I've Done Drugs, Folks!

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. I'm strong and getty. And now he is. I'm strong and getty. Yeah. So there's a giant. Fraud problem in California. If this investigation is true, that just came out, we're about to tell you about it in a second. And it matters to the whole country because it's just an example of when government gets big and programs get giant at the behest of lefties that a lot of waste happens. And because Gaby Newsom is absolutely dead set on being the president and there's a lot of smart democratic money, semi-smart behind that effort. And I feel about Gavin running for president roughly the same way I would feel is if like I had a neighbor who is a big bully and he'd like, you know, hit me several times, but I couldn't do anything about it. And he announced he was going to fight like the heavyweight champion of the world. That's how I feel about Gavin Newsom. I can't wait to see him get battered. Anyway, politically, of course, not physically, I am horror violence. Here is Gaby Boyd. Before we get to the enormous Medicaid fraud, here is the gov himself when he was Lieutenant Governor in 2014 talking about the bull spit train. Started with 33 billion. It went to 96. We value engineered it. So it's no longer quote unquote high speed rail. It's higher speed rail. We wildly overstated the ridership projections. We manipulated some of the revenue projections. There's only one true high speed rail system in the world that generates real profit. I thought there were two. And I remember when President of France was here a few months ago, I complimented him on being one of the two and he laughed and his ministers laughed. I said, what do you mean? They said, well, don't believe what you read about us joint or grant generating profits on our high speed rail. The only one is Osaka that generates and that's a different kind of concentration, urban concentration. So this is this is going to be a subsidy. The bonds are you double the cost of the bonds is the actual cost of the taxpayers repay them. That sounds like a normal smart guy looking at a ridiculous project of the bullet train and speaking the truth. Where did you explain why it's an absolute? No, it's a hard no. Where did he say that when I was in 2014? Does anybody know the context of that? I don't actually. I mean, that's all completely true, by the way, it on their own website. It's no longer a high speed train. It's a slightly faster regular train. And the numbers he cited have ballooned one and a half to two times as high as even he was talking about. Wow. Yeah. So it's astonishing. That's highly troubling. Sorry. So this is about to explode. I think the California Post editorial board with a piece about the amount of fraud and waste going on in California, according to a new city journal investigation that has just come out, the investigators writing and this came out yesterday. The best estimates suggest that on the governor's watch that since 2018, you know, to be fair, that is quite a few years, but fraudsters, scammers and organized crime rings have stolen at least in California alone. A hundred and eighty billion dollars from taxpayers. As I said earlier, Minnesota says, Hey, we do fraud in California says hold my Chardonnay. Watch this since 2018, a hundred and eighty billion dollars worth of fraud scams and organized crime rings. Shocking yet unsurprising in a state that doesn't even have a mechanism for measuring whether their homeless industrial complex waste is doing any good. They don't even have a way to check. And the numbers will make your eyes gloss over. And so that's we go with the total. It's easy to understand, but it's unemployment benefits, subsidized health care for the poor in home health care benefits, welfare programs, homelessness programs, all these different things that that people sign up for that don't deserve it or programs that don't accomplish anything. And nobody's paying any attention to whether or not they accomplish anything and all those different things. Fraud against taxpayers is saturated California. Christopher Rufo, one of the authors of the investigation estimates based on intel from federal officials that 25 percent of the state's one hundred and ninety seven billion dollar annual Medi-Cal budget was lost to fraud. That's about fifty billion dollars in one year in one program. Fifty billion dollars and a quarter of it is fraud every year. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm interested to see the pushback on this if they even need to push back. I am so cynical about the modern world and people getting any information from any source that doesn't know with algorithms and whatnot. If you're lean left sort of person blue, if you will, will this information from the California Post reach you at all? Probably not. Two competing answers. Number one, they see the name Chris Rufo and reject it immediately in the mainstream media because Chris has been such a great writer about the idiocy and dishonesty of DEI programs. But on the other hand, the Minnesota fraud got a fair amount of attention. Doesn't mean because I'm thinking from the twisted perspective of lefty journalist, you might be able to sell that as