DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - All to Screw Memphis | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• Tennessee Republicans propose a new congressional map that includes a district stretching nearly 300 miles from Memphis to the Nashville suburbs. The 9th Congressional District, which historically covers Memphis, would be redrawn to stretch from the bottom of Shelby County to the edge of Nashville. This move is designed to split Shelby County into three districts and split Nashville to maximize Republican representation. The new districts cover a massive geographic area, spanning from the state's poorest ZIP codes in Memphis to the wealthiest in Brentwood and Franklin, totaling a distance of nearly 300 miles. The proposal follows a special session called by Gov. Bill Lee aimed at redrawing the map following a Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act, allowing for the elimination of a district that is 61% Black. Tennessee, which is 1/3 Democratic, would have zero Democratic Congressmen.• Voters across Scotland and Wales will elect members of their national parliaments, while residents in many parts of England will choose members of local councils. In place of Labour and its traditional opponent, the Conservatives, many voters are embracing other parties in what experts say represents the largest transformation in British politics in a generation. The two biggest beneficiaries are Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage, a supporter of President Trump, and — on the other side of the political spectrum — the leftist, pro-environment Green Party. Polls suggest that the Conservative Party, known as the Tories, will continue to lose seats after cratering in local and national elections over the past two years. In some parts of Britain, the party once led by the “Iron Lady” of British politics, Margaret Thatcher, could come in fourth or fifth, with support in the single digits.• You might not have asked for an AI model on your computer, but you might have gotten it anyway. Google Chrome has been installing a 4GB model onto devices without asking or notifying users. Google has been installing Gemini Nano -- an AI model that runs on devices like smartphones and laptops instead of in the cloud -- onto some people's Chrome browsers, without their permission, according to Alexander Hanff, a Swedish computer scientist and lawyer known as That Privacy Guy. And Google doesn't tell you that it's on your device after it's installed. Hanff said Gemini Nano will only be installed if the person's device meets the hardware requirements. It's unknown how many people have gotten the install.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

We're watching the program with Ted Raul and Jamaral Thomas. We know that J.T. is going to be joining us because we saw him for a hot second. But he was there and then he wasn't. And so we assume he will emerge. In the meantime, you'll have to make do with me and Robbie. My apologies there. Allergies are killing me, but I promise it won't be. So are you dying, Ted?

Listen, we're not even talking about crocodiles. We're not talking about. grilling babies. It is too early in the morning and we haven't gotten to the silly news yet because this is not that show. No, TMI is coming up and that news will be silly. No, look, if I'm dying, I promise to do it here on the show because we need to do everything we can to get up the clicks. So, you know, if I'm going to die anyway, I might as well die here. Well, how about we use Clovis Cam instead of Weekend of Ted's? Oh, yeah. Well, Clovis Cam, there's the man, the legend the cat he's doing what cats do he's enjoying the sun so anyway good morning everyone we are

here for deep program monday through friday 9 a.m. Eastern time please don't miss the show today it's all the Ted roll you can possibly stand and then some tmi at 10 a.m. DMZ america podcast only on Thursdays with scott stantis and i should warn you that we are going to have a big spicy show, much spicier than usual on DMZ, because we're basically exposing a conflict of interest scandal in the deliberations of this year's Peelot Surprises. Nobody else has this. It's going to, I don't know if it'll be a big deal or not,

but it ought to be a big deal because it's a big scandal. And we can talk about that here also if we want. But anyway, please like, follow and share the show. If you have a question for either JT or myself, please put it into the live feed, either on YouTube or on Rumble in the 9 o'clock hour. If you're watching later on, you can put your question in the comment section

on Rumble and YouTube, and Robbie or myself will troll through there. One other bit of housekeeping, you may have noticed at the end of each show. We have closing credits where we thank supporters of the show. So we are updating that. today and tomorrow. So actually, I don't think I had a chance to update the new one. But anyway, if you are a tier two contributor, you get to be on that. And for 4999, we're announcing a tier

three level, 4999 a month. I know it's kind of pricey for people, but you'd get, you will get a private conversation with JT and I and a small limited number of people. So it's kind of like having your own little roundtable with us. So we're just going to get a private conversation with JT and I and a small limited number of people. So we're just going to try that out and see how that goes. J.T., how you doing this morning? I am doing okay. Apologies for the late entry, but I'm doing okay. So far, so good.

Can't complain. How you doing it? The important thing is that you're here. I'm doing okay. I will always be here. Short of half dead, I will be here. Excellent. I'm the same way.

You know, I was when I was in school, I always had perfect attendance. Always. I came across my elementary school report cards. I was a very sick kid. I was, you know, I had operations all the time. My lungs were rotten, but perfect attendance. Wow. I didn't have perfect attendance.

But I do damn the in regards to making sure my asses in a seat. No, I apologize. The show just ran late. I asked the question, the question went much longer. We knew you were coming. You let us know. We're good. All right.

So, plus that's why we have Robbie. Okay. So a few things to talk about today, a lot of things. And by the way, we'll talk about if you guys have stuff you want to talk about that we are not putting it on the rundown. That's okay. We'll talk about it. Bring it up. So Tennessee Republicans are taking gerrymandering.

They're putting it on steroids. We can talk about that. There's big elections in the UK coming up tomorrow. Oh, sorry, today, actually. And we're seeing a radical political realignment there. where the traditional two mainstream parties, you know, we always think of as Americans, like we have Democrats and Republicans, they have Labor and the Tories. But that's not how it's going to be anymore because they have a parliamentary system

and they are going to the far-left Green Party and to the far-right Reform UK Party led by Nigel Farage. So politics are definitely, I would say are not more radical lies there, but voters have more of an opportunity there under their system to express the radicalization and the polarization of their politics. Last but not least, if you have Google Chrome, they've been secretly installing a AI model on your computer, and we have the goods on that and what, if anything, you can do about it. What do you want to talk about?

