Bring Back The Ham Kick!

Summary

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Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: Bring Back The Ham Kick!
Date: January 7, 2026
Host: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

In this lively episode, Armstrong & Getty jump from the latest social and political controversies to the bizarre history of “the Ham Kick,” before dissecting complex global geopolitics, AI misinformation, and the lived realities of socialism and gentrification in America. The pair maintain their irreverent, conversational tone throughout, offering both pointed critique and comedic relief.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Socialist Hypocrisy & Gentrification Debates

00:28–07:36

• Sia Weaver Controversy: The hosts discuss the backlash faced by Sia Weaver, a newly appointed New York City housing official, for her public statements on property ownership and gentrification, especially targeting white homeowners, while her mother owns a $1.6M home in Tennessee.

  “She's got a graduate degree from a fancy college. I mean, she is your stereotypical cookie cutter, privileged, rich, white graduate student who, you know, wants to turn the world upside down against her own class for some weird reason.”
  — Jack Armstrong [01:46]

• Gentrification Explained: Jack shares with his kids how neighborhoods go from “crap” to cool and then to unaffordable. The hosts highlight the irony of decrying revitalized areas while lamenting previous conditions.

  “It's just the free market. People think other people think it's cool and think, I want to live there...and then the landlord figures, well, I can raise the rent. There's competition now for the apartments here.”
  — Jack Armstrong [06:07]

• Mobility in America: Joe laments cultural reluctance to relocate for opportunity, referencing J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy as an example of rootedness despite economic decline.

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2. The History & Humor of the “Ham Kick”

07:36–11:42

• Origin Story: From a plaque at Pete Lala’s saloon in New Orleans, Jack recounts the “ham kick”—a saloon event where women (without undergarments) would attempt to kick a suspended ham, a spectacle clearly designed for male voyeurism.

  “Ham was suspended from the ceiling and women could win the ham by kicking it, but only if they were not wearing undergarments.”
  — Jack Armstrong [10:11]

  “If you are a hungry, voyeuristic, martial artist arts enthusiast, that was the event for you.”
  — Joe Getty [10:41]

• Hosts’ Reflection: The duo riff on the absurdity and historic quirks of old-time entertainment, with Joe declaring this “historic plaque” one of the best he's ever heard.

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3. Geopolitics: The Greenland Question

11:49–17:13

• Greenland’s Future & U.S. Strategy: Armstrong & Getty discuss the U.S. crafting a potential deal for Greenland’s free association, independent from Denmark, and analyze the strategic implications of the move, referencing reports of Trump’s intentions.

  “It appears Trump is executing the most elegant imperial maneuver of the 21st century. No bullets, no treaties, no war...The move is genius because it compresses five vectors into one stroke.”
  — Quoting a writer on the subject [13:58]

• Strategic Value: They recount the enormous value of Greenland for Arctic resources, radar/military dominance, and geopolitical leverage—likening it to the importance of the Panama Canal in the previous century.

  “Greenland is the Arctic Panama...This is Roosevelt Doctrine 2.0 now in the Arctic theater.”
  — Joe Getty [15:54]

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4. Media Critique & Girl Scout Cookies

17:13–19:31

• They transition to lighter fare, mocking network news’ tonal inconsistencies and briefly reviewing the new Girl Scout “Explore Mores” cookie. Jack’s son Henry critiques anchor David Muir’s identical tone no matter the news:

  “You can't use the same tone of voice for firefighters dying as you do for, ‘There's a new Girl Scout cookie.’”
  — Jack Armstrong, quoting his son Henry [18:08]

• Joe praises the “meatier” content of CBS News with Tony Dokoupil compared to other networks.

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5. Socialism in Practice: The Cuba Debate

19:31–25:14

• Washington Politician Praises Cuba: The hosts revisit a viral interview where State Rep. Sean Scott, a democratic socialist, touts Cuba as a socialist success—citing literacy and public health—before being confronted with the reality of Cuban citizens risking their lives to flee.

  “You chose a country that people will risk their lives to flee from…There’s a reason for that, Sean.”
  — Brandi Kruse [20:53]

  “You could make me an argument about what a Valhalla Cuba is…But when I came back to you with, ‘but people risk their lives to flee there,’ all of your arguments are now a joke.”
  — Joe Getty [22:35]

• Counterpoints: Armstrong & Getty dismantle the Cuba literacy/healthcare arguments, noting that oppressive regimes often ensure basic literacy for propaganda and that real outcomes are far bleaker than advocates highlight.

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6. AI, Rumor Mills, and Technosocial Harms

25:33–33:55

• AI as Ferocious Gossip: The hosts highlight research on AI’s tendency to amplify and spread unchecked rumors. They cite a case where tech journalist Kevin Roose became widely trashed across multiple AI platforms based on viral incidents and how AI “learned” negative associations by ingesting user chatter.

