Friday, Apr 10

I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So, what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothing. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this table wood? I think it's laminate. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. Sell your car today on Carvana. WBSM presents The Very Richard Show. Streaming live on WBSM.com and the WBSM app. Call 508-996-0500. Text us using AppChat on the WBSM app. Now, The Very Richard Show. All righty, welcome to the program. It is a Friday afternoon. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it very, very much. It is a gorgeous day to get a chance to get out and do your daily steps. Go on and do it. I think I recall seeing that it was going to be a little bit cooler tomorrow. Maybe I didn't see that. I don't know. I will listen to the weather forecast along with you coming up as part of the 1 o'clock news break. But it is certainly a good day to get out today and get some sunshine. So try to do it if you possibly can. Sunshine is healthy for you. You know, my doctor once told me that people in the northeast, for some reason around here, we suffer the greatest deficiency of vitamin D, which is natural from the sun. A lot of people around here are on vitamin D supplements. I am. I was talking to Chris yesterday. He is also. And a lot of people are because for some reason we don't get enough of it from the sun. So let that be a lesson to you and get outside and get some sunshine. All right. Big day for the Artemis crew. If you did not know or do not know or would like to know, the Artemis 2 Orion spacecraft returns to Earth today and from its historic mission. And it's going to make a blazing hot descent through Earth's atmosphere during reentry before splashdown. That's going to happen tonight. The thing is going to be traveling at a speed of 24,000 miles an hour when it hits our atmosphere, which is going to raise the temperature to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit underneath. A lot is riding on that heat shield. A couple of things could happen if they hit the atmosphere at the wrong angle. They could boot right back out into space and be lost or they could just disintegrate right there. They can just burn right up. So this is a very crucial window of time for the astronauts today. There was a problem back in 2022 with a test flight. Artemis 1 Orion space spacecraft. According to NASA, this was an unmanned flight around the moon in 2022. When it came in, apparently gases generated inside the heat shields, ablative, ablative. Is that how you pronounce that? And wasn't able to bend properly and dissipate as expected. And this allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations, according to NASA. NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya says Artemis 2 crews splashdown high confidence regarding the heat shield. And the crew is going to put their lives behind that confidence. So all of this is going to start to get pretty interesting around 753. OK, that's when the spacecraft is expected hit our atmosphere. The splashdown about 807 off the San Diego coast. They'll parachute into the water, into the Pacific, and the Navy will pick them up. It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right is the way I think about it, said Flight Director Jeff Radigan. I have a whole checklist in my head that we, you know, we're going through all the things that have to happen. You know, the forward bay cover has to come on. The drugs have to come out. The main chutes have to deploy. The reefing system has to come out and or has to cut. And we have got to we have to get touchdown angle alignment correct and then hit the water correctly. And even prior to that, we have the C.M.S.M. SEP separation between the service module and the crew module. He added that has to go right. And then you have the heat shield that has to work. So it's not so much 13 minutes. It's more in my head about an hour and a half of things that have to go right. Again, as Orion descends through about 400000 feet, the spacecraft will enter a planned six minute communications blackout. At seven fifty three p.m., as plasma forms around the capsule during peak heating, the crew is expected to experience up to three point nine G.S. in a nominal landing profile, according to NASA. After emerging from blackout, Orion will jettison its forward bay cover, deploy its drug parachutes near 22000 feet at eight oh three p.m. and then unfurl its three main parachutes around 6000 feet at eight oh four p.m. in order to slow the capsule for splashdown off the coast of San Diego. Hoy! And you thought you had things to worry about, right? I'll be watching. I'll be watching. Life stops. Life stops. So we can watch our heroes come home. Big fan of the space program, as you can tell, grew up with it, grew up with the Apollo flights, Gemini flights before that. And yeah, you know, I get a little something that's eating away at me here and it's been eating away at me. It's been eating at me for years, but it's really starting to eat at me all these days. After watching Melania Trump come out yesterday, we carried her speech live, by the way. Nobody knew what she was going to say. I had no idea that's what that was going to be about. We were given no advance. All we were told was that Melania would issue a statement. Wouldn't be a press conference, wasn't going to be an announcement. It was going to be a statement. We had no idea what the subject matter was going to be. It wasn't on anybody's calendar. So I had it up on the, we have a link here to the White House so we can pick up their feeds. And so I had it all set to go. I was monitoring it. And I didn't know what to