I mean, I do want to talk about this gerrymandering story. What do you think? Yeah, the gerrymandering thing is still disturbing to me. I know, as you pointed out, this was something that's been going on for a very long time. But it feels cancerous to me. I mean, there's a lot of things I feel cancerous to me in regards to our system. But it's, let me say this way. Just a minute of grace.

The revolutionary drive of a particular country when they first gain independence is one thing, right? They have these beliefs. We're going to be this. We're going to be that. We're going to have all this. these half a lunar ideas. But at a certain point, it no longer becomes that. It's like, okay, getting votes is a pain in the ass. So let's just take money and let's use money in a way to con voters and to voting for us. And then it becomes, okay, the money is not enough. So now let's just

change the system itself, like meaning it's the bus driver changing the bus in order to make themselves that much more, let's say, that enshrine themselves into a particular position as opposed being voted into a particular position because the public wants you. There's something very sinister about that. But give me your take of. Oh, no, I mean, it's fundamentally anti-democratic, small D Democratic, right? So let's, I mean, for people who don't understand how this works, right, let's look at the results first and work backwards.

So the results are Tennessee is a state that is about a third Democratic. Like in all states, the big cities tend to be more democratic. the rural areas tend to be more Republican. There is, at present, due to previous gerrymandering in Tennessee, only one congressional district represented by a Democrat in Tennessee. That is this very black city of Memphis, which is at the center of Shelby County, right along the Mississippi River, right? So currently, I think there are nine districts, right?

So there are nine districts in the state, only even in a state with one out of three voters as a Democrat, only one out of nine congressmen. But that's one too many for the state GOP. And they've decided to take advantage of this recent Supreme Court ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act. They're going to eliminate the 61% black district. And they're chopping it up six ways till Sunday. They're creating this new district that runs nearly, this is insane. I mean, I know Tennessee is a big state, but it's going to run 300 miles from Memphis all the way across the state, all the way over to the mountains in Nashville. And they're going to split Shelby County, which is, like I said, it's Memphis, and split it up into three different districts.

The new district is basically has nothing in common with each other. It spans from the state's poorest zip codes in Memphis to the richest in places like Franklin and Brentwood. 300 mile long congressional district. So, I mean, and I guess the thing is what gets me is, okay, you can do this. You can, apparently. The Supreme Court says you can do it. But then there's like, should you? You know, I mean, it's like the shamelessness.

And I guess there's a certain point where, you know, if I'm sitting on the Republican, and the Indiana Republican leadership did go through this process, they said, you know, You don't want to push people too far. Otherwise, you know, you're going to get a toxic reaction. And that's what's happening here. They're like, we don't want eight out of nine. We want the whole smear. We want the whole state to be Republican.

And online, conservatives, Trumpies, MAGA people, they're laughing their asses off. They think the whole thing is funny. They think it's great. They think it's fan fucking-tastic. And, I mean, the thing is, look, people who watch. us know that we would criticize this if it was the Democrats doing it. Yes. And so this is not about, you know, it just happens to be that Republicans are in the catbird seat right now and they get to be the big assholes. But as we saw under Biden with lawfare and everything, you know,

Democrats know how to be dicks too. They just don't have the chance right now. I don't know. I mean, it just seems like this is, it's a level of toxicity that terrifies me. It's one of those things like we talked about several things recently this week, where it's like, I don't know how this plays out, but I know it's bad. Look, I would tell you this. I mentioned this. I think it was either yesterday or a day before yesterday, but we were mentioning the jurymand or anything. And I pointed out how this stuff was being used to get rid of black districts.

And this is a perfect example. Like, this is ultimate. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, such a black city, right? Yeah. I mean, historic, right? I mean, in the same way that I mentioned they were using this before in order to be like making these weird districts in order to get rid of black voters or black votes because, you know, obviously they vote typically Democrat.

And so I don't, look, I don't entirely take it as a racial issue. I take it as a political issue. If blacks were voted for Republicans, they wouldn't be doing this, right? No, they're doing it in order to, look, I think they do it because they can. I think that's what you do it because you can. And yeah, you may get a tax of reaction. Yeah, people may like it. But what are you going to do about it?

Which is what it always boils down to. And if that answer is bitch or nothing, then they're going to do it. It's that, I mean, again, our politics is based on good faith. And we evolve. Which is in absentia these days. Yeah. Maybe it always has been. I don't know.

But certainly now. It has, I mean, it seems worth it. It always has been. I mean, because at some point, this stuff did use to work. And I guess that's what I mean when I said the revolutionary spirit goes away. I mean, it's no longer just an ideological thing of what is in the best interests of America and how do we maintain a democracy, et cetera, et cetera. All those things require people to actually defend those ideas when those ideas fall.

And it just becomes, you know, this kind of cynical grab for power. Okay. then at that point, you need some kind of response to the cynical grab for power. And I guess my thought is this stuff eats itself. I mean, if you're looking at California, California and Virginia are good examples. Republicans decide we want to change, let's say, the political system to allow more delegates to go from our state that are Republicans. And what do Democrats do. They say, okay, we're going to respond to it.

And you have to respond to it because otherwise you're just going to get game. But that also means that your government, your representative government is effectively eating it. stuff, which I think these things are hallmarks of. This stuff is cancers. What about the law of unintended consequences, right? I mean, one out of three voters in the state of Tennessee is a registered Democrat. There's probably some people who are moderate Republicans who probably think this isn't really a playing fair. I mean, could there be backlash against the Republican Party, were people just fundamental? fundamentally say, this is uncivilized. It's just not the way we're supposed to behave.

