DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Cuba on the Ropes | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Scott Stantis, editorial cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune, fills in for John today.Today we discuss: • Cuban Gas Crisis: The Cuban economy hangs on the brink as Trump’s sanctions, including cutting off Venezuelan fuel shipments, force flight service cancellations and school closures. Russia expresses solidarity, exploring ways to ship fuel to the socialist Caribbean island. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel says he’s willing to talk. • It took Pima County, Arizona law enforcement officials almost two weeks to access Nancy Guthrie’s Google Nest footage from the notoriously-hard-to-reach company, revealing a creepy masked man at the door. Should Congress mandate direct phone customer service for big tech? • The Federal Aviation Administration is closing the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas for 10 days, grounding all flights to and from the airport. • After a Border Patrol agent shot 30-year-old Marimar Martinez, a US citizen/Chicago teacher assistant 5 times, Gregory Bovino, congratulated him. “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” he wrote to the agent. • As Netanyahu arrives in DC, Trump says he opposes Israel’s moves to annex the West Bank.JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowFOLLOW TED:https://rall.com/https://x.com/tedrallFOLLOW JOHN:https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakouhttps://x.com/JohnKiriakouLISTEN ON SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuLISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Good morning. Thanks for tuning in to D-Program with Ted Roll and John Kiroaku. It is Wednesday, February 11th, 2026. John Kirooku is traveling today. He'll be back tomorrow. Sitting in for John is Scott Stantis, editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. Thanks, Scott, for joining us. Thanks. I'm the poor man's John Kiroaku, apparently. I don't know how much a middle-class man's John Kirooku would be. I don't even know. By the way, Scott, you and I will be doing the DMZ America podcast tomorrow at 11. AM with our guest will be Steve Kelly, former cartoonist for the San Diego Union Tribune and syndicated cartoonist.

We've had them before. Good guest. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Please like, follow and share the show. Update on Robbie Aid. We are completely all set for the month of February. Thank you everyone for pitching into the to Robbie's GoFundMe, which helps us keep Robbie on the show. Every month, we ask you guys to come.

up with a grand and John and I kick in another grand and then thus we have Robbie West. As you guys know from last week, it's a lot better show with him than it is without him. And you're likely here to get your questions answered. Please go ahead and put your questions if you're watching live on the Rumble or the YouTube feed. And we will get to them, all of them, if we possibly can. And we usually take them in order. Thanks for your contributions. You can do all that.

Everything's all set when it comes to YouTube and all those shenanigans are appear to be not like objects in the mirror that are closer than they appear. They appear to be gone, daddy gone to quote the violent fems. Okay, so today we're going to talk about the, it looks like Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 except minus the missiles with Russia wanting to send gas to Cuba because Trump has cut off of their main source, which was Venezuela. and Cuba's really in trouble already. They're on the brink of collapse economically, and the question is what happens next in Cuba. In the Nancy Guthrie case, is getting weirder and weirder with a guy who is,

I love the fact that the image that was taken off her Google Nest camera reveals a really creepy masked man, and everybody, including Republican media, is characterizing him as a really spooky, creepy masked man. And I'm thinking, but you guys are okay with them when they work for ice. He looks just like a nice guy. He kind of does. And if you look at the video, it's fascinating.

He moves weird. When he notices the ring doorbell, he covers it like this, which is weird. And then he goes and picks flowers to try to cover it. I know. When I saw him pick the flowers, I was wondering if he was. was planning to pretend like he's the FTD guy. And then you say, like, those are my flowers, dude. Like, I planted those.

You know, I don't know. Yeah. Can we spin into the other stories kind of related to this one? Yeah. Reason Magazine posted an article yesterday, but it wasn't really tied into the, the Guthrie story, Ted. It was tied into, I know you love sports. You breathe and live sport.

Yeah. just do. Well, you can tell from my athletic build. Well, you actually do. You're tall and lanky. I just, but no, I'm joking people. Ted could care less about sports. I'm not against sports.

They just, yeah, I just don't care. So during the Super Bowl, there's a commercial from ring, the doorbell company, with the camera, saying that if you've lost your dog, upload your dog's picture or pictures to us. They gave a link. and we will use ring to try to find it. What? Right. And so what sounds like...

That means they have all the data from everyone's ring cameras stored on a data farm in Nevada or wherever. It's going through AI. And if... Not that's from Nancy Guthrie's house. If Rover goes by the, you know, goes by the camera, they can alert you on first. It seems, oh, that's pretty, that's pretty cool. That's really... Well, Reason Magazine actually didn't have the awe reaction.

took a step back and went, wait a goddamn minute. It was the Ted Rawl reaction. Creepy. These assholes are actually like farming out and going through all this information, all this stuff that's supposed to be proprietary ain't in that the fact that these ring things are everywhere. I mean, and they're kind of cool. I don't have one.

Oh, great. Now the bad guys are going to show up here. But I got there, they seem to be a really, nice tool, say you're away from the house or you're in another room and there's a delivery. You can just tell the guy to leave it at the door. Long story short, reason makes a reasoned argument that this is really a civil liberty issue and really kind of scary that because these things are everywhere. You walk down the street.

You see them on virtually everybody's in suburbia here. You see them on everybody's door. Yeah. I mean, so I was, I mean, I was of two minds about this. It's just like you about the dog commercial. which I hadn't seen. But I mean, I was wondering, first of all, why it took 12 days for the Pima County, Arizona Sheriff's Department

to gain access to this video. Well, it turns out that like a lot of people, Nancy Guthrie doesn't pay for the premium service of Google Nest. So she doesn't have like, which apparently provides you with a certain amount of recorded video going back a certain period of time. So theoretically, the old, There should really not be any storage video.

