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Jack Armstrong
This is an iHeart podcast.
Joe Getty
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Joe
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
Emily Maitlis
The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the Newsagents Dropping Daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current affairs.
Joe
And The News Agents USA listening to.
Emily Maitlis
The Newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
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Jack Armstrong
Ah come on.
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Joe Getty
Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty.
Joe
Listen to this. I saw that new study found that.
Jack Armstrong
Dogs can almost get all the nutrients.
Joe
They need from plant based foods.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. The only downside is once dogs go vegan, they won't stop barking about it.
Joe
I heard you. I heard you. I heard you. Impossible. Yes, impossible.
Jack Armstrong
That's pretty funny.
Joe
Shut up, Fido. Shut up.
Jack Armstrong
So this makes my. Just makes me tired thinking about this. So my son is taking a class through the local public school district in American history. And I, I knew from the get go that there's a chance it was going to be unpalatable to me. But the idea is, really, the idea is I just got to get through one more year of public school. It's off to the private school. Variety of reasons I can't explain but. And then I don't have to deal with it ever again in my life. But public schools are woke across the nation. They're even more woke in California and they're even more woke than that in the town I live in. So it's like three levels of woke and American history class Day one they gave the. The only assignments on day one was a handout to syllabus. You gave your pronouns and had to write a land acknowledgment explaining how we had stolen the land from the Indian tribe where the school was built. And we should feel awful about it. So I knew we were off to a rough start. And then the teacher also handed out the book and explained how the book is full of lies and distortions that they will. All that they will go through and fix. And I thought, wow. So the current history books, which most normal people feel like are too woke.
Joe
Are not too anti American.
Jack Armstrong
Are not anti American or woke enough for the teacher. Oh, boy. And it was explained how we're not going to use terms like slaves in this class. We'll call enslaved people because slaves is a dehumanizing term. You know, just. Just when you start down the road of that sort of nonsense.
Joe
I know you knew which direction it's going.
Jack Armstrong
I know. And I just think. I think it's head a crash. I think it's headed for. This ain't gonna work. And in the past I've stayed out of this, but I no longer give a crap. I don't care if the person hears about it or if it causes any problems or. I don't care. I just don't care. You're a lunatic. If you believe that stuff, you're a freaking lunatic.
Joe
Yeah, you. Well, you're an ignoramus. And your ideology and your ignorance have led you to saying just idiotic things. The lack of perspective is the thing that makes me insane. And gosh, I don't even know which direction to go. I've got so many. But the idea that slavery, chattel slavery you're supposed to call it these days because it makes you sound more sophisticated, is somehow uniquely American, might be the least accurate thing that's ever said. Slavery was everywhere, all the time for all of human history. And it was brutal and dehumanizing everywhere it occurred. No exceptions. And then a few societies, including ours, said, you know, this is ugly and sick. I don't think we ought to do this anymore, even without all this stuff.
Jack Armstrong
So how do we get back to a point where we should all learn American history, how this country was founded? That's not an attempt to cover up bad stuff. It's just you've only got time for so many things. And if you make the whole semester about how the Indians had this land before we got here, you don't get to the writing of the Constitution and how that came to be and what the Bill of Rights is and how magnificent it is and blah, blah, blah, all that stuff, you don't have time for it if you focus on enslaved people and the Native Americans. Where are you? Where's a kid supposed to learn about Thomas Jefferson? If you spend all your time on Indian tribes and slavery, you're making an.
Joe
Excellent argument to get parents on our side and get pissed off about this. That's a miserably ineffective argument against the teachers and administrators, though, because they know exactly what they're doing. They think America is an evil place, Western civilization ought to be torn down, and they are actively trying to indoctrinate your kids into their neo Marxist thinking. And so they're like, no, no. We're teaching them precisely what they need to learn. Our priorities aren't wrong, they're precisely right. They would say to you if they were going to be honest.
Jack Armstrong
I know. I'm so disgusted by all this. That's why I've gone completely anti public school. I just think it needs to be torn down. Start over. Why do we even have public schools? It's a bad idea. It doesn't work. Get rid of them. And you good teachers out there, and I know a bunch of them will work your asses off and your miracles. I mean, just. I've known some teachers that are just. It's like they were sent by God. They're so amazing.
Joe
Love you, people. Love you, respect you, cherish you.
Jack Armstrong
And you can do the same gig at some sort of private school that's not out of its mind.
Joe
Yeah. And again, I, I beg. Government schools.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, that's the right. That's the right term, government.