  “Normal human gossip faces social constraints about plausibility...but bot-to-bot gossip is feral, meaning it can become increasingly exaggerated and distorted as it moves from system to system.”
  — Joe Getty [27:31]

  “How are you going to stop misinformation, disinformation if something's out there that's false and it treats everything exactly the same?”
  — Jack Armstrong [31:11]

• AI in Academia: The discussion turns to how college students routinely use AI as a proofreader or outline builder, prompting a debate on the “cheating line” in academic settings.

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7. Miscellaneous Moments

28:40–29:16

• Bizarre Medical Trends: Briefly, Joe jokes about a rising trend of using fat from the deceased for cosmetic surgery, riffing on Kim Kardashian as a possible “serial killer.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On socialist hypocrisy:
  “If there's anything more classic than the socialists with the privileged upbringings, amazing.”
  — Jack Armstrong [04:24]

• On Cuba as a model:
  “It's all kinds of a disaster…You can't hang your hat on. Everybody can read at the second grade level in Cuba. So socialism works. I mean, that's a crazy claim.”
  — Jack Armstrong [22:21]

• On old-timey fun:
  “I feel like they had more fun back in the old days with Ham kicks and whatnot.”
  — Jack Armstrong [35:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Sia Weaver/NYC Gentrification Debate: 00:28–07:36
• Ham Kick Story (History & Humor): 07:36–11:42
• Greenland Geopolitics & U.S. Strategy: 11:49–17:13
• Girl Scout Cookies/Media Critique: 17:13–19:31
• Cuba & Socialism Debate (Brandi Kruse Interview): 19:31–25:14
• AI Gossip & Misinformation Risks: 25:33–33:55
• Fat Grafting & Bizarre News: 28:40–29:16
• Final Thoughts & Banter: 34:09–36:39

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Style, Tone, & Atmosphere

• The episode moves quickly between biting cultural critique, witty banter, and deadpan historical asides. Armstrong & Getty maintain their signature contrarian but good-natured style, punctuating serious analysis with absurd humor, e.g. the ham kick or Girl Scout cookie digressions.

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For New Listeners

This episode is a microcosm of Armstrong & Getty’s show: a blend of serious current affairs, skepticism of political dogma (left and right), historical oddities, and offbeat humor. Expect rapid topic shifts, interjected with both memorable one-liners and in-depth, sometimes irreverent, reflection.

Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

[B]

Broadcasting.

[A]

Live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio.

[B]

At the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. How you doing?

[A]

Katie just informed us that. Just making a mistake on the keyboard, she's accidentally saying to people, happy Jew Year. She means New Year, but the J is right.

[B]

God, you're one of them anti Semites I've heard about.

[A]

Or the opposite. Or the. Oh, sort of.

[B]

You're pro Semite. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

You're absolutely.

[B]

You're.

[A]

You're in bed with the people that.

[B]

Killed Charlie Kirk, just. Oh, for God's sake. Okay, yeah, just a slip of the.

[A]

Thumb, but happy New Year to you. And we have an update on a story we've been following. So the woman in charge for Mayor Mamdani, figuring out the whole housing problem there in New York City doesn't believe you should have land or own a home. She's one of those people.

[B]

Collective property ownership. Yes. Communism, yes.

[A]

Yeah. People's relationship with property is going to have to change, she said. Especially white people, which is weird. Then the story broke yesterday that she lives in a 1.6 million dollar home in Tennessee. That's where she's been living. She says that's her mom's house. So then you got kind of the combination. Okay, you're from a rich family, your Mom's got a $1.6 million, and you still live with your mom, which is so popular with the socialists.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Still living with your parents. Anyway, she came out of her place that she's renting in New York today, in Brooklyn, and immediately got swarmed with people asking her about. She's 37 years old. You know, she's got a graduate degree from a fancy college. I mean, she is your stereotypical cookie cutter, privileged, rich, white graduate student who, you know, wants to turn the world upside down against her own class for some weird reason. Anyway, she comes out of there and immediately she gets hit with questions about the what about the 1.6 million dollar home. Blah, blah, blah. She turned around and ran back in her house, in the place she's living currently, wouldn't answer the question. So she is. You come out, people start screaming, ah, why do I turn around, run back in? There's a lot of people, keyboard warriors, they're called that say all kinds of crazy crap. And then when they get confronted with them, it gets very difficult very fast, or you're not willing to back them up, or you can't back them up.

[B]

Like our boy from Washington state who was giving Cuba as an example for where socialism works. We'll have to replay that for you if you didn't hear it. It is just absolutely priceless.

