us this new age that's going to be so wonderful?

[Joe Getty]

Well, we're more practical of mind. How's that going to work? I've watched government policy, I've watched taxation take place and redistribution of income. Are angels going to take over that task? Because it looks wasteful and corrupt as hell from where I sit. And we're just talking about making it even bigger and more attractive to those who had built the system. For instance. Well, here's a little upside of AI from our friends at Simplisafe Home security. Simplisafe is not just a camera. It's a comprehensive ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and out and 247 professional monitoring. In the event of a break in fire flood, Simplisafe's agents are ready to take action. And it's just so fantastic and it helps that it includes the AI to alert the, the watchers that they need to watch your house super closely right now.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, in the future, because of AI, nobody will steal from you because everybody will have as many big screen TVs and laptops as they want, I guess. But for now, there are scumbags out there that are willing to break into your house and take your stuff. And it's, it's a hell of a lot harder, practically impossible if you have the simply safe system that I have. And I have it because I like it, not because I'm into a contract. No, they earn your business every day. It's simply safe.

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[Jack Armstrong]

I'm Blown away by how I've not heard an explanation out of any of these people. That registers with me. Maybe I'm just a dunce. Maybe it is just. It's, you know, they're trying to explain something difficult to a dumb guy. Maybe that's it. I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

This jack of dunce will take your calls.

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[Joe Getty]

As long as they come, Michael, just keep putting them through. No, no, not at all. Not at all. In. And again, these are the practical matters that I don't think visionaries think of much, especially if they are so insanely rich that it just doesn't matter to them. They see and look, I didn't want. I don't want Leonardo da Vinci to spend all of his time worrying about air traffic control as he's inventing the hot air balloon or what have you or envisioning space traffic. That's fine. Be a visionary. That's what you do. But here on Earth, the greater the sum of money changing hands, the greater incentive there is for corruption and waste. And so, to me, this all sounds like, barring some change in human nature, which ain't coming, we're looking at an incredibly corrupt, wasteful, bizarre set of misplaced, you know, incentives and disincentives. Somebody draw me a picture.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right? We might look back on this as the age of equality compared to, you know, highest inequality we've seen.

[Joe Getty]

And again, if somebody has the ability, computer and robotic, to accomplish virtually anything, and drones, and the ability for those robots to crank out 1,005 drones by noon today, who's gonna tell them no? All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

I was kind of hoping that Bezos would explain that to me in a way that I understood, but I'm a dunce. I didn't get it. More on the way.

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Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

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[Jack Armstrong]

A couple interesting things coming up. This just broke the Democrats have released

[Joe Getty]

their

[Jack Armstrong]

2024 presidential campaign autopsy. So they did an internal autopsy of what went wrong, why did they lose? And some people wanted to make it public and a lot of people didn't want to make it public thinking it would be embarrassing or cause problems or whatever. Well, for whatever reason it has come out, the details aren't out yet, but it came out in the Washington Post said this is a developing story so I would imagine I gotta believe within an hour or two the amount of time we have left to be on the air, some of it's going to come out. I gotta believe it's going to be really hard on Kamala. But anyway, because I'm looking forward to that.

[Joe Getty]

Come on now the other angle of it is like they've it's come out and the dnc, which put it together is disavowing its its contents.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well yeah, people are already disavowing it that's why I'm so excited for the details to come out.

[Joe Getty]

Right, Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Because it must be disavowable. The other political thing is a big LA mayoral race that's getting so much attention, partially because those crazy A ads that, that are so good that Spencer Pratt's got on his side running against Mayor Karen Bass. He did an interview why he explained why he went from Democrat to Republican. And it's pretty interesting what made him change. Really interesting, actually. So we'll get to that before this hour is up.

[Joe Getty]

Plus some fascinating, troubling stuff about the San Diego mosque shooting that you ain't

[Jack Armstrong]

gonna hear anywhere else in annoying human being news. Bruce Springsteen was on Stephen Colbert last night. Stephen Colbert is brilliant and hilarious and also very annoying politically. Bruce Springsteen is among the greatest singer, songwriter, musicians in the history of music. And politically annoying. And they were both together last night as this is Stephen Colbert's last week of shows.

[Bruce Springsteen (clip)]

Thank you, Stephen. I am here in support tonight for Stephen because you're the first guy in America who's lost his show because we got a president who can't take a

[Jack Armstrong]

joke

[Jeff Bezos (clip)]

and

[Bruce Springsteen (clip)]

because, because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want. So these. Anyway, Stephen, he's a small minded people. They got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about. This is for you.