No, I don't buy it. I think they're going to be okay with it. Maybe I'm cynical. I don't think these people are not cynical. You're not paying attention. Yeah, I think both parties are in drink Koolet. I drink red Kulet. Somebody drinks blue Kulet, right? And in the people, and I'm not saying me, but I'm saying the people are on teams. It's almost like football games. And from their point of view, hey, our team is pushing this. And that's a assuming they're even fully like engaged on this stuff they may just agree with the republican party in general like i don't i mean it is like sports right like i'm not a sports fanatic i mean i don't know do you watch sports i oh okay just yes okay so like but you know so but you know you you periodically you

hear like oh baseball changed such and such rule um football changed such and such rule and i'm always like but then it's not like chess doesn't change rules um like you know i mean chess is always just. Well, I guess they changed it hundreds of years ago, right? The board used to look very different and stuff. Well, no, it's just being like clocks and stuff like that. They change rules around it. But I get your point. But yeah, but, you know, basically, you know, I mean, like the night only has a certain type of mood it can make, right? There's only certain things you can do. I mean, so politics is that way, too, where they're changing the rules all the time. And it causes us all, I think, to lose respect for the system. I mean, it's like, it's their own rules

And I mean, I guess this is a good segue to the English thing. I mean, by the way, I do want to thank Trent, who did the thumbnail for today, just for having the, he goes the extra mile. So the title today comes from the Mata Hupel song all the way from Memphis, which was, you know, an old Motha Hupel song, a great song. And he found that he did a parody of the original album cover for that. Nice. I mean, who's going to know that, right? I wouldn't have known that. Right, just say.

Just want to say. You know, I don't know if this is wrong either, but I feel like there are certain cities in the United States that have a special place in the national character. New Orleans was one of them. And I think part of what made Katrina hurt was the fact that, you know, it's a special city. It's like there's only one like it and it's an amazing place. And even if you've never been, you kind of like in your national consciousness, you know it's there. You know, that's not true about, say, Akron, you know.

And I think Memphis is one of those cities. It's a special city. And it has, you know, it's an important city. And it just seems like beating up on Memphis, you know, which is a hard scrabble, bedraggled city, which has suffered since the slavery days. Beating up on Memphis, it just seems it's rude, man. It's wrong.

You don't care. I don't think that, Ted, I have grown, as John Herman said, realist. I've become a severe realist. It's a virulist. This doesn't shock me. It's just if you had a powder, you do it. Look, I've watched them. I remember in Ohio when the Civil Rights Act was first ripped, limped from limb,

and they were passing laws saying, hey, we require voter ID, and we require identification, and you can use a gun license, but you can't use a student license. It's like, okay, well, that's weird. Or student license, many of those kids are Democrats, and so we don't necessarily want them to be able to vote. And this was policy. What is the guy?

He says, I don't want everybody to vote. He says, the lectures are not one by the side with the most voters. It's one by the side who can get their voters to the polls. And effectively, if you could stop somebody from getting to the polls, that is just as well as you winning the vote. True. This was Republican policy going all the way back to the Hourage Foundation. God, I need to pull that video.

it's exactly the same thing. This policy has been this way for decades. So, no, I'm not shot. That is. To me, this is their way of gaining political power and political clout. And that is the only thing that matters. If you can't do anything about it, if you have no leverage, sad day. Let's do some comments.

Mustafa Jalil, thank you so, Mustafa Jalil. Thank you so much for the $1.99. Manchild, the U.S., thanks for the dono. The U.S. is rigging maps to erase competition, but the UK is seeing a multi-party explosion, which we're about to talk about. Is the American duopoly's only survival strategy to gerrymander its way into a British-style collapse? Well, I think we can talk about Britain. So what's going on is voters across Scotland and Wales are going to elect members of their national parliaments.

Residents of England will choose their local council members. but many voters are voting for either Reform U.K. on the right or the Green Party on the left and they're sidelining labor and the conservatives. In some parts of Britain, the conservative party could come in fourth or fifth with support in the single digits. This is a big deal, and I think it's because they have a parliamentary system. I mean, I don't think the Brits are more polarized than we are, but they have the ability. to vote for these outside parties. And we don't.

So, like, if you had a parliamentary system here, by the way, I don't think that what's happening in England is collapse. I think what it is is just reflecting the electorate. And, you know, it's like if the Labor Party goes to, you know, is by-bye. Oh, well. Personally, I think that the Greens and the Libertarians better reflect the American public than the Democrats and the Republicans do. So, I mean, so to me, this is sanity prevailing.

Am I missing anything? No, you're absolutely right. It's, look, man, if you consider yourself a representative government, a Democratic parliament, whatever, your public can change. And this was the issue with the Democratic Party, right? Or even the Republican Party in the States, where the public says, we don't like you in the way that you are. We want something different. and the party looks back and says, yeah, but we don't want to change. That's a problem. That's not a good thing, right?

Like if you have a population that fundamentally want something else that says, straight up, I want something else. Hence, Republicans vote MAGA, and MAGA is supposed to be something somehow different than a Republican Party in general or America First or whatever. But they voted for that because they wanted something different, even though they didn't necessarily get the difference. People did the same thing for Sanders. People, when you ask them, they vote independent in this country or they claim to be independent despite where they vote, meaning they want fundamentally something else.

But the system doesn't allow that something else to even be an option because you have these two political parties that effectively function top down. England is doing something different. Nadja Farage has been like doing gangbusters in regards to the new party to which he started and the Greens. Meaning that is labor, Kirstarmer has the charisma of used condom. He just does. Bois Johnson took a shit number 10, especially with the whole Brexit stuff. The public. Don't forget Liz Truss.

And Liz Truss, right, the head of cabbage that, you know, that lasts less than a head of cabbage. I guess what one is, if you look at the conservative governments that have been back, to back to back to back. They have failed miserably. And then they put in labor, Starmer, who put a knife in the back of Jeremy Corbyn at the point where Corbyn was in office. And that fool, his approval is in a toilet. So it's like Britain, at the very least, has the capability of saying, we want to vote for other people. And they do so. Like, in a way that- Parliamentary democracy is superior to a two-party system. And I can prove it. It's like empirically, if you look at a list of voter participation rates by nation,

countries with two-party systems are way below countries with multi-party democracies, right? They just are. Australia, Canada, Japan. Yeah, those are more abundant democracies. You know, countries with real democracies like Italy, France, whatever, even Israel, they have much higher voter participation rates. And I wanted to, let me call back a little bit what we were talking about, about Tennessee. I know maybe this is stupid.

