Welcome to...Voices of the Left

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: Episode Summary

Title: Welcome to...Voices of the Left
Host: Armstrong & Getty
Release Date: July 22, 2025

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Introduction to "Voices of the Left"

In this episode of Armstrong & Getty On Demand, hosts Armstrong and Getty delve into their special segment titled "Voices of the Left." This segment features various voices and perspectives from the left that didn’t make it into their regular radio show. The hosts aim to present these views while providing their own commentary and critique.

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Segment 1: Jeff Daniels on Political Leadership

The episode kicks off with an audio clip featuring actor Jeff Daniels discussing political leadership and the current state of the Republican Party.

Notable Quote:

Jeff Daniels [04:48]: "I still think about Kamala and how I think she would have been a good choice. I don't care what they say, because she would have done what Lincoln did. Liz Cheney would have been Secretary of State."

Jeff Daniels praises Kamala Harris, likening her leadership style to that of Abraham Lincoln, emphasizing the importance of surrounding oneself with diverse opinions. He criticizes the Republican Party's trajectory over the past 25 years, particularly under Mitch McConnell, suggesting that their actions have led to a decline in party integrity and effectiveness.

Hosts’ Commentary: Armstrong and Getty engage in a lively exchange following Daniels' remarks. Getty highlights the contrast between Lincoln's esteemed leadership and Kamala Harris's perceived inefficacy, with Getty remarking, “Kamala Harris is a half wit, Jeff.” Armstrong counters by questioning the relevance of Daniels' political insights, highlighting the disparity between being an actor and a political commentator.

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Segment 2: Sharia Smith's Defense of the Department of Education

The next featured voice is Sharia Smith, a supporter addressing concerns about layoffs within the Department of Education.

Notable Quote:

Sharia Smith [09:42]: "First one is disappointment. I'm a lawyer by trade and live for Supreme Court decisions... it's extremely anger inducing that this misrepresentation of what we do and how important our work is, is perpetuating."

Sharia Smith expresses frustration over the lack of transparency and justification for recent layoffs, emphasizing the Department of Education's role in funding and supporting educational institutions and personnel.

Hosts’ Commentary: Armstrong and Getty critique Smith’s defense, arguing that her rationale merely shifts responsibility rather than addressing underlying issues. Getty sarcastically remarks, “That's your defense? That's my prosecution.” highlighting their skepticism towards the Department's explanations.

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Segment 3: Comedic Take on Leftist Stereotypes

The episode features a comedic segment aimed at satirizing stereotypical behaviors attributed to the political left.

Notable Quote:

Comedian [17:28]: "She calls America evil from her iPhone while sipping Starbucks on an airplane with wi-fi... She is the most conformist woman in the world."

This monologue humorously lists exaggerated traits, portraying a caricature of a left-leaning individual, touching on themes like perceived hypocrisy, cultural trends, and societal behaviors.

Hosts’ Commentary: Getty and Armstrong laugh at the comedian's portrayal, with Getty appreciating the humor and Armstrong relating it to broader cultural observations. This segment serves to lighten the episode while reinforcing their critical stance towards leftist ideologies.

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Additional Insights and Anecdotes

Throughout the episode, Armstrong shares personal anecdotes, including interactions with Asian individuals from scout camp, discussing topics like academic pressure and cultural differences. These stories are used to illustrate points about intelligence, societal expectations, and misunderstandings between different cultural backgrounds.

Notable Exchanges:

Armstrong [07:40]: "One of the kids that I picked up from scout camp is from Vietnam... Very interesting woman. Genius."

Getty [12:39]: "That kid was born with a brain that works very differently than mine does."

These exchanges highlight the hosts' perspectives on diversity and intelligence, often juxtaposed with their critiques of leftist viewpoints.

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Armstrong and Getty reinforce their themes by referencing previous discussions and connecting back to broader societal critiques. They underscore the importance of recognizing diverse voices while maintaining their skeptical stance towards left-leaning policies and ideologies.

Final Commentary:

Getty [19:07]: "I love it. That was the voices of the left."

Armstrong [19:12]: "Reminds me of I heard a blast yesterday of what was wrong with how NPR got so off track..."

The hosts conclude by emphasizing the continual relevance of their discussions, advocating for balanced perspectives and questioning mainstream narratives.