It should just be, at least she doesn't have it. But obviously, a data farm at Google has it. Now, I don't know if this is true. But this also brings up another story, right? One of the things that I absolutely hate about big tech is that they don't employ anyone, and they don't employ customer service. So when someone uploads, like, your child's nude photo to Facebook,

there's no way, there's no emergency number that you can call at Facebook. and say, take that shit down. There's no phone number at all. There's no one's going to pick up. You're supposed to flag it and sort of cross your fingers that someone in Burundi or whatever is going to come across it and then do something about it. I mean, there's actually been, people have literally died as a result of the fact that they were unable that it's not possible to reach companies like meta on the phone.

Like, for example, there's a political dissident. I forget if he was in Ethiopia or Somalia, somewhere in the Horn of Africa. And anyway, he was a political dissident left-wing professor, and he got doxed. And his family was horrified and said, you know, this guy's like the security forces are looking for him and would kill him. And anyway, meta dicked around for 30 days before they took it off. And that was enough time for the security forces, indeed, to go and assassinate him. And he was not alone. I mean, so the point is, I mean, I've got to ask, and I want to know when this is all.

over when the Sheriff's Department, you know, it occurred to, when they were investigating this, and they were like, you know, how hard was it for them to get in touch with Google? And, you know, and when they, and Google, and, you know, the New York Times says, well, Google has an incredibly complicated, you know, data center. I'm like, well, they have an incredibly big data center. That's for sure. But complicated, as a former computer programmer, there's nothing complicated about this be this camera from this customer and you search for it, and there it is, right? I mean, it can't possibly have taken, according to the news, it took three days for Google to figure out that they had the, that they had the info and how to get it.

I'm like, I don't know, on the one hand, that does diminish the creepitude factor, but on the other hand, it's sort of like, I don't know if I believe you. I mean, the whole thing is kind of like, we, you know, if we're going to live in a certain, surveillance state, I want to live in a safe surveillance state or rather not live in surveillance state. It's a competent one. Yeah, exactly. What do you mean, why do you suppose this, I mean, this has been an issue with these companies,

Google, I mean, going back to Netscape, going back to any of them where you could not contact them. And I'm always wondering, what is the purpose of that? Because customer service seems to be kind of important if you're running, you know, a company for, especially half a billion customers for Facebook, why don't they have those kinds of things in place? They initially had some, and it was usually, you know, hello, my name is Steve. And, you know, your name's not Steve. My name is Steve. I am in Ohio.

Yeah. It is my favorite state. But Ted, I mean, you're more cynical and maybe more versed on this than I am, and that is why? Why would these big tech companies not facilitate customers? customer service. Well, I mean, the only, the closest experience I've ever had to this is I have worked in a few places that had a customer service aspect. The admissions department at a university where people call to find out how much is the tuition and can I get a catalog. And then also when I have worked at an investment bank. It was generally viewed back then that you had to have the ability to have, you know, direct contact with the public. And if for no other reason, it's dangerous not to.

At one point, my boss at the university, the dean's office, put in a voicemail tree. And it all came home. It all became super clear at the time that I went through and I was like taking the recorded messages off. And there was a bomb threat on it from hours earlier. It's like you might want to get a bomb threat in real time, you know. And it also occurs to me, like in the case of Facebook, for example, example, the case that I mentioned, they have to settle this case for millions of dollars. Now, if they'd had customer service, they would have been able to mitigate that risk.

Now, I think it's purely about money. They simply don't want to pay for customer service. They think it's a pain in the ass. I mean, you know, if you're now, this has become mainstream, not just in tech. You know, in our field, Scott, in media, newspapers, you can't call them anymore. There's no phone number, which is good because you're all going to be out of business soon. So they're already saving that cost. But, you know, I mean, it's ridiculous.

You can't call people. You're just, there's no way. Remember there was a whole period in the 90s when newspapers went the opposite. And they're like, we have to be transparent. And like, I know you were, you know, at like the Birmingham News. And people could get your direct, they could call you directly. They could call the Birmingham News and say, I'd like to talk to Scott Stantis, please. And they would put you through.

And then you'd have to talk to some disgruntled, like my favorite one, is the book learner guy. Yes. You're one of those book readers. You're one of them book readers. One of them book readers. Yeah. But the point is that like that's, I think it's purely, it's got to be.

There's no other possible explanation. I think it's costing them more in ill will and, you know, legal exposure than they're saving. Well, but and their attitude is very much like newspapers. I mean, I know you mentioned that we had some transparency until we didn't. But it's the same thing. They're like, well, where are you going to go? You know, newspapers had, that's one of the reasons newspapers are no longer with us,

is they had the attitude. Well, fuck you. What are you going to do? Go to the other news site. It's like the Democratic Party. What are you going to do? Vote for, you have to vote for us. Well, apparently not.

Yeah. It's, um, the other thing on the Nancy Griffith story, I mean, just, can I change course? Just a tad, uh, Guthrie. Sorry, yeah, Nancy Guthrie. Um, Ted, what do you make of, I mean, this bizarre. Kirk coverage. They had a, we were watching, my wife and I were watching the Olympics last night. And they had a special report that they've taken someone into custody, a person of interest,

following the release of the video. In the video, if you see the guy's face, you can kind of see, you know, if you know this guy, you probably can tell that it's that guy with that video. Yeah, because he does have an interesting gate. And he walks weird, he moves weird in his, but he obviously had weird facial here. And anyway, so you could see his eyes clearly. It was there are better. Big eyes too.

Yeah. Kidnappers, there are better higher quality ski masks. If anything, invest in a higher quality ski mask. Go to your ice supply store. But why is why this coverage, Ted? I mean, obviously it has a celebrity spin to it. And it also, I think, addresses our fear. Most of us, you, your mother passed away recently,

but you had to deal with her living alone. I think it plays in that fear, but I can't, that's the only thing. And oh, and by the way, Nancy Guthrie is white. So. Well, but I mean, the thing is, Scott, I mean, kidnappings are of this sort are exceedingly rare. Where apparently a stranger, probably, maybe not, maybe is someone known to her. But apparently a stranger shows up to your home and drags you off into the night. I mean, that just doesn't happen very much.

