DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “France Recognizes Palestine”

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

On “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou,” where fearless political cartoonist Ted Rall and courageous CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou dissect the world’s most urgent controversies, it’s another busy news day where there’s much to be unspun. France’s groundbreaking decision to recognize Palestine at the UN takes center stage. President Macron says the move is designed to support Gaza’s civilians amid famine hitting civilians, aid workers and journalists because Israel refuses to allow food into the Occupied Territory. Israeli and U.S. leaders, including Trump and Rubio, have condemned it as reckless, arguing it bolsters Hamas and undermines peace efforts. Netanyahu says Gaza is “too close” to Tel Aviv. France, however, sees it as a step toward a two-state solution, potentially inspiring other G7 nations. Democratic lawmakers, including Robert Garcia and Summer Lee, raise rhetorical alarm over masked ICE agents using unmarked vehicles, citing constitutional concerns and public fear, as reported by The Guardian. DHS defends the practice, claiming masks protect agents from gang threats, while critics argue it enables impersonation and erodes accountability under the Fourth Amendment. Next, let’s look into Ghislaine Maxwell’s recent DOJ interviews, where her attorney confirmed she answered all questions honestly, fueling speculation what exactly she shared in terms of Epstein-related testimony. No clemency offers have been made yet, but a House subpoena signals growing pressure to uncover more about Epstein’s network. Trump has deflected questions about a pardon, calling it something he “hasn’t thought about,” while critics question the timing of the meetings. Finally, Trump’s provocative plan to forcibly hospitalize mentally ill and the homeless sparks debate, with Democrats decrying it as a civil liberties violation. Trump says it’s about public safety but faces backlash for its authoritarian overtones.

You know, I'm going to be able to Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. You're watching Deep Program with me, Ted Raul, editorial cartoonist, CIA whistleblower, John Kyriaku over there. I'm pointing the wrong way because on my... You're right. Yeah, that was right. He's backwards. Nice to see you, John. Ted, kudos on that music. Oh, well, I wish I could take credit for it. I enjoyed it. I picked it from... Hopefully we don't get into any copyright problems, but that's YouTube's officially sanctioned. copyright, feel free to use it, music. So it should be a-okay, you know, as someone who is always into intellectual property. I make my living on it. I'm very respectful of other people's copyright. John, we have a lot to talk about, so we should probably dive right in. France, as we

talked about and we anticipated, has decided to formally recognize Palestine as an independent the state exchange ambassadors, the whole thing. We're going to get into that and all the political ramifications. We've got to talk about the Democrats who are raising the alarm about the masked ice agents and their unmarked vehicles. They're going to try to see if they can conduct some oversight from the minority side of the aisle. I'm not sure if they're going to get anywhere with that.

Good luck. Gislane Maxwell's lawyer says she didn't take the fifth on anything that she answered every question fullsomely and holy and honestly. She seems to be jonesing for a pardon, but like the cartoon of the fat lady reading the refrigerator, she might be looking for love in all the wrong places here. Trump wants to basically sign an executive order, making it illegal to be homeless.

Yeah. How do you like that? Well, I wish she could make all sorts of things illegal. You know, I'm already working on a cartoon about this. You know, he can do an executive order for everything. Anyway, so we will talk about the ramifications of that. So let's get into it. French President Emmanuel Macron had a conference scheduled for next week that was supposed to be concerning the Israel-Palestine crisis,

and it basically fell apart. And it looks like he decided to sort of turn a lemon into lemonade and basically pull the trigger on something that he's been toying with for a long time, which is to join the ranks of the many countries like Spain, Ireland, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, many others, and most of the world that have already formally recognized the Republic of Palestine. I've been arguing, John, with my friends, that this is a big deal. Huge. We're going to look back and say this was a turning point for the people of Palestine, that it's hard to really overstate. And I think that comes down to the fact that France used to be, until very recently, was the most important diplomatic country.

All diplomats had to be fluent in French. French, which other, no matter what country they were from, that's right, well, Franca, until maybe the 1920s or 30s, you weren't really considered an educated American if you weren't fluent in French. That's right. And so it's like, now, my friend Scott Stantis says, well, was is the key word. And it's a point, you know, he's, it's true that maybe, but I don't think France can be ignored. I think much of the world when it comes to diplomacy is going to be looking to France. I think so too. And among European countries, and especially European Union countries, France is a major leader, along with the Germans. The Germans have thrown their lot in with the Israelis. The French are showing real leadership here. I think you're right, Ted, that we're going to look back on this decision as a turning point. It's one thing for the Irish to recognize Palestine, which they did back in February, I think it was. all that did was

piss off the Israelis but but it threw a bone to the Palestinians that was really worth its weight and gold we expected that to happen because the Irish have been oppressed

you know throughout their history France though I mean France is one of the historic colonial powers in the Middle East that's why they speak French in Syria and Lebanon for example right But for the French to go out on a limb like this and say, enough is enough, we're recognizing the state of Palestine, which you're correct in pointing out, includes an exchange of ambassadors and presumably French diplomatic support of the United Nations.

