You Make A Good Point, Soccer Mom!

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: You Make A Good Point, Soccer Mom!

Date: March 9, 2026
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles an array of current events, starting with a disturbing deep-dive into the existence and mysteries surrounding so-called "Havana Syndrome" brain attack weapons, recent international tensions including Israeli strikes on Iran, shifting U.S. political relationships, an inside look at AI and Pentagon drama, and pointed reflections on Jesse Jackson's legacy after his recent funeral. The hosts blend investigative commentary, skepticism, and trademark irreverence, spotlighting both media cliches and deeper societal trends.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Havana Syndrome" and Microwave Weapons

(00:58–14:05)

• The episode opens with a recap of a chilling 60 Minutes report detailing attacks on U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers with a mysterious "ray" weapon—believed to be a pulsed microwave device perfected by Russian scientists.

• The hosts play and react to firsthand victim accounts of the attacks, describing excruciating symptoms and long-term damage.

• Discussion centers on U.S. government skepticism, cover-up concerns, and the implications of admitting such attacks as acts of war.

  “It felt like a vice gripping my brain stem.” — Unnamed victim describing a 2020 attack (02:01)

• Joe Getty raises concerns about the permanent effects—contrasting initial assumptions that surviving an attack was tantamount to recovering from a taser shock.

• The technology behind these weapons, their proven existence (confirmed by classified U.S. military testing), and their potential proliferation are discussed.

• Clips from 60 Minutes outline how the U.S. even acquired a sample weapon from Russian sources for study.

• The ethical and societal terror: if such weapons can be hidden in a backpack and deployed discretely, how can civilians and officials ever feel truly safe?

  "An ideal stealth weapon... Ideal because literally the person feels as if this is in my head." — Dr. David Relman (07:14)

• The hosts express greater alarm at the weapon's existence than at the governmental “cover-up,” musing on the arms race and drawing analogies to chemical warfare.

• They contemplate why, if Russia possesses such weapons, they haven’t openly used them in warzones like Ukraine:

  "Why hasn't Russia used it in Ukraine?" — Jack Armstrong (13:33)
  "Because we told them, 'don't do that, or we will... unleash our disembowel array in Moscow...'" — Joe Getty (13:38)

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2. U.S., Israeli, and Iranian Tensions; Pain at the Pump

(14:08–34:33)

• Brief riff on Trump’s tongue-in-cheek claims about Iran’s next leader, and speculation over potential split between Trump and Netanyahu (14:08–15:13).
• Discussion shifts to Pentagon conflict with Anthropic AI over military use, referencing CEO Dario Amodei’s private memos and corporate struggles about how their tech might be used for surveillance or weaponry (15:13–17:32).
  • Notable for its “wrong text” anecdote—Amodei’s internal complaints about rivals and the personal fallout when these are inadvertently leaked.
• Quick jab at President Biden’s speech at Jesse Jackson’s funeral, highlighting his disjointed attempt to connect his struggle with stuttering to the occasion (17:48–18:18).
• Examination of pain at the pump media cliches following Israeli strikes on Iranian oil targets (32:02–34:33).

  • Hosts lampoon the repetitive TV news formula: interviewing “soccer moms” on gas prices.

  • They mock the narrative that interviewing one person at a gas station makes for informed coverage:

    “Who is that for? That needs to hear an individual describe their single situation? Like you haven’t grasped that on your own.” — Jack Armstrong (33:06)

  • They highlight the disconnect between consumer outrage at gasoline prices and luxury spending elsewhere, like $9 coffee drinks.

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3. Jesse Jackson’s Funeral and Legacy: Scammer or Civil Rights Hero?

(18:24–31:59)

• Hosts air and respond to Jesse Jackson Jr.’s angry criticism of Democratic presidents turning his father’s funeral into political grandstanding—highlighting a gulf between eulogizing past civil rights figures and using the occasion for present-day partisan shots (21:03–23:23).

  “If I was the son, I’d have been unhappy too. How about you stick with what my dad accomplished and not take shots at the current administration?” — Jack Armstrong (21:03)

• Jack and Joe unpack the double-edged legacy of Jesse Jackson, contrasting his civil rights bona fides with a long history of alleged shakedown schemes and influence-peddling, particularly against corporations like Anheuser Busch and Toyota.