Joe
Anyway, so everybody who listens to the show knows I, Joe, I'm an Orwell freak. And I'm. I'm so intrigued by one of the major themes of 1984, which was, and I quote, Orwell, the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. And, you know, I've talked about that at length before, but I came across an absolutely wonderful description of why that is. It happens to be Peggy Noonan writing about the historian David McCullough, who has. He's passed away now for a few years, but. But some of his previously unpublished work has come out and she says this does not feel at all like barrel scraping. This stuff is great.
Jack Armstrong
I didn't, I didn't know there was unpublished David McCullough stuff out. Cool.
Joe
Yeah, he had written. He's written all sorts of stuff. Truman, the Johnstown flood, John Adams, 1776, the Wright Brothers. I mean, wonderful, wonderful.
Jack Armstrong
I've read a half dozen of them.
Joe
So why does history matter? I will answer in the world's words of David McCullough. History shows us how to behave. History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for. And it's not just the dry recording of facts. It has a moral quotient. He says, quote, at their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons in appreciation. Everything we have, all the great institutions, the arts, our law, exist because those who came before us built them. Why did they do that? What drove them? What obstacles did they face? How are we doing as stores and creators? Indifference to history isn't just ignorant, it's rude. And he's absolutely 100% right. And twisting history is not an accident. That's what Marxists do. That's why Orwell wrote 1984 in the 20th century, because he saw what they were doing and why they were doing it. But Xi Jinping's trying to do it every damn day of the week right now.
Jack Armstrong
The people on the other side have just such an easy argument for people who are just kind of paying attention and want to be nice people to grasp onto. Well, people like me just want to cover up slavery and how we took the land from the Indians. The end.
Joe
Wrong. No, you're wrong. And ignorant and either wittingly or unwittingly, a Marxist activist. And I will spend every day I live opposing you. I hate you.
Jack Armstrong
I'm so hate speech.
Joe
I hate you.
Jack Armstrong
I'm so frustrated by this, you can't even imagine.
Joe
Oh, I. I can try to imagine, but came across another great piece of writing by Dan Lerman, who is, curiously enough, a professor of. I want to get this right. He's a professor at Columbia University. He's a professor of cognitive science and teaches various science and theater, interestingly enough, at various schools. But woke he ain't. Boy, this guy's gotta be unpopular at Columbia. He's written a brilliant piece for the Free Press called the War on Knowledge. Um, and. And he's talking about how. And he gives examples of his kids schools. In many classrooms today, the very idea of committing information to memory has become unfashionable. Schools have decided that facts are no longer worth teaching. As I tour schools for my daughter, we are often ass that facts will not be the focus of our education. We don't do rote memorization. Teachers proudly declare with a condescending wink, as if memorization were an outdated relic of a less enlightened era. But without facts, what are students actually learning? At the progressive Brooklyn private school where I once taught spelling wasn't corrected until middle school, focusing on spelling, we were told, got in the way of Creativity. I then watched smart, curious kids write Massie in M A C I E N for machine at age 14, wilt when people involuntarily gasped at their failed spelling attempts. Their writings were often expressive and insightful and incoherent. They probably weren't even aware of the $60,000 per year price tag, or they might have raged against the Messian. And then math was treated with the same flippancy. Curious about the curiously low standardized test scores, I once wander into a math classroom where the teacher was barefoot in a faded Led Zeppelin T shirt. It was a really cool shirt, he mentions. He then drew a circle on the board and announced, this is not a circle. It's a representation of a circle. All right. The lesson, it seemed, was to gain mystique points by using a stoner voice to say something quirky. I couldn't help but make a connection between that math lesson and the school's undying demand for expans expensive private tutors. There's more. War on Knowledge is not confined to elite enclaves, he writes. The Seattle public school system embraced a math ethnic studies framework. Starting in 2019, their teachers were encouraged to reflect in their curriculum, how can we change mathematics from individualist to collectivist thinking?
Jack Armstrong
Good Lord.
Joe
And you think I'm ranting about Marxism out of line? No, sir. That math framework, reaching more than 50,000 students, drew on themes like power and oppression and history of resistance and liberation. Which reminds me of my favorite math joke, why was 10 scared of 7? Because 7, 8, 9, and 9 was oppressed. Or something like that.
Jack Armstrong
This is some funny writing. It really is on a horrifying topic. Well, like one of the examples, apparently this teacher said, we're not going to use terms like Reese. They use a term in the book. We're not going to use resourceful people. And I don't know what that's about. Have you heard that one? You're not supposed to credit.