Remember, France has a Security Council veto. Right. I wish they could veto the American vetoes. I wish they could too. This is huge. It really is. The question now is who's next? Right.

that is the question right luxembourg um and italy portugal all should be lining up yes um there will be others there will and yeah they're a permanent and you know they're a g7 country they're the only i guess uh well russia and tyner on the g7 well no they were no they were they were um but yes the only g7 country so it's the only permanent member of the security council yeah frances a colossus here yeah and a major power in the Middle East. Yeah, I don't think you can overstate this. And, you know, it's probably the most important move of Macron's presidency. Agreed.

That and his recent lawsuit against Candace Owens, although we can talk about that later. Now, I do want to take note of Benjamin. I mean, not surprisingly, Benjamin Netanyahu was displeased by this move. But the way that he expressed his displeasure on X was, particularly interesting. He deplored the fact that France was recognizing a Palestinian state right next to Tel Aviv. Well, the Palestinian state was always going to be right next to to Tel Aviv. So unless he knows something about the laws of physics, or he's engaged in ethnic cleansing. Ethnic cleansing. Because they want this state.

What he's talking about. Yeah, they want this state to be either on an Indonesian, island or in a piece of Albania that would be lopped off. Right. That's exactly what he's what he's alluding to. Yeah. He doesn't want it there. Yeah. And he didn't say, you know, I mean, if he was a temperate person and leading a normal

government instead of a gangster regime over there in Israel, he would have said something that goes more like, you know, of course, we would be the first to recognize a lawful, a duly elected Democratic Republic of Palestine, and we would be proud to work hand in hand to help rebuild as neighbors and friends. We just can't possibly work with Hamas who've attacked us without provocation. That's what you would hope he would have said. But there's no pretense here, right? He didn't say recognize a terrorist state, recognize a Hamas state, to recognize a Palestinian state right next to Tel Aviv. Oh, my God.

You know, I remember when I was a kid watching an episode of 60 Minutes in which it was like Azer Weissman, who was a defense minister at the time, was showing the 60 Minutes crew from a helicopter historical Israel, right, without the West Bank. And at the narrowest point, it's nine miles across from the line. of the West Bank to the Mediterranean Sea, nine miles. And he says, you know, we can't live with that. They can cut off the nine miles and just choke us. And it would be the end of Israel. So we have to have the West Bank. And even as a teenager, I was like, are you guys out of your minds? They want Liebenström. Yes. Yes. I mean, it's so much, it's amazing how much they sound

like the Germans. I mean, it really is. I mean, you know, it's kind of like, you know, I've had pro-Zionist friends criticize me for that and making that comparison. I'm like, well, if the jackboot fits, wear it. You know, I mean, Hans Eli makes a good comment here, Ted. We should probably address it, especially the last sentence though. The world isn't always going to prop up Israel. And I think that's what we're seeing the beginning of right now. These are the first cracks, right?

The first cracks in global or at least Western support for Israel. You're right. The United States will try. The United States is going to be the last country to support an independent Palestine, the last one. But this is the beginning of it. And like Ted said at the very beginning of the show, I don't think we can overestimate the importance here. Yeah, I think, I think Hans Eli is right. I think you're right.

And, you know, in terms of the, I agree with Hans' question here, the first part of it as well, isn't the Israeli's unwillingness to, go along with a two-state solution and trying to go for the whole smear yeah they're unwilling to have any kind of state solution yeah no they don't want they they like they like the current state of affairs they do and uh they and yeah it will lead to a one state Palestinian solution um you know Israel was I mean it's funny Israel I would say I I've often thought was like a an outdated obsolete solution to a non-existent problem now uh but maybe it made sense in 1948. I actually don't think it made sense in 1948. I mean, in 1948, you know, the Brits were withdrawing from the Raj, from India, the most important colony they had. That's right. And within 20 years,

pretty much every major European power was out of Africa or on their way out of Africa. And so, I mean, basically, the colonial experiment that this really was, I mean, this really is the book goes back to 1920 and it goes back before, but it goes really as a colonial experiment to the Balfour Declaration of 1920, which was a British colonial adventure at the peak of colonialism. But by the time it got done, colonialism was out of fashion and was done. And here we are. It's the last, I mean, you could argue that Puerto Rico is a colony or Guam. But I mean, this is the last settler colonialist experiment. Puerto Rico is not a settler colonial experiment. It's the locals who live there, we just govern them. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. Yeah, right. And actually, even the