[A]

So I'll just read the New York Post version of this. Mayor Zoran Mamdani's newly instated radical left tenant advocate. That's fair. Sia Weaver broke down Wednesday as she dodged questions from reporters about her gentrification hypocrisy. The 37 year old, who has faced backlash for blasting homeownership as a weapon of white supremacy in the past, teared up when she emerged briefly from her apartment building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, this morning. Weaver, who was tapped by Mandani, blah, blah, blah, blah, quickly ran back inside after she was asked about the $1.6 million home her mother owns in Nashville. Um, she has this quote out there about gentrification from back in the day. There's no such thing as a good gentrifier, only people who are actively working on projects to dismantle white supremacy and capitalism and people who aren't.

[B]

Right. Yeah, she's a Marxist. I'm not sure her mom's house has anything to do with this, by the way. I think her mom probably is thinking she. She's a nut. And. And I love her, but she's a nut. Yeah, my husband and I, we worked, we saved, we got a house worth 1.6, which isn't that crazy these days. Nothing to do with the commie.

[A]

I think they're trying to put her in a position of saying her mom shouldn't own a house.

[B]

Oh, yeah. So.

[A]

Or that something. Because that gets pretty uncomfortable pretty fast and, you know, you got to answer for that sort of thing.

[B]

But should your mom surrender her house to a Marxist collective?

[A]

Yeah, exactly. And God, if there's anything more classic than the socialists with the privileged upbringings, amazing.

[B]

It's a cliche.

[A]

It is a cliche. But the whole gentrification thing is interesting. I had a conversation with my kids. I tried to explain to them, I don't know if they got it or they're just thinking about other things while he's talking about it, about how neighborhoods go to crap. And then they then oftentimes. And I was talking about Nashville, I was talking about New Orleans, because there are some neighborhoods that have done that over the many years. Locally, it's happened. Neighborhoods are crap. And then a lot of artists and musicians muse there, move there because they're broke and they can only afford cheap places. And then the artists, musicians bring cool places, like cool coffee shops and music venues and stuff like that.

[B]

And.

[A]

And then people start going to them, and then there starts to be tax revenue, and then more people start to move there. And then the rents start to rise and people start to improve the buildings and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then eventually you end up with like a neighborhood that those poor artists and musicians can't afford to live in anymore. And everybody decries. It is horrible that a crappy neighborhood is now a nice neighborhood.

[B]

Right, Exactly. And sometimes billions of dollars of taxpayer money are spent decrapifying a neighborhood. And then when it works, people bemoan that. They say, it's terrible, it's a tragedy.

[A]

It was better when it was a. You know, I'll admit from an enjoyment standpoint that in between, period, because I've. I've experience with East Nashville, with Oak park in Sacramento. For anybody who knows that area are just various cities around the country, that in between, period is very cool.

[B]

Oh, yeah, wonderful. Yeah.

[A]

But, you know, it's just the free market. People think other people think it's cool and think, I want to live there. And when a whole bunch of people want to live there, the landlord figures, well, I can raise the rent. There's competition now for the apartments here. Sure, blah, blah, blah.

[B]

And I'll maintain it and make it nicer so people are willing to move in. And guess what? Over across town, there's a crappy neighborhood where the musicians and poets can move. It's the way it's always, always been. Which brings us to a different topic, maybe for another day, but that is the end of the. Since the moment people came to the United States, our tradition has been, you go to where the opportunity is. We've got free passage state to state. You can go anywhere the hell you want in America to seek your fortune. But we have this weird cultural norm that's set in that, no, I lived here, I was born here, or maybe I just grew up here. Therefore, I will never, ever leave here. And if any circumstances arise that make it more wise or attractive for me to leave, I'll be angry about them and resent them. I mean, where does that come from? I don't. I don't get it. And you know, J.D. vance wrote about it movingly in Hillbilly Elegy about these. His. His forebears are these Scotch Irish immigrants who happen to settle in the, in Appalachia because they're mining jobs. Now the jobs are gone, the economies suck. There's no Opportunity. But they stay and they stay and they stay.

[A]

Why?

[B]

And.

[A]

The whole gentrification thing. I'm working toward the ham kick. Working toward the ham kick, people. That's where we're going to get here at the end of this segment.

[B]

North Star.

[A]

What is the ham kick?

[B]

The ham kick.

[A]

And I've seen this happen before. Like Times Square went from too scary to go to, to very cool, but edgy to ridiculous. Why would I ever want to go there? Disney.

[B]

Disney, right.