I think that's what this is. And it's always been a big story, right? I mean, the Lindberg baby. You know, the John Paul Getty, the third. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are big, I mean, I think these are inherently big stories. And, you know, it's funny because it also, if, you know, if you think about, like,

fictional narrative on television, one of the repeated tropes is someone, one of the characters is taken hostage, or they're taken. They're arrested and they can't get out of prison or they're taken by evil people and kidnapped and you have to get them back. And once you're vested in the characters, you're like you really want them to come back. This is a trope.

You see it in every TV show. Taken is a franchise. Yeah, taken is a thing, right? I think that's what this is. I mean, this is like news gold. I mean, no way were they not going to go with this. Not to mention, yeah, she's white, but she's also,

the mother of this beloved, like, you know, America's sweetheart, you know, Savannah Guthrie lady on the today show, which is like, you know, morning television is the most anodyne sweetest. This isn't like if Sean Hannity's mom. I mean, he was hatched from an egg, so that's different. But like, you know, but if he had a mother, like, you know, people would be like, I mean, you know, it would be a little different because he's a controversial figure. She's not. She's, you know, And to anybody who knows her or watches her tends to like her. I think that has a lot to do with it. Well, that, I think that, I think you're right. It still seems, we always seem to fall into these stories, though. Ted, it reminds me, and excuse me, I can't, oh my gosh, I'm having such a senior moment. The congressman's aide who was, she was attractive. It turned out the congressman was.

Chandra Levy. Chandra Levy. And Congressman. Gary Condit was the congressman from, And you could look at him. And you could tell. He smelled like after shave and worked out three times a day. He was just, you could tell he was a sleaze.

And so everyone thought he had something to do with. It turned out. And he gave an interview, I think maybe to Barbara Walters, but someone, a high profile interview like that. And he looked guilty as shit. Yeah. We all thought he was guilty. I did.

I did too. But we were mesmerized by this. I'm wondering how many of our listeners and. viewers remember that story. And the sad result was that the young woman had been out jogging in the morning and some homeless, some crazy homeless guy in Rockwood Park in D.C. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's no doubt, 100% proven. Like the media, me included, we all owe Gary Condit an apology. Sorry. Can we give you your seat back in Congress? Our bad. Well, yeah. And it happened today. You have had the MAGA crowd saying,

hey, you know, guys killed their young lovers all the time. What's the big deal? Yeah. She didn't want that to happen. She shouldn't have, she shouldn't have gotten a job in D.C. You all know, you know what you're getting into. Don't be so well.

She was impeding with it. She was impeding his penile investigation. Yeah. No question. All right. Let's take some answers here. some questions. And the first one is literally about the main topic of the day,

which turned out we didn't know it was going to be the main topic of the day. Sandelman, good morning, Ted and John, but we'll take that for Scott. The closure of El Paso airspace for 10, deeply concerning. Yeah, so basically El Paso Airport in West Texas is now, not only that airport is closed, but the airspace around it is closed. and it's for 10 days, a week and a half. The FAA says this is for sort of very vague security reasons. Yeah.

And there's rumors of foot already all over the Internet that there's other flight cancellations that are rippling through the system like in San Diego and places like that. They just announced New Orleans is having the same restrictions. May I read the statement from the FAA? Please. Just to show you how draconian and vague it is. It says travel advisory. All flights to and from El Paso are grounded.

including commercial, cargo, and general aviation. The FAA has issued a flight restriction, halting all flights to and from El Paso effective from January, from February 10 at 11.30 p.m. to February 20 at 1130 p.m. Travelers should contact their airlines to get most up-to-date flight status information. This is really, this is very freaky. And so what's been going on in the last year, but not just the last year, those of us, I'd say there are two of us here.

and are traveling, John, the main host here, would have some, how can I put this? Suspitions or trepidations or concerns when the federal government just shuts shit down without any. I mean, this is big. If you live in the El Paso era, you cannot fly in and out of El Paso. And now they have extended this to. The nearest airport is quite far away, too. In New Orleans, by the way, just announced. Las Crucese, New Mexico.

So New Orleans is also got a 10-day flight? it did. And so this clearly, they, they read somewhere, some ISIS site, somewhere was probably crowing about having drones and using them during Mardi Gras. Marigra is coming up this, uh, next, a week from Tuesday. And, or is it this Tuesday? Oh, boy, I should know when to start Lent, Ted. I don't know. Yeah, well, I know I'm, you know, I, you know, I, I, I, I usually try to give up sports for Lent. Well, this is, this was clearly, I had to guess this is going to be an attack on, they sniffed out, but there's going to be a drone attack on during Lent.

I mean, not Lent, but during Fat Tuesday, the streets. But what's weird is that, you know, why El Paso? You just got to go, you know, what was this on this ISIS message board? Was it like, you know, Muhammad I going, you know, they're going to attack Mardi Gras. in El Paso. And another guy says, no, no, no, it's in Las Vegas. No, no, no, I think it's El Paso.

No, Muhammad 3. No, you idiots. And then it's in New Orleans. No, Muhammad 1. No, I don't think that's right. Muhammad 2. You know, like that makes some sense. Muhammad 1.

No, that's, oh, it's El Paso. And that's what our geniuses in our intelligence agencies decided. It's the only explanation, Ted. Help me out here. And you mentioned something about San Diego and I talked over you. I'm sorry. No, I'm just saying that there's delays rippling through the system and there's rumors that other airports are going to be closed, particularly in the southern United States. I don't know if that's going to, you know, I don't have any information about that.

