DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Democracy So Good Even the Dead Can Vote | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• A big win for the gerontocracy as half-dead octogenarian Mitch McConnell returns to the US Senate.• The Supreme Court refuses to let Trump’s U.S. Postal Service tighten the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections. Homeland Security may have broken state laws as part of an expansive effort to find noncitizens on the nation’s voter rolls, according to a federal whistle-blower. The effort has relied on questionable data, and has likely improperly flagged U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.• The now-closed state-run Alligator Alcatraz ICE gulag in the Florida Everglades failed to comply with a host of federal detention standards, creating cramped conditions and “calming” migrants in tiny metal cages. Immigrants seeking documents from the government to prove that they are in the country legally are being ignored or provided paperwork that is heavily redacted.• Star Wars! The United States has installed weapons in Earth’s orbit, Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink admits.MERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.comLIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShowLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Tuesday, September 15th, 2026. This is Deep Program with Ted Raul and Jamaral Thomas. Thanks so much for joining us. We're here Monday through Friday at 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Starting next week, new hours, we're going to be putting the Q&A shows sort of back-to-back with the regular show. So starting next week, if it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, we're here from 9 to 11 a.m. The first hour is dedicated to the usual news and analysis. The second hour is your questions. If it's Tuesday and Thursday, just to keep things confusing, we will be here for one

hour and then TMI show comes up right after that. We're basically doing is compressing things because TMI is going from Monday to Friday through Friday to just Tuesday and Thursday, and we're just moving into that real estate. So, all right. So I hope you don't have tickets for the Kennedy Center tomorrow because it looks like it might close today. They are talking about going bankrupt and it could shut down permanently today. Thanks to the wise stewardship of our beloved president. I mean, full transparency, I've never been to the Kennedy Center. I can't imagine there would ever be an event there that I would be interested in attending, but, and I don't live in Washington anyway.

What sort of events do they have at the Kennedy Center? Well, I mean, the one that would interest me is they have the Mark Twain Humor Award ceremony, but my understanding is that they have plays, you know, musical performances. It's like basically for a bunch of stuff for old white people, right? It's like, you know, opera. Like plays and musical performances. I like those things. Well, it's not like, but I mean, it's not like any, you know, I mean, it's like, you know,

classical music, that kind of stuff. I don't know. There must be people are watching us right now who can elucidate us on this. I could look for their schedule, but I don't think there is one right now. I mean, I just thought it was funny. You know, I was, we have a lot of real news to talk about. We have to talk about Mitch McConnell. You've got to talk about.

Yes, an appearance. The balance. He's been seen. the midterm mail-in ballot decision from the Supreme Court. We've got to talk about alligator, Alcatraz, and probably not least at all that the U.S. has now installed weapons in space. But, you know, getting to the thing that I think I find fascinating is, like, in the, I was taught in college that one of the tricks that the Nazis used was they created chaos

on the streets of Berlin and other German cities with street fighting gangs that went after socialists and other people. And then their pitch to the German people was like only we can fix it, which was, you know, in a sense, true. And of course, when Hitler came to power, he called off the dogs and for a time anyway. And it was like suddenly things got really calm. And the German people were like, wow, things are really calm now. I mean, that's kind of like, that's kind of like Trump is like literally came in there, you know, put his name on the Kennedy Center, went crazy, took it over. And then, you know, basically all the performers ran away screaming. Nobody's, nobody's attending anything. All the, all the liberal donors are like, bye-bye.

So they're running out of money, and they're in deep shit. And then of course, like now, basically he broke the Kennedy Center. And now he's arguing in court, like, well, only if I, my name is on it, will money come in and then it'll be fixed. It's like, but you broke it. Just like, you know, the Nazis broke Germany. I don't quite get how he was able to take over to Kennedy Center. And he just bought it? I don't understand how it is either, but it's something about the original charter of the Kennedy Center is that it's a quasi-government thing.

And he had the ability to have him basically join the board of trustees. So what's interesting about this, of course, is that a trustee has a fiduciary, it's not just an honorific. You have a fiduciary responsibility to the entity that you see. serve, who's board you serve on, you're actually supposed to donate money to it. You're supposed to raise money. You're certainly not supposed to, what's the word, fuck it up? And, you know, and so, I mean, he's been sued by a bunch of people who may or may not have standing here.

But, you know, it's a fucking embarrassment. I mean, this morning, I turn on my ex-feed, and there's Howard Lettnick posting pictures supposedly from a security camera of shit falling out. out of the ceiling onto the floor and talking about how the Kennedy Center is unsafe. And this is security camera footage of shit falling where people would be walking. And I'm like, but your, this is your thing. You guys took it over. And also, by the way, the security camera footage looks like it's a handheld camera.

So I'm like, that's a very, like, artsy A24 security camera. You know, what's going on? I mean, but it's the logic that I just don't get at all. It's like, it's like the, it's like the reflecting pool. You made a bid to do like, oh, my God, I'm going to be best reflecting pool. Look at our reflecting pool. Then it's like, oh, it's fucked up because of us. We broke it.

We made it even worse than it was before. Oh, okay, well, let's not talk about that anymore. Like, why did you make a big deal out of it? Why not just, you know, try to fix the reflecting pool quietly? and if it takes, then great, you brag about it afterwards. And if it doesn't take, you just shut up. Well, for one, Trump is incomprehensibly incompetent. There's that.

Two, putting his name on it, it's not going to change anything. If anything, it's going to make it worse. I mean, you have all of these people that, as you pointed out, fleed. Fled, is a better word, I suppose. The moment that Donald Trump had anything to do with it, he's toxic. He's radioactive. nobody is going to want to work with him on this.

I mean, for God's sake, the guy got like an 80% or like a 30% approval rating. It's the fact that he's on the ballot is a drag on Republicans. He's an avatross across the throats. I mean, not to mention Republicans kind of went hog while with him. I'm trying to make the point that this translates from politics to economics, meaning it doesn't just stay in the political space. Anything that you're trying to do in an economic sense, there's also a headwind associated with it. He ruined the Kennedy Center.