expect. I almost didn't go to it, but because it was, there was really no billboard, no buildup. I found it kind of curious. I decided to go with it. I said, I'm going to go with it. I've got time, I'm going to go with it. And so kind of surprising a little bit, the topic. Essentially, I'm not going to read the entire statement, although I have it over here. Essentially what Melania Trump said is, look, this BS crap has to stop. With all of the insinuation, the rumors, the lies about me and my relationship with the Epstein scandal and so on and so forth. Let's cut the crap. And she specifically mentioned people by name who have had to, under duress, under threat of lawsuit, apologize for false information they've spread, among them Jim Carville. And Melania went on to say, look, Congress has an obligation. It's their job to invite the women who were victims of Epstein to hearings and give them an opportunity to be heard. Of course, the immediate reaction from some is, well, Trump's trying to cover it up. Trump doesn't run Congress. As you know, and as you can see daily, Trump doesn't run Congress. He has very little influence over the Congress. So Trump doesn't tell the Congress they can or cannot have hearings on this. So leave that aside. Melania Trump is calling for hearings, calling for these women to testify before. And she actually got quite a good reaction, even from some Democrats, believe it or not. Ro Khanna, even Marjorie Taylor Greene came out and applauded Melania for what she did and said yesterday. And Mace and others. So we'll see where that goes. But all of this comes from this atmosphere of misreporting, false reporting, smears. This has become our culture. This has become our our media story here from mud. Oh, my God, it's buried in here. I'm going to I'm going to pull it out later on. Dana Bash from CNN was being interviewed by somebody. And she said, well, fair and balanced, presenting both sides of the story is not the way the media works anymore. The way the media works is to if you see or hear something that you know is wrong, you got to call it out. You got to present the right side of the story. That's what Dana Bash, one of the big faces on CNN. That's what she said. News is no longer about presenting both sides of the story. Now, we've come to learn that right since 2015. And we've learned that in spades. And, you know, all of the things that Melania Trump has been through. Melania Trump has been an exemplary first lady. Remember Hillary Clinton? I'm not going to sit there like Tammy Widenet and make no cookies. Remember that? On 60 Minutes, remember that? She was given her own office and she was involved in policy and all kinds of crap like that. Michelle Obama. I hate being here. First time ever. I'm proud of my country because they elected my husband. But I hate being here. It was built by slaves. Everybody's racist except me and my husband. That was the other one, right? Michelle. Melania's done a lot of work and she's kept her nose clean. Stayed out of her husband's business. And is a marvelous representative of our country. And she gets her underwear drawer searched by the FBI who had orders to kill. Remember? All this kind of stuff. Her kid gets called autistic by Rosie O'Donnell, right? Love to see her put her IQ against Barron Trump's. That would be funny. And on and on and on it goes. But what is really bothering me right now. It's funny. We had a conversation out in the kitchen here this morning. A bunch of us were hanging out. Somebody brought in some great food and we all kind of sat around and were talking about stuff. And talking about politics. And the subject of my political views came up. And I said, well, I'm not a Republican either. And somebody asked, well, what are you exactly? What are you? Nobody can figure me out anywhere. I go, I don't know. What are you? So I explained, I am essentially, I used to be a constitutional conservative. That's what I called myself before Trump. And then when Trump came along, I am an America first MAGA. That's me. That's how I describe myself. America first MAGA. Not a Democrat, not a Republican. I'm unenrolled simply because I belong to neither one of the parties. There is no party. There is no America first party. And there is no MAGA party. So I identify my politics as America first MAGA. I signed on with Trump from day one. And I'm loyal, if nothing else. Sometimes some folks may say, you're loyal to a fault. We got a gentleman, a Democrat, who actually has the guts to call the program. And we debate quite often. But I respect the gentleman. He's a Vietnam veteran. And I respect his service. And I respect his point of views. Even though we go head to head from time to time. And if he's listening, he knows who he is. I make no apologies for the fact that when Donald Trump laid out his platform on that day in 2015, where do I sign up? I bought into the America first MAGA agenda from day one. I don't question it. I know certain people will call and say, Donald Trump does nothing wrong in your eyes. Everything he says is right. Yeah, Trump does do some things wrong. I think sometimes he's a little bit over the top. But I don't get bothered by that stuff. You know when Trump says civilization is going to end at midnight tonight? That doesn't bother me. Oh my God, Trump said civilization is going to die. Donald Trump, part of Donald Trump's success strategy is rhetoric. It's rhetoric. It's to get everybody's attention. Now we may have to consider taking over Greenland. Or Canada by hook or by crook may have to become the 51st state. Or we may have to look at what's going on in Cuba. Donald Trump does stuff like that. It gets the attention. It's very difficult to get the attention