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Key Takeaways

• Jeff Daniels advocates for inclusive and principled political leadership, drawing parallels to Abraham Lincoln.
• Sharia Smith defends the Department of Education against criticisms, highlighting funding roles and the impact of administrative decisions.
• The comedic segment underscores stereotypes associated with the political left, using humor to critique perceived inconsistencies.
• Personal anecdotes from Armstrong add depth to discussions on cultural diversity and intelligence, juxtaposed with political commentary.
• Armstrong and Getty emphasize the importance of diverse voices while maintaining a critical stance towards leftist policies.

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This episode of Armstrong & Getty On Demand offers a blend of political analysis, personal storytelling, and humor to engage listeners in a critical examination of left-leaning perspectives. Through featuring voices like Jeff Daniels and Sharia Smith, coupled with the hosts' dynamic commentary, the episode provides a comprehensive and entertaining exploration of contemporary political discourse.

Transcript

[Jacob Goldstein]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[NFL Announcer]

Football is back.

[Armstrong]

Let's go baby.

[NFL Announcer]

On July 26th and 27th, teams across the league take the field for Back Together weekend presented by YouTube TV. With two full days of practices, player interviews and behind the scenes access, it's a can't miss NFL reunion. Back Together Weekend presented by YouTube TV. July 26th and 27th. Go to NFL.comBackTogether Weekend for more information.

[Jacob Goldstein]

This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive, and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to Integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O O dot com.

[Getty]

Welcome to Voices of the Left. It's one more thing.

[Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Getty]

One more thing. My wife is asking me. Thinking chicken breasts, spinach salad, and bread for dinner. Good. Yeah, it's fine. Gonna give her the thumbs up here. It sounds like a nice balanced meal. We're both trying to lose weight.

[Armstrong]

Have you ever responded with half?

[Getty]

No. Are you kidding?

[Armstrong]

Is this a joke text?

[Getty]

No, I have not. So we have a number of pieces of audio here that happen to be the voices of the left that we couldn't squeeze into the radio show for the last couple of days. So we thought we'd do them here. I'm trying to decide what order is best. Let's start with famous actor, beloved actor, Jeff Daniels. The Big Lebowski, right? Yeah. No, he's an avowed left.

[Armstrong]

No, no, he's not.

[Getty]

No, that's Jeff Bridges.

[Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Getty]

It's funny. I've had a mental block with Bridges and Daniels since the 80s.

[Armstrong]

Interesting. Jeff Daniels is the other half of Dumb and Dumber.

[Getty]

Yeah, right. He also played star of many fine films.

[Armstrong]

Oh, yeah. He also played George Washington in that movie where he was great.

[Getty]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gifted actor. But he's. Why don't we go. Just go ahead and play Michael 15.

[Jeff Daniels]

I still think about Kamala and how I think she would have been a good choice. I don't care what they say, because she would have done what Lincoln did. Liz Cheney would have been Secretary of State.

[Getty]

Team arrivals.

[Jeff Daniels]

Yeah, team arrivals. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote the book about it. That's what Lincoln did. Surrounded himself with the people who would disagree with him, not the people who would, you know, take a knee and go, yeah, more tariffs, sir. More. It's the madness of King George. And if. And if. And just the deterioration of the Republican Party. I mean, look, I'm just an actor. What do I know? Yes, but when Mitch started stacking the courts 25 years ago, I said it on your show once. It's. They can see it coming. The new America that is diverse and treats everyone with equality and respect and dignity.

[Armstrong]

What?

[Jeff Daniels]

You know, kind of like Jesus did.

[Getty]

Jesus and Lincoln were ready for that. Good.

[Jeff Daniels]

And Mitch and company could see it coming. They were going to be the minority. So they just started. And then here we are. And now you got it. What a powerful metaphor.

[Armstrong]

Wow. Self hating white male, like so many liberals are. That what he actually believes that. That the politics are driven by. Okay, yeah.

[Getty]

There's so much there. I will just focus on the fact that Abraham Lincoln was one of the towering intellects of his time or any other. Kamala Harris is a half wit, Jeff. I would suggest. I mean, she might assemble a team of rivals, but they would be rival dopes.