I know, look, I think your point of view is 100% correct. They just do what they want. But I mean, I always worry as a student of history, when you disenfranchise people, like if you tell one out of three voters of a state, right, this is majority tyranny, right, with no minority rights whatsoever. minority rights were something that was supposed to be enshrined in the Constitution. But if you have a state with one out of three voters as a Democrat and not, but you don't get a single congressman no matter where you live in the state, that's a problem, right?

I mean, California has the opposite problem. California is like basically because it's almost the state GOP is almost dead. It's impossible for a California Republican to be elected governor or it's just, it's just won't happen anymore. There's no point even running that way. It would have to be a quirk of like the ranked choice voting system. I mean, that's not good, right? I mean, it's just like if you disenfranchise people and they stop caring about the system, if they don't think they can win, they're just going to opt out and they start looking for, you know, Luigi type options. Not good for whom? Well, it's not good for the system, actually. It's true. It's so, it's

I don't think they care. Like for my point of view, this is issue of power, no more or less. And this is the idea of should we care about the minority? If you are functioning in a democratic system, yes. I always worry about the minority. Yeah, it should be in the bricks, right? Like the whole point of the filibuster is the whole thing of the minority. The whole point of the Senate is the whole point of the minority.

In fact, I go further. The entire creation of the Senate was this idea of two members, So you can have somewhere like Montana or Iowa that has the same voting weight as California, despite the fact that California is massive. Like the entire premise of the system was built with this idea of the minority and ensuring the rights of that minority. They don't care. They don't care. Like the thing is we want power. We want to be able to control the state.

That's what we want to do. Hey, there's one random place of black people that tends to vote Democrat. Let's get rid of those. Right, right. Robbie says I'm missing something here, or maybe we both are. So I'm going to let him chime in. What you're going to miss it here is that you're thinking too big. Y'all are thinking about big, complex ideas for a complex system. If you live in a shithole like Memphis or New Orleans or Little Rock,

you're not thinking about how many seats is the Democratic Party going to represent for me in the state capital or in Washington, D.C. you're thinking about is some meth head going to break into my house, rob what little bit I have, while I'm working three jobs, trying to make a living. That's the problem. When people are desperate, when they are ground all the way completely down,

you're not thinking big things like this. You are incapable of self-governance, and that's by design. Robbie? Yeah. They are, look, I appreciate that. This idea that people,

are looking for solutions in order to deal with real world phenomena. Agree. That is different to me than saying we're going to eliminate. Because this is not an issue of who are we going to vote for in order to put in order to handle X or Y. This is effectively saying we need to disenfranchise a particular group or, let's say, this particular demographic in order to get political clout and political power. I think you're giving them the benefit of the doubt that they don't deserve, considering this is something that they've been doing all across the United States.

Oh, I'm not giving benefit to doubt at all. I think Jerry Ranagh is stupid, and the Republicans are going to figure out just like the Democrats did that this is going to come back and it's going to blow up in their face in this spectacularly gnarly way. I mean, it's already started. I mean, look, you all mentioned California. I mean, anytime that you start carving up voting districts, it's, to me, the entire idea of the account of a voting district is retarded.

What you should do is just based on the population. of the county you live in, just have, just have right voting. If you have 800,000 people living in your county, then the top four candidates or however it is, whatever the number is, they get elected to represent that county. I didn't even understand why we have districts. We've already have counties. If you do that, the problem is solved already. What I'm talking about though, you're all talking about big picture, the big picture ideas about parliamentary elections and the parliament of parliamentary, parliamentary,

being superior to a two-party system, fine, well, maybe you're right. I have no idea. You're probably all right. The point I'm trying to make is you're never going to get any kind of traction with that when people are more worried about crime and how to pay the bills and how to pay the rent, then these big top-down issues. Well, you're now bringing up the break, you're actually bringing the biggest issue of all, Robbie, and I don't disagree with you. You know, the biggest issue of all is just, you know, how you can distract millions and millions of people from their own parochial self-interest and basically screw them and have them unable or unwilling to respond.

This is how the British conquered India. I mean, think about this. What they're doing, they're playing black against right, no worker against the middle class, poor versus rich. They're playing all these games. And all we're in, but the majority of people are doing are pointing the finger at the other guy saying you're the problem when the problem is the guy in the in the three piece suit who is screwing everybody but no one can see it because we're also we're all playing this stupid racial

bs game that's the problem you got to get listen if if some inbred redneck with a family tree it literally go straight up like this i have no forks okay i'm from the deep sound i understand this why do we have voting districts i don't understand it when i just have right choice voting Like if you have 30 people running for the House of Representatives, the House of Representatives in your states, why not just apportion whoever wins based on the, based on the population of each individual county, be done? Because I don't understand this system.

Because Rang-trothing voting would make it difficult for, put it this way. Would Hillary Clinton would, like, Joe Stein and ring-choice voting election? hell no because the reality of it is the moment that you say I want this other person other than the Democrat or other than the Republican and output the Republican is number two then by all or the Democrat is number two you make their position that much more difficult to get elected. If I'm Clinton and I'm running against Trump, I would prefer nobody else being on that ballot and I would prefer that you believe that the end of the world is going to take place if you don't vote for me. that's not entirely true if you have a ranked choice voting system. You immediately allow another candidate to get the potential for that vote. Because keep in mind, our political system is this thing of either me or this other person. That's all you get.