[Jack Armstrong]

So then what song did he play? You know, I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Hungry Heart, Streets of Minneapolis.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm told it was Streets of Minneapolis. Oh, man. You know how I made it through that song in the concert? So I, I had planned ahead of time. When we went to Springsteen a couple of weeks ago, me and the kids, we went the bathroom during the long he comes out and sits down on the steps speech about America. And I, I knew I didn't want to hear that. So we went to the bathroom. Loved the concert. Didn't want to hear the political talk. Anyway, during the streets of Minneapolis, as a wannabe musician, I spent the whole time to figure, trying to figure out how is his guitar tuned? What are those chords he's playing? I mean, so that got me through the song because it's a well crafted tune. I just think the lyrics are ridiculous.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I'd like to ask Bruce D. Or what is he doing?

[Jack Armstrong]

I can't even tell what that chord is.

[Joe Getty]

I'd like to ask Bruce in that moment that we just heard, hey, Bruce, if your tours were losing like tens of millions of dollars every time you went out on the road, would you keep doing it now he might say, well I'm so freaking rich and I kind of like playing with my friends. That yeah, but if it weren't for that, he'd say no, of course not. I know I wouldn't. That was the problem with how do you.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh you know what?

[Joe Getty]

I answered my own question earlier. How, how do you the fact that those shows are huge money losers. They no longer generate the revenue, they're no longer the prestige, you know, item that they used to be. It's because Bruce, as we discussed in hour one of the show, right is part of the left wing bubble. The what we're talking about is that the most right wingy professions in America are roughly 2/3 right wingy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Two thirds.

[Joe Getty]

So a third of the folks in your field are Democrats and you hear their points of view and you know they're nice folks. But in Democrat dominated fields it's 95%. In the 25 or so most dominated by Democrats, 95%. You don't the very, very few conservatives around are terrified to say anything. So you never hear that point of view on the left. The left is way more bubbled than the right.

[Jack Armstrong]

So we're going to learn more about the mosque shooters.

[Joe Getty]

Yes. And the mosque and there's a lot there. It is a story rich with mem meaning and interest that you're not hearing anywhere else.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, we got a number of things are gonna be really good this next half hour. Hope you can stay here.

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Armstrong and Getty.

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[Joe Getty]

Hey.

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[Jack Armstrong]

So this is kind of interesting. So we just heard from Jeff Bezos a little bit ago we were playing that clip about AI and he throws in at the end, if government doesn't get in the way with a bunch of regulations that keeps us from being able to do this, which is its own topic around AI. This is breaking news. Governor Gavin Newsom just signed an executive order to explore a broad overhaul of labor policies that would force AI companies or various companies to keep employees rather than replace them with AI. So the government's going to force you to keep your employees whether you need them or not. If you start using AI. That's the sort of regulation Jeff Bezos is talking about getting in the way of this being able to accomplish what they think we could accomplish.

[Joe Getty]

Unworkable, unconstitutional, pandering nonsense.

[Jack Armstrong]

Maybe we'll get out of Gavin Newsom.

[Joe Getty]

I expect better. Wait, no, I don't.

[Jack Armstrong]

We'll get into some more of the details of that later.

[Joe Getty]

You may remember this happened just Monday morning.

[News Reporter]

Authorities have revealed the two shooters were wearing body armor and camouflage, armed with shotguns, rifles and handguns when they stormed the Islamic center of San Diego, shooting and killing three people, including a hero security guard. They live streamed the attack using what appear to be helmet cameras.

[Joe Getty]

So this is obviously a very serious topic, but there are a number of really interesting aspects of it that are being ignored by the mainstream media. Now the first part obviously is not being ignored because they just referenced it there. These confused, troubled young men who desired to commit suicide. But like is the trend these days, thought, why don't I attach myself to a cause I've just come across, kill some people in the midst of my suicide. So it matters. And maybe I get on tv, which I think is a pretty good description of what a lot of these things are, which is just. It's horrifying in its stupidity.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I know, I know. When you find out what morons these people were or how recently they came to their moronic beliefs. Oh yeah, the fact that people lose their lives over that is almost too much to take.