[Armstrong]

Well, he had the right answer at one point. What do I know? I'm just an actor. Why is anybody asking you? Why is Nicole Wallace asking you? Why is anybody listening to it?

[Getty]

That is just one of the voices of the left we're featuring today. This is a mumdani supporter answering questions on the streets of New York. 16.

[Armstrong]

Michael, where else has socialism worked that you want to emulate?

[Annabe]

Vietnam.

[Armstrong]

You think New York City.

[Getty]

If it was more like Vietnam, Is.

[Armstrong]

It actually a communist country?

[Annabe]

I would say Vietnam, China. See, New York is a very dense city. Therefore we have to look at Asia. Who is doing better at density than we are here? These roads are horrible. The trains not that great here. All of those things are so much better in most Asian countries.

[Getty]

Funny, she goes with Vietnam and China. Completely ignoring free market. Or capitalist, if you prefer. Japan. Free market, Singapore, free market, South Korea. Good luck with your little.

[Armstrong]

And aside aside about Vietnam, one of the kids that I picked up from scout camp is from Vietnam. His mom's from Vietnam. Very interesting woman. Genius. Had a perfect honor SAT scores, which she said was demanded of everyone in the special school she went to.

[Jeff Daniels]

Wow.

[Armstrong]

And then went to some special thing.

[Getty]

I spelled my name correctly on mine. I mean 100% correctly.

[Armstrong]

Then she went to some special school for the super brilliant in China where all the super smart people would get sent from Vietnam, where people would regularly kill themselves because the pressure was so great. Anyway, that's not what I meant to talk about. Her son got in my truck. He said, you know what I like about when we're in Vietnam? Because he's in Vietnam, like after you don't have to wear seatbelts there. They have no seatbelt laws. That's interesting. We talked about freedom and government making you do stuff and whatever.

[Getty]

The communist regime of Vietnam lets you make your own decisions about seat belts.

[Armstrong]

I didn't know Vietnam was a communist country currently.

[Getty]

Oh, yeah.

[Armstrong]

I didn't know that.

[Getty]

Yeah. You remember the whole Vietnam War thing?

[Armstrong]

I'm familiar with that. I didn't know it still was, you.

[Getty]

Know, like a lot of quote unquote communist regimes right now. And China was a great example of this, like a dozen years ago especially. But they've mixed in a fair amount of free market capitalism because you need it. And every, every regime is a hybrid. Forget political theory. In the real world, everything's a hybrid. But okay, moving along, another voice of the left. This woman's name is Sharia Smith, or Sharia. She was on CNN as a. I believe she was an employee of the Department of Education, was moaning about the layoffs there and how unjustified they were. I would recommend you listen. In particular, it's 26, Michael. For her justification of the important work they do.

[Sharia Smith]

First one is disappointment. I'm a lawyer by trade and live for Supreme Court decisions, at least to have reasoning. So, you know, to have the six justices just allow this to happen without even explaining their decision is extremely disappointing. Then I go into anger, anger since the beginning of this administration by the misrepresentation about what we actually do. There's so many statements about returning education to the states. But, Wolf, I was a teacher education curriculum. Teacher quality testing has always been with the states. What our department does and did was fund school districts, fund colleges, fund schools, and fund American citizens who are pursuing their education. And it is extremely anger inducing that this misrepresentation of what we do and how important our work is, is perpetuating. And it's not being corrected even by the highest court of our land.

[Getty]

And then, well, and she goes on at some length there, her entire defense of the Department of Education is that it doles out funding that comes through the state from the states, federal government, keeps their cut, gives some of it back with enormous strings attached. That's your defense? That's my prosecution. Did she say she was an attorney? You can't. My prosecution can't be your defense. That's not the way it works.

[Armstrong]

Before we wrap this up, I got another story about those wacky Asians. Another one of the kids I picked up from the Boy Scout camp is three. Three Asian kids is my son. All of his friends are at camper little Asian kids. And the one kid kept winning at this card game they were playing because he was counting cards. He's a math genius. He's like many grades ahead in the math that he takes. Oh, wow. And he said he can't help it. It's just like the way brain work. He just watches the game and he knows how many queens have already gone out or whatever. He just knows it in his head. Yeah, it's like in that. Interesting. Yeah. And the way different brains work.