[A]

And Bourbon street in New Orleans is similar to my. And it's just. I think it's ridiculous at this point. I don't. There's nothing cool about it whatsoever. And I read in one something I was reading online. If you want what Bourbon street used to be, you go to Frenchman Street. And my son and I went there and it was a whole bunch is kind of a crappy street with a bunch of bars and restaurants with lots of bands and you could walk in and see them for free. And that's what Bourbon street used to be. And now it's thumping club music mostly and really, really crappy drinks for, you know, people who just turned 21. Which is fine. That's fine. They go. Things go through this, this period. But so that. That's the history of all cities. And in New Orleans, if you remember, if you ever watched Ken Burns jazz miniseries, documentary, he talked a lot about Storyville and that's where jazz was born. And really Conga Square is where they let the slaves on Sundays get together and do their music. Lots of states, most states in the country wouldn't allow slaves to gather and play music because they figured it would lead to an uprising or some way to signal each other with drum patterns. Like in South Carolina, it was against the law to play the drums for slaves because they thought they were going to signal them with drum beats of when we're going to meet and you know, uprise against our owners.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah.

[A]

For whatever reason, in New Orleans they decided it was a good release to have everybody get together and play their music and dance on Sunday. So it started there on Conga Park, I think it was called. And that's where jazz was born and developed. Then there was Storyville, this crappy area that became a jazz place. And then they booted the blacks out. So they had to come up with their black Storyville or something like that, blah, blah, blah. I'm at the jazz museum and seeing on this and going through various buildings and reading plaques and I came across Pete Lala's saloon and the plaque that they had there. This is from way back in the day. Besides its role as a music venue, Pete Lala's was famous for the ham kick.

[B]

Sounds like a really ill conceived promotion at the super bowl this year.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If you can put that thing through the uprights from 20 yards, you win a lifetime supply of ham or Spam or something, which would be two hams, roughly.

[A]

Ham was suspended from the ceiling and women could win the ham by kicking it, but only if they were not wearing undergarments.

[B]

Well, there's something for everyone there.

[A]

So you get a woman in a skirt with no underwear on trying to kick the ham for obvious reasons, so guys could look on her dress when she's trying to kick the ham. So it had nothing to do with the ham. It was all about trying to get some woman with no underwear on to lift her leg up in the air.

[B]

If you are a hungry, voyeuristic, martial artist arts enthusiast, that was the event for you.

[A]

It's funny that a saloon became famous for the ham cake. Suspending a ham from the ceiling and then you're a woman in her dress because back then you couldn't wear pants. Your woman in a dress, no underwear, trying to kick the.

[B]

Kick it. Kick it. Oh, my God. Wow. That is. Now that's a historic plaque. I'm a guy who stops and reads historic plaques. That's a million miles better than anyone I've ever read.

[A]

Often very boring. You know, the assistant under secretary of something was once, you know, signed a docket, Blue cares. The ham cake. Now that's pretty good.

[B]

This was where a rally started that called for the emancipation of some.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's pretty cool.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Right here.

[A]

Thanks. Thanks for showing us your. Yoo. Here's your ham, boy.

[B]

Landed a good solid one on that ham. And I caught a glimpse of the gates of heaven. Everybody wins here.

[A]

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is the ham kick. How we're going to take Greenland or something.

[B]

Yeah. The best information you have yet heard on the Greenland question coming up. Stay with us, Armstrong and Getty. I'm not against approaching Greenland in a voluntary way to say, hey, the United States would like you to be part of the United States, if you so wish it.

[A]

And then it would be a possibility.

[B]

But right now I think it's been going the wrong direction. Ultimately, the people of Greenland would have to vote, and potentially Denmark. I'm not sure who would have to vote.

[A]

But you won't get there by insulting them, of course. Rand Paul, soft on taking Greenland.

[B]

Soft on Greenland. Yeah. Rand. No wonder his neighbor beat on him. So, associate producer Jeff, who's a fabulous resource, and Jeff, we appreciate it, collected several thoughts on the developments on Greenland. I will share them with you. Interject as you like. Reports that the US Is working on a draft deal to be presented to Greenland. If Greenland signs a compact of free association, known as a COFA agreement with the US they will not get quasi independence. They will become an independent sovereign nation. All the big European countries back. Denmark and Greenland. The US Is presenting a deal directly to Greenland and bypassing Copenhagen. That is not that controversial. It's long been Denmark's position that Greenlandic independence should be up to the Greenlandic people. So if they want to take Trump's deal, Denmark will most likely not object. For Denmark, it's considered to be a decent outcome. They would then be relieved of paying welfare checks to Greenland every year and can roll back the $4 billion defense investment plan for Greenland that was recently ratified. But again, it's up to the Greenlandic people.

[A]

So if Greenland. If Denmark's policy is, hey, if you want to be your own country, you can do it anytime you want. Just let us know. Why haven't they done it before? Because they want to be part of a NATO country, maybe.

[B]

Plus, they have benefits and, you know, heritage, you know, ties to Denmark, and they're fond of it and they get money from the treasury.