And if you don't vote for me, you may not like me. You may not like my policies, but you may think this other person is the devil. Yes, you vote for me. A rank choice voting system would allow a different option. Don't forget, though, ranked choice voting gave us Eric Adams as mayor of New York City. True. True. True. I'm just going to reply to Abe's comment real quick and I'll go away. Robbie's still against women's rights to health care. Actually, no, I like women. My wife had access to health care. She had to have major surgery because of tumors. I have no problem at all with women with women having health care. I am opposed to doctors murdering babies. So if you're referring to abortion, that's not health care. That's murder. Those are two very different things. One saves a life, the other one takes a life. So you check yourself on that.

There are some circumstances where a child has to be aborted in order to save the life of the mother. I mean, I personally have met women in that situation. Sure. I mean, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people no conflating abortion with health care. That's a decision for another day. But, I mean, my whole thing is, you know, we would not be having this conversation about Tennessee gerrymandering away the entire city of Memphis, which is a,

a blight on the backside of Tennessee if we had ranked choice voting based on the population. The people there are victims of talk about systemic racism. I mean, I mean, God, that history is like, we don't have enough time left in this show. Ian the Jolly, bro, holy shit, we're reverting. Alabama is splitting the black belt into five districts.

And people say, you're racial gerrymandering, like, that isn't what this is. Yeah. I mean, like this, I don't get this thing of, yeah, you guys are bringing race into the conversation. It's about race. And I am, I am one of those people who are not, I am a firm believer that things more revolve around economics. In fact, when I was on freelance, when I was on the other show, Bob White was far more interracial politics than I was. I was the guy who was like, this stuff is about economics. However, I am perfectly aware when they are splitting districts in order to, let's say, solidify their

power base that there's a racial element to it. I think it has more to do with the fact that Democrats or blacks vote Democrat, as I pointed out, if blacks voted Republican, they wouldn't be doing this. But that's besides the point. Obviously, there's an element to it when you are effectively cutting the power base of a particular group. And I don't think Republicans are thinking to themselves, especially the leadership. Well, people are concerned about eating food on the table and crimes. So we need to destroy the vote in the district. I don't think that's where they're coming from. I think they want to show the power base.

I think so. Yeah, they just, they just want the numbers. They're just trying to get to, you know, as much of a majority as possible. This is, I'm very glad Zoya is love posted this comment. Love you guys, but get past the duopoly illusion. Both parties grow the wealth gap, expand war, serve capital, funds the police state, support surveillance,

oppose healthcare, sabotage unions, bust strikes. I read that slowly because it's all true, and it's all very important. And, you know, I mean, the reason, so, you know, when we pick the stories here, you know, it's easy to say, well, we could ignore this story. Who cares? This is just like a squabble between the two assholes and the duopoly. And on one sense, you know, that's true, you know, on one level. But I think it's important also to, it exposes the nature of the system.

system that when they're tearing each other apart and they're willing to act this way and they violate even their own supposed rules. To me, that's very instructive. And I don't know. It feels like it exposes them and the bullshit that they are. It's sort of like when the DNC cheated Bernie Sanders. Who's surprised? Not you, JT, not me. But still, when you see it and you talk to. about it, it just shows that these are cheaters, these are liars, these are manipulators, these are people who don't care about us. And I think that's why, but I think that that reminder from that comment is really important. It is. It's both. It's not one or the other. It's both. Both have a problem. I mean, don't get me wrong. We may focus on Democrats on one show and then

focus on Republicans on the other. But yeah, I hate them both. Yeah, I hate them both. And it's valid But to kind of point out the system is eating itself. It's cancerous. And again, the UK elections are a really good example. In a parliamentary system, especially in a system where they appropriate the vote for a particular party, meaning if you get X amount of vote that are green voters, you need to have this many people who are in parliament, et cetera, et cetera, then you get a better distribution of people who are able to vote what they want as opposed to being stuck in a two-parting system.

That would be the benefit of a parliamentary system, kind of like they have in Germany. Well, German is a little bit different because they're going after the AFD. That's the secondary point. The point of getting at is we don't have this ability for say, okay, 3% voted for the Green Party, so 3% of Congress is going to be Green Party. We don't have that. And that's a problem. That's issue.

Great. Okay. So let's move on. Oh, let's do some more comments, actually, here. I like this comment. Thank you, maybe blue funk. Ted, according to European historian Anabali, Anibal, I don't know, the French did not have as bad of a depression as the Germans did in the 1930s

because the French elite still had memories from the guillotine days. Well, that's partly true, but as a student of French history, I will say also what happened is that the French ended up electing the popular front under the first Jewish president, Leon Blume. And my mom was born in 1935. Bloom was elected in 1936. My mom said that her parents told her that they literally, the family would have absolutely starved to death

without the popular front. And the popular front came in, nationalized industries, taxed the rich, created all sorts of welfare programs that never existed in France before 1936. And that even though, They were, the popular front was pretty much toast by 1938, 1939. Nevertheless, it made all the difference in the world. I mean, their electoral system had the space to allow the far left to come to power.

Here in the United States, the best we could do was FDR and the New Deal. And he basically, you know, as the historian say, saved capitalism from itself. I guess I'm not really disagreeing with the comment, but I mean, I think the point is it's important to put a finer point. on it. Yeah, you're much more well-versed on France than I'm on this one. Let's see. By the way, I know what the boyfriend is. Marie Le Pen, she's probably, well, they changed the name to,

ah, forget what they changed the name to. It won't be Le Pen because France was doing their own democratic, reworking, if you want to call it there. Yeah, well, it's the Rassemblement, the Ressamblement, was it the Rassam Le Mans de la Republic or something like that it used to be the National Front and now it's it'll be so

her protege is Jordant Bardella and he he's like a little little guy like a little like you know Pete Buttigieg type dude anyway

no word on whether they're having kind of like who was that like an Ian Frank an Anne Frank not Anne Frank Iron Rand the opposite of Dan Frank.