of the American people these days. People are paying attention to a lot of other things. Whether it be, I don't know, Tik Tok or whatever else is grabbing people's attention these days. It's tough to get people's attention. You need to get people's attention. Now as somebody who's been involved in the marketing business for 50 years, I understand that. When you write a news story, which I've spent years doing. I don't write news anymore. I'm not a news guy anymore. I'm not a journalist. I'm a commentator. But when I was a journalist and you're writing news stories, boom, first line has to get them. If you don't get them in the first line, you lose them. Same is true. You ever read a newspaper article and you stop reading it about a paragraph in because they're not making the point? You lose them. You got to get your point right out there. So Trump understands that. Very, very competitive world in terms of information. So you've got to get. That's why some people get bothered when Trump was using the little Marco and the slow jab and all of this kind of stuff. It works. It grabs attention. Gets attention. I've said this before. Trump throws red meat out there and the media dives all over it every single time. And the Democrats every single time. Boom, it's out there. And they explode on it. And then he snickers up his sleeve because you know what? They have just taken the message of the day that he wants out there. And they put it out there. And then the debate begins over, you know, well, what did he really mean? What is he saying? What is he doing? And he gets his point out there. He advances a topic. We wouldn't be talking about Greenland right now in this country if Trump didn't say that. We wouldn't have had a peace agreement or attended a peace agreement as fragile as it is with Iran. If Trump didn't say civilization ends at 8 p.m. tonight. Oh, my God. That got people's attention, right? I'm not saying that that's the end of the war, but it's certainly got people's attention. And, you know, it's kind of funny because they were calling him a madman for saying that. And then when he didn't destroy the bridges and the power plants and kill children, they called him a chicken. So there's no pleasing these people. Trump knows that. But anyway, to get back to my point. Yeah, day one. I bought into Trump's messaging right from day one. His agenda is my agenda. I don't waffle because the the press says this or the press is that or maybe maybe he overstates something and it becomes controversial. I don't I don't apologize. I've given callers, even some of my favorite callers and better callers, given him hell over the course of the years because they feel as though they have to. You know, they have to kind of maybe be an apologist. Well, Trump, you know, I don't agree with everything Trump or Trump, you know, has these bad ways and we all have our bad ways. We all have our bad ways, right? None of us is perfect. None of us is delightful. 24 hours a day. We all have our ways. You don't have to be an apologist that way. I bought the Trump agenda. The Trump agenda was close the borders. Get the criminal, illegal aliens the hell out of here. Shrink government, lower taxes. America first. And, you know, I talked about the the lunchroom earlier. Somebody said to me when I when I said, well, I'm America first. And in MAGA, that's my you know, somebody said, well, how can you square that with supporting the Iran war? How can you how can you say that's America first? It is America first. That is America first. Americans by the thousands have died and been maimed and have been injured. Via terrorist attacks or wars in the Middle East, trying to bring peace to that region, trying to assure that Iran does not have a nuclear capability. I remember the hostage crisis in 1979. Maybe you don't. I don't know. Maybe you were too young. Maybe you weren't born. I don't know. Maybe you're too old to remember it. I remember it. I remember it vividly. Four hundred forty four days. I wore a 50 pin for four hundred forty four days. Every day I wore that pin. The radio station I worked at was a local radio station. I was just starting out in the business at that point. Every day at noontime, we played a tribute to the American hostages. We tied yellow ribbons around the tree. I remember it. I remember it vividly. I remember the Beirut Marine barracks bombing. Two hundred forty one American Marines blown to smithereens. Cobalt towers. The coal. I remember that Iran launched bombs and missiles at our military installations throughout the Middle East. Killing and maiming Americans. I remember Soleimani. I remember Baghdadi. Baghdadi was more affiliated with Iraq. But I remember all those things. So yes, the Iran war is America first. You know, you listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene and you listen to some of these other, as Trump calls them, panikins. Panikins. Don't be a panikin. They get nervous because the media is criticizing the war. Oh my God, I can't be for this war. Oh my God, I can't be because the media is worried about it. You've got to hold the course. And you've got to understand that what's going on in Iran is putting America first. It's putting an end to a 47 year attack against our citizens and our military and our way of life. How many conflicts have we fought in the Middle East? Much of which were funded by or instigated by Iran. Ronald Reagan walked away from the Beirut bombing. Took our Marines off the shore, put them on a boat and stuck them out in the offshore so they couldn't be harmed. Instead of settling this in 1982 when we could have taken the Ayatollah out then. You know, George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush. How