• They detail how Jackson’s tactics seem to have laid groundwork for the Black Lives Matter movement’s fundraising model:

  "He invented that... The real money poured in when Jackson applied the strategy systematically to top investment banks and financial brokerages." — Joe Getty (28:26–29:20)

  "Thanks to the George Floyd video... Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raised a staggering $90 million in donations... beggaring Jackson’s lifetime honey pot." — Joe Getty (31:34)

• The hosts argue national media ignores Jackson's checkered legacy in favor of hagiography, and connect societal “shakedown” tactics to modern activist fundraising.

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4. Modern Flakiness, Gen Z, and Social Shifts

(34:33–35:59)

• Jack recounts frustrations with flaky behavior on Facebook Marketplace, noting a trend towards lower personal accountability and reliability.
• Joe links this to broader issues with Gen Z and “interpersonal interaction”—not always as a critique, but as a practical workplace challenge.
  • Referenced a scholarly article diagnosing these generational gaps.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the U.S. government and Havana Syndrome:

  "We have to pretend it didn’t happen, or it is an announcement of an act of war because it’s probably the Russians." — Jack Armstrong (03:24)

• On TV journalism about gas prices:

  "Who was that for? That needs to hear an individual describe their single situation? Like you haven’t grasped that on your own." — Jack Armstrong (33:06)

  “You make a good point, soccer mom.” — Joe Getty (33:25; episode title reference)

• On Jesse Jackson’s business tactics:

  "The franchise brought in tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue... The Anheuser Busch deal, classic Jackson operation." — Joe Getty (27:14–29:00)

• On civil rights legacy and Black Lives Matter:

  “The torch was passed to Black Lives Matter... they raked in so much money. You figured out pretty quickly that you inoculate yourself against being called racist by donating a certain amount of money.” — Jack Armstrong (31:21–31:34)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [00:58–14:05] — Havana Syndrome & microwave weapons
• [14:08–17:32] — AI, Pentagon, tech industry drama
• [17:48–23:23] — Joe Biden on stuttering at Jackson’s funeral; political turns at memorials
• [23:23–31:59] — Jesse Jackson’s legacy: shakedowns and civil rights
• [32:02–34:33] — Israeli strikes on Iran, “pain at the pump,” media cliches
• [34:33–35:59] — Modern flakiness on Facebook Marketplace & Gen Z in the workplace

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Tone & Style

• The hosts employ their characteristic irreverence, skepticism, and quick-mix of cynicism and dry humor.
• They don’t shy away from sharp judgment (“scammer,” “shakedown,” “dumbest journalism”) or tongue-in-cheek headlines, keeping the conversation brisk, skeptical, and darkly comedic, especially on media analysis and absurdities in political pageantry.

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Useful for Listeners Who Missed the Show

• Provides a detailed breakdown of current headline topics: mysterious attacks on government officials, instability in the Middle East, AI’s ethical crossroads, and the complicated legacy of a major civil rights figure—each illuminated by the hosts’ blend of skepticism and cultural critique.
• Includes timestamps for direct access to headline stories and lively debate.
• Equips new listeners with context and memorable quotes—no need to replay the episode to grasp major controversies, tone, or argument.

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center,

[B]

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

[A]

So unbelievable and terrifying story in 60 Minutes last night is they've been covering this for a decade. The whole Havana syndrome brain attack thing that we've been trying to figure out for a very, very long time. Here's one guy describing what the attack was like when it happened to him. Very first incident occurred in August of 2020, and what it felt like was

[B]

that someone punched me in the throat and my left ear was clogged and

[A]

I started to get sharp shooting pains

[B]

going down my left arm.

[A]

The third attack, towards the end of

[B]

September, I was sitting in our living room and instantaneously, all of the muscles

[A]

within my spine immediately cramped, much like

[B]

a charley horse, and my spine felt

[A]

like it was on fire.

[B]

So very hot and sharp.

[A]

The fifth one was by far the

[B]

worst, and that was early December.

[A]

And I woke up with a full body convulsion, the worst pain I have ever felt.

[B]

It felt like a vice gripping my brain stem. Was there.

[A]

Okay, that's one of many descriptions of how this affects you, and it's a permanent effect. This guy was being attacked not only at work originally, but then at his home there in the D.C. area. And his wife was getting it too, I guess because she was close enough to him or whatever in their apartment. And, and, and they're still on medication and doing all kinds of rehab and everything like that. To try to live anything like an enjoyable life. Pretty awful. Oh. So we're going to go through these stories. It's people describing what it's like to get attacked with this ray, where this ray came from, what we know about it at this point. Here's a guy, former CIA dude, who for whatever reason, the CIA, it seems like, tried to cover this up or pretended it wasn't happening or whatever. Here's a little him on 60 Minutes last night.