That's what it is. And the idea that you, like a dog peeing on everything, yeah, I want to change the name from Kennedy Center to the Trump Center, which immediately just, they might as well demolish it. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure the, I'm sure at least 80% of the normal attendees of the Kennedy Center are old Democrats, you know. Well, do you all think it's just a matter of him to just knowing who the audience is? I mean, it seems like if he was going to go for your regular Republican type. Well, I think he did it because he knew who the audience was.

Yeah, I think he did it. I think he was missed off at the Kennedy Center for like not having, you know, enough country music or whatever. So. Well, did you remember when Bush, when the beer company, not the, not the politician, when they used Dylan Mulvaney as their mascot for the beer and then all of a sudden they just taint. It's just a matter of you not knowing who your audience is or more to the point, knowing your audience is instead of giving them the middle finger in the first place. That's that option two.

That's what happens to with Kennedy. Then why we want to say it. The name Kennedy was on it. He probably thought to himself, hey, I'm the greatest president since Jesus, not thinking, you know,

not knowing otherwise. And so I want to put my name on the Kennedy Center. I think it's that. I think he's just peeing on stuff. Yeah. Totally. The Malvane is a really good example. I mean,

but I think the Malvaney thing was weird. A beer company, not knowing who their audience is. It's just bizarre. It is bizarre. I mean, give them a very attractive woman with large, you know. And they have so,

but I mean, these companies spend millions of dollars on marketing and marketing studies. I mean, they have detailed analysis of who their average customer is. They know who their customers are. How do they end up with a trans person as their mascot? Yeah. Why do they think that their public was going to accept that?

Like that's an, that's an article that someone needs to write, like, word like how Dylan Mulvaney got chosen right like what was the series of events that led to that I suspect I can guess but yeah well the autopsy was written so Bush they brought in a new CEO she's a lady I don't remember what her name was she was a real woman and for and she just came out of the the woken sphere and say we need to have some diversity that Bush has this reputation for being for hard drinking, hardworking,

mostly white and black, blue-collared guys. And we need to open this up to be blue-collar, for sure. Yeah, for sure. And so it's just like, so how are we going to do this? By bringing the ones,

by bringing a symbol that's completely antithetical to the entire demographic that buys the beer. And then just trying to cram it down. And putting her on the can, too. Not even like, so you're literally literally, You're literally drinking from the can with her image on it. Correct. Yeah.

And this is a great idea. Well, that's where ideology conflicts with reality. It's much more of a boner than New Coke. I can much easily see how New Coke happened. Like, hey, we've been doing it the same way now for 100 years. Let's switch it up. That I get. It's stupid.

But, you know, I get it. Yeah. It's like your audience is your audience. It is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. It is what is. If you want to try it.

Look, men. who consider themselves men is going to have a very difficult time accepting this is a sex item, which is what it is. I mean, if I go to a convenience store and it would be like, Coke 45, what's going to be under Coke 45? A woman in a bra. Right. It's their product, right? Buy Coke, lick up women or buy, you know, this cult 45.

Here's a very attractive woman. It's what it is. I'm like Playboy. It's Playboy, is it Playboy? Yeah, Playboy in its sort of post Hugh Hefner iteration. I think it was like reduced to like a quarterly print edition. I don't even know if it's still in print. But at one point they put a trans woman on the cover.

And I was like, dude, it's Playboy. I mean, it's like it's for straight guys and, you know, to whack off. And like, like, you're just like, it just doesn't make sense. It's not even like, I mean, it's just from a capitalism point of view. I'm like, what are you thinking? Yeah. What are you doing? You're effing your base.

Yeah. Why would your base be okay with this? And they're not. You ideologically claiming that this is a woman, despite the fact that they have an X, Y chromosome, you're claiming that this is a woman. I get you are claiming that. That's not your audience. Like, you can, like, meaning you as an individual can say, I want to whack off the trans

women. God bless you. that's not your audience. It's just weird. Yeah, it's very weird, especially with a longstanding brand like that. Yeah. You know what I think it is? I think you just contempt.

It's kind of how our politicians are in D.C. They look at the people that they rule over, and they just have complete contempt for the American citizen writ large. And that arrogance is bleeding over into the corporate space. I think that's what this is. It's like, we are going to drag you into the 21st century. you are going to accept these norms and we're going to make it and you're not going to have a choice you uh you joe you joe six pack are going to learn to love a dude cosplay as a woman and you're going to put your

sweet sweet lips on that i don't think i don't think it's a contempt thing i think it's it's it's high cluelessness you know i mean it's just like you've become disconnected and i think i think it's also like excessive belief in the power of promotion too like oh we can sell anything. You know, like we, you know, we'll just, we'll just have the ad agencies go crazy and it'll be great, you know. And we sell dudes to dudes. And it's kind of like, yeah, I mean, you know, it's true that, you know, promotion will go a long

way. I mean, let's face it, if we had a big ad budget here, you know, the show could like quadruple in size overnight. But, you know, but it's like we're not, we're not changing the brand. It's like, it's suddenly like, you know, Jamarla and I both, I don't know, let's say the shows just pivoted radically to celebrity. gossip. We're going to lose everyone who's currently watching, you know. So, I mean, it's not that celebrity gossip is a bad thing. It's just that it's a different brand. It's not your base.