Minnesota's off track, but these giant social programs are overall a good idea. But if you have to admit that California is with that enormous volume, every bit is corrupt and wasting money. That might be too big an admission for a lefty journalist. And it's likely getting worse or going to get worse starting as of last year. So in California, April, 2025, we had a bill that raised the threshold for felony welfare fraud from $950 to $25,000. Oh my gosh. Which Republican State Assemblyman Carl DeMio said that if that bill becomes law, it will effectively legalize welfare fraud in California, which is likely what happened. Carl's right. Well, look at what never, well, lifting the limit for shoplifting and then never prosecuting it. Look at that did for shoplifting. That is something. Yeah. And in a related story, you have Newsom's on drugs. Stay tuned. I want to hear that. I'm writing for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That fraud thing. I'm going to be interested to see if that explodes. If that gets legs like the Minnesota welfare fraud thing to the numbers are so giant, it's just jaw dropping. That's sometimes if something's so big, it almost doesn't get attention for some weird reason. Like it doesn't register. You can't believe it's true or something or it seems like too big a problem to even deal with. Well, and again, I think from the lefty journalists point of view, and that's virtually all of them. This is just too much of a confession about how our dear programs are terrible and badly run and squandering taxpayer dollars. That's too much of an end. Well, we as it points out in this California post piece from the editorial board, California has the highest taxes in the country on almost everything. You know, gas and this and that and everything like that with the idea that we're going to fix the roads, fix the schools, deal with the homeless program. We have to have the homeless people in the whole country here. The road sock. The schools are failing. So I mean, so if you have the highest taxes and the worst results, that money is going somewhere. Sure. Of course it is. Yep. So back to the gavids on drugs thing. He had a he was part of a ceremony the other day about the California service core and while the other speakers were speaking, this kind of went semi viral online. He was doing like the you know, the equivalent of the twitchy pee pee dance. I mean, but for a grown man, it was just moving and going to his nose and twitching and looking around. I mean, he was agitated. I haven't seen this and it was kind of funny. But I, you know, being a charitable fellow, believe it or not, I thought maybe he was just bored or I don't maybe it's his allergies or something like that. Well, we'd missed when he actually got up to speak in which he was and we'll show the video and we'll post it in Armstrong, you get it. He dot com and Jack, you'll see it, but he's sweating. He's twitchy, swiping in his eyes and dabbing in his nose and stuff. And here's what he had to say. 80 H B Avenue. I mean, everything about this is feel like I'm home. You know, dyslexics that are surrounded by, you know, these special folks, particularly the young folks there. So I'm grateful. I'm also weird. Tron, you know, I'm trying to follow him. This is embarrassing. He can turn all that off. Just because all the noise, you know, that we just need to turn off and this is, this is this listen to this. This is it man. This is it. You want to fix all this stuff? This is it. Listen to these guys, you know, we all just sitting there yelling and screaming at each other. Everybody's getting each other's throats and trying to tear everybody down and you know, how are we going to get out of this? This is it. You heard these guys programs like this community leaders like this and and I just it's like, why are we so stupid? Why can't we just get this? It's so obvious what we need to do. And so I'm just deeply proud of this. It's hard to follow. He is there's something wrong with him right there. He's he's probably micro dosing ketamine because that's very hip among your Napa Valley elite. So you're doubling down the he's on drugs thing. There's something very odd going on there. Very odd. That opening 40 seconds was mystifying. Katie that that video circulated on a couple of different platforms yesterday and there were a lot of comments saying, Hey, I was a drug addict. This is drugs. Like a lot of people play the first chunk again, Michael. Yeah, the Avenue. I mean, everything about this is like I'm home. You know, the select six that are surrounded by, you know, these special folks, particularly young folks there. So I'm grateful. I'm also weird. Tron, I'm, you know, I was just having his face touch. Give me this is embarrassing. I can turn on that off super. Twitchy. Just because all the noise, you know, that we just need to turn off. And this is this is all right. Look, I've done drugs folks. There is something very odd happening there. And obviously I can't nail down what it is. But as Katie said, drug counselors, drug addicts are saying, Oh, dude, please. Right. And it's not, they're not trying to politicize it or make it like because it's him. They're like, I've definitely seen this before. Hmm. The