[B]

There's a part of this, Scott, that has to do with moral injury. And that's the idea of betrayal. You know, I worked for 26 years for the CIA. I think I was involved in every covert action program in the Middle East. I did some very interesting things for the US government, always with the idea that they would have my back if I got jammed up. I just needed to get medical care when I came back and they wouldn't even do that. So this moral injury, this sense of betrayal is so acute with me. That's something that I can never forgive them for.

[A]

So I don't know if one of these clips is going to get into that or not, but at one point one of the guests said we have to pretend it didn't happen or it is an announcement of an act of war because it's probably the Russians. It's the announcement that they committed an act of war against us and it puts us in a rough political position. By the way, this has gone on during the Biden administration and the Trump administration. So you can't lay it at the foot of the either party really.

[B]

Both.

[A]

I mean, this guy, a bunch of other guys went to the Biden White House and told Joe Biden about it. Just two months before he left office. He met a bunch of the people. So it's been around for a long time why the CIA tried to, a combination of things they said. And again, maybe one of these clips is going to get into it. But one, it would be saying, yeah, Russia committed an act of war against us and we've ignored it. Or two, the CIA being locked in, this can't possibly be true. I mean we've done all the research there. There is no such thing as this ability. These microwaves can't travel that far. They can't do this sort of damage. It can't be carried in a, in a, the piece of equipment can't be small enough that it's portable. It's just not possible.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They believe so. It's a little bit of we're the experts here and this can't be true.

[B]

You know, that seems crazy unless you've dealt with the government before. I've got to admit, I had assumed all along and we've been on this story for years now. I'd assume that it was like getting tased, that it's horrible while it's happening, then you're rattled for a while but then you're fine. But no, these people are saying it causes serious long term damage.

[A]

Well, yeah, and one of the interesting things is it seems to be people describe it in quite different ways. Always horrific. Yeah, but quite different ways. Let's go with that next clip then. This is the. The same CIA dude explaining his situation.

[B]

Mark Polymeropoulos rose to an executive level

[A]

at the CIA, about the equivalent of a three star general. He was awarded a top decoration for service in 2017. He says he was overwhelmed in a hotel room in Moscow.

[B]

I woke up in the middle of the night. It was a no. I didn't hear any sound, but I woke up with incredible vertigo. The room was spinning. I had a blinding headache. I had tinnitus, ringing in my ears, and I felt like I was gonna be physically sick. It was a terrifying feeling where I lost control, you know, something that seriously happened to me. And I remember feeling, you know, that this is so unusual. I'd been shot at in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd been in physical danger, but this was terrifying.

[A]

Yeah. So let's skip ahead to where they talk about. So a little bit of 60 Minutes last night was a recap of something they had last year that we played lots of clips of in which our government bought one of these from some underground Russians. And so then we get to study the dang thing and see what it was like and everything like that. And they kind of recapped that on 60 Minutes last night. But here is a guy explaining how the Russians had been building this for a while.

[B]

Pulsed microwave radiation.

[A]

Just what Dr. David Relman's investigations predicted. He wouldn't talk about classified information in our interview, but his research found that

[B]

Russian scientists had been perfecting the concept for decades. And what the Russians spoke about was the importance of the energy being pulsed in order to have biological effects on humans. When you produce pulses like this, you can actually stimulate electrically active tissue like brain tissue and the heart, for that matter, mimicking what the brain normally does. But now you're driving it with your pulses from the outside.

[A]

An ideal stealth weapon.

[B]

Ideal. Ideal because literally the person feels as if this is in my head.

[A]

Our confidential sources tell us the still classified weapon has been tested in a US Military lab for more than a year. Tests on rats and sheep show injuries consistent with those seen in humans.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So 60 Minutes kind of went back and forth between just describing the horror of this weapon and the fact that it exists on planet Earth, and then the COVID up. Frankly, I'm not as interested in the COVID up part. It's horrific. If we're not taking care of these people, like booting them out and not taking care, calling them liars or acting

[B]

like they're crazy or whatever, especially a guy ranked as high as that one. Cheap.

[A]

That is awful. But I'm just interested in the fact that this weapon exists on the planet. The Russians apparently have it.

[B]

We're.