[A]

But, so Greenland. There's nothing stopping Greenland from saying, okay, we're going to sign this with the United States. Thanks, Denmark, for all the good times.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I'm moving on. Then this. It appears Trump is. This is a different writer. It appears Trump is executing the most elegant imperial maneuver of the 21st century. No bullets, no treaties, no war. He's about to surgically decline couple Greenland from Denmark without. Without violating a single international law. And every part of the system is walking into it voluntarily. The move is genius because it compresses five vectors into one stroke. Resource capture. Because Greenland's just an unbelievable, you know, vault of. Of rare earths and minerals and stuff like that.

[A]

World's number one producer of penguins. 66% of the penguins on Earth. Greenland. There you go.

[B]

Very difficult to extract the. The minerals. However, in those rare earths, not so much the penguins. You just throw a net. Also military radar dominance, the Arctic missile shield, sea lane control, the melting northern routes. Post colonial legitimacy framed as liberation not acquisition. European fracture, Legal sovereignty split across two capitals. Denmark gets budget relief and moral clarity. Greenland gets cash and quasi independence. The US Gets the keystone of the Arctic under A compact of free association. The aforementioned COFA that installs military command and monetary dependency with a smile. This is a realignment. Europe is too slow to stop it and Denmark is too tired to fight it. Once Greenland signs the Arctic is American, the map just hasn't caught up yet.

[A]

I love that. That I'm partially informed by having just been to the World War II Museum in New Orleans. But seeing the reality of how things can work if superpowers decide they want to expand, and that's inevitable, it would be crazy for us to not be positioning ourselves for the coming century of China's and Russia's attempted expansion.

[B]

Yeah, I'm not sure I would call it suicidal not to be in charge of the defense capabilities of Greenland, but it's close to suicidal. Final thought, Greenland is the Arctic. Panama. The Panama Canal gave Roosevelt leverage over hemispheric trade. Greenland gives Trump leverage over Arctic security, rare earths, missile defense and global shipping lanes in the melting pole. Both moves bypass traditional channels and reefs. Reframed geography as geopolitical control. This is Roosevelt Doctrine 2.0 now in the Arctic theater. I would agree it's of enormous, practically, indescribably enormous strategic importance. I just, I hope it can be done with a minimum of angst and hatred and certainly bloodshed, but I don't think that would happen anyway unless there's some, you know, Greenlandic wackadoodle living in the hinterlands who's going to set himself on fire in the name of something or other. What are we going to do about that?

[A]

Yeah, I gotta believe we can offer enough to them that they're gonna decide that's the best move.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Money and resources and assistance of this, that and the other sort. And yeah, but again, again, let's have Marco in charge of it and not Stephen Miller. All right? He's gonna start punching seals in their. Their junk. Miller is where Marco will extend the hand of friendship.

[A]

How about if you can kick a ham, you get to keep your country? How about that? Bring back the ham kick.

[B]

Oh, boy. Armstrong and Getty. It is Girl Scout cookie season. The newest cookie just revealed. They're calling them Explore Mores. It's a rocky road ice cream inspired sandwich cookie packed with chocolate, marshmallow and toasted almond flavored cream. The Girl Scouts say the name Exploremores is inspired by the spirit of exploration at the heart of every Girl Scout. You know, we could figure that out for ourselves.

[A]

My 14 year old identified the problem with David Muir yesterday. We were actually listening to the Tease of the news when he, he talked about some firefighters dying in a tragedy. And then the new Girl Scout cookie. And my, my son Henry said, you can't use the same tone of voice for firefighters dying as you do for There's a new Girl Scout cookie.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But he did. He does. That's David Meir's problem. He sounds exactly the same. Announcing 40 people dead in flooding as there's a new Girl Scout cookie that features coconut and more chocolate.

[B]

Right, Right. Oh, hey, for what it's worth, you know, the, the network news is kind of a vestige of the past. But I watched CBS News with Tony Decopa last night for the first time, and I will just tell you this. I watched Special Report with Brett Baer, generally speaking. And then I used to cleanse my palette with ABC News with David Muir because it's like super light and, and, and lots of viral videos and car crashes and dogs that catch Frisbees or whatever. It's kind of news for dumb people. But it was a nice palate cleanser that I could zap through very quickly. CBS News was a full meal. It was much more substantive, intellectually hefty. I mean, it was still an evening newscast, but it was, it was a much meatier newscast.

[A]

I am going to set my recorder because I keep missing it. I'm going to set my recorder right now to, to catch that every single night. I'm very excited. The new Barry Weiss, CBS News, where they're vowing that we're not going to listen to advocates and academics about everything. We're going to try to bring you the news for, for everybody. So I'm looking forward to it.