But I just, I mean, the thing is, okay, so before we went on the air, you said something really important, which is like, oh, well, Americans are going to turn libertarian because we just don't trust the government. I mean, look, I don't think it's ever been, like you agree, you and I agree on this. it's never wise to trust the government. However, this is exactly why it matters. I mean, not to mention, I mean, God, you have, you know, Carolyn Levitt repeatedly saying like on her ex-feed, you know, most transparent administration in history, not so much, right? I mean, like, so if the, if there is a reason to shut down this airspace,

and it is like, you know, some, you know, jihadist or whatever, whatever it is, the American people deserve and need to know what it is, not to mention they might have information that could help the administration, you know, address whatever. If there is genuinely a security thing, I don't know that I believe that there is a genuine security threat. I don't believe anything that comes out of this administration. They lie like the day is long. I mean, look at the shit that they said about Renee Good and other ICE victims who were

shot, calling them domestic terrorists, assassins, people who were looking at. to hurt ICE agents. None of that's true. And they knew it wasn't true. And they don't back up when they back off when they find out that they've lied. So, you know, in this case, as far as I'm concerned, they could be up to anything. This could be a conspiracy to declare a national emergency, you know, before the election. Yeah, it seems earlier than you'd expect.

But just maybe that's the smart move. Maybe because you'd expect the clampdown to come in October, we're going to have the October surprise in February. Yeah, I'm sorry you guys are stuck with me today because John would have been the perfect person to be speaking about government transparency and not trusting the government. You know, the guy who actually broke stuff open and told us things we needed to know. It's sort of like it goes back to the Pentagon papers, Ted. It goes back, you know, throughout the existence of government, especially big government, especially the industrial military complex that Eisenhower warned us about. But this smacks of that because they're not telling us the truth.

They're not telling us anything. And to their credit, I guess they're not lying. They're just saying we're closing it down. Yeah. But in this instance, and especially if it does extend, could you imagine if this extends to Los Angeles? Oh, well, I mean, just the scale of it. I don't understand bigger, bigger markets, bigger,

traveling destinations than New Orleans in El Paso. Yeah, I mean, literally, look, if you can, I mean, obviously. Obviously, if you were going to launch a coup d'etat against the people of the United States, one of the first things you would do is stop air travel. But isn't one of the modus apparatus of this administration is intimidation. And this, this definite, my first take when I got your text this morning when the rundown of the show, and I hadn't listened to the news yet, was, oh, shit, this is, this is just, yeah, we can do this. Yeah. And that's, that's the thing too. Like you don't see like, for example, Democrats in Congress, you know, making any statements saying like, hey, Mr. President, please explain to us why Texas and Louisiana now don't have air transportation service. I mean, literally, look, it's not just people going to Mardi Gras and showing their tits and collecting beads. I mean, there are people who are going to take care of their aging parents who need, who, who, who, who, who,

who travel, who travel. I mean, this is important mail that's not going to make it. This is medical supplies that travel on these commercial planes. I mean, you know, commercial planes are laden with all sorts of mail and packages that we never think about all that. So, I mean, this has a lot of implications. It's kind of like with Bridgegate, a lady died in an ambulance trying to get to the hospital. P.S. Chris Christie shut down the George Washington Bridge. You know, this, the, the Trump administration owes us a fucking explanation.

Absolutely. I mean, and what's curious, too, is that these are two red states. Maybe that's, maybe they're thinking they can get more cooperation from local authorities there. Well, they're not going to get, you know, the governor of Texas is certainly not going to question. He's an imbecile. And the, in the imbecile and the imbecile governor of Louisiana is not going to question. the Trump administration. So they're not going to get any pushback on this stuff.

It's going to be an interesting story going forward. And hopefully we're getting more. But we need you need to trust the people. Tell them the truth. Tell them the story. They can come to their own conclusions. And the conclusions generally will dovetel well until your actions. But this reminds me a lot of during COVID.

And you had, you know, don't, you know, get the, we don't have enough of the N94 masks or whatever those were. And instead telling us that we really didn't have enough of them, that we need them for first responders, we needed them for hospitals, but they gave us some cock and bull story because they didn't trust us. Yeah. And that's where...

That's exactly right. That's what's going on here. And it smells. Robbie West, producer, do we have any ads? We do. One moment. Now we'll drop it down for you. Thank you, Robbie.

Okay. Let's do it. Let's do in the interim. Let me take another question. Good morning. Can't support anyone who supports ICE. If a person supports fascism and policy, they are fascists by practice. Let's remember World War II. Yeah. Okay, Guthrie case. It was reported that the FBI's kidnapping team was deployed. Is this factual? If so, what does it mean for the progression of the case? I'm not sure if it's factual or not, Scott. I mean, the other question I have is, why would the FBI be involved? if there's no indication that any state lines have been crossed. Well, that's... Constitution's monstitution. Come on. That's old thinking. Yeah, well, okay, good question. Let me read this ad. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee now as your shot.

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Bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Well, I don't just lay this on Robbie, Ted. You're a coffee. I am, but Robbie drinks 1775 coffee. So we have personal endorsement here. Okay, so let's go back to the questions of the hour, and then we'll move on. Okay, question from, is it rational? Do you think there will ever be accountability for Israel using 2,000 pound bombs to evaporate Palestinians in Gaza

and for us supplying them while knowing what was happening? And so just for the, so people understand, the standard, quote unquote, standard bomb used in urban warfare is a three to 400 pound called dumb bomb. And the thing about explosive ordinance is the blast that comes out of something that's twice as big, twice as heavy, is four times more. It's exponential, right? So an 800 pound bomb is four times more powerful than a 400 pound bomb. So just figure that out with the 2,000 pound bomb. Right. It's many, many, many factors. It's, I mean, what is it? It's, I think, 32 or 64 times more powerful than a, and so the part of the reason that, like, now we, like, we know that the pre-Gaza war population of Gaza was estimated between 2.1 and 2.2 million. Now it's estimated at 1.7 to 1.8 million. So we've got about 400,000 dead Palestinians, but we don't have that many bodies. We only have, like, 70,000 bodies, which the Gaza Health Ministry has found.