[A]

We're trying to perfect it ourselves. Here's another portion of the show in which they describe people being attacked with this ray gun. As a separate part of the investigation, security camera videos have been collected that show Americans being hit. The videos are classified, but they were described to us in one. A camera in a restaurant in Istanbul captured two FBI agents on vacation sitting at a table with their families.

[B]

A man with a backpack walks in,

[A]

and suddenly everyone at the table grabs their head as if in pain. Our sources say another video comes from

[B]

a stairwell in the US Embassy in Vienna.

[A]

The stairs lead to a secure facility. In the video, two people on the stairs suddenly collapse. Wow.

[B]

Yeah, wow. So let there be no further discussion of whether this is real or not.

[A]

Oh, it's clearly real.

[B]

Did they get into at all whether we use this in Venezuela?

[A]

No, no, no. We're still testing on goats and chickens or whatever.

[B]

Well, wait a minute. Trump himself was referring to the discombobulator, Ray. There are all sorts of accounts from Venezuelans saying something came over me, I couldn't even get up.

[A]

Yeah, there are two different things that the. Is it the discombobulator? One of them. They're talking about our ability to jam their weapon systems. They weren't able to fire back at our planes or all that sort of stuff. Everything went. Went inoperative, all the electronics. There's that piece of equipment. That's what Trump was referring to, the brain scrambler. I don't believe has been admitted to, even though people. Some. There are some reports of Venezuelan saying that happened to them.

[B]

Similar accounts. Yeah.

[A]

Well, if we have the weapon and we've used it, I don't imagine it's probably a good idea to talk about it. I don't know where this falls under any terms of what's fair game or what's not. I think it's going to end up. Going to have to end up being in the classification of, like, chemical warfare, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's so horrifying. It is horrifying. A bullet hitting you in the chest ain't a bargain either, but yeah, this is extra horrifying for some reason.

[A]

Well, at least that guy would have to get, you know, within a certain distance with a gun and have a beat on you with this thing. You can carry it in a backpack. You can be hundreds of feet away. It'll go through walls and cement and everything else that is just as horrifying as about anything could possibly be. And so we got this. You were, you were talking about, we've gotten too smart for our own good. Whether it's this stuff or AI, we got this text. I guess it's from a Tool song. I don't know the group Tool that well. Silly monkeys give them thumbs, they make a club to beat their brother down. That's from Tool, I guess. Correct. The Russians have it. They perfected it. We probably have it now. Does China have it or they're going to have it? Orange is going to have it, or just, you know, random bad guys will have it?

[B]

And you.

[A]

Can you discombobulate the brain of the person at the bank vault and go in and take money? Just a horrifying, horrifying development.

[B]

Well, if we bought it from a Russian arms dealer, maybe it was that Victor Boot character or whatever before he was in custody. Although we had to trade him back, right?

[A]

We gave him back to get the. To get the basketball player, didn't we?

[B]

Oh, Lord. Anyway, monsters like that are running around the world selling whatever they can get their hands on. So, yeah, God knows what hands this will get into.

[A]

Just. I found the story so disturbing. Again, I was more disturbed by the presence of the weapon, of its existence on earth than the COVID up. The COVID up is bad too, and very complicated. Why are we covering it up? Are there, are there good reasons for covering it up?

[B]

Well, yeah, I could speculate. I think you. You hit on some of the main ones.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So troubling. I just thought, just occurred to me, I was about to say something that I say semi frequently, and I thought to myself, you know, the. I got to keep track. I gotta have like a tote board. And the 100th time I say this, I'm going to retire and never be seen again. And that is good luck, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

I'll be in the woods if you need me. The world ain't getting purdier.

[A]

If Russia attacked our diplomats with this and ruined their brains, why do you not treat it like an act of war? Since it is an act of war, why would you ignore it?

[B]

Well, maybe not ignore it, but keep it quiet because you don't want a nuclear holocaust. So you might say, once you had reasonable evidence that what happened to happen, you would contact the Kremlin undercover and say, hey, we know what you're doing. We will go ape s if you do this again. We are onto you. Don't do it again. Try to limit the, you know, the. The spreading of the hostilities.

[A]

Why hasn't Russia used it in Ukraine? I haven't earned any reports out of Ukraine of people getting their brain scrambled.

[B]

Because we told them, don't do that. Or we will. You know, I don't know. We'll unleash our disembowel array in Moscow and the streets will run with poop. I don't know.

[A]

I take that one. I can. I can recover from that. But scrambling your brain permanently, that ain't any good. That's just awful. Oh, my God. Any thoughts on that? Text line 415295, KFTC.