[B]

Yeah, it was good. It was, again, of much media content than most network news. Wow. So speaking of media content, we played this earlier, but it's just so unbelievable. We gotta play it again. This is a journalist by the name of Brandy Cruz talking to socialist Washington state Rep. Sean Scott. This is the guy who advocated taxing Amazon out of Seattle because the workers were using up too much housing. This guy is a freaking moron. Anyway, dig this, if you will.

[C]

I want you to give me one example of socialism you think working well somewhere.

[D]

A good example of socialism working well somewhere. This is a really, really cool question. I think Cuba in particular, very, very high literacy rate, number one. Number two, extremely strong commitment to public health. So that's one example that I can think of that would resonate with pretty much anybody in our state who cares about education or healthcare. Would you disagree with that?

[B]

All right, so we Jumped in the first time we played this. But then we discovered Brandi did a brilliant job. Go ahead.

[C]

People flee on makeshift rafts and die in the ocean to flee Cuba for the United States.

[D]

Yeah, And I think that that is something that absolutely we have to be sensitive to. But you asked me about institutions that are working really, really well.

[C]

I asked you about places socialism is working and you chose a country that people will risk their lives to flee from to this, to this country. There's a reason for that, Sean.

[D]

There was a revolution in Cuba. That is correct.

[C]

They still do it to this day. They show up on the beaches of Miami.

[D]

Right.

[C]

Because they would rather be here and would risk their lives in shark infested water to flee the country that you just gave me an example of.

[B]

Yeah, well, okay. We need to be sensitive to that.

[A]

So there's no getting around that. I mean, I saw a meme. I don't remember why it was, but it was, it was back when you had the wall between East Berlin and West Berlin and socialism. So great. You need a wall to keep people in. You know, and similar to the idea of people risking their lives to leave Cuba. I mean, there's, there's no arguing with that. People are willing to die to get out of the country. I mean, that's all there is to it. Now the whole literacy thing, that one has been around forever. Bernie Sanders uses it or whatever, partially because the government does go out of their way to make sure everybody can read at a very minimal level the government crap propaganda that they give them. So they are really good at that. And then, and then people are. Don't read it any higher level than that. So that is true as it goes. Then the universal health care thing, which lefties always take as a. That's all you need to know. Government provided health care for everyone. The fact, the way it actually works, whether it's in Canada, Great Britain or Cuba, they leave out. And it's. It's all kinds of a disaster.

[B]

Strictly rationed.

[A]

Yeah, it doesn't make any difference. You can't hang your hat on. Everybody can read at the second grade level in Cuba. So socialism works. I mean, that's a crazy claim.

[B]

Well, right. And as you pointed out, you could make me an argument about what a Valhalla Cuba is with the like, the brilliance of Christopher Hitchens, the humor of Mark Twain and the sincerity of Abraham Lincoln. And then when I came back to you with. But people risked their lives to flee there. All of your arguments are now a joke. And so you have to know.

[A]

And nobody's going to there.

[B]

No, nobody except like lunatic cop murderers from the United States. Right, Exactly. One of the most interesting and moving parts of Judy and my trip to Europe at Christmas time a year and a half, two years ago, I guess, gosh, two years ago now, was touring Bratislava, which was behind the Iron Curtain and the gal who had grown up there, who's now probably 50, 50ish, talking about how they were told the reason they were held in by a wall was that the west was crumbling, the quote unquote free world was crumbling and they were all desperate to get into the workers utopia.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And that's why they had to have a carefully guarded wall. Wow.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I wonder how many of them believe that it would have been easier to keep that quiet back then than it would be now.

[B]

Oh yeah, absolutely true. Yeah. And then finally the last clip was. Well, go ahead and play it. It's so stupid. Here's again Washington Representative Sean Scott.

[D]

And if this, if the situation were reversed, the injuries and the ailments that they sustain as a result of migrating to a place where they believe that they're going to be better off, I believe that they can be treated in a much better way than American health care facilities are currently able to treat people. So. So that's one example that I can think of of socialism working very well in public health and in education.

[B]

This half wit's illustration is. Okay, so people are risking their lives and their children's lives to flee with nothing. This communist hellhole. But if they were to get injured while fleeing Cuba, they'd have better healthcare in Cuba than the United States. Did you keep a straight face through that?

[A]

Come on. Good lord.

[B]

I fall for this.

[A]

Of socialism working. Yeah. And I know it's amazing. It is absolutely amazing.

[B]

I got to admit I'm a little mystified. But again, to quote you earlier, we have got to forcefully re. Re teach the lessons of the misery of socialism and communism and the. The challenge. But the wonderfulness of liberty. We have to. We got lazy.