[Joe Getty]

Oh yeah. Because indeed, if somebody interceded or there's just a twist of fate, they'd probably move on to something else. You know, six weeks be into like really into skateboarding. Anyway, these guys indeed. Recorded with helmet cams, it appears in the style of a first person shooter game. It appears to show the perspective of one of the gunmen as he storms the mosque, opens fire, steps over a fallen body. At the video's end, the camera records the guns gunman raising a pistol to his chin, then slumping forward in a torrent of blood. It's been viewed many, many times and chopped up and redistributed on the Internet in the extremist corners of the Internet.

[Jack Armstrong]

So how did it. So somebody captured it before it all got taken down. Is that how it's still floating around out there?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, they're live streaming it. And in that part of the Internet, if you see something extreme like that being live streamed, you capture it because you know people will want to see. Extends a pattern of bloodshed inspired by the web where in recent years video recorded slayings have been live streamed on a Facebook and twitch, reposted onto YouTube and X and cut into memes across Reddit and 4chan. The videos so frequently cite one another.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, this is.

[Joe Getty]

This is an understatement that they raised fears from extremism experts that they could motivate copycats could. Clearly they do. And the manifesto by these two teenage half wits were inspired. It says they were inspired by the Australian gunman in 2019 who killed 51 people around two mosques in New Zealand, which you may remember. And he streamed that massacre live on Facebook. And in fact, in those communities they refer to that monster. I'm not going to give his name, but they refer to that monster as the guy with the high score.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, I am. I'm disturbed by the notion that our minds aren't doing a good job of separating online life from real life. And. And it's practically like LARPing.

[Joe Getty]

You're.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's like LARPing with you dead at the end and a whole bunch of other people are dead at the end. But in the. The reason it's attractive to you is it doesn't seem any more or less real than all the other stuff you see online. It's not.

[Joe Getty]

Right. Right. And I've. I've actually read experts in young human psychology talking about how because most young people can't conceive of death or the end, they picture life continuing after they're dead. But now everybody's been straightened out. You know, in a way that seems ridiculous when you say it out loud, but if you were ever young, I think you know what I'm slash, they are driving it anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

Like you're gonna get to watch your funeral and all the people be sad that you're gone. Right.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly. And you'll just go about your business wherever else in heaven or whatever, in your own mind. It will continue in a way that's utterly unrealistic. But I want to move on to something different. These guys, their rambling 75 page manifesto was like Hating on everybody. It was a teenage version of I'm a newly formed bigot or something like that. But as hours passed, more and more came out, not only about the shooters, but about individuals associated with the mosque. On October 20, 2023, for example, the mosque's imam declared in a sermon that when people are occupied, then the resistance is justified. Talking about Palestinians, that same month, his wife posted a gruesome meme of a Star of David beheading babies along the caption, the devil is killing. Archived Facebook posts appear to show the security guard who was killed while protecting the congregation. And he's been hailed as a hero over and over again. Right. His Facebook posts show him praising Hitler and writing that hellfire is waiting for the Jews, all the Jews. These sentiments are abhorrent and poisonous to a pluralistic democracy. They did nothing to diminish the immeasurable weight of the crime, writes this one essayist who happened to be a rabbi, but. So you had a lot of really brutal Islamist ugliness coming out of the mosque, which in no way justifies slaughtering innocents, but. And then doesn't make you any less

[Jack Armstrong]

of a hero for giving your life to keep a bunch of school kids from being shot either.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Was. Yeah. It's funny you've referenced school kids. I. I'm not. Was that what was going on at the time?

[Jack Armstrong]

It's a Mosk and school and there were lots of children there.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

You haven't seen the video of the kids holding the hands, leaving the school.

[Joe Getty]

Have actually. That one. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so any morally sane person should unequivocally and immediately condemn this senseless act. I would, I would agree completely. Yet in the aftermath of San Diego shooting, it was all too easy to find idiocy and lunacy on display. Laura Loomer, far right political activist and Trump ally, tweeted. The shooting in California took place at a jihadi mosque known for its hate preachers. This shooting was likely planned by Muslim in the Islamic lobby in America to spread more Islamophobia laws and create sympathy for Islamic invaders in America. It's a person with many, many, many, many followers. And then, let's see, there was another one. Somebody else said it was actually a false flag, something, something. So immediately, everybody latched on to their side and how. It was clearly proof that, you know, whatever is happening. Yeah, a lot of craziness, a lot of ugliness.

[Jack Armstrong]

There's your quote of the week.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

This whole, you know, talking to chatbots, it's. What was that?

[Joe Getty]

The.