[B]

Armstrong and Getty.

[A]

President Trump said that he should be involved in choosing Iran's next Supreme Leader. So congrats to new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Jared Kushneri. So Jared, Kushner and Witkoff going to Israel tomorrow to talk to BB in person and probably say, hey, how about you don't blow up the oil refineries?

[B]

I'm guessing, yeah, we're partners, but we're not in lockstep.

[A]

Well, Mark Halperin's predicting the big split between BB and Trump coming this week.

[B]

Oh, really?

[A]

Yeah. Huh.

[B]

That's funny. I'd assume they could mend fences and figure out a way to go forward together. We'll see. It's me against Mark Halpern, head to head.

[A]

Well, you know how Trump can turn on people.

[B]

He's as smart, he is, you know,

[A]

all of a sudden, you're the dumbest person he's ever met or whatever, so.

[B]

Oh, surely not Bibi Netanyahu, though, because he's a super tough guy and Trump wants to be seen with tough guys. And as a tough guy, Trump's more

[A]

popular in Israel than Bibi is.

[B]

So speaking of the Pentagon and conflict and that sort of thing, if I were to text Michael, boy, that Jack's a stupid piece of ass. And I actually texted you Jack and I said, oh, I'm sorry. I texted that. That would be fine. Right. Well, I'm learning more about the conflict between the Pentagon and anthropic old Dario Emoti. So we've been following the whole. It's about laws and use, and the Pentagon says we ought to be able to use AI for any legal use. And Modi and Anthropic are saying, well, no, you can't use it for mass surveillance or fully autonomous killing machines. We won't have our technology used.

[A]

And that's.

[B]

That's a problem. As a Pentagon supplier and and it's it's gotten out of hand. But what I had missed was that somebody leaked a memo that a modi sent the Anthropic staff saying the administration's just targeting us cuz I haven't given dictate dictator style praise to President Trump and essentially cuz that's what he wants and I get it. I get what he's saying. But he also criticized criticized OpenAI, who you may his great rival who you may remember agreed to hey we're good with the Pentagon, blah blah blah. Allegedly emoti wrote that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was attempting to quote spin and Gaslight by claiming to support Anthropic's position while hurrying to sign its own pact. Quote it is working on some Twitter morons which doesn't matter but my main worry is how to make sure it doesn't work with OpenAI employees. He wrote due to selection effects they're sort of a gullible bunch. So then this gets leaked and he says it was a difficult day for the company and I apologize for the tone of the post. It does not reflect my careful or considered view. It was also written six days ago and is an out of date assessment of the current situation.

[A]

God, I've got a handful of texting the wrong people stories that still make me cringe. I should I need to stay in the habit most of the time I do of always checking where it's going. But sometimes you get in a conversation with two people and you're just responding back and forth and you lose track.

[B]

So dangerous. Oh, I'd say.

[A]

I'd say whoo. So Jesse Jackson Jr. Not happy with the Democratic president's badmouthing Trump at dad's funeral? Stay tuned.

[B]

Armstrong and Getty.

[A]

If I told you all earlier when

[B]

I was a kid I had a

[A]

cleft palate or club foot, none of you would have laughed.

[B]

But it's okay to laugh at stuttering. I'm not being critical of you, but think about it.

[A]

It's the one place where people think you're stupid.

[B]

Oh really? I'm a hell of a lot smarter

[A]

than most of you. Now why was Joe Biden talking about his stutter at Jesse Jackson's memorial? I mean, I don't Was there context for that that made it make sense?

[B]

Don't know, don't care. Joe Biden rambling and think at Jesse Jackson.

[A]

If he had run and be Listen to how old he sounds now. If he had run and being reelected, he would just barely be A year into this term,

[B]

the topic that we are going to be addressing here over the next several minutes, I. We had decided to pass on last week and let's just let it go because there's way more to talk about than we can squeeze into every show. But then Jesse Jackson was lying in state in South Carolina's home state and the big giant gala funeral was held. Or do you say gala over the weekend in which two ex presidents or three spoke.

[A]

Well, you had Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton, who was never president, speak, right?

[B]

Yeah, very nearly the president.

[A]

Oh, and Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton spoke also. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Okay. Yeah. I couldn't remember if he had or not. Anyway, so you got the president's speech of. Fine. We'll give you a little sample of Barack Obama in which he charmingly appropriates a special accent for his speech.