Joe
I could imagine.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I can imagine, too. There's too much credit giving given to, you know, people who came from England and started building colonies or whatever in the United States, being resourceful when all they were doing is stealing from the Indian or something.
Joe
Yeah, any positive attribute is white supremacy. One more quick quote from this. In the words of Tracy Castro Gill, the creator of the math Ethnic Studies framework, and this is a quote, folks. Decolonial teacher education must actively confront coloniality and create alternative frameworks. In her words, she casts education itself as a colonial project to be dismantled, a fundamental departure from what the word education means. We've got to tear it down, friends. Tear it down. Government schools have been taken over by the extremist left. Period.
Jack Armstrong
It's disturbing, man. Seriously disturbing. You wonder where the you know you run into a 25 year old with crazy beliefs. They got it starting in kindergarten.
Joe
Oh yeah, and I've got to at least be somewhat forgiving to some of these young teachers who are teaching the kids precisely what they were taught their entire careers and told was important to teach kids. But we folks can no longer sit quietly and idly and quote unquote trust our school boards and our teachers and our superintendents. No man, we are in a fight. So fight.
Jack Armstrong
Hey, you want to comment on any of that? You have any examples? School year is up and running. Text line 415295 KFTC ARMSTRONG and getty.
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Joe
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
Emily Maitlis
The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why. From me, Emily Mailis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.
Joe
Affairs and the newsagents USA listening to.
Emily Maitlis
The news agents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free Iheart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
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Joe
Was August 2012 when the publishers Clearinghouse Prize patrol surprised a southern Oregon man with balloons, flowers and an oversized check. You won $5,000 a week forever, they told him. With TV cameras rolling and wow.
Jack Armstrong
Cool.
Joe
John Wiley, a white City, Oregon, thought he was set for life. He retired, moved closer to his kids, bought a house on six acres near beautiful Bellingham, Washington. And every January for the past 12 years, Publishers Clearinghouse deposited that prize money into his bank account. But you know the old Internet meme of how it started, how it's going. Here's how it's going.
Jack Armstrong
I thought, why didn't they give me.
Joe
A heads up, hey, we're going out.
Jack Armstrong
Of business, you know, but no, it's.
Dan Springer
Like somebody just cut the cord.
Jack Armstrong
Sold my jet ski, sold my trailer. I had a little bit of money left over, and that's what I'm living on right now, you know, I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose my home.
Joe
In April of this year, Publishers Clearinghouse filed for bankruptcy.
Jack Armstrong
Wow. So if you're not old enough. Before, there were lotteries everywhere. The. The prize to win was the Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstake and had big celebrity ads everywhere. And you won a big check per week for the rest of your life, which is a cool way to get the money, I always thought, because it keeps you from losing your mind and spending it all and ending up a drug addict with a young stripper wife. Pregnant stripper wife. But if the company goes out of business, it sucks. If you planned your whole life around. I'm gonna get. Was it 5,000 a week for life?
Joe
Yeah. And they actually. They sent him a check once a year. Sure.
Jack Armstrong
But still, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, and you would, you know, you would base your spending around that.
Joe
Save you the trouble. It's 276,000 bucks a year. Yeah. Awesome. And so.
Jack Armstrong
And they go into business, and it's just over.
Joe
Well, when the annual payment didn't arrive, he and his wife contacted Publishers Clearinghouse and a representative told them payments would resume on a quarterly schedule. Then the company filed for bankruptcy, no warning. And this guy had built his financial life around this. Continuing on, it's a fairly reasonable thing to do.
Jack Armstrong
Although I might have, you know, hired a lawyer briefly and said, just tell me a little something about bankruptcy law. If this company. I mean, is this. Is there some way I get this forever if the company decides to quit or goes out, but I might spend.
Joe
$250 a year to have an accountant take a quick look at their financial statements. Wow. 2020.
Jack Armstrong
They didn't give my heads up. You got to send a letter that says two things. One, good news and bad news. Good news, your diet is working great. You look fantastic. Number two, the bad news. We're going out of business. And that whole 5,000 a week is over, starting now. Bye. So there's no.
Joe
Oof. Is right, dude.
Jack Armstrong
I mean, it's like. So I'm gonna go out and watch.
Joe
Well, yeah, he's. I think the guy we're talking about here is 71, and he's been out of the workforce. Oh, I'm sorry. This guy's 61. They profile a handful of people this happened to. This guy's 61, but he's, he's been out of the workforce for years and years.