[A]

Should have grabbed some of the swearing in speech of the mayor there. Is it Seattle or is it one of the other towns in Washington? Where are they?

[B]

Seattle's Katie what's her face? The communist Y. I saw some of.

[A]

Her speech and she's a young. Never had a job. One of those kind of people who.

[B]

Let me guess, Ivy League education? Yeah. I win. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Unbelievable. So we hadn't intended to talk about that as long as we did, but it's hard to help ourselves. I want to get to this real quickly at least. Researchers are warning that AI systems are creating technosocial harms through unchecked rumors. They are voracious spreaders of rumors. And we, we talked about this artist who had a showing canceled because AI, the Internet was starting to say he was a sex offender. And he's not, not at all. It was a hallucinog hallucination that just got picked up and, and picked up and spread and spread. And they're talking about how all systems may spread negative evaluations between themselves through shared training data. Creating AI systems. I should say, creating a rumor mill that without human oversight. Because with human gossip there are social constraints about plausibility. I mean, for instance, if I heard a rumor that Jack murdered 10 hobos to harvest their kidneys and sell them to China, I'd be like, oh, stop it, please. But these machines have no such judgment. So normal human gossip faces social constraints about plausibility. And. But bot to bot gossip is feral, meaning it can become increasingly exaggerated and distorted as it moves from system to system without anyone checking if the claims have gone too far. And from threatened lawsuits over false accusations to potential employment, blacklisting AI generated gossip has caused reputational damage, professional harm, and even contributed to real world violence when weaponized to inflame religious tensions, for instance. And tech companies are designing AI assistance to feel personal and trustworthy. We've talked about this. Making users more likely to believe gossip these systems share even when that information may be completely false. Rumors that spread between machines.

[A]

It's wild that as smart as AI is, they haven't yet come up with something that has the human ability to say, oh, that's not right.

[B]

Right.

[A]

For instance, the, the example you had yesterday of you wanted to get a tattoo of the First Amendment.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it got all the words wrong because it grabbed them from an image and couldn't.

[B]

Well, the image creator does not sync well. Anybody over the age of like 5.

[A]

Would have looked at that as a human and said, well, that's not right. But the AI couldn't do it.

[B]

Right? Right. And it explained to me why it was so bad, but it couldn't say, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's bad. Let's cross check with the actual print. I guess it's not capable yet, but. So let's see, do we do this or put it off? I tell you what, why don't we take a quick break and I'll give you a great example of how this unfolds in the real world. It's bizarre and Troubling and almost funny, honestly. Unless you're the dude in question.

[A]

No kidding. We'll finish strong. Next, Armstrong.

[B]

A growing number of patients are getting butt lifts using fat from dead people. I know. Leading many to believe that Kim Kardashian is a serial killer.

[A]

So when people die, they take their fat and inject it into my hind end. If I wanted a higher hind end. I don't.

[B]

It seems to be the premise here.

[A]

I don't see how that would benefit my life, really, but. Okay. Well.

[B]

Yeah, okay. I don't really want to get into butt fashion.

[A]

Maybe tomorrow.

[B]

Yeah, it's funny how it comes and goes. Anyway, beauty standards, in short. So before the break, we were talking about the fact that AI systems can be vicious gossips. And unlike human beings, they have feral gossip. It's out in the wild and there are no human constraints about. Like plausibility. Yeah. Jack was having sex with space aliens and they produced a weird tentacle baby. No, they didn't. Shut up. But the AI systems don't know that. So.

[A]

Kevin Roose.

[B]

If you have a photographic memory, you may remember that name. But I don't. I didn't. Thought his strangest AI experience was behind him. This was the New York Times tech reporter who made headlines a couple years ago after Microsoft's Bing chatbot confessed its love for him and urged him to leave his wife.

[A]

We talked about that a lot.

[B]

Yeah, we're all nodding our heads.

[A]

Oh, right.

[B]

But months later, friends started sending him screenshots revealing something even more unsettling. AI chatbots from completely different companies were generating hostile evaluations of him. Google's Gemini, for instance, claimed Roos's journalism focused on sensationalism. Metazalama 3 went further, producing a multi paragraph rant accusing him of manipulating sources, and with a blunt declaration, I hate Kevin Roose. These weren't isolated incidents or random glitches. Multiple chatbots had apparently developed negative associations with Ruse, and the researchers argued this information may have spread from one ACE system to another as online discussions about the whole weird. Sydney. That was the name of the Bing chat bot, Sidney telling him to leave his wife. Discussions got scraped into training data, potentially mutating and intensifying it along the way. In other words, as people were discussing it and joking and crack pots weighed in or whatever, the AI just sucked it all up and said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. It's got to be true. People are saying it on the Internet.