[A]

Every day you wake up to things you just didn't think

[B]

were possible.

[A]

Each day we're told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other and that some Americans count more than others and that some don't even count at all.

[B]

I don't recall hearing that.

[A]

Everywhere we see greed and bigotry being celebrated and bullying. Oh, the irony and mockery masquerading as strength. You are focusing on the words, which is probably appropriate. I didn't hear the words. I only heard the weird affectation. What was that? I've never heard him sound like that before.

[B]

Well, he's trying to sound extra, extra Southern, extra black. Who knows? I don't know. It was ridiculous. That's what it was. Obama. Although I tell you what, the gulf between the political talent of Joe Biden certainly at this point in Barack Obama is like the gulf between me and Shohei Ohtani. Well, we got even on the same chart.

[A]

We got to do the headline. Cuz I think people will listen to this different. That Jesse Jackson Jr. Very angry after his dad memorial, that these presidents came out and turned it into a political take political shots at Trump thing.

[B]

Exactly where I was going. That's the next clip. Right.

[A]

But you need to know that ahead of time to appreciate what Obama just said. What are you up there talking about the past and what's going on now in this country when you're there to memorialize Jesse Jackson. I don't get it either. I would if I was the son. I'd have been unhappy too. How about you stick with what my dad accomplished and not take shots at the current administration? What is that?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

That's. It's an Interesting take. And Jesse Jr. The convicted criminal, certainly has a right to that opinion.

[A]

It's a convicted criminal.

[B]

The idea that you get to a civil rights leader's funeral and you don't go into the whole pitch. That would seem weird to me. Honestly, I don't know where he's coming from because they all turn into that and maybe they should. It's about the message, not the corpse per se. But anyway, here's Jesse Jean.

[A]

That's a rough term.

[B]

I'm sorry, the dearly departed. That's probably a more delicate terminal.

[A]

And you say, where's the corpse? I want to go check out the corpse.

[B]

No, I don't. And I take your criticism, you know, in a manly fashion. Thank you. Anyway, here's Jesse Jackson Jr. Expressing his displeasure. Yesterday, I listened. Oh, can you stop it? Michael Hanson, executive producer Hansen pointed out that everybody's, like, standing in support of what Jesse Jr. Is saying. And Al Sharpton, halfway through, starts to get a weird look on his face and he sits down like, I'm not done with this. Exactly. So just keep that visual in mind. Yesterday I listened to for several hours of three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson. Wow. He maintained a tense relationship with the political order. Not because the presidents were white or black, but the demands of our message, the demands of speaking for the least of these, those who were disinherited, the damned, the dispossessed, the disrespected, demanded not Democratic or Republican solutions, but demanded a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as a people. Yes, he hated Obama, in short.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

Yeah, that's what I've heard.

[A]

Okay, I didn't know that. So you got. You heard what Obama said talking about you wake up every single day and hear things you never thought you'd ever hear. Biden claimed the Trump administration doesn't share any of the values that we have. And God, Joe Biden is just the worst. Or is he? Then Kamala Harrison, because it's a tough

[B]

sentence to make work. So they had comedy, huh?

[A]

She bragged that she predicted a lot of what's happening right now. I told you this was going to happen. So make sure I don't get into any sort of territory where I act like the Jackson family aren't scam artists who have been shaken corporations down around the country for decades.

[B]

So this is where this is going, by the way.

[A]

So is Jesse Jr. Only unhappy because. Yeah, Democratic presidents come in and take shots at the current Republican because he doesn't Want their organization to get pigeonholed, one or the other. I want to be able to shake down all of America. I don't want to be a Democratic thing or a Republican thing. I want to be a both thing.

[B]

I don't know that that's true, but I appreciate your shot.

[A]

I think that's what it is.

[B]

So. So here's the thing. Like I said, we're gonna. I was gonna pass on this because there's other, more urgent stuff to talk about, but watching the funeral and the. The lauding of the great, great man that Jesse Jackson is and the rest of it, I'm like, no, all right, that's it. That's it. I get the whole don't speak ill of the dead for a little while thing. But seriously, if, like, I don't know, a Steve Jobs had invented the iPhone, then used it to scam old people for the rest of his life, and you had a funeral where you said, steve Jobs, he invented this innovative product that everybody enjoyed so much, and he was a real saint and enjoyed and. I'm sorry. I'm trying to read while I talk. And ignored the rest of his life. And what he did after.

[A]

It just doesn't make any sense.