many of you remember there was a war between Iran and Iraq? Bitter, bitter enemies. There was a war between them in the 80s. Iran generally won the war. Beat down Iraq. But essentially turned out to be a stalemate in the long run. It wound up being a stalemate. Nobody really won the war. A couple of years after they stopped fighting, there was a treaty declared. So what do we do? We go in and we pound the crap out of Iraq. Weakening Iraq. The one threat in the region that Iran was concerned about. We go in and we pick sides and we beat down Iraq. What does that do? That opened the floodgates for Iran to flood into Iraq. It made Iran stronger. ISIS was born. Or ISIL as that idiot Obama used to call it. ISIL. This is putting America first. We got to put America first. You know, the thing with Trump, Trump doesn't speak a polished political speak. Like Mitt Romney, who walks so much further, so much higher above the rest of us. Or some of the other Republicans out there. Republicans were always afraid of Trump. But they weren't afraid of Trump because of what he stood for. Because many of them stood for the same things. Balanced budget, closed borders, fair trade and all this stuff. Or at least they talked about it. You know, the NATO paying their fair share. How many times did George Bush go over there and wag his little finger saying, well you guys got to pay your fair share. Now let's go have a beer. And I'll buy by the way. And we'll put it on the American's credit card. How many presidents promised to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem? And never did it. Who did it? Whose administration came up with the Abraham Accords? You know, my point is, there are Republicans across the spectrum that are again selling out Trump because they're afraid of the media and they're afraid of the Democrats. They're afraid for their own political futures. But that's the problem with the Republicans. The Republicans don't have the balls to stand up and fight for their agenda. The Republican Party has never, here in Massachusetts or nationwide, never had the guts or the courage to stand up for its convictions. They always want to go along to get along. Donald Trump has an agenda. I bought into the agenda on day one. I still support that agenda and I'm not going to falter because the media tells me I should or because the Democrats. Where are the rest of you? You're all panikins. You're all panikins. You bought into the Trump agenda. Stand by that agenda. The captain of the ship is getting rattled, big time, day in, day out. Oh, he's nuts. We got to imply the 25th Amendment and get him out of office. Oh, we're going to have another impeachment if the midterms goes wrong. But everybody's afraid to associate with Trump. Why don't you stand by Trump? You know, if the Republicans in Congress think about this, Trump's agenda, approved by, what, 88 million people? In a massive landslide? Popular vote? The majority of counties? The Electoral College? We sent him to Washington with a mandate? And with a majority in the Senate and the House? Why? You know, we're what, a year and a quarter into this administration and still most of the agenda has not been passed into law. He signed a whole bunch of executive orders and we're all sitting there waiting. You know, an executive order is no good as soon as the next Democrat comes in. Those executive orders are just simply thrown in the garbage. We need to incorporate these things into laws, whether it be the SAVE Act or any of the other policies that Trump is, you know, we could get permanent tax cuts. All kinds of stuff, the entire agenda enshrined into law so that it couldn't be just simply overturned with an executive order. So where are the Republicans? Well, I don't like this or I don't like that or President Trump says mean stuff and, you know, they're panickins. George W. Bush said it about our so-called allies back in the day after 9-11. You're either with us or you're against us. Boy, he took hell for that, didn't he? So here we are again in a situation where our allies are quivering and quaking. England's got one boat left and I guess it's up in dry dock because it doesn't work. That's their Navy, the once most powerful Navy in the entire planet. Remember Margaret Thatcher steamed the British Navy down to the Falkland Islands and defended them against Argentina back in 1983, was it? Thatcher must be rolling in her grave right now. One boat in their Navy and it's in dry dock because it doesn't work. Trump gets pissed at European allies because they're not acting like allies. Oh, Trump's insulting NATO. Oh, Trump wants to pull out of NATO. I can't support him anymore. Stand up, be men, be women. Defend America first. Defend MAGA. And yes, MAGA doesn't mean that you don't go and defend yourself overseas. We had madmen in Iran. Totally lunatic madmen, deranged madmen who believe they're going to go to Allah with 72 virgins if they drop a nuclear weapon on Washington. Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave them billions of dollars. Oh, please don't hurt us. Please don't hurt us. Here's some money. Don't hurt us. Trump says we don't play those games like Thomas Jefferson with the Muslims down off the Tripoli coast. Remember that? In history, we're not going to pay duty to you anymore. We're going to put together a Navy and we're going to come down and kick your ass. Well, Trump is a Jefferson in that regard. He's telling Iran, no, we're not sending any more boys and girls over here to die. We're not going to put our people in military positions, bases, so that Iran can rain missiles down on them or Hezbollah or any of these other groups. The Houthis can fire missiles at them and kill them and maim them. Ain't going to happen anymore. We're going to end this. That is America first. That is putting America first. That means we can put American citizens anywhere on the planet and defend them. Joe Biden left 13 dead Americans in Afghanistan. He didn't leave them there, but he watched while they died. And then later on, he said, well, we didn't lose anybody while we were here. Remember that? We do things differently now. You've got to stay. If you are a true MAGA, if you are a true America first, then you've got to put America first. And by putting America first, that means we don't close the doors and hide here in our country and ignore the rest of the world because people like to go around the world. People like to move around. And we have to make sure they're secure. And we have to make sure that our friends and allies are secure. That's the story behind Venezuela. That's the story behind Cuba. That's the story behind Colombia. And that's the story behind a poor little fisherman trying to fish off the ocean and Trump's dropping bombs on him. I got to get a break in 508-996-0500. I'd be anxious to hear your response to my little rant today. So we're coming right back after this. Stay tuned. Did you have to fight a dragon? Nope. She bought it 100% online. From her bed, actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be. Did the car have a sunroof? It did, actually. Okay. Good story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on... Delivery fees may apply. This portion of programming on WBSM is brought to you by Dee's Hot Dogs in New Bedford. Where you can get two hot dogs, chips and a soda for just six bucks. Back to Barry Richard on WBSM. Call 508-996-0500. Alright, welcome back. 1253 is our time. It is a Friday afternoon. Let's get to the phones. I appreciate you hanging on. You're next in WBSM. Hey, Barry. It's amazing. You said that England only has one ship and it's in dry dock right now? That's what I've been reading, yeah. That's amazing because during the 1700s and 1800s they ruled the world with their navy. They had the best navy warships around the world. They kept Napoleon from taking over the rest of Europe and England because they had naval superiority over Napoleon. They couldn't really beat them on land but they could definitely keep them at base, so to speak, with ships. And now they're down to one boat. It's hard to believe. That was essentially what the War of 1812 was about, too. Trying to deal with the navy. That was impressing our merchant marines and everything else here. We told them, you've got to stop this stuff. Even George Washington figured out a strategy to beat them on land because they had the superior navy. How does this happen? They sit back, demand that we pay for their security and then bitch at us because we want to use their airports for refueling and for landing our service people? It's incredible. Man, I'll tell you. It's a scary thought that they've only got one ship. That's what I've heard. I'm going to have to look up and see the source on that. I've heard that from multiple sources. They really don't have a navy anymore. Their navy has just deteriorated to nothing. Boy, that's too much. It's unreal. Keep up the good work. It's always good to have you on, Barry. Thank you, my friend. Appreciate it. 508-996-0500 is the phone number. This is true of much of Europe, too. The Europeans will sit there and they'll criticize us. We defend these people. We protect these people. We've got troops stationed in their countries and everything else to protect them from threats. They tell us, you can't land your planes here. You cannot come here. It's like there comes a point where you just say, hey, thank you for being a friend, but friends like you, who needs enemies? The reason I got into this rant, and I never even brought it up, but Trump sent out a Truth Social today or last night, almost a 500-word rant on Truth Social, blasting Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones because they flipped on him on the war. Friends like that, who needs enemies, right? These are supposed to be your supporters. All right, let me go to the break in, and we're going to come back to you after this. Hey, sweetie. Your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Anyway, I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana, give it a whirl. Love ya. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Broadcasting live from the Carefree Homes studios, this is WBSM. Carefree Homes. Your home improvement experts. Roofing, siding, windows, and more. Get a free quote at carefreehomescompany.com. Your local family. Hi, welcome back to the program. It is 12.59. I just did a quick fact check on YouTube. And what YouTube is reporting is that the British Navy has gone from 1,400 ships down to 62. And the headline says, what happened? So 62 versus 1. I guess that was a slight exaggeration from what I said earlier. And again, I said I read it somewhere online, and I don't remember exactly where, but I did promise I'd look, and I did. So I don't know what the exact number is, but it is obvious that the British Navy has been severely diminished. There's no question about it. And that is sad. That is sad. That they would give us a hard time when we are defending them and the world. So there's that, right? We'll get back more. I want to get into that 500. I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool. No, you don't understand. It went perfectly. Real offer, down to the penny. They're picking it up tomorrow. Nothing went wrong. So what's the problem? That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothing. I'm waiting for the catch. Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.