[Jack Armstrong]

The The Turing Test. Maybe we have a Turing Test beyond. Just like, like, you know, a computer, you can't tell a computer for a human. Like the next level is you can't quite differentiate real life from online life. So you, like, you take things from online into the real world and can't tell the difference.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

And then people end up dead.

[Joe Getty]

So I found the quote that I was looking for to wrap this up. This this rabbi is writing talks about the from the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham by the Klan to the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh that killed 11 and injured eight. Here's the common thread. The strained American public life remains alive and well. And for the past two and a half years, in particular since October 7th, horrifyingly, public discourse has grown increasingly comfortable with slogans that sanctify violence in the name of justice. The streets have rung with phrases like resistance is justified and Long live the Intifada. Slogans predicated on the idea that violence, including mass violence against religious communities, can be explained away, even celebrated, if its victims are sufficiently condemnable. Which is what we got out of those half wits at the Louis Luigi Mangioni trial as well. Slogans predicated on the idea that violence, even mass violence, can be celebrated if its victims are sufficient, sufficiently condemnable.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's pretty. That doesn't take you good places.

[Joe Getty]

No, sir. No it doesn't. A more life affirming note, ironically, from our friends at Trust and Will. You want to do the right thing for the people you care about, even if they're, even after you're gone and you don't want to leave them embroiled in a bitter fight over who raises your children, God forbid, where your money goes, where your assets go, that sort of thing. Because probate's a nightmare. Trust and Will makes it easy to do the right thing. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney designed estate plans online that you can create in as little as 30 minutes.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yep. In as little as 30 minutes you can create a will that does document who's going to take your kids so they don't end up in the care of the state. Where's your money going? Who's getting how much of what health care planning that you need to have.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

In 30 minutes you could get started on this, this big project you've been putting off because it seems so, you know, intimidating. Get started. And then if you, you need attorney support that's available as an add on to your plan gets more complicated.

[Joe Getty]

Trust and Will Affordable estate plans Priceless peace of mind. Go to trustandwill.com Armstrong Get 20 off. Nice slurring there, John. Visibly intoxicated. That's trustandwill.com Armstrong Trust and will.com Armstrong I have to drink to get through our previous discussion.

[Jack Armstrong]

Visibly intoxicated.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Knee. Walking drunk.

[Jack Armstrong]

See, if you're moving the visible. The visible part would be stumbling, swerving. If you're standing perfectly still, the visible would have to be what?

[Joe Getty]

Sway back and forth, Glassy eyes, blank expression. We know the luck. Yes. I've seen it in the mirror.

[Jack Armstrong]

Visibly drunk. I don't think I've ever said that to myself.

[Joe Getty]

Looking in the mirror, visibly, audibly drunk.

[Jack Armstrong]

Good Lord, you're visibly drunk. Broke.

[Bruce Springsteen (clip)]

That's.

[Jack Armstrong]

Maybe that's your goal for Memorial Day weekend. Yikes.

[Joe Getty]

No, no.

[Jack Armstrong]

I ordered some hamburger buns. Hamburgers, hot dogs and hot dog buns. I'm getting ready for the Memorial Day weekend.

[Joe Getty]

That's so smart. I need to do the same.

[Jack Armstrong]

Do you have any idea why a hot dog is so much better on the grill?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Kind of caramelizes this and that, so it turns certain things into sugars in a way that blah, blah, blah.

[Jack Armstrong]

But it doesn't. I'm not a chef, but because we'd been like in the winter time cooking them and split them in half. Cook them in a panther. They're good, but they're not near as good as on the open flame.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I would agree.

[Jack Armstrong]

We were all talking about this the other night. We made them on the open flame. We hadn't for a while. It's just like. This is a different thing. They're delicious.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. I need to come up with Getty's scale or algorithm or something. I've talked about this before. I slaved, enslaved and slaved over a meal once for a family reunion. It was quite good. But I mean, it was an unbelievable amount of work. And then the next day, I think we had hamburgers on the grill and I thought, ah, this took a tenth of the time and it's like 79 to 85% as yummy.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I'm never going to. Oh, we're having hamburgers on the grill. I'm never, ever gonna say that.

[Joe Getty]

Make sure you slice up some onion for me. Love that onion.

[Jack Armstrong]

And I can't do onion if it eats a whole stomach. That's no good. Ketchup mustard, though.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. So it's the. The algorithm will be effort to deliciousness.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes.