It's not your audience. I mean, you can move to a different audience, like meaning if Colt or Bush kept doing it, they're going to lose a huge, I mean, but they're going to take a massive hit, though. I mean, that's just outrageous. I guess in Trump's case, I think it is contempt. Oh, in Trump's case, it's 100% contempt. He was. He was peasant. He was. He was pissed off about he felt slighted I forget why because he always feel slighted about something but he felt slighted somehow by the Kennedy Center maybe he was right he's been slighted a bunch of times and um you know he just felt what were they doing Hamilton by the way is was that the Kennedy Center I think well I mean originally it was on Broadway so I don't

know if it ever had an interview I don't know if if the the road version ever came to the Kennedy Senate or not okay um because I think like the once under Trump's first term and the black Hamilton had some kind of origin for Pence. But I don't know where that took place. That was in New York City. Oh, okay. There was also, I think it was Netanyahu also came to

and it was like basically the audience at the time half of them, this was I believe pre-October 7th but half the audience was like cheering wildly and half the audience was booing and hissing ferociously. Really super, super

divisive. All right, we got some comments. and we'll get straight, we'll do those, and then we'll get straight to the, to the news. Let's get to the one after the comments. Sorry, okay, Jackson, can you put me in contact with your friend who knows Condoleezza Rice, Ted? As I want to be an MP, I don't know how you become, that would do that for you, but no, I'm not doing that.

Matina, I watched the Sonali interview. Ted was love struck. Oh, no, that's not true. And Robbie came down so hard on him. I was not love struck. I was just trying to let her speak and let her express herself so we knew where the fuck she was coming from, which I still kind of, I'm not sure because she was so unclear. Philip, I wish more of our friends from Jamarral Thomas's channel would join us here at Deprogrammed. It's a pleasure talking with the global left in Jamar al-T's chats.

Matina, you're a horrible wingman for Ted. Yeah, that's true. Or maybe you're Wait, who was the horrible wingman Did it? Robbie. Yeah, related to the I am a very bad wingman.

For the record, Sinali is married. Okay, so yeah. So anyway. And people who don't speak plainly are not ever people I would ever be interested in in any capacity.

Why do you think she did that, by the way? Because I kept thinking to myself, does she think she's in hospital? territorial territory because she it became a self-fulfilling prophecy if she did true yeah it did I've been thinking about that too I mean I don't know her so but I mean it looked like that like the defensive approach the entire interview and it wasn't like I mean maybe she just took the question as maybe she was doing interviews on right wing channels she's been doing lots of interviews and it's all been very friendly media I saw that on her page and it seems like it's

been all softball, softball, softball. We weren't hard on her. No, we weren't. No. No. I mean, look, we're asking her questions. She should be able to answer these. We should be able to wake her up at three in the morning from a sound sleep.

And she should be able to answer these questions. Really? Yes. I mean, you know, it's. Borders exist. Yeah, I mean, it depends on me by borders. I mean, these things are fictitious and blah, blah, blah. It's like, don't just answer the question.

Right. We weren't going to, I think she was kind of. of like sensing a trap. There was no trap. We just had to talk to her. Well, it's something about borders. It's about jurisdictions. So if you, so governments have these things called jurisdictions, right? So you have laws. You have to pay taxes to those governments, everything else. And if you have multiple jurisdictions that I think the word would be border each other, then by definition, you got to have borders to know what military is you're going to serve in, who you're going to pay your taxes to, which laws you have to obey.

I mean, that's the, that's the human conditions. It's like, well, borders aren't real. Well, also, like, literally, okay, if nation states are real, like literally, the number one thing that defines a nation state is you draw a border and you say, okay, we get to decide who gets to come in and who gets to stay. And that's what, and literally, that's more basic than like whether you meant money or have an army or have stamps. I mean, you know, that's the basic thing, a group of people who say, this place is ours and only ours.

we get to invite people or not. Now, you can say we shouldn't have that system, but that is the system that currently exists. Well, yeah, I mean, these weren't complicated questions. These were just, what do you believe in? Questions. Right, right. Because it's like, because we wanted to know where are you coming from, right? I mean, it's like if you're fighting ICE because as part of an open borders ideology,

that's a different place than fighting ICE from like, you know, insipient fascism point of view or from a competence point of view or from a you're doing deportations which i'm for but not the way i don't like the way you're doing them these are all different points of view yeah just where do you stand that's all we want to know kchm black people like classical music ted that's no overpulent yeah but not in big numbers okay i mean if you go if it went went to the classical section of tower records, it's like it was all old white people. There's nobody in a classical section of Tower Records. There's nobody there.

Okay. Well, not now, but I mean, you know, back in the day there were. In New York it had a huge classical records section on Fourth and Lafayette. But all right. I personally enjoy going out to concerts, even if it's classical music, even if it's not something I typically, like, they had a classical concert here. They were doing, what is it called? It was a co-play something,

but they were doing with classical music to the thing. It was great. Get alcohol, sit there and listen to co-play. No, I'm not saying that black people don't like classical music. I'm just saying, like, in the aggregate numbers, it's a very white thing. That's all I'm saying. Okay, okay.

All right, all right. Demographically. All right, F you so. Kennedy Center needs to do a rebate. make of springtime for Hitler in Germany, the producers. If you said, Robbie, you ever thought of doing VR gaming? Dungeons and war games are fun in VR. War games are fun in VR.

Well, I mean, that's the whole thing, because I don't even know what virtual reality games would be out there that you'd be able to do that with. I guess the closest thing you could do would be do a live stream, have people come upon a telegram and then just kind of just live DM a game, which I'd be down for. I don't know how fun it would be to watch though. Yeah, I don't even know how you do that. Springtime in Hitler.

That's not a real movie, is it? Springtime. No, no, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, I guess it's a song, right? Like, or was it? No, no, no, that's what it was. Springtime for, so in the producers, the, the play within the producers. That's right. It's springtime for Hitler.

And it's like basically, it's like self-sabotage. Let's make something no one will ever come to and it becomes really popular. Yeah, but it blew up. Yeah, which I guess can happen. My ex turned me onto this thing where it was basically Hitler ended up into the future. Have you seen this? Oh, I know what you're talking about. He's back.

Yeah, he's back. It's so good. There's a book and there's a TV show, yeah. A movie. Yeah, a movie. Yeah, that's, I mean, so yeah, that's like that's a thing, right? Like Nick Lowe did, he was trying to get out of a contract and he did Bay City Rollers, We Love You as like a joke song.