difficulty stringing together, coherent, well strings of verbiage thoughts popping up and not being finished and bopping from sensory impression to sensory impression, just kind of reacting to it and thrown out a couple of words. And then, and then the visual was he was, he was wiping his eyes and his nose and the corners of his mouth. He was looking around kind of sporadically. And then when he went weird, he did that thing like trying to crack both sides of his neck and it was just, there was a lot going on visually with him. Wow. During that whole however long that was. Yeah. Wow. For some reason that reminded me, I was watching a bill bar comedian thing and he said, ladies, here's a dating tip. If you're ever on a first date with a guy and he cracks his neck run. And Tay anti neck tracker. But, uh, crack, so he cracks his neck and legs weird. Yeah. Gavin, get the help you need. Seriously. It's not an admission of weakness. You're addicted to ketamine. I can tell you're here to help him. That's what you're here for. Um, what are your thoughts on that? Text line 415295 K F T C. I just saw Kanye did a what they're calling comeback concert in LA last night. Wonder how that went. Surprising where in his clan robes was he brought his daughter north on stage to perform with apparently he's passed that hate in the Jews thing. Right. I guess well, I think he's passed his manic phase unmedicated manic phase for now. Yeah. Might be back on the meds. Yeah. So the no Kings rallies continue to be a gift. And that a lot of the people who are at the no Kings rallies. It's interesting that don't really follow the news that much. You're motivated enough to get out on the streets and protest, but you don't follow what's going on in the news that much because then you wouldn't have to follow the news a lot to be familiar with the whole straight of Hormuz straights of Hormuz situation. I mean, it's gas prices. Every gas price story includes the term straights of Hormuz. But anyway, this person being interviewed by a comedian on the street at the no Kings rally apparently hadn't heard of it. Isn't it a little bit homophobic that was so focused on the straights of Hormuz and not the gaze of Hormuz? I agree. Yes, for sure. Why do you think so willing to leave the gaze of Hormuz behind? I think it's just history. Historically, like, you know, gays have always been very discriminated against, which is wrong and so many levels. Even in war. Yeah, even in war. It just takes more reform in government, obviously, and then also educating society. Just feel like if we're going to go and sell, we can't leave the gay people behind. I don't think we should go and say at all. But if we're going to the gaze of Hormuz, we could turn it into fire. I want for sure. So she speaks with the confidence of the youth that thinks they know much. Quoting her professors in three or four different ways. I recognized all of that. Yeah. And you just haven't come across the whole straights of Hormuz and seen a map and Oh, a straight like a little area of water between two. Airland passage. Yeah, exactly. It was interesting though. You're interested enough in the news to be out at the protest. Yeah, but just reciting her, you know, postmodernist Neo Marxist talking points and historical discrimination, blah, blah, blah. Colonialism, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. That's a good one. The gaze of Hormuz. Wow. And that fire island joke. If you're not familiar, that's the famous island off New York that for many, many, many years was known with an odd nwink is where the gay people went to get it on. Wonder how many people he had to ask that question before he came across somebody who who bit on that. Do you remember the Duggar family and they're like 27 kids? Yeah. Yeah. Got an update on that horror show. Yeah. Oh boy, that went sideways. Anyway, we got lots of stuff to talk about. We're gonna have we have a great guest coming up a little bit later to talk about the Supreme Court oral arguments from yesterday on the Constitution and whether or not birthright citizenship should continue and this and that. Based on most of the analysis I've heard, they seem to think the justices are going to say no. Donald Trump, you can't get around this if anybody born on our land is a citizen. It would be a big stretch and as a strong advocate for the administration's position, I got to admit some of the logistical challenges that were pointed out are significant. No, okay. I want to hear about that among other things on the way. If you miss a segment of the podcast, Armstrong and Getty on demand. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days. Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days. We are in this military operation so powerful, so brilliant against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days and the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat. Yeah, I heard somebody make the point yesterday that Iran is a top 20 military in the world. They're nowhere near the United States, but they're not nothing. And we've been like the NCDA double A tournament. You rarely see a 12, five upset though in the military rankings. Right, but the idea that it should be over in, I don't know what mainstream media thought or the public, maybe I don't know what the public, how long the public thought the war should last if you go to war with Iran. Of course, there's a number of people have pointed out maybe you should have given the speech, selling the war like day one. Absolutely legit point of view. Yeah, I think so too. Maybe I'll do this later, but for instance, I wasn't aware until yesterday how close the whole Venezuela thing came to go in completely sideways and being a disaster. I mean, it came really, really close to being a entirely failed effort. And if that had happened in what way, just a nickel version? Well, I can go through it here. Why not? It's pretty damned interesting. And the point of that being if it had, first of all, all military operations, even, you know, even when you got the upper hand by far can go south because they're very, very complicated and there's lots of moving parts. And secondly, if it had not worked out, I think pretty damned. Obviously, we wouldn't have been going into Iran. There would have been no public mood for going into Iran. Sure. See if I can find this. There ain't much of one now. Um, well, well, here's what you got. Okay. So and this is the the Army Chief Officer that got the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the State of Union address and Trump gave an abbreviated story about what he did. But he was the lead Chinook helicopter pilot going in with the Special Forces troops that were going to run in and secure the ground and set up the whole thing. They started firing on us fired on that helicopter. He took four bullets in the leg and continued to fly his helicopter on the mission, landed it, got the guys off so they could secure the ground. So the next helicopters could come in and complete the mission. Then he went up and flew over and his gunman took out the dudes that were shooting at him that almost killed him. He then said to his co-pilot, you need to take over. I'm about to pass out and they got the helicopter out of there. If one of those bullets had hit him in the stomach or the head or the chest, he goes down missions over mission is over. I read some analysis of it by a variety of experts that it almost certainly would have failed spectacularly if one of those bullets bullets had killed him or if he wasn't able to continue to fly with four bullets in his legs and everything else like that. And it's just a point that the successor failure. These military missions hangs on so many tiny little things going right. Yeah. And at some point we're going to have that in Iran. Maybe we already have. Honestly, four bullets all missing the big arteries in the leg is a bit of a miracle. I find myself surprised that the loss of one helicopter could have doomed the mission like that. But it was a fairly small hit and run mission. So I get it, I guess. Right. Yeah. Well, you know, I could read the whole thing if you want to. But the military people explaining on how that that helicopter getting in there, landing the guys getting off to secure this. So the next helicopters could land blah, blah, blah. It just it all hinged on him getting through there and landing. They also didn't know they didn't think there was any chance he was going to get shot at. Again, the point being that things could go sideways so fast. And as we get further into trying to secure various islands or chunks of land or landing an expeditionary force to get the uranium back or anything like that, we got a long way to go on this war. And if we're already at the why isn't this overall ready period? I don't know if you can sell a war in the tick tock world. Lasting very long. You know, this is a bit of a tangent. I mean, I think Trump may be a little complicit in that having sold the euroescapade is a perfect flawless easy and easy out. Don't do that. Tell the people. All right. Look, you to because, you know, the phrase going sideways when you're talking about war, it's it will. It's just a question of how much and in what way have you seen the thing that leaked out yesterday as Trump speaking to a private group? Don't think so. Yeah, I hadn't heard about it until last night and I started watching and it's about an hour long. I got about a halfway through it. It's pretty darned interesting. So he's he it's not like private private like he's at a dinner with four other people. He's in like a ballroom little room there at the White House with what looks like, I don't know, 60 people and he's standing at a podium talking to him. But it's a private thing of all friends. Vance is there and Bondi and then staffers and then Erica Kirk is there and just it's all friendly. It's supposed to be behind closed doors private. They recorded it because they record everything, I guess, and somehow posted it to the public site very briefly. Some journalists grabbed it, downloaded it, and then it disappeared from the public site. So it wasn't meant for public eyes. Wow. And it's really interesting to hear Trump talk in a completely different voice. Just his manner is so different. Halpern posted it on his newsletter today and he said it's both interesting how different he sounds when he's speaking to friends privately and how the same he sounds. I mean, both