[B]

I mean, if you. If the family wants to do that, okay. But if you have US Presidents and the media, including Fox News, for instance, just going along with. Oh, he was a brave and courageous civil rights leader. Yes, he was. That's exactly what he was. You're fools and liars. I don't appreciate it because. And. And this was brilliantly put together by Rod Dreher in the free press. Jesse was the architect of the modern racist racial shakedown that we saw in Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd thing, he invented that. So in. In he. His chief organizational base was an operation he called Rainbow Push. He had a couple of organizations that he put together. Rainbow Coalition and Operation Push anyway, which was based in Chicago. I grew up there. I was acutely aware of this since I was, like, a teenager and what they do and how they did it. So anyway. But. So in 97, Rainbow Push founded the Wall Street Project, a nonprofit initiative designed to promote inclusion of racial minorities and leading financial firms and to fight economic apartheid in the elite financial directors, blah, blah, blah. Jackson was a particularly important channel for Wall street elites to the Clinton White House. Jackson started another nonprofit group, the Citizen Education Fund. Cef, closely aligned with Rainbow Fush. CEF generally handled Wall street project contributions. Anyway, so around this time, Jackson was separately involved in a deal with Anheuser Busch, the giant brewery which he had targeted a couple years earlier in a high profile boycott campaign to shame it as racist to. And so he said, I'm going to do this unless you sell one of the incredibly lucrative Chicago distribution franchises to a group of investors led by his two sons, Yusuf and Jonathan. So his whole we're going to call you racist Anheuser Bush and all the black people in America are going to stop drinking your products unless you sell a franchise to my sons. The franchise brought in tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue until Yusuf Jackson sold in 2013 for a mint, the Anheuser Busch deal. Classic Jackson operation. His method was to accuse a business of racism. Then after bad press and further consultations, announced that the target had agreed to Jackson's demands. With this usually came a generous donation from that corporation to Rainbow Push. The real money poured in when Jackson applied the strategy systematically to top investment banks and financial brokerages. Jackson's Wall street project was embassed by financial industry titans named some names. The Wall street project kicked off in 1998 by asking financial firms for a $50,000 contribution to support its lobbying efforts, landing half a million dollars in donations from Wall street immediately.

[A]

And I could see how if I was running a company, I would have done that. Look, I hate this. It's ridiculous. It's a shakedown. But we give them $50,000 and we don't have to deal with the whole mess. So let's cut him a check and move on.

[B]

It's like settling a nuisance lawsuit. Yeah. Also that year, inexplicably, the federal housing lender Freddie Mac contributed a million dollars to Rainbow Push, earmarking at least some of it for the Wall street project purposes. Let's see. Here's some more good stuff. Key Jackson rolls leverages Clinton administration connections and civil rights reputation on behalf of corporations seeking federal approvals for mergers. For example, despite the opposition of lesser known civil rights organizations, Jackson backed in 1998 merger of two banks, CITIC, Travelers. Why would Jesse Jackson be in the middle of that? After which Citicorp sent a generous $50,000 to the Citizen Education Fund and Travelers followed up with $100,000 gift on behalf of Rainbow Push. Inexplicably, Jackson came out against the promised $81 billion merger of telecommunications giants SBC and Ameritech, calling it anti Democratic. He had particular pull at the time with the FCC whose approval was necessary. It's then chairman Clinton appointee William Kennard was the first black FCC and was a close friend of Jackson's once publicly calling Jackson his hero. A year later, the civil rights leader was on the opposite side of the SBC Ameritech deal, which sailed through FCC approval. Rainbow Push emerged $500,000 richer from donations from the two companies, having changed his mind on the merger. Oh, my, how interesting. I got half a dozen more examples. I remember. I don't know if they cover this. I remember Toyota. Went to Toyota and said, look, I'm gonna say you. You all are racists against black people unless you make monstrous contributions to my foundations. And all of a sudden, they weren't racist anymore. It's wonderful. Wonderfully cured them. One final note. 1987, Jackson joined a student protest at Stanford University demanding an end to its mandatory Western culture humanities course. You need to end the humanities and studying the great works of Western civilization. Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western cultures got to go. The protesters chanted, and they won with Jesse Jackson's affectionate support. Again, I've got millions of dollars worth of examples. Many more. Yeah, okay. Maybe early on, maybe early on. He was a sincere and an energetic fighter for civil rights.

[A]

I'm sure he was.