Like this is going to be such a shitty song that the record company is going to cut me and I'll be free to move on. And it became a huge hit. And it's like, yeah, that can happen. Yeah. Kill the Poor by the Dead Kennedys became a huge hit in, I believe it was. Portugal under the military dictatorship. They thought it was like

serious, so they promoted it on state radio. Yeah. If you said, don't forget dudes with hoo-haz. Hashtag bonus hole. Oh, God. Okay. It's early in the morning and I already ate breakfast. Okay. All right, let's move into it.

All right. What do you want to do? You want to do, Mitch? No, the space thing. The space thing. Let's do it. That's a thing. So. Several things have happened at once. In one case, all right, let's start with the beginning of it. The U.S. acknowledges that they have weapons in space

and that they will use those weapons to defend the interests of America, whatever that means. This is like Israel saying, you know, there's a nuclear weapon in a trash can, and we've got to murder 20 people to get to it. All right. China comes out, and China says, hey, the U.S. really needs to calm down with this idea of having a war in space, This is not something that we're on board for. We need the U.S. needs to chill.

China puts it in their typical language of mealy mouth, not really saying anything. And then the other story came out that a Chinese satellite disintegrated in orbit, meaning in space. Like meaning that satellite out of the blue just broke into like 40 something pieces. Now, the media is reporting it as China's space junk. It's an happening space. And to me, I'm like, well, wait a minute. So the U.S. accused China of providing spy satellites for Iran to hit the U.S. basis, U.S. basis by which many people and Americans were killed.

Obviously, depending on, is lying about the number of Americans that have been killed, whatever. That's the accusation. And then just so happened a reconnaissance satellite for China goes up in smoke, and then you get the United States coming out saying, yes, we have weapons in space and we would defend our interests. Are these things related? Now, by the way, just clear.

I made the same. I made the same connection you did. I mean, I was like, well, that's an interesting, a very, very interesting, you know, coincidence. Yes. You know, no, I mean, I think, look, the U.S. had to admit it because they knew the truth was going to come out.

You know, there's been, there was, there was an effort a few years ago, I believe under the Biden administration, globally, to introduce an international anti-weapons and space convention, kind of analogous to the Mines convention. And basically, the U.S., as usual, was the primary party saying, we don't want to do this. China, Russia, most of the more responsible countries in the world had all said, oh, we're willing to sign off of that. I don't think weapons in space are a good idea. So to be clear on what these are, right?

This is not SDI, Star Wars, Strategic Defense Initiative a la Ronald Reagan, where the plan was to put lasers in space on platforms that could vaporize cities within a second. That was the plan. What could go wrong? The plan here, I mean, well, what they've done here, these are anti-satellite weapons. So they're probably lasers also, right? Or they might be missiles. But anyway, the point is they have...

It's, yeah, it's who knows, right? Because space war is different than, like, meaning anything that people live up in space is going to be flying around the Earth at ridiculous speeds. And so if you have this kind of fight in space where satellite debris is gone all over the place, then count your missions into space, count your, you know, Starlink, all that stuff is toast.

Yeah, there's already. I mean, the thing is, they used to not care about this stuff, right? because space was, they were like, well, space is so big. So who cares, what are the odds of things bumping into each other? But now there's so much crap in Earth orbit, old and new and, you know, quote unquote space, John. Some of it reenters the atmosphere and most of it burns up. But some of it, thank God, most of it falls into the ocean because most of the world

is ocean. I mean, human beings only live in a small percentage of the Earth, right? I mean, things fall into the Alaskan wilderness. Nobody cares. everybody knows. But, you know, that's not always going to be the case. One of these days, something's going to fall into a city somewhere, and that's going to be a problem. I mean, probably we need some sort of air traffic control for space. Well, that's space command. I mean, they keep track of it. I mean, in fact, it was the U.S. was like,

there are 44 pieces of it. I think it was 44 of the debris of the satellite as it broke up. Yeah, you're right. As it broke up by its... itself with no help whatsoever. Out the blue. It's just disintegrate. It's like a repo man. Like cause of death, spontaneous combustion. Right.

Right. Right. You're implying that our government will lie to us, are you? They will lie. They would never, listen. Listen, our government would never lie to us. They would never lie to us. They respect the American people too much, especially our president.

Like, he is as honest as the day as long. he would never lie to us. So true. His name deserves to be on the Kennedy Center. And the fact that people are not supporting it just shows how ungrateful we are. Kennedy's original name was Donald Trump. So this is just restoring the name to its proper true name. By the way, this does mean a weapons arms race in space.

That's assuming that the Russians and the Chinese don't already have weapons in space. Yeah. No, I mean, at this point, if you don't have them, you need them, right? And yeah, just like that same principle. Honestly, this is terrifying in all seriousness. I cannot think of a bigger, dumber, more boneheaded, more retarded thing we could possibly do as a species than this. What do you think they can get an advantage? And so this is what they want.

I mean, keep in mind, the United States has wanted, you know, supremacy in space. I mean, the Saw Wars Project was a really good example of it for a very long time. this idea of air, sea, what is it, land, air, sea space supremacy. Okay, well, again, keep in mind, it was like a year or two ago that the U.S. was complaining, like bitching remorselessly about Russia's new space capability of taking out all of the U.S. satellites, that they were going to fire nuke in space, created EMP pulse, destroy the U.S. capability in space from standpoint of their satellites, and the U.S. was complaining remorselessly about it.