Puerto Ricans are split, you know, a third, a third, a third, a third, a third want to be a state, a third want to be an independent country, and a third want to leave things just the way they are. Yeah, yeah. And I did, and I'm glad Lulu brought this up because I was about to mention it also, which is that Israel is the last country to support apartheid era, South Africa. Yes. Man, you know, they know how to pick them. It's like apartheid era, South Africa, and we're going to be their last friends. I mean, yeah, we are going to be their last friends.

It's going to be sooner rather than later. It's going to be really hard for each European country to domestically, the domestic unpopularity of the state of Israel is just going to blow away. John, I've got to ask you about these horrific photos that have surfaced. in the last 48 hours of tiny children who have become tinier due to famine, who have been reduced to skeletons. It reminded me of the famous footage from Ethiopia during the famine half a century ago. And I was in Somalia, places like that.

You know, I mean, so in those situations, I mean, you could argue that all famines are manmade, Irish potato famine, et cetera. But this is the most man-made famine outside of the, of, the Warsaw ghetto that we've seen in a long time. I mean, five miles away from where these people are, where surgeons are collapsing because they themselves are starving to death, and BBC journalists are starving to death and dying. Now, people are, you know, eating cuskis and hummus and drinking, you know,

sweet red wine. That's right. This is, I mean, there's plenty of food. There's no shortage of food. I said that earlier today in an investigation. There's plenty of food. We see these pictures of children starving to death. We're seeing reports of surgeons in the middle of performing surgery passing out and fainting from a lack of food. There's plenty of food. The Israelis just won't allow the food in. And when they do

allow the food in and people mob the distribution centers, the Israelis then just opened fire on the crowds, which they've done at least three times in the last two or three weeks. oh more it's almost every day john sickening and and it's like and so i mean so you know well let me interrupt you for a second here's a good here's a good point i was talking about this with a friend of mine brulard d'a definitive sorry i don't speak french what about the egyptians the egyptians are under real pressure today to open the border they have said that they're not opening the border under any circumstances they open the border they will be complicit with the ethnic cleansing exactly a rock in a hard place they are do you just let people starve or do you jump in

on the side of the Israelis in cleansing Gaza fucking Israelis that's what they that they did this on purpose yeah they did and and the and the in the egyptians aren't stupid that's why they built that berm over a year ago that's right something like if they're worried that the Israelis will throw open the border and then you know they won't be able to resist their troops aren't going to are not going to want to and will not shoot two million people for the last couple of years i've donated money to a palestinian medical relief organization not a not a lot of money if i have an extra 50 bucks i send it in and um and i got an automated email from them um telling people to stop donating because there are no hospitals in gaza now right there's nothing to donate to

Yeah, this reminds me a lot of, so like from 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban were running Afghanistan the first time, there were Clinton administration trade sanctions against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they always said, no, no, no, no, it's not medical supplies or food. We don't prohibit that at all. And when I was there the first time in 2000, and I visited a hospital, and the doctors, and I found this to be true at other hospitals, too. They were like, we haven't seen a band-aid since the early 90s. And it's like nothing, nothing at all. It's like, it's field medicine. It's basically like you're outside. A mash unit. But you're inside. Yeah, that's, that's, you have a roof that may or may not leak. That's, that's what you've got. It's a, it's a nice tent, basically. Oh, my God. So, so, but John, about these pictures, you know, I think you and I are about, you know, we're experienced. We've seen a lot of shit. We have many of us here who are watching and reading, I have too. But these these pictures landed hard with me in a surprising way. And you know, pictures, thousand words, all that.

It could really. I mean, I get the impression this is going to. It makes a difference. I think Macron saw those photos and was like, this is it. Done. He was already on the way. And I think that's, and I think that's it. I mean, it's just like, no one wants, no one cares anymore, but October 7th, you know, but the Holocaust, no one cares anymore. It's like, you're out of, you guys are out of excuses. You have to stop. Ted, um, I have a friend, uh, we've been friends for 20 years and he posted on Facebook. He, he's not just Zionist. He's a dual U.S. Israeli national. And, uh, He posted on Facebook yesterday.