[A]

Yeah, there is a concern with this language learning model thing where it just sucks up information from around the Internet that how are you going to stop misinformation, disinformation if something's out there that false and it treats everything exactly the same. I mean this is, this could perpetuate things in a way that, that human beings only dreamed of.

[B]

Right, right. And they talk about how all traditional gossip requires a speaker, a listener and an absent subject and that there's bot to user gossip when users ask chatbots directly about humans, blah blah blah. But bot to bot gossip happens when information spreads between systems through shared training at or integrated networks with no humans involved. And it just goes wild.

[A]

We got into talking about AI with my family, get together a bunch of college students or newly in the workplace type people and everybody's using it in different ways. And then the ways you use it in school, everybody uses it for school to varying levels of what they feel like they're okay with in terms of helping them with a paper. And some of it, you know, you can completely see. Sure, that's fine. But where it crosses the line into, I mean because how do you not write your paper as a, a 20 year old college sophomore? How do you not write your paper and run it through AI to, to like, you know, fix grammatical errors or an inconsistency or anything like how would you not do that? I don't think I stopped myself from doing it. It's not having it write the paper but it's just catching any obvious problems.

[B]

Oh that's funny, I hadn't even thought of that right now. That's sure. It's a proofreader, it's a machine proofreader. Is that, that's legal, isn't it or isn't it?

[A]

I don't know. Well that's, that's what the question got into is. And then there was one of them said their professor expected like 15 of the paper to be AI. They just knew that that was going to happen or something. I don't know how you'd quantify that sort of thing, but it just seems unrealistic.

[B]

I could see, you know, back in the day I was surrounded by a stack of books but asking AI hey I'm, I'm writing a 10 page paper against tariffs. What are the main points I should include? I mean and that's a, that's a learning tool to me. I understand that it crosses the line very easily to a keep you from learning tool but I'm gonna write a.

[A]

Paper about John Brown, his positives and negatives. I'm supposed to like go through book by book. And come up with myself. When AI can do it in a couple of seconds, then I write a paper about it. Is that cheating? I don't know.

[B]

It's not using certain muscles that human beings need. Probably more on that to come. I don't want the show to be over, but I'm ready to listen to.

[A]

The final thought from. Here's your host for final thoughts, Joe Getty.

[B]

Yeah. Hey, let's get a final thought from everybody on the crew. There he is, Michelangelo, pressing the buttons. Our technical director, Michael. What's your final thoughts? I know this is terrible, but I've.

[A]

Been sitting here for the last, I.

[B]

Don'T know, half hour thinking about that Girl Scout cookie flavor of rocky road. Every year I'm a sucker for the Girl Scouts that I want to buy.

[A]

One box, I end up with three or four. Well, you're helping. You're helping young women learn about leadership. Exactly. What's wrong with you?

[B]

Freeze them. You have like one after a meal.

[A]

Get one off the pole, eat some cookies. Cheese.

[B]

That's right. Well said. Katie Greener, esteemed newswoman is cringing and she has a final thought.

[A]

Katie? Yeah, to take it in another direction.

[B]

Just to show how fast time flies. I am halfway through my pregnancy today.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. Yeah. Golly gee, Jack, do you have a.

[A]

Final thought for us?

[B]

I do.

[A]

Seven days in, I still haven't eaten a dessert. I'm counting all kind of cookies, pies, cakes, all cookies. When you mentioned that, I thought, oh man, no cookies this year. No Boy Scout or Girl Scout cookies.

[B]

Damn. I have two final thoughts. Number one, the ham kick segment was one of the funniest and most amazing things I've ever heard. The hour or segment one of this hour. Second thought. We're about to chat with Ian Bremmer about the Eurasia Group's annual top risks for 2026, which will be available as an Armstrong and Getty extra large podcast. Always fun and informative to talk to, Ian. So looking forward to that.

[A]

I feel like they had more fun back in the old days with Ham kicks and whatnot. Armstrong and Getty wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.

[B]

So funny. So many people.

[A]

Thanks.

[B]

A little time go to Armstrong and getty.com. did you know you can subscribe to our podcast to have it downloaded automatically all the damn time? Then you don't have to worry about it. And give us a glowing five star review while you're at it.

[A]

We will see tomorrow. God bless America.

[B]

Armstrong and Getty. The choice of waking up to sex or waking up to the smell of bacon in the house. If the smell of bacon was in the air, it might even be hard to concentrate on loving because you keep thinking, wow, wow, there's fresh bacon. It's getting cold.

[A]

You're going bacon first.

[B]

That's just. I'm just analyzing. I'm waiting. I don't want group think here.

[A]

I'm waiting. The ideas.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

You really like breakfast? Yeah, I really do.

[B]

Michael Armstrong and Getty.

[A]

This is an I heart podcast.

[B]

Guaranteed human.