[Getty]

Have you listened to and I've got a podcast I want to listen to. But this new premise that I think is coming from the left, that the very concept of genius is a right wing plot to convince us of something or other and I haven't really dug into it, reminds me of that idiotic Gladwell book that said there's nothing about talent. You just have to spend 10,000 hours or whatever it was. I've got to listen to that because it just strikes me as Looney Tunes. That kid was born with a brain that works very differently than mine does.

[Armstrong]

Oh yeah, obviously.

[Getty]

I mean, just why can people not accept that?

[Armstrong]

I don't know. Or people that.

[Getty]

I accepted it a long damn time ago. I'm just not that good at some things, including some I wish I was really good at. But that's okay. That's what life is.

[Armstrong]

Well, it's like, yeah, I tried to pick up Spanish once. I took a class class for like two weeks and thought, I can't do this. I'm just not built for picking up languages or you know, you know, some people have no eight languages. That's because their brain works in a different way for language than mine.

[Getty]

Man, did I try hard to get good at German. I tried so hard. That was part of my whole life plan, was to learn German, go to law school and do business between Germany and the US and blah blah blah. And then I realized I'm trying as hard as I can at this and I suck at learning a new language as a young adult. So I thought, man, that's not happening. But I don't think it was an insidious plot against me that some people were great in that class.

[Armstrong]

I don't know.

[Getty]

We'll have to look into that.

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[Armstrong]

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[Jacob Goldstein]

This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O d o o dot com.

[Getty]

All right, One final bit of audio. It is humor number 14, Michael. Enjoy.

[Comedian]

She calls America evil from her iPhone while sipping Starbucks on an airplane with wi fi while watching tv. She drinks oat milk because regular milk makes her feel colonial. She got eight Covid shots, still caught it and blamed the unvaccinated waiter. She has a Ukraine flag in her bio. She thinks Ukraine is a clothing brand. She says Black lives matter but still clutches her bag in certain neighborhoods. She used to be vegan, now she's carnivore. Depends on who she's dating. She thinks all cops are bad, then called the cops because someone wasn't wearing a mask. She says she's a feminist until she needs a jar opened. She says trust the science, but thinks there's more than two genders. She got the booster, then posted a selfie with doing my part while spreading Covid in Tulum. She drinks ayahuasca for trauma she invented last year. She says she hates capitalism but charges $499 for Zoom breathwork. She posts about toxic masculinity from her ex's apartment. She is the most conformist woman in the world.

[Annabe]

I don't always drink, but when I do, it's from an organic coconut with a biodegradable straw. Stay obedient, my friends.

[Getty]

I love it. That was the voices of the left.

[Armstrong]

Reminds me of I heard a blast yesterday of what was wrong with how NPR got so off track. The problem with npr, they said, is they think everybody listening lives in Vermont and is pulling into a used bookstore parking lot in a Subaru. Ding. You know what I don't like about PBS is that they always assume I.

[Getty]

Need a tote bag.

[Armstrong]

I don't need a tote bag. I don't either. I got plenty.

[Jeff Daniels]

I got plenty of them.

[Armstrong]

Well, I guess that's it. Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech Upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultra Light, ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance that keeps up with your business, not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech [e-mail] Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.

[NFL Announcer]

Football is back.

[Armstrong]

Let's go baby.

[NFL Announcer]

On July 26th and 27th, teams across the league take the field for Back Together weekend presented by YouTube TV. With two full days of practices, player interviews and behind the scenes access, it's a can't miss NFL reunion. Back Together Weekend presented by YouTube TV. July 26th and 27th. Go to NFL for more information.

[Armstrong]

A treasure trove of bananas has been stolen and it's up to Donkey Kong and his buddy Pauline to get them back. This unlikely duo is going on a world smashing adventure, using DK's destructive abilities.

[Getty]

To explore an underground world and the.

[Armstrong]

Power of Pauline singing to activate wild transformations. Donkey Kong Bonanza available now. Rated everyone 10 and up only on Nintendo Switch 2 game and systems sold separately.

[Jacob Goldstein]

This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at o d o o.com that's o d o o.com Sonesta.

[Annabe]

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[Jacob Goldstein]

This is an iHeart podcast.