This happened in the last 24 hours. Rhodes, Greece, Israelis blocked from coming off a cruise ship. Citos Greece. Israelis targeted by angry Greeks. Cyprus. Israelis had tomatoes thrown at them. And it was like 10 things. Gossans would love to have some tomatoes thrown at them.

I took a picture of a child starving. to death in her mother's arms, nothing but skin and bone, and he blocked me. That's what we're up against here. Yeah. Well, they don't care if children are starving to death. They don't care. And you know what's funny getting back that I'm still haunted by that Brett Stevens column from a couple of days.

Yeah, a day before yesterday. And, and, you know, in there, he talked about like, well, you know, yes, there are some people who say it's a genocide point to the genocidal comments that were made by his high-ranking Israeli officials in the days after October 7. But they were just being intemperate. They were being spicy. They were just angry about October 7. Okay. So if that were true, and that was not the official policy of the Israeli government, which we know it is because all the journalists have reported that it is. But let's just say that, you know, we're going to pretend here that Brett Stevens is telling the truth. Yeah. Those people would have been fired. Yes. You know, if President

Kyriaku of Israel doesn't let those people stay on. Like, what are you doing? That's not who we are. Please leave, leave your ID at the door. That's just, I mean, that's, I mean, that's left them in. And remember, we're talking at, we're talking about Smotrich and Ben Kavir. They were successfully prosecuted for felony hate crimes against Palestinians years before ever becoming ministers in the Netanyahu government. These are very bad people. They are very bad people. And they should really be, I mean, honestly, people went to prison at Nuremberg for less. Yes, without a doubt. I mean, hell, one guy just, he went to, I think they killed him, right? Julius Stryker?

He's called a newspaper. Yes. You know? I mean, it was a nasty piece of work, but it was just a newspaper. Mm-hmm. That's absolutely right. So. Yeah, I'm worried about where this is going in that I think a whole lot of people are going to starve to death.

Women, children, the elderly, all civilians, they're going to starve to death. No question. They are there right now. Yeah. The U.S. is not going to put pressure on Netanyahu. It's just not. We know what our government is like. And I'm not saying this is specific to Donald Trump. The Democrats are exactly the same way. Absolutely. So it's not going to get better in the near term. It's just not. No, I mean, look, we're in a world where even AOC can't be counted on account upon to resist sending war funding to Israel. I mean, even just from. a fiscal conservative standpoint, you should be able to say, you know, little birds, we've been feeding you since 1948. Time to fly the nest. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, without a doubt.

Is there anything else we want to say about this? I mean, Trump says that this is interfering with his peace efforts. There are no peace efforts. No. I mean, there's, I mean, basically it's very strange. There's been the two delegations in Qatar, whatever. Yeah, we should, we should add that. We should talk about that. The U.S. walked out yesterday. The U.S. walked out saying that that Hamas is not serious about hostage releases. It's like, seriously, that's what the talks are about, hostage releases. And why is it that we call Israelis held by Hamas hostages and Palestinians held by Israel prisoners? That's a good question. When they haven't been. charged with any crime they were just scooped up only because they happen to be

palestinian right because is a nation state and we love them it's sort of like why if it's iran it's the regime if it's france it's the government it's you know all this loaded language that's right so there are no peace talks right now we walked out they're on hiatus and they weren't accomplishing anything anyway no and you know there's a peace in today's times and we weren't And this is not really on the agenda, but whatever, like we care. Russia, Ukraine, and it's brought up a good point that really peace negotiations haven't really begun in earnest. And that's true about Israel and Palestine. I mean, and basically talked about shuttle diplomacy back during the Henry Kissinger era.

And whatever many bad things you want to say about Henry Kissinger, he was, you know, he certainly was a hardworking dude. Sure. And he went back and forth all the time. Sure. Philip Habib in the 80s. Same thing. It was a very, like, it was an arduous, prolonged, long process to end a complicated war between nation states. You know, I mean, look, Hamas was really a government. Yeah, it was a real government.

Yes. You know. In fact, the Israelis, the Israelis use the Hamas Ministry of Health numbers. Yes. They accept the Hamas numbers. on people killed or wounded or whatever. Yeah, it's only the Zionists in the United States

who pretend like they're not true. You can't trust them out. You're right. They're an undercount. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, no, so for sure, the Israelis are sitting on top of thousands and thousands of uncharged political.