Scott, you and I argued about these numbers, and you said that Gaza Health Ministry was lying, but the IDF has officially signed off on the Gaza Health Ministry's numbers. So there's no longer any dispute there on those numbers. Anyway, the point is the reason that there's a lot of bodies missing is because they were literally vaporized by these 2,000-pound bombs. You're also under tons of rubble. That too. And things are, you know, were made out of goo. So things are eating us or eating them.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it gets pretty warm in Gaza in the summer. So there's lots of critters and things rot and stuff. And why drop? I mean, is that a bunker buster bomb? No, it's not.

Bunker busters are bigger. Those are 15,000 pounds. There's things like the BLU 85, and those things are meant to penetrate. Like those are, those were used against the Iranian nuclear facilities, for example. And they were used to Tora Bora in the, you know, invasion of Afghanistan. But these are, so these are sort of like meant to vaporize a block basically at once. They're certainly not precision. And they aren't very much against U.S. military policy to use in a densely populated area like Gaza.

Will there be accountability? I think there will never be accountability. I mean, I mean, there's no accountability for Desden. Why would they be a groundability for this? Yeah. I mean, again, we're talking to the most, maybe the most cynical show ever. today, but no, there's, there's no accountability. When, when, when, where, who, you know, what?

No. Seriously. I mean, what, how do you get accountability? What, what does accountability even look like in this instance? Well, while we're talking about, well, while we are talking about the, the issue of, you know, the, the, the Gaza war, it seems right now, Israel's making big moves to annex the Gaza, the West Bank, right? And the, it looks, and so Donald Trump just gave a,

interview where he said that he's against annexation. He says there's too many other things to think about whatever the fuck that means. But basically, he is, the timing of it is key, though. He said it yesterday, B.B. Netanyahu is literally right now meeting with President Trump in D.C. And so, you know, obviously he's sending a clear message that U.S. policy is to oppose the annexation of the West Bank, but not Gaza. But I mean, the West Bank. But I mean, the West Bank is a lot. But I mean, the Bank is pretty much well on its way. The Israeli cabinet just approved the idea of these settler colonists buying Palestinian land in the West Bank that they live on. I don't know who they're going to.

Do you have to do the air quotes? Buy. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Can you buy something from someone who doesn't own it? I guess you can. I mean, like Jewish property was stolen by the German government, you know, by the billions. and they sold it to, you know, to Germans.

So to non-Jewish Germans. And I think many of them, their families still have it. Well, this is, I mean, the West Bank is another story altogether because Israel has been incurred on that territory for decades. And you hear and watch interviews with the settlers on this one I'm calling, you know, It's like they actually took the wagon train across the Chinese and settled there. They didn't. They stole the property.

They stole it. It's stealing. Israel had an agreement that this would be Palestinian territory and the radical right and had decided that, no, not so much. We like it here. The property's cheap, great views of sound stuff. Of Syria. Yes.

But my point is. You know, they have been doing this for years and listening to, and I mentioned the interviews because they are jaw-dropping, Ted. They sound like American Southerners in 1940s and 50s, just openly using the foulest, most degrading, demeaning terms towards a fellow human being. And for those of us who happen to believe that human beings have value and worth and should not and should be respected, you know, this is, this is problematic. but the American government has really kind of went,

guys, it's sort of like, you know, sort of like a very undisciplined child's parent, you know, because, guys, come on. Stop, stop beating the cat with a hammer. You know what happened to the last one. And that's what this feels like. And so now they're just going, they're emboldened. They got to bomb the living hell out of Gaza,

not unprovoked, but they did it. And I think they, they passed they crossed a line i think most reasonable people will say this um and yeah it's like if you it's like let's just put it this way if they kill 1,200 of your people and you kill 400,000 of theirs now you're the asshole well i think you had a point that there are other ways to approach this and there could have been uh but it this is what's happened in gaza but now they're saying shit the world really hasn't done much you know we're under kind of investigation by the World Court.

So what? Just don't go to Geneva, you know? Right, right. Or Brussels or wherever the hell it is. The Hague. The hog. This is actually a lovely city, by the way. It looks pretty.

It does. They have the, they have lovely museums, and it's just a kind of a very, anyway. If I was going to be incarcerated for war crimes, that's where I'd want to go to. Although Milosevic's cell did not look that great. But no, yeah, well, he was, he was stupid. That's another story altogether. My point is long way to getting, long way to get into a short point. The world did not really respond over the top or any kind of, you know, organized way to the, to what happened in Gaza.

So Israel's going, oh, shit, okay, you know the shit we've been pulling over in the West Bank? Betty bar the door, here we go. It's party time in West Bank. Bring the lumber and I'll bring a hammer. Yeah. Well, so the thing is, do you think that, you know, look, currently, the West Bank is divided into three areas under Israeli designation, right? There's A, B, and C.

C is the biggest. That is really exclusively IDF control, 60% of the West Bank. And then the rest is split between areas A and B. A is the smallest. That's exclusively Palestinian Authority, Makamud Abbas. And then the other one, and B is, and B is, a mixture of Palestinian Authority and IDF. So, I mean, will this, will Trump, is Trump stand?