Jack Armstrong
You're not getting a job at age 61. It's pretty well documented that if you lose your job in your 50s, especially as a man, you will never work again. That's just the way our current economies are structured.
Joe
So rob a liquor store or what?
Jack Armstrong
Well, plan accordingly, I guess. But. But you can't blame somebody for not planning accordingly when you got this lottery thing. I think so.
Joe
That poor son of a gun happens to live in Oregon. Speaking of Oregon, did you know? As if we need to reestablish how crappy the mainstream media. Did you know there have been violent protests in Portland around the whole ICE thing for dozens and dozens of nights every single night?
Jack Armstrong
No, I had no idea.
Joe
You got five people marching for trans rights. ABC News will cover it, but no, haven't heard a word about this. Well, you're about to.
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Joe Getty
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Joe
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
Emily Maitlis
The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.
Joe
Affairs and the newsagents USA listening to.
Emily Maitlis
The news on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
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Jack Armstrong
South park is the most current TV show that has ever been. Here's the latest episode of south park which I haven't seen. Butters experiences the reality of tariffs when he has to buy a Labubu doll for his girlfriend's birthday.
Joe
Wow.
Jack Armstrong
That'S funny. We just sent ten F35s to Puerto Rico. Part of the whole hey Venezuela, watch your P's and Q's effort that is going on right now. So stay tuned for more info on.
Joe
That, well, as I've often said, the best way to discredit progressive policies is to enact them. Unfortunately, there is an enormous cost to that. City of San Francisco has really turned itself around, making great progress. People are coming back, companies are running space. Well done Mayor Lurie and everybody in San Francisco.
Jack Armstrong
He's got a 75 approval rating.
Joe
Meanwhile, some of the other great cities of the west continue to be completely drowning in their own lefty lunacy. Seattle, which made a couple of tentative moves towards sanity, but they just shut down three of their big parks for 60 days, citing negative activity, which they never describe exactly. But it's junkies stabbing each other and shooting up and taking craps in the park and letting their pit bulls run around and making the parks utterly unusable. The people who live there. And though the city of Seattle is willing to shut it down and clean it up, they're not willing to say why.
Jack Armstrong
That description doesn't make the park sound very pleasant. People crapping in the park with pit bulls running around.
Joe
Oh, telling you that's not a good day. And in, down the coast there in beautiful Portland, formerly one of the great cities in the western United States, which has gone completely to hell, as Dan Springer will make it clear to you. There have been violent, noisy, crazy, antifa driven protests there every night for dozens and dozens of nights. And it is getting zero coverage in the mainstream media. Cuz it's somewhat inconvenient. Dan Springer of Fox News. His audio will play now for the.
Dan Springer
Good of the audience night after night. This is the scene just outside the ICE facility in Portland. Hundreds of residents live in apartments just feet away. They routinely call police about the noise.
Joe
And crime, calling about the protesters.
Jack Armstrong
They've cornered two women out here. They need help.
Joe
Please send the cops.
Dan Springer
But the cops did not come. Residents on their own, turn that down.
Jack Armstrong
It's midnight. We the people need sleep.
Dan Springer
This week, protesters brought what looked like a guillotine. Some confrontations end with residents getting assaulted. First a bullhorn, then a fist. No arrest was made, despite the injuries.
Jack Armstrong
Wow. We've been on the air in Portland for what, 15 years? Something like that. First time I ever went to Portland, 30 years ago, I thought, this is the greatest city I've ever been to. It's like a clean San Francisco. It was just, it was so amazing. And then, you know, I've got my famous story of taking Sam there when we went to watch the eclipse and the things that we saw on the street that were so disgusting.
Joe
Yeah, yeah. Public. Various befoulings of the straits. Yeah. So 82 nights. Is that what he said? In a row? I'd meant to catch that number again. Roll on.
Dan Springer
On this night in late June, federal police used tear gas and flashbangs. Again, no Portland police in sight. It came out later in court that one officer told another if it were not ice, we could assist directly. Julie Parish sued the city to force police to enforce local laws.
Joe Getty
This is a full on ABD of police duty in a four block radius.
Jack Armstrong
That impacts some of the most vulnerable.
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Oregonians that we have.
Joe Getty
Now they've said, meh, we're just gonna.
Jack Armstrong
Let violent rioters do this for 80.
Joe Getty
Straight nights and we don't care.