It's a man. But anyway, kind of an eye and kind of relationship there, I don't know. But the point is that they say, oh, he won't be the candidate. But I mean, I don't see how he can't be the candidate. He's the head of the party. And it makes, and he's articulate.

And there's no reason why he shouldn't be. Not to mention they cheated her. I mean, this law fair stuff is outrageous. They did cheat her. In Romania. You don't think so. No, they did cheat. I agree with you.

I mean, it's an example of what I mean. This is, it's analogous to Tennessee, right? Where it's like, oh, we're going to tell the right wing, you know, rural Frenchmen, oh, you know, yeah, this is your party, but you can't vote for this, for your candidate on a technicality because, you know, we basically went to court. We got her banned from running for office. It's ridiculous. And of course, you know, and again, as a leftist,

As a leftist, I don't think it's a good idea to disenfranchise the far right. Agreed. I mean, I don't think it's a good idea to disenfranchise anybody. Right. From my point of view, there's, the Constitution is not the Bible. Right. It's not a religious document, even though some people act like it is. Governments, countries form governments to deal with environmental circumstances.

And your government needs to be able to change to accommodate the circumstances to what you're dealing with. if you have immigration, for example, that may be an issue at some point where you have to deal with. If you have a war, your government needs to be able to conform to deal with it. Same thing.

If you create a system where you can't do that, then your country is going to go through difficulties. And I take issue with the way that they're effectively gaming the system. Carlene Gugetscu, Romania is another really good example, where they're like, yeah, we're going to find a technicality

to get you out of office after you won the first vote and was going to win the second. That stuff is outrageous, but they do it. You have Europe that is positioning itself for war and the public is saying, we don't want this. And they're like, yeah, we need you to stop saying you don't want this. Shut up, shut up, shut out of, get out of the way, get out of the way.

I'm saying we have represented the governments for a reason in order to accommodate environmental circumstance and environmental change. And when you make that impossible because you want to put your people in as a power position, you are asking for trouble in a governmental sense, in a larger sense. maybe not in an individual local sense we take that out. So by the way, just a little bit of breaking news. Since we're on a class, this kind of fits into our today's theme, which seems to be class, New York Governor Kathy Hochle has in fact announced the new state budget deal that does include

what they call the Piedecter tax. So if you have a second home in New York City that you don't live in, that you just visit sometimes. They'll slap a tax. They're hoping to raise half a billion dollars to help close the budget gap from that. Mayor Mamdani had promised to do that. I'm always of two minds about income redistribution through the tax structure. On the one hand, I mean, not so much for the state, but I definitely am for federal because it's like, all right, well, I do think, obviously, rich people should pay more taxes than poor people, and poor people really shouldn't pay any taxes. but then that money, it's going to like wars and hurting people.

So that part makes me uncomfortable. It's not like the government's largely engaged in doing good things for good people. Right. Yeah, I would love, I mean, I would love for it to be like, okay, we have a program that we are, we're going to give it to the homeless. and we are using this money specifically for that task. Okay, congratulations. Good job, right?

That's not really the way it typically works. It just goes into a pot and nobody has any idea with a pot. It's going to be used for. Usually it's not about better money. Right. I have an ad and I hopefully, I'm really, the ads are a minefield. I mean, like, I'm, like, I'm like worried. Okay, but here we go.

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Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A trinova. Okay, so we have a comment here. Suggestion from FUSO and thanks for the don't know. You guys should cross universe cross-universe episodes with Due Dissidents Keaton.

Also has a music channel where you can talk top ten punk albums. Dool Dissidents. Why is that name for me? You said we could talk. punk albums yeah very top 10 punk albums yeah yeah i would love that i mean i don't know if you do books outside of like political books i've gotten recently i've gotten in audiobooks and stuff like that i'd love to have um talking about books and politics and philosophy and all this stuff with it

but look if somebody calls it in if they give the tier we can talk about or q and a oh i don't see ted no we lost ted okay fair enough i I was like, okay, something weird is happening. Happening right now. That's okay. We have property. Well, Ted's problem is that it's completely self-inflicted. He has a magic mouse.

And so if you swipe on the magic mouse with a Mac in a certain way, it just closes the tab. Why Ted will not get a real mouse? I mean, you don't have anything, just like a regular mouse like this. A regular mouse. And all of a sudden, these problems of the incredible disappearing Ted go away. Tell what, why are you a masochist?

Why do you keep on, why you insist on hurting yourself? What's the crap? Magic Mouse. I do not. No, no, that's not even, that wasn't even a magic mouse thing. This was a weird rumble thing.

No magic mouse. It's just, it's suddenly, I thought J.T. was frozen. And I'm like, wait, he's not the frozen one. I'm the frozen one. By the way, like yesterday, it kept freezing and I kept losing some of the commentary that was taking place.

I wasn't sure if it was me or extraordinary. No, I don't think it was you. I think, I think, Rumble's been a little quirky lately. So that's the problem. That's why I'm reluctant to let Stream Yard go, Robbie. You need to let's let Stream Yard go because, let me make the case of Streamyard. First, whenever Streamyard, first, it looks and sounds horrible.

That's true. Second, you pay a premium every single month for it for a subpar product, which I don't understand why you and JT insist on doing that. I just told you why, because Rumble is not 100% reliable. Well, anything made by man is not 100% reliable. Yeah, but this might be made by by groundhogs or something. It's not 100% reliable. I mean, listen, I would be the first one to admit that Rumble is held together

and duct tape prayers and spit. Right there you go. That's thus stream yard. But the price is right for Rumble. Well, this is great, right? Yeah, but you get what you pay for also. Well, Rumble pays you to use it. So they want to have a good quality product. All right.