are true. His his information was the same. The way he talks was a lot, a lot different. But anyway, at one point, the reason I brought this up was he said, we really should take the oil. I mean, he said that was my big complaint with Bush is that we went to Iraq and we didn't take the oil. Why don't we take the oil? He said, I think we take the oil and Iran, but I'm not sure the country's got the stomach for the timetable. He said, I just I just don't think people are going to put up with the stock market hit and everything long enough for us to take the oil. So I guess we'll see. I thought that was pretty interesting. He's aware that public opinion is not on the side of this and that the timetable is really short. Michael, let's hear 54 from the speech last night. Our armed forces have been extraordinary. There's never been anything like it. Militarily, everyone is talking about it. And tonight I'm pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion. And then he continues the thought. And we are going to finish the job and we're going to finish it very fast. We're getting very close. I want to thank our allies in the Middle East, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain. They've been great and we will not let them get hurt or fail in any way, shape or form. So how what did Iran think of the speech? Well, here you go. Meanwhile, Iran is responding to the president's speech last night by really doubling down, firing several missiles at Israel overnight ballistic missiles. So far, most have been intercepted. However, we do know that some injuries have been reported. Iranian officials are also rejecting any ceasefire and vowing further retaliation after President Trump warned the US will hit the country. And I quote, extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. You're going to bomb them back to the Stone Age, but you got to open the Strait of Hormuz, which came up in the news yesterday. The UK Prime Minister is leading a virtual summit today of 35 countries to try to build some kind of consensus on military or diplomatic efforts to reopen the Strait. Obviously, response to that strong pressure from President Trump. But you heard Secretary Rubio say on Hannity the other night that, you know, if these countries are not going to allow the US to use those bases when it needs to, then NATO is a one way street. And the troops are only in Europe for the defense of Europe, not for American interests. That's the message here from the White House. No, we have had troops in Europe for a very, very long time specifically to defend your countries from being invaded. It wasn't for our benefit. Yeah, I also reference to the humiliation that the Brits are experiencing right now because they can't get their aircraft carrier, either one of them up and running. They're in such terrible shape. They spend 60% of their time in dry dock getting fixed or in wet dock being fixed, but they don't have parts. They don't have the expertise to fix it. Their Navy has been reduced, according to British media accounts, to utterly unable to project force in any significant way. That's a quote. Just sad. I thought this was darn interesting because, you know, the conversation of is there a negotiation going on? Wait, wait, before we move on for that, because that's very important. Can't resist this. Speaking of NATO and our allies, 18, Michael. Then I call up France, Macron, whose wife treats him extremely badly and... still recovering from the right to the jaw. And I say, Emmanuel, we'd love to have some help in the Gulf, even though we're setting records and knocking out bad people and knocking out ballistic missiles. We'd love to have some help. If you could, could you please send ships immediately? No, no, no. Cannot do that. We can do that after the war is won. I said, no, no, I don't need after the war is won, Emmanuel. Many of them said, we'll be there after the war is completed. That's from that thing I was talking about, that private leaked out luncheon thing that he had. We made a joke about Macron, so a lady beaten him up. Still recovering from that right to the jaw. And then he says, he sees Erica Kirk sitting there and he says, oh, hey, Erica, I didn't know you're here. He said, I'll tell you what, what they're saying about you is awful. I'd sue their asses off if I were you. Sue their asses off. That's what Trump told her. I've got some examples of that for later, but back to your... So, a lot of mainstream media claiming that Trump's lying about this whole negotiating thing, that there's not actually any negotiations going on and who's with all that. And I don't know who it's with, but this came out yesterday. It was just a few hours before the address. Iran's president penned a letter to the American people saying that Iran is not a threat. In fact, he called the United States the aggressor. And he says continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before. President Trump earlier, he claims that the Iranian president wants a ceasefire, but a spokesperson for Iran's president says their country is determined to fight on. He penned a letter, did he, saying that they're not a threat to the United States? Can I pen a letter back to him? I don't know his