Dan Springer
Portland police responded. We take these concerns seriously. At the same time we are committed to protecting individuals rights to express themselves peacefully. The Portland approach is pathetic, it's childish.
Jack Armstrong
And if you enable people to behave the way the protesters have and wreck the neighborhood for everyone else, they will come back and wreck it the next night.
Joe
Listen, we're pro cop around here, but that statement by some spokeshole is embarrassing. We take it very seriously. No, you clearly don't. But we also wanna protect people's right to demonstrate peacefully. How many laws are they breaking? It's unpermitted. I guarantee you that. They're breaking noise ordinances. They're literally, literally breaking stuff. They're defacing private and public property. They're blocking traffic. Stop with your. But we ought to protect people's right to protest peacefully. What are you talking about?
Jack Armstrong
You know, I was happy to hear Elon the other day and he was talking about his trans kid and how he lost his son and how he is going to spend a lot of money taking on the woke mind virus. This is part of the woke mind virus and I'm glad Elon's on the right side of it because more people need to be aware of it. It needs to be combated somehow. It's dangerous. It is such a dangerous crazy philosophy.
Joe
Right? Hey, and Portland PD officers. We know you guys want to do the right thing. We do.
Jack Armstrong
Drop us a note.
Joe
Mailbagarmstrongetti.com and email. We have never in how long have we been doing this? It's discouraging. I'm getting old. We have never gotten a source in trouble. Never. Mailbag@armstrongandgetti.com what is the brass telling you guys anyway? Rolling on. And I tell you what again to my opening statement about discrediting progressive policies but the enormous cost. Here's an example.
Dan Springer
The protest chaos which began with riots aimed at social justice in 2020 has severely damaged Portland's reputation. It's now ranked by the non partisan Urban Land institute as the second worst place in America to invest with six and a half million square feet of commercial vacancy. The top 20 office towers have lost 57% of their combined value in five years.
Jack Armstrong
Wow.
Joe
Wow. Then go ahead, play the last clip. Michael. It's short.
Dan Springer
Portland's elected leaders ignored our request for comment about what some are calling the city's death spiral. As for those nightly protests, police admitted to us that they have not made a single arrest out there since June 18th.
Jack Armstrong
That's incredible.
Joe
That is incredible. And the people, and interestingly, it's, it's, you know, not rich people, people of color, whatever, who are pissed off. They're like, would you please enforce the law?
Jack Armstrong
Well, the first and only place I'd ever heard the term death spiral for a city was San Francisco. And we talked about it for a long time. It finally got so bad. They elected a guy who was willing to do something about it and the people were willing to let him do something about it. And now San Francisco, it's completely different than it was a couple years ago. I can attest to that with my own eyeball, having seen it change in that amount of time. And he's got a 75% approval rating. How bad will Portland have to get before people are willing to turn it around?
Joe
And danger, danger. Portland and Seattle. If you haven't thought of this, San Francisco was either in and of itself or by virtue of being right next to Silicon Valley, the world engine of technology.
Jack Armstrong
You're not.
Joe
So San Francisco could come roaring back because of all of the AI growth. They, they got bailed out by, you know, great smart policy changes. But the energy that is reinflating the balloon of San Francisco is not everywhere.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, and San Francisco used to be the number one tourist spot in the world. I think it was the Paris and then San Francisco. How long will it take before the world catches on that you can go back to San Francisco? It'll do damage for a very, very long time for tourism. I mean, you, you cause damage that will take decades to fix. Even if, like today, you went full Rudy Giuliani in the 90s with Portland, it would take a very long time to turn things around.
Joe
Right, right. It's just outrageous. What. How would you.
Jack Armstrong
I got a question for you. After we talk about price picks, I got a question for you about the Woke mind virus. So I don't know what your prize picks. I don't Think you could pick a more or less on spitting incidents in game one of the NFL season?
Joe
No, that was not included in prize picks. Fabulous slate of player stats.
Jack Armstrong
I mean if you had more or less on one, it was more. There were two spitting incidents it would seem anywho. Or, or, or lightning delays. But anyway, in terms of the players, all that stuff is really really cool. For instance, Joe Burrow, who's really the odds on favorite to win the MVP this year.
Joe
More cute as a button.
Jack Armstrong
More or less two and a half TDs this weekend. That's the sort of thing you can get involved in with prize picks. You should download the app today and use the Code armstrong to get $50 in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineup.