They're political prisoners, is what they are. Yes, they are. And subjected to all sorts of humiliating treatment. So, yeah, peace talks. You know, I mean, we're not going to, there's no chance because, you know, Israelis, these Israelis aren't serious. And people will say, well, what about Hamas? Well, in any kind, I say in any kind of lopsided military conflict, most of the burden of making peace falls on the superior military force. They're going to have the advantage. And, you know, I mean, they're going to have to make most of the concessions, you know, in terms of getting close if you want to have a ceasefire anyway. I know people will say end of World War II or whatever, unconditional surrender. That war went on, I never, you know, never, I wasn't there. But I would have never agreed with the policy of unconditional surrender.

I think it dragged World War II on much longer than it needed to. I think you're right. And those days are gone. That's just not how conflicts end anymore. No, now you, like Saddam Hussein, you go hide in your spider hole, you leave weapons behind and then an insurgency pops up and you know nobody ever admits that they were defeated hell right trump did admit he was defeated yeah that's true so tom ford how in the world did robin hood know that these were tom ford glasses that's it i never even

heard of tom ford till i bought these glasses i never heard of and they're like oh this is the tom ford i was like okay what's the big deal about tom for i don't know but i like them are they pricey uh yeah they kind of were yeah glasses glasses cost ridiculous these were like $1,200 they don't look like much but yeah well these were only seven 700 only but still I mean to me that's a lot yeah yeah it's absurd um all right well so I guess we should talk about the ice thing so um Robert so Democratic House representatives Robert Garcia and summer Lee are demanding they wrote a letter to Christy Nome the Department of Homeland Security to demand that she provide all the information internal DHS memos

and policies that concern how ICE is supposed to comport themselves, how they're supposed to dress. I don't know if there's a certain color of mask that they're supposed to wear, you know, white in the winter, I don't know, pink for the gay ICE members, I don't know, whatever. but they're trying to get all that info are does dhs have to reply no um it's a that's an executive order function they don't have to reply and i'll tell you one of the things i learned when i was uh on capitol hill at the senate foreign relations committee is most of the time cabinet members just ignore us we would write letters to secretary of whatever or assistant secretary or the FBI director or the CI director,

they would just ignore us. And what are you going to do? Is it worth going to the mat over the fact that they ignored the letter from your staff member? No. So, yeah, I don't think they're going to get any satisfaction here. I'm still laughing at the, Ted, at the reporting in the LA Times that tow truck operators are following these ICE officers and towing their cars. because they always park illegally

because they think they can do whatever they want because they're ice and then as soon as they get out to do their raids to the tow trucks tow their cars and impound them and after all it's not like they can extend any professional courtesy

to these random unidentified people are we supposed to know that they're federal law enforcement officers are I mean are ICE officers really law enforcement officers Well, you know what? That's a good question. They're not really law enforcement officers, just like Bureau of Prison Guards are not really law enforcement officers.

Right. They're not. I mean, they're either what's called a series 1810 or 1811. In this case, they're both 1810s, which means they're allowed to be armed. But that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, like they're not going to pull somebody over for speeding. They're not going to, they're not going to, likely not going to disrupt, you know, the, the shoplifter at the Walmart if that they happen to be in. Could they? I'm not even sure.

I remember there was some strange experience at the university. This was analogous maybe. A university of Cincinnati campus policemen pulled over someone on a city street for running a stop sign. And it led to a violent, you know, incident. where there was a, you know, the dude shot the motorist. It was, it's like one of those, like, shootings of black motorists by a white cop. And I was like, can I, University of Cincinnati, you know, rent a cop, really play real cop? I mean, aren't you like Paul Mark cop?

I mean, to me, and I'm a person, I mean, look, if they want to be treated like real law enforcement officers, they ought to wear uniforms and they ought to show their faces and they should show ID. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, there's just random thugs. That's it. I have to agree. You know, somebody makes a word that I just see it. They went to Fletzzi. Houdini, they've gone through Fletzzi, which is the federal law enforcement training center.

I went through Fletsey before my CIA days, but I was in 1810. So we did the handgun training, but I was 100% not considered law enforcement. Oh, so you don't necessarily. So going to Fletzzi does not necessarily. Do you know what Fletsey stands? Yeah, federal law enforcement training center. I had a beautiful shiny gold badge that I kept in this beautiful leather case. I really regretted having to turn it in when I went to the agency.