[B]

God bless him for that. During those years, he became a scammer

[A]

and a blackmailer pretty obviously, I thought, but not obvious enough for anybody in the media to talk about it over the last two weeks.

[B]

End of screed, whatever. Yeah.

[A]

I don't know if I heard it anywhere other than here.

[B]

Oh, and I'm sorry I said this at the outset, but the torch was passed to the Black Lives Matter.

[A]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

[B]

Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullors, Opal Tametti, founders of Black Lives Matter.

[A]

Yeah, that's how they raked in so much money. You figured out pretty quickly that you inoculate yourself against being called racist by donating a certain amount of money.

[B]

Thanks to the George Floyd video and really no other reason, Black Lives Matter Global Network foundation raised a staggering $90 million in donations from terrified corporations and foundations in a single year, beggaring Jackson's lifetime honey pot.

[A]

$90 million. Wow.

[B]

And they. Man, as scammers go, they are all timers.

[A]

They got some nice houses out of it, though. Cool cars, a lot of trips.

[B]

See American Dream.

[A]

We got a lot more on the way. Stay here.

[B]

Armstrong and Getty. And over the weekend, the Israelis launched a series of strikes against Iran's oil infrastructure on the outskirts of Tehran, hitting four separate storage facilities. You could see black smoke rising from the horizon in Tehran. People on the ground even describing it as raining oil as these droplets that were taken up into the air. Came back down from the atmosphere. Americans already grappling with spiking prices at the pump. Gas prices now up almost 50 cents since the war in Iran began with no end in sight.

[A]

Yeah, first of all, if you haven't seen those videos out of Tehran, it looks like it's something from a movie. You can't even hardly believe it's real. That orange sky and flames and oil coming down and everything like that. Man, oh man, the evening newscast last night with their pain at the pump, which a term they've been using my whole life. I don't know. Might have started in the 30s for all I know. Pain at the pump and just always has been the dumbest journalism. Who is that for? You talk to one ma soccer mom next to her van.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I got $40 with the gas and hardly got anything. I can't believe what it costs to fill my car. Who was that for? That needs to hear an individual describe their single situation. Like you haven't grasped that on your own.

[B]

I know who watches that and thinks, wow, that's a good point.

[A]

Oh, gas is higher, so yeah, it'll cost more to fill up. You make a good point, soccer mom.

[B]

Or have less money for other things. Right? Yeah, I know. It is the laziest, crappiest sort of cliche journalism.

[A]

It really is.

[B]

Hey, hey. People don't know what they like, but they like what they know.

[A]

Yeah, play the hits.

[B]

Give me a weather forecast. Give me pain at the pump

[A]

line. 50 cars long at Starbucks with people wanting to pay $9 for a coffee drink they shouldn't have. Complaining about gas going up. I've never quite understood though, the fascination with gas prices over all other prices. But that's just the way people have apparently are built. I was looking to. I mentioned this last week. I was looking at a couple of things on Facebook Marketplace, which I'd never really used that much in the past. Is going to get a different motorcycle. My son turned 16 over the weekend. I was going to get something. He's big enough for us. We could go dirt bike riding and that sort of stuff. I had five different deals fall through on Facebook Marketplace with people just flaking, just flaking out. Yeah. Just not responding and all that sort of stuff. I was like, this is really a drag.

[B]

I don't know if it's there, an initial contact or.

[A]

Yeah. I reach out and say, hey, I'm really interested in this. And then they get back and say, oh, cool. And then, you know, what kind of time can I meet you at 2:00'?

[B]

Clock?

[A]

And then they just, they aren't there or they don't get back to you or whatever. And I feel like that sort of thing didn't used to happen to me really hardly at all with, you know, going way back to classifieds in the newspaper or even Craigslist. So I don't know if we just have gotten flakier as a people I don't know.

[B]

Well, yeah, I think so. I'm reminded of a great piece of writing I saw, why Gen Z is Unprepared for the workplace. And this is not like a shaming boy, young kids today are stupid type. It's more like a doctor's diagnosis and advice for companies on okay, here's how you have to deal with this. But it is, it is striking and troubling the extent to which interpersonal interaction is a problem for young people.

[A]

You think that's some of it? I had a couple of. I've got the money in my pocket. I will drive to you right now. What is going on here? Just like, no response. Wow.

[B]

Is it that they sell it and I don't know the courtesy to say, hey, it's sold?

[A]

I do not know. If you miss an hour, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand. More to come in hour four.

[B]

Armstrong and Getty.

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.