Okay, it's like, calm down, buddy. Calm down. like meaning all of these countries that are having any particular thing if they need to have some kind of they are going to start putting weapons in space and other satellites in space that can a defend their own satellites or for that matter attack other satellites i mean like this is not a good eventuality just out of self-preservation of loan we should have been like no weapons and space that's not the way we think yeah no well we always think you know we'll get the we'll get the head start we always trigger an arms race and then we're always surprised and confused

when other countries join in and challenge us. Or find it asymmetrical way of doing with what you've done. Drones. Yeah, when enemy drones start patrolling the skies over American cities, Americans are going to be all surprised and confused. How did that happen? Well, we started that. I mean, we could have had the head start in drones, or in this case, weapons in space, and then announced to the world, hey, listen, we have the technological lead here, but we don't really want to deploy them. We'd like to sit down with the international community and not do this. But we know that's not our MO because that's not going to that's not

going to boost Lockheed stock. I have a question seriously and this is a question I'm thinking about and I cannot think of a better pair of people to ask than the two of you. So the electronics that Trump needs for this stuff requires rare earth minerals. The United States does not mine rare earth minerals. We import them from China. So the question is why do the Chinese provide the materials and they then send to Taiwan, which is Roe Province, to make the chips that we then use to do this stuff. The Chinese could kill this in the crib tomorrow by saying we are going to impose a complete embargo on this stuff and you're done. China has that power. Why don't they close that fist? They've halted, right, or it's almost like as a, I guess they have two reasons.

And Ted can chime in on this one, whether or not he thinks they're. reasons are right or not. In one sense, it's you keep your, I don't want to stop you from using crack because I need you as a buyer, but I may lower the amount that I give you. Meaning, I'm not breaking off this as a investment because there are also the things that are being used for Earths that are not necessarily military capability things. By the same token, I do want to be able to maintain that level of control by halting the amount. that you get when I need to pull your leash. Meaning, if I cut you off entirely, I don't, A, I don't want to cut you off entirely because I want you as a vendor.

But more to the point, I can titrate the amount that you're able to get and the amount that you're able to use for these other things. I think they just want to keep a buyer. This is kind of like they said the old saying, the rich, you can buy the rope that you would use to hang the rich from the rich. I think it's something very similar in this. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Look, it's like, look at what the U.S. did. That's our approach, right? Cut people up.

Look at the way we did with Russia. And it's like, well, what happens, right? I mean, Russia, it's not like they just wither away and die. They look for other alternatives. And they turn to other suppliers. And now as a result, Russia is stronger economically and politically than it was before. So I think, yeah, I 100% agree with tomorrow. By the way, look at what we did with China with chips.

Same thing. But if you're right now with a lot of the lithography machines, we're going to cut them off from the access to the chips. And they built their own industry for it. But if you're all right, though, and if the United States is a global pariah, how likely are these other countries going to be, A, to continue supporting a war mongering empire when they actually have a chance at that point to break free and become independent from that empire? Plus, we're $40 trillion in debt. We have no manufacturing base. What could we possibly do? And we're running out of more oil, for God's sake. Well, we still have the world's reserve currency. We still have that massive military. Listen, they could cancel that tomorrow as far as the military goes. I'm pretty sure last week we're talking about Abraham Lincoln running out of food. So just because you have the largest military, it doesn't mean it's competent. But what you're seeing are the signs of a declining empire, but it hasn't, it isn't dead.

You know, it still has a lot of, it's a, it's like a, you know, it's like, it's like, I was reading about some kind of poisonous snake that, oh, no, no, that's not what it was. It was, yeah, it was a poisonous snake that, like, was being processed at a restaurant for food, like an exotic food. And then, like, I don't know, like hours later, the snake's head bit the chef and killed him. I mean, that's what the U.S. Empire is like, right? I mean, what? Are you serious? Oh, that's horrible.

They can still do that, yeah. So, yeah, be careful if you're out, if you be out cutting heads off snakes, like, it doesn't mean like, oh, it's, you know, I mean, like, it's on the way out, sure. And like, but I would not, I'd be careful, you know. I mean, I'm not mad at the snake for that. I mean, you know, he did kill it. Plus, it's a reflex, you know. Yeah.

So. Well, I mean, even if it wasn't, I mean, he was fighting for his life. Yeah. He's in his, he's in his rights. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not faulting the snake. I don't want to come off as, like, like herophobic here.

But, all right. So, okay, so we got, we got Budge to talk about. So I think we agree. Weapons in space. Yeah, that's horrible. Yeah, all right. Okay, so should we do, we want to do Mitch, we want to do ballots or we want to do ice?

And then we get the, well, let's do balance. Ballots is more important. I mean, it's interesting that Mitch is, or we can just break through Mitch real quick. Yeah, let's just do Mitch fast. Interesting that somehow. they have put robotics on Mitch to make it look like he was still alive.

I find that to be curious. And obviously I'm joking. How long has Mitch McConnell been collecting a paycheck as he lays into hospice? I guess it's been now six months or something. It's a fucking embarrassment. And even Republicans are starting to admit it now. I mean, the thing is, I mean, I know their whole thinking is, well, he's, you know, he's, he ends his term, I guess, December 31st. So why not just let him skate? Well, I mean, because I mean, the people of Kentucky deserve better, right? I mean, they deserve two U.S. senators who conserve their constituents and he's not it. I mean, I think that, you know, there's so many layers to this. I mean, part of it is just sort of like people who just refuse to let go of power.

It's contempt for the people, I think, as Robbie would say, contempt for the constituents. And it's also just this sense that, like, you know, I mean, it's also just like, we have too many old people in too many positions of power. I mean, it's getting really kind of insane. I mean, I'm not saying that you become useless when you're in your 80s. But, I mean, honestly, I think, you know, a vibrant country. would have, you know, out of a hundred senators, you could have one or two in their 80s. But I mean, it's so much more than that. It's a bad look.

It seems like it's a reflection of a country that is itself long in the tooth and without a lot of, you know, figure or imagination. They have a bunch of doddering old men that should have died a long time ago that are still in office. And the reality of it is, I don't want somebody in their 80s in office. I mean, have you met people in their 80s? Well, yeah. I don't mean as poorly, but they shouldn't be making grand decisions about what happens to a nation when they were in their prime 60 years prior. So would you be in favor of like forced retirement date for politicians? I don't want to say that because I don't want to take the public.