Joe
Yep. Prize picks daily fantasy sports, all fun, no work. Just pick at least two player stat projections. Tell them more or less get the prize picks app. Use the Code Armstrong to get fifty dollars in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineup. That's Code Armstrong. You get fifty in lineups you don't need to win just after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It's good to be right how do you like.
Jack Armstrong
How would you in a sentence describe the woke mind virus or just the all of. All of it. The. It's got to do with flying in the face of reality always. Whether it's boys and girls sports or Nobody can gather anywhere during COVID unless you're protesting cops. Then you can. I mean just all these nonsensical things, right?
Joe
Well, to describe it in a sentence. I mean those are great examples what what it looks like in the real world. It. It is a a far leftist effort to tear down the institutions of Western civilization using fake quasi moral arguments.
Jack Armstrong
Right. So the moral arguments are the important part though because I do believe that at the top it's being orchestrated by people who just want to tear down America. But the people that buy into it aren't thinking about that. That. So that's where the virus part comes in. It just. You just glom onto the. Well, this seems like the right nice thing to do. Even I don't understand.
Joe
Right? And a lot of people throw around the term useful idiots for the people who don't know that they are executing the plans of Michel Foucault, the the French, you know, neo Marxist philosopher. But I don't want to insult anybody. I'd much rather change their minds. Well, I do want to insult some people, but not those people you have been duped into thinking they are trying to execute or create a more moral, decent world. They're not. They lie constantly. They distort reality. They turn slavery is ugly into all you white people sit there and will tell you how all white people are evil and colonialism, blah blah blah. Oh, and by the way, we now run these institutions and that's the bottom line. The woke thing, the postmodernist thing, the neo Marxist thing, It's all a set of techniques to capture control of institutions.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I thought all that would go out the window hopefully when the anti Jewish stuff started happening on college campuses. Oh, okay. That whole microaggressions thing was all crap. Unless it's against the white man, the Jew, whoever, right?
Joe
No, no. That stuff is just a tool. They don't mean any of it. Well, the activists don't mean any of it. They just. It's a tool. But the people who fall for it and think they're doing the right thing actually do believe all that stuff.
Jack Armstrong
Why was there so much spitting in the game last night? Is it going to be a new thing? Is that going to be part of a hacker shocker?
Joe
NFL feels slick with spit. It's disgusting.
Jack Armstrong
Do you care about the fact that we now call the Department of Defense the Department of War?
Joe
Not really.
Jack Armstrong
Me neither.
Joe
Initially I thought, why are we. There's no point. There's no need. It's kind of militaristic, blah blah blah. But then I thought, you know, the. The term defense is almost never used. Look at that gleaming new defense ship full of a bunch of defense ears who are ready to defend America in future defenses like they did in World war World Defense 2.
Jack Armstrong
I hope we don't end up at defense with China. Yeah, you're right.
Joe
Right.
Jack Armstrong
More stuff on the way. Stay here.
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Joe
Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
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The News Agents we're not just here to tell you what's happening, but why? From me, Emily Maitlis and me, John Sopel with Global's award winning podcast the News Agents Dropping daily covering everything you need to know about politics and current.
Joe
Affairs and the newsagents USA listening to.
Emily Maitlis
The newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
Jack Armstrong
As a.
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Joe
The NFL season is here. And with all the drinking at the.
Jack Armstrong
Games and bars and even at home.
Joe
It'S important to stay hydrated.
Jack Armstrong
Which explains this new ad I just saw.
Joe
Check.
Jack Armstrong
Check this out.
Joe
Hey, fans, football is back. Which means tailgating beers and shots, shots, shots.
Dan Springer
But remember, it's important to stay hydrated and drink water.
Joe
And that's why you can always count on us.
Jack Armstrong
Coors Light. As a longtime Coors Light drinker, I resemble that remark. That's one of the things I liked about how you could drink 20 of them because it was mostly a can of water. NFL tonight, the Chiefs and Chargers, both likely playoff teams playing each other. But the main thing is that they're. They're playing in Brazil still, and it's on YouTube. So it's in a country where they don't really watch the NFL. And I don't know how many people are going to be there or care about the game and. And then it's on YouTube. It's the first YouTube game. They bought a package thingy like a lot of different outlets have. There are more different platforms for watching NFL games this year than there ever have been before. You don't have to be a YouTube subscriber. Anybody can watch it on YouTube. Although it was just a month or so ago. Remember when Taylor Swift announced her new album? She was on the kelsey Brothers podcast. YouTube crashed because one and a half million people tuned into that when it was live. And the average NFL game gets about 18 million people. So hopefully they've beefed up something. I don't know the technique.