How for real is it? Is it just for public consumption? Is he behind the scenes telling BB, don't worry, I have to say that so that the stupid kids on the college campuses don't, you know, raise hell, you know, don't worry, it's all cool? Or does he mean it? Or is he going to tell Netanyahu, like, it stops here? Is there a possibility of a rollback where some, you know, you know, settlements would be closed. No. No, politically, Netanyahu can't do that. He's very beholden to

their conservative parties in Israel, so he can't roll this stuff back. He doesn't want to go back to prison, or he doesn't want to go to prison. He doesn't want to go to prison. Yeah, because don't, yeah, lest we forget, he's under indictment, and as soon as he is no longer prime minister, he's such a charming man. Well, you know, um, and, uh, he'll have a region and you get a bad reputation to him. Lovely, yeah, lovely guy. Philip Blair is asking. Retired federal agent told me that Cuba's security services are the most difficult to infiltrate. Nobody wants to take the money to betray Castro's Cuba.

What is John's view on this? Unfortunately, and then someone else said literally every Cuban that the CIA ever recruited turned out to be a double agent, John says. The Cubans have one of the greatest intelligence services on the planet, according to John. So that's the answer to that. I got to say, we should talk about Cuba. So, you know, John and I talked about it here on the show a couple of weeks ago about how the main, one of the big implications of Trump kidnapping and overthrowing the government of Nicolas Maduro, well, maybe not overflowing the government, just overthrowing him while leaving the government in place, was that Venezuelan oil, you might know them from a, such companies as Citro, right? The big, they were Venezuelan state petroleum.

Anyway, they are, they are cut, the new Venezuelan, what's the word I'm going to say, policy is basically to sort of, when Trump says jump, ask how high, and Trump is putting a stop to Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba, which was the lifeline. Cuba has, is, you know, basically, that was 60% of their oil. And obviously, no one can make do with 40%.

They're shutting down schools. They have rolling blackouts now that are looking to become like permanent 24-hour blackouts. They air Canada and other companies that have international airline service to Cuba, have decided to completely kill all service there because they can't refuel in order to fly back. The American Airlines is going to continue to go because they can go with twice the fuel. they don't need to refuel there. They can fly there and back, but I would imagine they're going to have to charge more

to fly to Cuba in order to cover those costs of flying so much heavier. So I guess, you know, obviously the desire here is regime change. The president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Khan, wants to talk, but he's not getting his call's return from the White House. Do you think Marco Rubio,

who's been like, you know, horny as shit for the overthrow of socialist Cuba, does he have an idea what he's going to do with Cuba if he ever gets it? Because, I mean, this seems like another example of like the U.S. trying to, like Iraq, wants to overthrow a country, Afghanistan, you know, they don't have anything to replace it that's credible. To Donald Trump's credit, he realized that about Nicolas Maduro, which is why he didn't get rid of the entire government. the vice president is now the acting president. Yeah, in Cuba, I mean, the, the attack in Venezuela now, it's abundantly clear that that was all about oil.

And it was all about oil to Cuba. And the hopes are that by, as you said, it was the number was 60% of the fuel comes from Venezuela to Cuba. So 60% of your ability to produce electricity to do all those things has been obliterated. spoke with a friend of ours who's been on DMZ America, our podcast, DMZ America podcast, and he's in touch with people in Q, and they're having, they have no electricity. They get two hours of electricity a day.

You're not sure when you're going to get it. But this also- You run your water as soon as it's- Yes, I was about to mention that. There's other infrastructure things there. The hope is that this will collapse the economy, which by turn- Boy, what a great idea that would be. So lovely.

Well, do you really want to turn Cuba into a failed state? I mean, it's huge country. It's by far the biggest country in the Caribbean. It's got a population of 11 million people. Do we just need like Haiti times 10, really? I don't think that would happen. I think Cuba is a different animal. It has a different history.

It has, but they're also, you talked about Rubio. Rubio's parents, he's Marco Rubio is from Florida. He has deep roots in the expat Cuban community, and they dream of going back. and running Cuba. Yeah. Yeah, you're talking about Haiti. You're not talking about Haiti, Ted.

Don't be silly. You're talking about Batista, Batista, the third. And I think that's what this government, and that's what Rubio and this administration is hoping for, is the collapse of what's left of the Castro communist structure in government. And then, but as things stand right now, people are scared shitless on the island. They don't want to, you know,

be the security forces are still very much in place uh the rather draconian uh as as john mentioned the uh the security forces the intelligence forces they're all still very much in place so uh what are the what's the likelihood i mean it's it's a tough it's tough to see the next two years playing out in cuba that doesn't include mass mass deaths starvation fan that's great. I feel so proud to be an American. And they're hoping that by doing this, that they will get the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow. It's never worked once.

Never. No. Well, just because it hasn't worked doesn't mean it won't work. That's true. There's always first time for everything, I suppose. What about the Russian aspect? I mean, we almost started World War III. Well, you almost had World War III when the Russian.

sent, tried to send nuclear weapons to Cuba. Now the Russians are making very clear. Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, said that Russia wants to, has show solidarity to Cuba and Venezuela. And, you know, obviously Russia has oil. They want to ship oil, although, you know, it's far, but they want to ship Russian oil to Cuba to keep them afloat. Would the Trump administration pull a JFK and blockade the island

and prevent that from happening? You know, that's a huge question. And that, that, this administration's regard for norms or for the law is, is, is, is, is not existent. So maritime law would say you can't really have a blockade unless there's a threat to the United States. There's really no threat to the United States. None.

Although there is a large influx now of Cubans trying to get the hell out of Cuba coming to Florida. Sure. That'll only get better, though, if it becomes. Because there's no history whatsoever of Cubans trying to enter the United States illegally. Yeah. Well, exactly. And it's already happening.

And that's just going to accelerate. So can, you know, we have the fleet in the Caribbean now. So, yeah, we could stand in the way of any tanker. Although, frankly, that one tanker leaving Venezuela took us, what, seven days to run it down? It's a tanker. It's not small. It's not fast. I know.