I don't want to take the choice away from the public. You may have to that. He was actually competent. Oh, okay. Yeah. What age? away from the public. Again, when we did our personality test. It used to be 65 was like mandatory retirement age for America. Listen, no, but what's the mandatory retirement age to have to retire for

the military? I know there's a mandatory age. I didn't even know there was a mandatory age in the military to retire. Another is. And I mean, I think that would be, I think that would be good. Let me, let me. Let's just be clear, though. The military is an organization that turns people into basically slaves for lack of a better term or indentured servants at best that's not government i mean you government's more dangerous than military is yeah but the reality of it is in government people choose that's not the case in the military meaning you choose a person who you want in office you pick this that or that person even if you think the person is incompetent the government or the public can choose somebody who's incompetent that will damage the country materially because it's their choice

so that's a little disagreement is different So that's a fun of a disagreement that we have. All right, I have the answer to this question about the military. Commissioned officers below Brigadier General, 62, officers and flag officers, 64, and 68 for certain health professionals, chaplains, or permanent professors at service academies. That they have to retire. By 68, yeah. You're done. So if you're like, if you're at, you know,

Adnapolis and you're a professor, 68. But that doesn't really, I mean, but if you're one of our war fighters and you have to, you have to retire because your mind is starting to fade with age, then you have no, the fact that we have Diane Feinstein and now we have a, now we have the turtle he's back, old Mitch comes in there and they,

they have an age actually picking their hand up and then pushing the button for them. Yeah. Do you know what you, that can never have. It literally reminds me. me of these outlandish stories. There was a there was a guy who in hell's kitchen New York not long ago, maybe five years ago, he died. And his two buddies were like, he had gotten some social security checks. So they took him down to the check cashing place, his dead body in a shopping cart. And they were like, there's our buddy. We're help. He's in, he's not dead. He's cool. Like, we want to cash his

checks and the check cambiano's cheques was kind of like uh sure and we're not calling 911 right now so that's insane but he was they were they rolled the guy like two miles through the streets of new york city i don't know why they had to do that they could just watch this signature for the thing well no they had they had to see like the person who purportedly it was oh they have to check the id right like that's his i this is his ID wow Look, only thing I'm saying is, while I agree with you in principle that at a certain age, people need to call it quits, that's not the way of government works. And the fact of the matter is people choose. I don't want to take choice away from people, even if that choice is wrong.

It's wrong. Yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah. Because I make me a choice that I think is right that we can't choose. If Sanders, for example, was like, I'm 83, I want to run for office. God bless. Well, I think the system.

I think the system is the problem here, right? I mean, like, if we lived in a country with a better, smarter electorate and more vibrant democracy, it would be possible for some one in Kentucky to challenge Mitch in the Republican primary and who was younger than Mitch and to have them win and be able to be, and primary him out. And for the people of Kentucky to just sort of say, like, yeah, Mitch is too old. I mean, of course he is leaving now of his own accord. But that should have happened at least one term ago.

Yeah. And I mean, he was obviously out of it. It looked like he was having stroked. But look, I mean, it's the least of it. Look at what, I mean, come on, we're still dealing. We haven't really processed what happened with Biden. I mean, Biden was senile during the 2020 presidential campaign. And they foisted him off on us, you know, with all sorts.

of tricks and then, you know, I mean, they kept him, they basically weakened at burning him for four years. And then the balls, the chutzpah, they tried to run him for re-election. I mean, it's unbelievable. And then they're like, oh, it'll be fine. We'll, you know, pump him full of amphetamines and he'll be fine at the debate. Like, what? That's also this question of, like, how do you not have anybody else? Right. Like, Lindsay Graham was nice enough to drop dead. for the mental fact that he's really kicked in. I mean, you can make an argument that he was already functionally a sociopath.

But that's true. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like this idea that the only people we have to run are 80 year olds. Like, what the hell is this? I mean, they had Obama. Okay, fair enough. I think Obama was in his 40s.

He ends up looking very old at the end of his term, but that's most presidents. But why is, it's like, do they just not have a bench? Is that what it is? Because I got to be honest, I don't know who the lead Democrat is. I know they would say Hakeem Jeffries, but obviously I don't think much of Hakeem Jeffries. And I don't think many people do either. Most other people do either. Probably sure. They don't have anybody. And maybe this is true for both sides. Yeah. I mean, I think it's like, I think the institutional barriers. I mean, I think they know that historically people just vote for the same old, same old. Like it's kind of like this is, we've always been at war with East Asia. we will always be at war with East Asia. It's momentum. I mean, there was an ungodly percentage of people who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 thought he was George H.W. Bush, his father, because they had the same name.

What? Yeah, you can look that. Are you serious? I swear to God. And it's kind of like, oh, I know him. I know him. It's shit like that that makes me like, it's shit like that makes me feel more authoritarian. Well, yeah. No, I mean, like, you know, Tocqueville is right, right? Like, democracy will not, will, can never function without a highly educated, well-informed electorate. And that we do not have. So, yeah, I mean, I think that people, I think it's just like, oh, I get, you know, it's like, you ever see the invention of lying, Ricky Jervais. Well, it's a good movie. It's in a dystopian future where basically lying.

had never existed. So everybody's painfully more than honest. Remember the ads for, and they have ads, it's like, and they're like, drink Coke. It's not very good, but it's famous and you know it. And that is basically it, right? I mean, it's like, you know what it is. It's like, why do people eat at McDonald's? It's not very good, but it's very consistent and reliable. You know exactly what you're getting, you know? Yeah, but the failure of imagination is an issue. Right. Or the or the or the or the or the unwillingness to take risks. Yeah. Like let's say let's try something new. I mean that's always a problem. Obviously it doesn't work and I think because there are some people that well it can obviously get worse. Yeah, it can obviously get better too. Right. Like it goes both ways. This idea that I'm

holding my chips. It's like I'm squeezing my life and everything necessary in order to hold on and maintain life. Yeah, you're doing that means you're not living. I'm saying the same thing is in the political space. It's like there's, I don't know if it's a failure of energy. I don't know if it's, it just takes more pain in order to get people to be in a situation where the fear of change is inhibited by the pain that they're experiencing in the moment. I don't know what it is. But yeah, you're right. Stuff like that makes me sad. Like how on earth can you not know. that this is like God, man, it's a presidential election and the idea that somebody wouldn't know the difference.