[Joe Getty]

And you'll see the score.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a 72.

[News Reporter]

That's not good enough.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's too much work.

[Joe Getty]

Screw it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Let's have a burger. Maybe we can get to the details around the first state in the nation trying to take on layoffs because of AI, which is going to be like a big news story over the next couple of years anyway. That's other stuff on the way too.

[Radio Show Announcer]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Healthcare Expert]

When I say comprehensive health care, it's actually what people can get from Medi Cal. The problem is, is that the linkage isn't made with the people and the services.

[Joe Getty]

And that would be taxpayers.

[Healthcare Expert]

Well, we already pay for it. It's already paid for it. The linkage that hasn't happened.

[Jack Armstrong]

That was that whole conversation about dental care because the mayor, current mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass kind of stepped in it the other day when she gave her.

[Joe Getty]

She's always.

[Jack Armstrong]

She's one of those people that smiles all the time. People like that kind of weird me out.

[Joe Getty]

Oh yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

But she finds all the time on how we gotta. We gotta get free. We gotta get teeth for the. The unto. Because you do meth, you lose your teeth. And how you gonna go out and get a job and you got no teacher teeth?

[Joe Getty]

How are you gonna go buy meth? Mouth teeth? Yes.

[Jack Armstrong]

So the rest of us are responsible to put teeth in the mouth of people who did meth so long that they lost all their teeth. That's my job. That's my responsibility out to make sure you got teeth. You can go get a job. And of course it goes beyond without, without even saying that of course, if you give a meth head teeth, the first thing they're going to do is clean up their act, get a job and go be a productive member of society. The only thing I do a little

[Joe Getty]

give a meth head teeth and they'll chew for a day. Give a method. I don't know how to end it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anyway, I was just thinking about how, because we're on all over the country and I was just thinking about, you know, the number of people that have any interest in the mayoral race in Los Angeles. My whole life I grew up in the rural Midwest. I've known who was the mayor of New York at every point in my life since I was six years old. Because, you know, media all comes out of New York and late night jokes and TV shows and everything like get the number two city in America, la. Not near as much. It's a big deal. Anywho, one of the reasons this is getting so much attention is you got this former reality star Spencer Pratt running as a Republican against the current mayor and he got all the homelessness problems and the meth heads and all the stuff that we've talked about a lot with California and Los Angeles. But then the ads he's putting out that are so good, but I'd never heard this story. Story. This is Spencer Pratt, lifelong Democrat, reality star. Why he became a Republican?

[News Reporter]

Why are you a Republican?

[Spencer Pratt]

Well, you want to break some news here?

[Joe Getty]

Sure.

[Spencer Pratt]

When I was a hated reality star, yeah. I got so many death threats, I had so much security and police and what did they tell me to do? Get a gun. This is real. I know people don't like guns, but LA Weight was dangerous if you're hated. So I got a gun, my wife got a gun and then we needed CCWs. The only people that supported a CCW was the Republican. That was what I aligned with. My safety, my personal saving, my family's safety. I know people don't like guns, but when people are threatening your life and your own security is telling you you need to have home protection train to. It's not like just I went to the, you know, go through the proper steps. That was my. That's it.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's pretty damned interesting. So first of all, I never followed his reality star period. But he played the heel which every reality show needs to have one that people love to hate and he took on that role. Then he ended up with death threats for him and his wife decided they and the cops said well, get a gun. That's what I would do if I were here. Then it's hard to get a CCW because in your blue states and cities the criminals get to have guns and then if they use the gun, you don't charge them. Any of the gun laws that exist

[Joe Getty]

for some, certainly if they're not a bipoc person.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. But if you're a tax paying citizen and you want a gun and you've got no history of a of violence whatsoever, gonna make it incredibly difficult for you to have a gun.

[Joe Getty]

Right. The authorities will tell you do nothing to protect yourself. The authorities will protect you. And then of course they don't, not at all anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

And that's what turned him into a Republican, a Democrat who's been mugged by reality. That's a Republican.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. The party that says yes, you have the right to defend yourself. That's the one for me. He says, not surprisingly, man, I want to get to that DNC's self autopsy of the 2024 race. Can't wait to hear about that.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, we got a bunch of stuff we can get to coming up. So, first attempt at AT laws to keep you from losing your job because of AI. I don't see how that's possibly going to work.

[Joe Getty]

It won't.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, if you missed a second podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Radio Show Announcer]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.