I know. This is like the, it's like the plot of speed too, which was a ship. And it's like, like not so speed. It also really puts the lie to, you know, we watch these movies. You know, you mentioned movies and how, you know, we have all this. We have the technology. We have the satellites. We have the lasers. We have all this. It's like 10 days to find a frigging tanker. Not to mention those tankers have like almost no staff. No, no, the crews are like, seven people. And they're not fast. It's a tanker. And they're not armed. They're not going to like shoot at anyone.

If you landed on them with a helicopter with commandos, you'd take it in a second. Yes. Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, think about it. I mean, in Somalia, Somalia, some other pirates are able to, you know, some guy in a stupid little blow up raft can commandeer a tanker. You know, that's how easy it is to take a tanker. But it took the American armed forces on full alert looking for this thing to finally

find it 10 days. F. You so, thanks for the fiber. Have you ever been to the Republic of Palau? I've not. I served in the Peace Corps there, scuba diving paradise and the freshest sashimi. God, that sounds, both of those sound great. I have not either. Buddhist monks are in D.C. this week, having walked from down south, urging mindfulness

and universal peace, huge crowds. Why do you think they have excited the public imagination? Ann Wilcox wants to know. I think we're really tired. Trump is exhausting. He's just exhausted. What are the opposite of Trump. Literally, if they came together, you'd have a matter, anti-matter explosion that might

wipe out the universe. Because literally, these are people who just cultivate calm, reasoned thinking and rationality and universalism. Everything that Trump is the opposite of. Don't you get a sense that there's just a thirst? I mean, a hunger for that right now, Ted? I mean, I'm definitely. I mean, the whole Super Bowl, every commercial, every,

And in fact, the halftime show, there's a halftime. The football games are split into two halves, just for Ted's edification here. We're about, you know, calm. We're all in this together, Brotherhood. I think we're really thirsty for that. I mean, after a year of Trump 2.0, which has been 20 times the potency of Trump has certainly been exciting. Sure.

It's just been, you know, and there's just been. he'll throw all, you know, he keeps throwing bullshit out every day. And it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's exhausting. That's why I think that these monks have, have gotten the attention they've gotten. Just don't set yourselves on fire, guys. Yeah, please. Rasmataz says airspace over El Paso and Fort Bliss, IRC is now closed for the next 10 days up to 17,000 feet. There are orders to shoot down any plane. Also, lots of troops on the roads around the base. Oh, really? So that's not ominous. Yeah, and Robbie says, points out that about the ring camera at Nancy Guthrie's house, all they needed was the IP address of the camera. Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, even, I mean, listen, I'm a old guy who barely knows computers, and I could tell you, yeah, all you got to do is get the IP address. It's super easy.

Pain, too. Do we docks people? No. I don't dox people, and I've had the opportunity to do so. I could name a few examples of political enemies who I have. You know, like I have Austin Butener's home address. I could do him. I wouldn't do that.

I want Austin Butner. I wish him nothing but ill and all the cancers, but I don't, but I'm not going to make it happen. No, I've been doxed. Yeah, me too. And it's not good. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it to anyone else. You can't, you literally cannot do to someone else something that you claim to be against. If you're against it, you're not allowed to do it to anyone else.

Otherwise, you've lost all moral high. ground. That's basically ethics 101. Well, then this administration, all the MO for this administration, you just shot it all down, Ted. No, I'm against doxing. You know, I'm against, like, for example, when protesters go to the Supreme Court justice's houses. I am too. It's wrong. I mean, it's not illegal, but it's wrong. Yeah. Okay, Elliot is covert. I think a lot of these tech companies don't provide customer service because they're basically all monopolies. They don't need to fear competitors who provide better customer service. That's what I said. earlier that's what my alluding to my mentioned newspapers they just let their whole

attitude is fuck them where they're they gonna go yep yep true true true let's see once they insert AI in insert AI voices to disguise and translate languages of any accent or language we'll see even more tasks and jobs going overseas yeah probably true Savannah Guthrie Philip layer says was against Americans getting universal health care under Obama She said to Obama, after Democrats lost the midterms, did, do you get it? Her behavior horrified me. I don't watch morning television.

I was unaware of that, so I can't comment. According to Greg Battis, the FAA has now reopened that airspace. What? I don't know. Elliot Covert says, Scott, admit it, you spent all night working out that Muhammad 1 through Muhammad 3 routine. No, I didn't actually. Thank you, though.

Thank you. That was really on the fly. That was improv here. Scott, I believe you. Tatum Hedrick's question for you, Scott. What is your opinion about Chicago's trajectory and what needs to be done? Okay, real quick, I know we're coming up on an hour. Chicago needs to jettison its current mayor.

He's a hack for the teachers union and has given them a preposterously generous contract. They just the city council because his budgets were so out of whack, he, the city council passed budgets. But Ted, you're going to love this. The budget was, had cuts in it. Some cuts were undefined until they realized that they cut the janitorial staff at City Hall. Guys, we have a breaking news. So a Trump administration official said that the El Paso airspace closure was tied to Mexican cartel drones that the defense, that the U.S. Defense Department shot down.

So why would you close the space for 10 days? Well, they reopened the airspace. They have reopened up. They have. I don't know why you would need to shut it down for 10 days, though. This just speaks to why do Ted and I, and I might add John to this list, not distrust the government, distrust what we're told by the government? I mean, if this is true. I mean, maybe.

I mean, you know, there's just no way to know. Let's see. Oh, so the New Orleans closure, according to Greg Battis, is not related to the El Paso closure. New Orleans airspace closure is normal for Mardi Gras because they don't want too many pilots showing their tits. The... It's not from a drone. The Flanderina, the IDF actively and intentionally harasses Palestinians trying to travel. between cities so that they give up.

I've done it many times with my children. And the experience is terrifying every time. I can personally, I have seen this. I've visited the West Bank, and that is true. And the IDF's behavior is absolutely so it's not unprofessional. It's despicable and it's disgusting. They basically act like Klansman. F.E. said, thanks for the dollar.