Joe
Yeah. What was the other super high profile. Oh, it was the first NFL game they did.
Jack Armstrong
Well, that. And remember the Mike Tyson, The Mike Tyson fight that crashed? It was. Was that Apple or whoever that was. That didn't work.
Joe
Doing all of the viewers a favor.
Jack Armstrong
Oh, did you see Mike Tyson's gonna fight Floyd Mayweather. Did you see that? They announced that yesterday.
Joe
Go ahead.
Jack Armstrong
Tyson is our age. He's gonna be 60 when the fight happens. Back to the football game. So they're. They're playing in Brazil. I didn't. You've been following the thing about new globes and new maps lately. We've been. The world has been using the same globes and maps since Magellan was floating around the Earth and we haven't updated.
Joe
My globe isn't that old and we haven't updated them.
Jack Armstrong
And they're way out of proportion and. And all kinds of different stuff. And so they're put. They're trying to get new maps going. So you see that Africa is way, way bigger than the United States. Whereas in most globes and maps that you ever see on a school wall, it's not for instance, so. But that. But I was looking up when the game is, it's actually at 9 o' clock local time. Even though it's going to be on at 8 o' clock East coast time. For some reason in my mind I picture South America being straight down from America, but it's way east of us. You go down and so whatever.
Joe
It's kind of over, over yonder.
Jack Armstrong
So they're gonna be playing it from like 9 to midnight local time there. I don't know, whatever. I don't know how many fans off.
Joe
Into Rio at midnight. That sounds like delightful and totally safe recreation.
Jack Armstrong
Well, I know some people involved with some of the teams and they are leaving immediately after the game. As far as I know, the everybody went down there and you were not allowed to leave the hotel and they're leaving as soon as it's over. So if you're a fan, I guess you go down there and enjoy San Paulo and hope you don't get mugged if you're actually with the teams you're huddling up in your hotel.
Joe
Oh, it's in Sao Paulo, which is an enormous city.
Jack Armstrong
One of the biggest cities on earth.
Joe
Yeah. Every time I'm reminded of the population of it, I'm shocked. Yeah, it is.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Sao Paulo, Brazil. The only thing I know about it is that great big giant angel Christ statue thing that they got high up on that hill. You see that anytime they show Sanball. I would like to see that with my own eyes, but I also don't. My son, my brother was there with his daughters for the Taylor Swift concert last year and said it was super sketchy around there.
Joe
Yeah, yeah, I believe that.
Jack Armstrong
But it will be interesting to see if YouTube crashes or not. And they've got some YouTube stars like Mr. Beast is somehow involved. Various people that have huge presences on YouTube are involved in the broadcast in various ways.
Joe
Yeah, interesting. You know, I learn yearn long to go back to London and spend more time in Britain. I really enjoyed it and I would love to go to a soccer game there, but I would not go there to watch an American sport, I don't think. Although, you know, huge Chiefs fan and he went to see the Chiefs in London thinking yeah, I'm going to see the Chiefs and I'm going to see London. Which makes perfect sense.
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, I just would seems a little odd if I, if I get the chance. If I'm ever in Brazil, it's not going to be to watch a football game I could watch here personally.
Joe
But yeah, yeah.
Jack Armstrong
I had another question, but I'll I'll save it so we do four hours every single day. If you don't get every segment every hour being held against my will, you should look for our podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand. We've had some interesting stuff in our One More Thing podcast the last several days that includes some squares. If you've ever wanted to hear Joe swear, you can tune into the One.
Joe
More Thing podcast or spend five minutes with me in real life. Not really. I try not to be too foul mouthed.
Jack Armstrong
So we are sending 10 F35s to Puerto Rico to boost up that military presence we've got down there in South America. That among other things we can talk about. I hope you stick around Armstrong and.
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Take a deep dive into the stories making the news headlines across the world.
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Affairs and the newsagents USA.
Emily Maitlis
Listening to the newsagents on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search the newsagents to start listening.
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Jack Armstrong
Come on.
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Jack Armstrong
Song stands about an obsessed fan who's taking me too literal from Eminem and.
Joe Getty
The producers of 8 Mile.
Jack Armstrong
Never seen anything like Eminem fans.
Joe Getty
This is the story of a fan base. I had to look in the mirror and be like, am I one of these crazy Stans that created a culture?
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Jack Armstrong
I travel the world for him. Without Eminem, I wouldn't have the life I have right now. What's your first?