And I feel this way about Ansor-a-La, right? If you say, who's Ansera-a? Be like, who, who's that? I don't have no idea who that is, but God damn, I can't stand to pay these high gas prices. How are you this detached from your wider world? Yeah. Yeah. It's just amazing to me.

Like, that's, God, man, the level of apathy. It's terrifying. It is terrifying and ignorance. All right, so let's do a few more comments and we'll switch topics here. Jackson, do you think Hamza bin Laden is still alive, still, Ted? Hamza? I don't know who Hamza bin Laden. I don't know who Amza is.

What are these the people who are fled out or led out of the country by flight after 9-11? I don't know. I mean, there's a whole pile. There's so many bin Laden's, right? I mean, it's a massive family. All right. Let's try. Okay, one more here.

F.U. A $6 million Mitch, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. Hugh Mitch running in promo. All right. So, ice stories. So the alligator alcatraz,

ice gulag in Florida was shut down, not because it's an ice gulag with horrible conditions, but because... Wait, this one, play. What is an ice gulag? I'm calling it an ice gulag. Well, it's a privately run ICE detention center, right?

Oh, I see. So basically, this was Alligator Alcatraz was shut down, not for, you know, violating human rights, but because they didn't do an environmental impact state, you know, report on the effect on the Everglades, right? So they shut it, so they shut it down. And but now there's reports coming out that, and there's photos from an inspector general's report that shows that the migrants were held in what they, called calming cages. So, you know, basically small pens where they were seen by everybody else. So it's not the whole, like in a prison, but, you know, you're more like exposed. It doesn't sound good. And at the same time, so there's all sorts of, there's reports from immigration lawyers that what used to be

really routine is now no longer routine in defending their clients. Like, so one of the things that, like, when you're trying to prove, like, that someone has a right to stay in the country, let's just say, like, they used to have a passport, but it expired, but they lost it. It's like, well, under the Freedom of Information Act, you can ask, you know, you can ask the government like, hey, can you send me a copy of my old passport? And that used to be like a routine, like, sure, here it is. Now, the Trump administration is playing cute and not turning that stuff over, or they're turning it over, redacted to the point of uselessness on purpose, to do that.

try to deny people their ability in some cases to prove that they're U.S. citizens so that they can still be deported nevertheless. So those are the two big immigration-related stories for the day. So disgusting. Like, it's one thing if you say, and honestly, anti-American. I mean, because, again, this is a hatred of Americans, it's my argument. Yeah. It's, if you, if the Freedom of Information Act shows that you had a passport,

then by definition, you're an American citizen. How are you stopping that process? Meaning either you are or you're not. If they don't have it, then the passport didn't exist. If they do have it, the passport exists. If the passport exists, by the- You should be happy to supply that. It's just weird.

I mean, like, it's so extreme, where it's almost like we don't care. We don't give a shit about American citizens. What we need to do is make our numbers look good. And make our numbers look good. We just need to deport and deport and deport. Yeah, oh, that was part of the story. story too is that they had a they had a quota for deportations.

There it is. There it is. That's what I mean, right? Because it sounds like a quota system. I guess in my mind, it sounded like a system where they were like, we don't give a shit. We just need to make our numbers. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. It's like cops at the end of the month, writing speeding tickets. Yeah. Yeah. But the problem is these are American citizens who ideally have rights. This is why I go to the whole thing. America is not a business. like it's not supposed to be run like a business there are other protocols that you have to pay attention to as opposed to maximization

of profit or in this case maximization of the number of people you could have to kick out the country. Those people should be people who are not Americans. Like this too cute by half is the way Malik would say. Yeah.

But that kind of thing, I hate that shit. They were apparently they've been playing all these games like for example. if someone, their last name is like hyphenated, but they put in the request without the hyphen. So then they reject it because it's like, oh, that's not, we don't know that that's the same person. Yeah. It's like it's the same social security number, asshole, you know?

Yeah, it's disgusting. But again, like this goes to what are the consequences for it? And if there are no consequences, they're going to keep doing it. Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, yeah, no, I mean, you encounter that when you are in a law. where, you know, everybody's, there's so many tricks. Like for, I mean, I'll just give you one one silly example that I learned. So if you sue a corporation, let's say, that's based in, in your county, what you will find is it's very hard to retain a lawyer from any major firm

because every corporation will retain one attorney on retainer from every major firm in the town. So if they do, you can't, as a plaintiff, that firm can't represent you because it's a conflict of interest. So what they do is they lock it up so that, you know, you just can't get a lawyer. That's just like one thing. You know, rich guys do this when they're divorcing their wives. You know, it's like basically they'll retain an attorney at every major firm so their wife is reduced to, you know, getting an attorney who's not affiliated with a giant firm. Or there's the document dump. We see that in Aaron Brockovich, where it's like, oh, you wanted documents related to this pesticide thing.

Oh, here, literally a truck pulls up with like, you know, 500 bankers boxes full of documents based on, you know, that basically you all worthless that don't have anything to do with the shit because they know you have to read them and sort through them. So it's just like, and so if you're like, you know, one lawyer with an assistant, how are you going to do that? It's just like it's the tricks. And there's a lot of that shit in our system. And I wish there was a, it should be against the law to play cute, really. I mean, it should be against the law for the government to do stuff like this.