We need to get, we need Jeff to get his thing off the ground. Well, remember, we're going to be having that conversation with them tomorrow. And also pickax. A pickax is going to be releasing shorts very soon. I've asked to be in the beta. He's just, he's just like, I don't know how that's going to work. I've never known you to be a beta. Listen, I can be whatever it is.

need me to be except for a Zionist. If you tell me I've got to backpedal on my positions on come on. Come on. Everybody's got a price, Robbie. You could be a Zionist. If I paid you $10 million a year to say Israel's awesome, baby not in Yahoo is cute. There's never been a genocide, never will be a genocide. That land, that land was promised by God himself thousands of years ago and all that, you know, They have a deed that Moses gave them. Well, that part was true. The problem is that because they broke the covenant, if you read the book of Jeremiah, God actually divorces the nation of Israel.

And then in the New Testament, that's actually, if you read the parable of the vineyard and the sower of the vineyard, Jesus himself makes it very, very clear. Like, no, your days are done. So, yeah, sorry. Well. No, contract law is a thing. It's kind of like it's kind of like Columbia is figuring out. You go through and you go through, you pay this money and you get your degree,

then all of a sudden you have unauthorized opinions and then they take your degree away from you. That's what they do. I mean, it's disgusting. I know for sure. I always feel sorry because I'm an alumnus and sometimes I get those calls from like the, you know, the students who have that work-study job calling to shake down alumni for money. And I'm always like, look, I know you're sitting in low library and the base. making this call.

And I'm sorry. And this is not directed at you, but seriously, tell them to fuck off because they're such assholes. And like, tell them to apologize to all the people that they expelled and suspended over the Gaza stuff and to make them whole financially. And we'll have a conversation, you know. Hey, so go ahead, Robbie. If the Democrats really want to win elections, they could do it really super easy. Run on universal health care and run on free speech. So you don't get to take away people's diplomas and then deport them for unauthorized opinions.

And we're going to make sure that you can afford your health care. If the Democrats did just those two things, they would win every election for the next hundred years. That's not true. They don't believe either of those things. Of course not. They don't believe in either of those things. When Biden was in office, look at it was. He was putting in like a regiment.

structured in order to go after people with opinions that the Democratic Party did in particular like, especially on the issue of Ukraine. Well, and JT. and I are out of work, and so are you, Robbie, as a result of that. No. Hey, so quick, $5 donation from Alex, thanks so much. Does JT's mic mute correctly? I can hear him when the red light is off. I've noticed for a few days.

I think that's a rumble thing. Really? You can hear me when the red light is off. Yeah, we hear you. Okay, yeah, turn it, turn it back off and test it. That's a good delay. Testing, one, two, three. Yeah, we hear you perfectly.

Are you serious? So, J.T., they're at the bottom of Rumble Studio, click on a little mic icon up under your name, and that will kill it. What? No, I get that, but this is supposed to kill the value. That's outrageous. It does not. Here, let me see if mine does it.

It just turns off your porn strobe. Can you hear me when I was talking before? No. Oh, so my little, my little blue mic, it works. What the hell? Yeah, if I go like that. I think it even has a value thing on top. It's like, cut off the, good to know.

Yeah, you should get a refund. Good to know. So it should have a Republican area and stuff like that and people are like, dude, so he swear. So annoying. So annoying. And, okay, just filming really. I don't agree with rich people should pay more.

God knows I'm broke, but if I go to school and study hard, get a good job or start my own business, why should I pay for someone who chose to mess around? I love this question. I think it's a valid one. And here's my answer to that. It takes all kinds to make a society. And the idea that someone is contributing more because there's, let's say, getting up earlier or working or working harder, let's say, for whatever that means, or they have more of a vivid imagination, or they have ideas that happen to be able to be saleable or scalable under a capitalist system. I think that's a faulty idea.

It's a faulty meritocracy. I mean, I think someone who can contribute just as much by who smokes weed all day. I'm not kidding. And doesn't work hard and sleeps late. But maybe that person is like really reliable. And in a pinch, that's the person who helps out and who helps their native. and watches their dog when they're on vacation. Maybe that's the person who, you know, who will, you know, who can be counted upon in different

situations. I mean, the point is we all offer different things to society. I don't look down on someone who's less educated than I am or, you know, can't draw cartoons as well as I can or whatever. I mean, those things are important to me, but they're not important sort of to God, you know, if God exists, right? It's like, I mean, I think we all contribute something different. And like obviously, you know, there's people like Jeffrey Epstein who maybe, you know,

it's a net negative. But for most of us, you know, what we have to offer is beyond like these, this sort of like value added, Adam Smith, you know, short term quarterly profit capitalist lay it motif. I think I know someone with your Mike J.T. What model mic is up that you have? Oh, don't ask me that. It's a... Does your laptop have a built-in mic?

If it does, if it's on by default, that's the problem. That's a good question, Robbie. Let's see. Oh, you might, yeah, you might not actually be... The mic might not actually be... You might not be using the mic. You might be talking... We might be hearing you through your laptop, right?

Robbie, is that what you're saying? Yeah, for sure. No, no, no. It's the mic. The laptop mic is disabled. Oh. Yeah. I disable the other communication devices on the thing because I don't want it to flip over.

Yeah. This is a hyper quad or hyperquide two. Hyper quad or hyper. I'm sorry. My vision is all fucked up. Wear my glasses. Seriously, though, you just derailed my, my beautiful elegy to how we all contribute. Yeah.

With this. Mike Beckett? Really? What kind of Mike did a day? Just for that. I'm kicking. you out. Okay. No, I kind of agree with you on this. I mean, I guess, look, I'm one of those people that think if, if you are productive, I don't have an issue with compensation. Catches,

what is the compensation? And should, you know, should people be able to make a billion dollars? Because I don't think people add a billion dollars of value. It's not possible for a human being to add a billion dollars worth of value. Right. Nor are like, nor did they get it by themselves. I make the analogy of Jeff Bezos, for example. I got to be honest with you. I am okay paying people in general as a base income, kind of like Richard Nixon, like the reverse income thing, even if they sit at home and smoke weed.