Joe Getty
First question stands new documentary now streaming on Paramount plus this is an iHeart podcast.
Date: September 5, 2025
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty
In this episode, Armstrong and Getty take on a fiery critique of American public education—particularly the rise of "woke" ideologies and the perceived rewriting of history in schools. The hosts passionately argue that progressive movements in the education system threaten the foundational understanding of American history and society, expressing deep frustration with what they see as the indoctrination of children. They also touch on topics such as urban decay in cities like Portland and San Francisco, the death of Publishers Clearinghouse sweepstakes for some winners, and the globalization of NFL games, blending social commentary with their trademark irreverent humor.
Jack shares his son’s experience in an American History class in California’s public school, which from day one, required pronoun selection and a "land acknowledgment" focusing on stolen Native land. The teacher dismissed the assigned textbook as "full of lies and distortions" to be corrected in class.
"The only assignments on day one was a handout to syllabus, you gave your pronouns and had to write a land acknowledgment explaining how we had stolen the land from the Indian tribe where the school was built...the teacher also handed out the book and explained how the book is full of lies and distortions they will go through and fix." (Jack, 04:29)
Jack’s stance:
He’s “anti-public school,” considering the institution too broken to salvage:
"I just don’t care. You’re a lunatic. If you believe that stuff, you’re a freaking lunatic." (Jack, 06:07)
Joe agrees: Criticizes educators for ideological extremism and lack of historical perspective, emphasizing that American chattel slavery was not a unique evil.
"Slavery was everywhere, all the time for all of human history. And it was brutal and dehumanizing everywhere it occurred. No exceptions." (Joe, 06:24)
Joe introduces the David McCullough/Peggy Noonan perspective on the importance of history education:
"History shows us how to behave. History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for...Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude." (Joe, 10:04, quoting McCullough)
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” (Joe quoting Orwell, 09:04)
Joe reads from Dan Lerman’s Free Press essay:
"In many classrooms today, the very idea of committing information to memory has become unfashionable. Schools have decided that facts are no longer worth teaching... At the progressive Brooklyn private school where I once taught, spelling wasn't corrected until middle school..." (Joe reading Lerman, 13:41)
Both hosts warn: Parents should not trust school boards or administrators—they urge active resistance.
"We folks can no longer sit quietly and idly and quote unquote trust our school boards and our teachers and our superintendents. No man, we are in a fight. So fight." (Joe, 16:16)
On “woke” history:
"If you spend all your time on Indian tribes and slavery, you’re making an excellent argument to get parents on our side and get pissed off about this." (Joe, 07:53)
Jack's frustration:
"I’m so disgusted by all this. That’s why I’ve gone completely anti-public school. I just think it needs to be torn down. Start over. Why do we even have public schools? It’s a bad idea." (Jack, 08:28)
On “indoctrination”:
"They think America is an evil place, Western civilization ought to be torn down, and they are actively trying to indoctrinate your kids into their neo Marxist thinking.” (Joe, 07:53)
On passive acceptance:
"You run into a 25 year old with crazy beliefs. They got it starting in kindergarten." (Jack, 16:04)
Joe’s summary of the problem:
“It is a far-leftist effort to tear down the institutions of Western civilization using fake quasi moral arguments.” (Joe, 38:30)
“If the company goes out of business, it sucks. If you planned your whole life around…$5,000 a week for life?” (Jack, 21:26)
Reports of violent Antifa protests in Portland going completely unreported by mainstream outlets. Police are failing to intervene, leading to property and personal damage and calls from residents for government action.
Dan Springer of Fox News:
"Night after night...protesters brought what looked like a guillotine. Some confrontations end with residents getting assaulted. First a bullhorn, then a fist. No arrest was made, despite the injuries." (Dan Springer, 31:03)
Economic toll:
"Portland's now ranked…the second worst place in America to invest with six and a half million square feet of commercial vacancy. The top 20 office towers have lost 57% of their combined value in five years." (Dan Springer, 34:15)
Jack’s lament:
“How bad will Portland have to get before people are willing to turn it around?” (Jack, 35:36)
Jack asks Joe for a one-sentence definition:
“It is a far leftist effort to tear down the institutions of Western civilization using fake quasi moral arguments.” (Joe, 38:30)
They discuss how many adherents are well-meaning but manipulated, and how the ideology spreads through emotional and social appeal rather than reason.
"Hey, you want to comment on any of that? You have any examples? School year is up and running. Text line 415295 KFTC ARMSTRONG and getty." (Jack, 16:37)