These elites eat human flesh code word beef jerky. hilarious. Let's see. Flandarine, sorry, John C. John D. Cacifeller. The fact that I love this show, that U.S. Christians are paying to exterminate Palestinian Christians is fucking insane. Well, that reminds me of the Crusades, right? Like, you know, they got to Constantinople, a bunch of peasants. They see dudes wearing weird hats. They're like, kill him. They must be, you know, Muslims. It turns like, are we? Are we? Are Christians with funny hats? To go to Jerusalem and the other guys are going, yeah, look at, I mean, it's a, look at this town. This is fine.

Yeah. We can rape and pillage here. Elliot Covert, Scott and Ted, do you remember the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980? I sure fucking do. That was actually directed by Castro because, and he just gave us the prisoners, the mental institutions. And, but it was, I don't know, for me, for someone who loves freedom and, I, I don't know, for me, for someone who loves freedom and actually likes immigration and thinks that, I thought it was pretty awesome. Wait, really?

Oh, yeah. No, I thought that, I mean, not the, not the emptying of the jails or the emptying of, but don't think it's also. What do you like about this? What's that? More, more details, please. Well, no, he, well, and many of them were political prisoners because it's, you know, Cuba. And, but, and also the mental institutions were emptied and he sent them over to the United States. They said, you want them?

Here you go. But it also allowed people with pleasure crafts, people with fishing boats, could go over and grab friends and family and bring them over. It was a huge influx. It really overwhelmed the safety net in southern Florida at the time. But they set up these sort of what we would now recognize as kids in cages, kind of facilities under freeways in Miami and stuff. Yeah, they had to, well, they had to process these people,

but they did get processed, by the way. And a lot of them became like Coke runners, you know, all sorts of bad people. But a lot of them came here and tried to figure it all out and, you know, meshed into American society, which is exactly the point. We had this in 1789 with the German influx when we went bananas. We had it in the mid-1800s with the Irish. We had it in the late 1800s with the Italians. You know, it is, I mean, as Robbie says, it is true.

As an immigration hawk, I'm wondering why Trump wants to trigger a mass migration event. This will trigger a mass migration event. It already has. We're just not hearing it, but it already has. At least Muslims call Christ the Messiah. Are we supposed to pick an ideology that says our savior is boiling in semen and feces over the alternative? I don't know what that's about. My understanding is they don't call him, Islam calls Jesus a prophet.

They don't call him the Messiah. They say he laid the way for Muhammad to come and finish the job. Right. Yeah, he's a prequel. So it's like better call Saul. Maria Welkin, thanks for the two bucks. Okay, we've got a minute left here to get into this, but it probably only needs that amount of time. Okay.

So there in Chicago, a border patrol agent shot a teacher's assistant, U.S. citizen named Marimar Martinez. She survived 30 years old. She sued. She's only suing because she wants an apology. She wants the administration to admit that she's not a domestic terrorist because they said that she was. That's all she wants. But they won't do that. So there's been discovery.

And one of the things that came out in discovery is either a text message or an email. from Greg Bovino, the commander of the border patrol, to this ice agent who shot this lady. And by the way, there's no justification for this shooting at all. Six times, by the way. Yeah. I counted five, but, you know, hey, what's a bullet between friends? And he and Bovino told the shooter, in light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do. Yeah, no.

How many more teachers' assistants do we want one guy to shoot? Let me go off on Bovino for just a moment. This man is human trash. This man, he's a little guy. He's jacked up. He's got that funky G.I. Joe haircut. And he... He's the Sean Penn character in one battle after another.

It's so... He's such a bad... Okay, how bad... Ask me how bad a guy is he? How bad of a guy is he? He got thrown out of a Las Vegas bar last week. Four? being an asshole and just being a jerk they put up with a lot there because they're used to a lot

in fact a lot is why you get invited to Vegas that's why you go to do a lot how big of a dick this guy is he is horrific he is the worst of the worst he is he thinks that shooting people they have it coming when the guy shot um is good and said fucking bitch that he's his thought is yeah what else you're going to say? I love, by the way, the right-wing talking point that, like, if you go to a protest, you have it coming. It's like, you know, and I'm stealing this from some, one of my commenters who, on my, on my cartoons, said, you know, these are the same people. They would look up at Jesus on the cross and said, you know, none of the shit would have happened if he'd stayed back in Nazareth, just making furniture. Yeah. That's an excellent point. So, yeah, Bovino, bad. I don't know what else to say.

Yeah, I mean, well, the thing is, again, there will be no accountability whatsoever. No, none. And Robbie says, in fairness, the Fourth Crusade was triggered by a deposed emperor who asked for help taking his throne back and then couldn't pay. That's true. Currently reading Dan Jones's Power and Thrones about the Middle Ages, great book, highly recommended. I'm almost done. And, Scott, it'll be in my next box of books to you. Oh, great, thank you.

relatively shortly. I have to ask you about a book I have to send to you. But before we go, I want to say again, thank you 1775 coffee for their support of this program. Indeed. Thank you very much. And thank you to all of you guys for supporting and donating to the show. Really appreciate you.

Thank you for finishing out Robbie Aid for this month. We appreciate you for that too. All right. Please like, follow and share. You guys know what to do. Please stay tuned. TMI show with Manila Chan and myself coming right up tomorrow at 11 a.m. Scott Stantis and I will be back for DMC America podcast with guest cartoonist Steve Kelly.

We'll be talking about this, that, and the other. And John Kiracu will be back on his travels tomorrow, hopefully not too delayed by the short momentary FAA glitch today. And we'll see, we'll be back at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Sorry. All right. Thank you, Scott, so much for sitting in. And I'll see you tomorrow.