I mean, the objective should be Donald Trump. For one thing, it's disturbing in a few counts. the way that other, let's say, either media or for that matter, universities or these kind of businesses immediately bend over, spread cheeks, the moment that the White House starts asserting itself. Meaning, I don't want to hear anybody from this point on tell me government doesn't have power, right? Or that the president doesn't have the capability of using the power in a particular direction. All of these agencies have just immediately turned on a dime to function in the way that Trump wants them to function. And so even if it's something like this. Yeah, the lesson now is if there's ever a Democrat again,

we're going to be able to be like, oh, don't tell us what you can't do. Do not tell us that. I mean, because look at what he's doing. I mean, this shouldn't be a process. This should be a blind process. Does this person have a passport? Yeah, and a. Yes, they do.

All right. Well, you're an American citizen. Yeah. Welcome back. Welcome back. Not an American citizen. But I guess my point is it shouldn't be, it should be a blind process. It shouldn't be, we just need to hit our number.

We need to do whatever we can to hit our numbers, including if that throws out of Americans. If nothing, your government doesn't give a shit about you. And if this doesn't prove it, I don't know what does. Mail-in ballots, the Supreme Court ruled against Donald Trump. The U.S. Postal Service cannot be used to throttle the use of mail-in ballots. Also, the Department of Homeland Security, apparently according to its whistleblower, may have broken state laws when they were trying to purge alleged. non-citizens from the voter rolls and again in many cases appear to have purged legitimate

citizens from the voting roles so that they cannot vote that's the point that's a feature not a book right that's like as we heard from brink palace last week yeah and palace is right that's a feature not a book yeah so i mean so one of the things that i thought and i've heard other people say and i I mean, what do you think? It looks like Trump's M.O. here has been not necessarily to win in the courts because he knows he can't in many cases, because the laws are just not on his side. And even Republican Supreme Court justices can't go along. Like Brett Kavanaugh voted against him, right? But it's like it's about so in confusion, like, for example, the SAVE Act, which he can't get his own Republican conference to pass.

But when he loses the House and maybe the Senate, he's going to say there was widespread cheating. I'm not honoring the, and I tried to get this and that, and the mailing ballots blocked, but it didn't get blocked. I did all that. And now look at the results. Obviously, you know, it was a cheat. The Democrats cheated as usual. That's what this is about. It's about laying the rhetorical ground, not the legal ground work, to invalidate the results of the midterms.

chaos is a ladder, basically. Chaos is a ladder. He's going to get impeached doing that if he doesn't. You think he'll be impeached anyway. I think he's going to get impeached. Maybe. I mean, Democrats are weak. King Jeffers is very weak.

But it's, he's not going to be able to, they're not going to be able to convict him in the Senate. But if Donald Trump is running with this idea that, well, I mean, this was a cheat. I'm not going to follow the election results. Okay. I don't know how you don't follow the election results. I mean, it's not like a presidential election. You're talking about elections all across the United States.

All of them were cheated. Declare a state of emergency. The ones necessary to take Republicans out of Congress. Declare a state of emergency. You use your ice goons in cities to close down the streets, shut down media outlets. At least we'll be honest. Yeah, that's true. I mean, look, this level of apathy is, I don't know.

The level of apathy is just intense. And this level of apathy has bought us to the point where you now have a president that may do some shit like this and has been waging wars across the globe. Again, I keep ringing a Hitler reference. And people don't like it because they look at Hitler as this historian, this historical demigod of sorts. And they don't look at it as this was a government that was functioning just like our government with governmental processes in play as it went about and did all of the things that it was effectively doing with a population that effectively was also apathetic. I don't know. I mean, we'll see. I don't believe he's going to go that far, but I could be wrong.

Well, Trump is waging war against his own people. And here's on. I mean, he doesn't have an army out there yet shooting Americans yet. I think there's a solid chance that will happen. I mean, he's waging war on civil liberties. He's waging war on the rule of law. Listen, I support mass deportations. That's so secret.

But you don't put people in cages to do it. People are not livestock. You don't just treat them like animals. The heifer reference notwithstanding. You put them on a plane and you and you send them home. I mean, this isn't hard. And by the way, not about quotas either. I think you'd agree.

No, it's not 100%. I've just, no, the entire fact that any government, whether it's a local municipality or a national government has quotas that people have to meet as a term of employment is sickening. your objective should be to enforce the law, not imposed yet in other tax on the American people at the point of a bayonet where you have to force someone to defend themselves with money they may or may not even have. The entire system is corrupt.

It needs to be replaced. Our entire system needs to be burned down. Couldn't agree more. Oh, I forgot another trick, legal trick. Like, oh, they file multiple motions for the same thing. and then schedule them like weeks apart so that if you're from out of state, you have to travel back and forth at your own dime

over and over and over. Always bullshit like that. Yeah. It's just what they do. And then the fact that the government will steal your property. For example, if you are accused under a red flag law, the government will take your,

will take your guns. There's no due process. And then you have to pay a storage fee to the state. Right. That you then, and if you're, pay that fee then you can't get your guns back and there's no guarantee that the guns even are going to be in good in good shape and you get them returned so it's like it's like civil asset forfeiture right where they take you take your shit away and then you have to sue to get it back and often

the cost of the suing would be more than the value of the stuff that they stole from you yeah that actually worked in my favor once believe it or not when i was leaving dc i Quickly, because it's 10 o'clock. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Well, I had a shack because I was trying to get rid of. The cops found it in the car, and they took it now. I was like, oh, great. It's like the time I had a console TV on the sixth floor walkup that I shared with my two roommates.

It broke. It was way too heavy to carry down the stairs. Thank God a burglar broke and stole it. Right. Right. Thank you so much. All right, guys. We will be back tomorrow, 9 o'clock Eastern.

Please stay tuned for TMI. and we're going to the full two-hour schedule next week. But tomorrow we'll just do the regular one-hour show 9 to 10 a.m. All right, bye, Jamarral. Have a good one, guys.