Now, the reason I would do that is because sometimes I'm willing to pay people to not do destructive stuff, if that makes sense. I don't want the guy going to crime. I don't want the guy in some respects acting as a cop, especially if he's going to be a bad cop. I don't want, meaning I don't want negative production in society, if that makes sense. There's a net benefit to society to having people sit at home watching television and playing video games rather than being out of the street robbing us.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Rob is going to disprove it. Well, no, I'm not, I'm not going to disagree. I must have a question for you all because supply and demand is a thing, right? Yeah.

So demand is infinite. People always want more stuff. Supplies always limited by, you know, it just is. I'm not so sure I would agree with that. People don't have an infinite demand for stuff. I mean, most people, I think, are, you know, have a pretty modest level of expectation. They just want to be able to, you know, maybe go out for dinner once or twice, once a week or once every other week. They want to be able to afford their bills and they want to maybe go on vacation once a year.

Most people don't want that much. Well, it's because, well, I'm going to say they want a lot, but I'm saying it's, is that demand is infinite. People always want something that they don't have. That's the whole point of capitalism. You buy something you don't have. But is that really true? Of course it's true.

I mean, but that's not human nature. Human nature is water in a glass. Meaning human nature can be beautiful, loving, et cetera, or it could be I want everything that I can give my hands on, cynical, etc. Meaning it's water in a glass, your environment shapes that glass. if we have an environment like this where you can't trust the political space the world is at war, you have to

fight for anything that you get, then yeah, human nature is going to be pretty, you know, I mean, you can compare Memphis with Paris. Why is one city beautiful and the other one is a military the military zone. But the point that I understand that. But the point that I'm trying to make is

that one with the UBI, and I think we need to have one, especially with AI, and automation, it's going to happen. So the question is going to be, first, how do you pay for it? The way I would pay for it is by downsizing the military, by 80%, closing military bases, securing the border, ending immigration, and take care of the home people first.

That way you can afford the UBI. Or you can just print money and just use inflation to pay for it, which destroys the purchasing power of every dollar is that you're giving out anyway. So I guess the question that I have about it is, if you're, you generate more, if you give people more money, then they're able to buy more stuff, there's to be less stuff available, thus pushing up prices in addition to the inflation created by the government. So what are you actually getting? I guess that's my question. Does that make any sense? Am I speaking Greek here? Am I thinking of my thinking. I think a point is

if you create the supply and demand thing and the issue of prices is if people have more purchasing power when they're buying more stuff. There's more competition for that limited supply. Exactly, in which case, the prices goes up. And basically an inflating very inspired to it. The problem that happened with that argument, and I guess is, are we saying that people should remain poor? No.

It's always saying, meaning the political, the system to which we're engaging in doesn't allow for people to have the things that they need. To me, that's the question. Do we have a system where people don't need to be homeless, where people can have to have, have food. Even because I agree with Ted on this in regards to it, I don't think people's demands are infinite. My mom used always say, I don't want to be rich. I just want to have enough to live. That's a biblical principle. All I ever wanted to do is pay to draw cartoons for a living and make, and pay my bills. I mean, I just want to be able to take this. Ted, you've been to my house. I live in a very modest little apartment. And I want

what I want, and I think what most people would want is I want to be able, I want my needs to be met, but not necessarily my wants. I guess that's the difference. Maybe I'm not phrasing it right in my crazy autistic way, but I think that's what makes the most sense. Let me meet my need. But have enough, but don't take away the dignity of work so I can strive for what I want. Well, nobody's taking that away from you, though. I guess that's my point. Well, no, I get that. But the argument, though, that you can make with the UBI is that kind of like voting is a pressure release valve. It keeps people from getting pissed off because they think that their vote actually matters. Right. Maybe a UBI would be kind of like an opioid, just kind of just dial it back.

You're getting, you're getting what you need. It doesn't matter the government's doing all this stuff. You know, you have three hots and a cot. You're living in this comfortable jail. You know, it's funny. That's Richard Wolf's argument. Because Richard Wolf's thing is like, well, instead of doing this thing of a UVI, why don't we cut back the hours that people work, that allow more people into the workforce. That's important. That could be this kind of overview. I mean, seriously, we've had annual increases in productivity year after year after year after year.

We have less demand for workers due to automation and now AI. Why don't we say everybody works 15, 20 hours a week instead? And pay them the same as if they worked 40 because after all, they're generating that much value added anyway. Just filming greatly. I really have a question. You're really hung up on my standpoint. by immigrants. Could you please explain to me in the time that we have left? And by you, I mean, anyone, why is it the responsibility of the American worker to have their wages suppressed because

some immigrant deserves more? I don't understand this constant beating of the drum. The entire purpose of a government is to provide for the welfare and the security of its citizens. Not the entire fucking world. Why is this so hard for you to understand. Guys, we are so out of time here. No, it's something on YouTube. Just filming greatly. Robbie is collectively punishing immigration.

Immigration is necessary if you want cheap prices. Listen, you dumb fucker, I don't want cheap prices. I want people to be able to have a living wage. What is so hard about this to understand? Do I need to speak slower for you? Well, yes, and you need to speak tomorrow because we're going to, we are completely out of fucking time. Listen, I'm sorry for calling you stupid.

But if the shoot, that's really, you're a moron. Are you sorry? Are you really? I don't think you're sorry. No, I'm not sorry. So everybody, thank you so much for joining us. This is, we've been, we never got to the Google Chrome story. So hopefully we can get to that tomorrow, but you can look that up yourselves, I guess.

Anyway, stay tuned for TMI show with Ted Roll and Manila Chan coming up. Robbie will be sitting in. So if you want to stick around, maybe you can pick his. brain about immigration at that time. 11 o'clock Eastern time, one hour from now, DMZ America podcast breaks a story about the scandal at the Pulitzer Prize awards that were just announced earlier this week.

And we, so stay tuned for that. Bye, everyone. Bye, JT. See you tomorrow. Have it to be.