address. Dearest president of Iran, you have been chanting death to America from your podium my entire life. Signed me. What do you mean actually killing Americans every chance you get? So shut up. Well, I heard one of my favorite pundits talking about running into some military guys in the bar and he was interested that all of the former Iraq, Afghanistan veterans of those wars were gung ho about this because they all had had friends hurt or killed by Iranians. All of right. So they were gung ho about this. Yeah, that is interesting. All those roadside bombs and, you know, all the lost limbs and lost life and everything like that, those were bombs either developed by or completely made by and helped by Iran all those years. Yeah, yeah. I wish there were any sort of honest discussion about this going on in a way that people would actually hear and think about because, you know, to say this is going to happen is ridiculously premature. But if this is successful, even like substantially successful, it could usher in an era of peace and stability in the Middle East for decades to come. Decades to come in a way that we've never seen before. All the stars are aligned for that. And the last thing that needs to be accomplished is to neuter Iran and make them cut it out. For what it's worth in discussing the president of Iran's letter and everything, the book may never be written, but man, I would like to know what the internal power struggles are like right now. As I would guess, everybody is trying to come off as the hardest, hard ass that's ever hard assed. Meanwhile, but I still think maybe we should talk to the Americans, but I'm a hard ass. I'm a serious hard ass, but we're getting killed. So I mean, that's got to be who vexing. I don't envy them. Yeah, we're probably going to mind the bombs falling on their heads. I don't envy that either. Okay. That was our check in on Iran and that was all good stuff. Got something about the space flight that is silly for you coming up. Oh, okay. Captain Silly over here. Joe Sirius would like the floor for a moment. We're in a serious space race with China. Oh, that's good stuff. I mean, it's a big deal. Want to hit that in hour four. If you don't get hour four, subscribe to the podcast, Yada. Anyway, Armstrong and Gideon demand. That is good stuff. All right, stay here. Armstrong and Gideon. They forgotten. Forgotten. Important. Important. Say Sacramento. Sacramento. Sacramento. 20. 20. Center. Center. Say counter. Counter. Say fountain. Fountain. Kitten. Kitten. Kitten. It's kitten. Bro. Hmm. First of all, it calls his mom bro. I think I do most of those. That's not a... So my son, we've talked about this before, the young people dropping their teas. I don't know if that was a good example of it or not, the way like I hear my son and some of his friends say fountain. Fountain. Yeah. He kind of lightly tapped some of those teas. Not a good example. I say fountain. I don't really like the tea fountain. Fountain. I definitely say fountain. I pronounce every letter as you know. I don't believe in silent letters. Yeah. I think I say all those words. I don't say kitten. Yeah. That's weird. It's just a, it's an affectation that just caught on for some reason among the young. It's about to tease. So I got distracted by the term sissy sub when I was reading about Lydia Love. Turns out that's not her real name. That's a stage name. The woman who had been talking with Kristi Noem's husband on the phone apparently. 25 bucks a minute. 25 bucks a minute. She called him a, she remembered him because she said she'd never seen a sissy sub that had bigger knockers than him. Wow. So a little tip of the cap from one pro to another. Whatever turns you on, whatever turns you on behind closed doors. I'm not criticizing that or whatever. The cartoonishly large knockers are definitely outside of anything kind of normal mainstream certainly, but especially on a fellow. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. This woman who recognized him when the pictures broke this week, Kristi Noem's husband, if you don't know the story, I think you probably do. When she would talk to him on the phone, he would try to talk more feminine. His kink was yoga pants. He wanted to be the star of the show and really show off. I would hype him up. She described him as an extremely needy client, needy client who need to ample praise and feedback. But what stood out most, she recalled as the comically large balloon breasts that he always wore under his tight shirts. I've never had another client who had them, she said ever. So yeah, that would stand out. I mean, if you had somebody come on this video screen looking like that, it would make an impression. You'd think, wow, what's going on here? You're used to people coming to you for your cartoonishly large breasts. They generally don't bring their own to the party. Yeah. This woman says that Kristi Noem's husband talked to her 10 to 15 times over a year and a half to two year period up to about six months ago. So certainly well inside the hole having to get to security clearance situation. FBI missed that one somehow. We've got more on the way in hour three. Armstrong and Getty. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.