And it got me out of a couple of speeding tickets. But I was not considered law enforcement. I didn't consider myself law enforcement. And I would not have tried to stop a shoplifter at Walmart. I would have said, well, it's not my job that the next guy does. do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like, I mean, I think it's funny how ice people, they want our sympathy, too. Yeah, they do. I don't care. Doxed at all. I mean, I told you, I told you on, on the morning of January 6th, I think I'd say this like a week ago. I had to go up to Capitol Hill to

meet with Bruce Fine. And we knew all hell was going to break loose later in the day. So I wanted to, you know, get into Bruce's office, sign this doctor. document and get the hell out. And so when I parked my car, there were all these guys taking off their Bureau of Prisons logo polos and putting on black shirts. And I was like, shame, shame, you clowns aren't law enforcement. No. Not as soon as you do that.

Uh-huh. Yeah, no, it's gross. All right. So, I guess. Can I interrupt you? Please. In all seriousness. What do you think about this Candice Owens situation?

Candice Owens has been on this rant for the last three years where she has been saying that Emmanuel Macron's wife was born male. And she's just, she even did a documentary about it. She has no childhood history. No documents exist. No photos exist. Of course, none of that's true. That can't be true.

no it's just not true i literally just spent like my son doesn't know i realized was filling out forms and doesn't even know like where i was born i'm like you don't know shit about your family so i just had it as a gift i'm going to create a giant i did a family tree right i feel all this information that i've been meaning to put together i started putting it together i got it i went down a rabbit hole through the french and german government genealogically sites oh very cool go back four or five hundred years, right? We know, like, if you, you know, in this country, in France, in Germany, in most countries, like, you know, we know where you were born, when you were born, when you got married,

which church you got married at, you know, who you got married to. Who baptized you, where and when you were baptized? It happened in 1611. And so, like, yeah, and in France, I guarantee you that, you know, Emmanuel and Mrs. Macron, is she was a it's not a dude looks like a lady situation no she looks like a woman and she's obviously clearly born a woman so anyway it turns out not to mention she was very cute when she was she was cute and has a son right and has a son so so the microns it turned out through their attorneys approached kandis owens a year ago and said stop doing this

It's not true, and we're going to sue you. But she doubled down. Nobody knew this until a couple of days ago that she had been warned to back off. And she doubled down. And she said that in part she doubled down because she converted to Catholicism. And her Catholic faith demands of her that she out,

you know, this man who is masquerading as the First Lady of France. And so the McCrone's filed the defamation suit now. Where? That's a good question. I'm not sure. Where would be better for them? England. Yeah, that would be the best.

I really wish I'd sued the L.A. Times in England. I could have because of the Internet. And so, and I should have, even though, you know, would have required me to go to England quite a bit. Yeah. Wow. Thank you. We have a couple of paid donations. here. Oh, thank you. We should answer it. Right. So we'll go in reverse order her. Um,

obscure orca. Yeah. John, what's your thing about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia? Yeah, you know what? I was, I was stationed in Athens at the time and it was absolutely miserable, not just to be an American diplomat in Greece, but to be an Orthodox Christian American diplomat while the United States government was bombing an orthodox Christian country that the Greeks considered to be brothers. It was absolutely miserable to the point where

even one of my uncles attacked me verbally at a dinner and I could barely respond to him. He was like, why the fuck did you blow up the Yugo factory? What the fuck were you thinking?

You blew up the Yugo factory. me and i said i said theo and i almost didn't want to answer him i said they converted it to manufacture tanks which was true but the bombing of yugoslavia was wrong wrong wrong in the first place and we created this this fake rump country called kosovo that has never otherwise existed through the course of um of you know human history and it just so happens to be holy ground for the Serbian Orthodox Church, and it's where most of the Serbian Orthodox monasteries are located, and we're like, yeah, tough luck, we're going to take this land away from you.

We're going to give it to these Muslims that you've been feuding with for the last 1,500 years, and there's nothing you can do about it. Oh, and by the way, we're going to bomb you too, just for the hell of it. Of course, I mean, obviously I have to, I agree with you, but what about the argument that this was to try to stop the genocide, the genocide uh you know in kosovo yeah that that is what it was for yeah well less so the genocide in kosovo than what was happening well no it was it was kosovo by then yeah yeah you know what we should have done it was supposed to create like a safety zone right yeah right but nobody ever said

anything about it being an independent country five minutes later and i don't know and i had access to the information at the time, but it just, there was no information. Why did we not work with Boris Yelton to figure this out? Why were we at odds with the Russians? This is the, the, the nadir of our, of our relationship with the Russians. Why didn't we do something to make it better? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, we installed Yeltsin. We did. We did. We installed Yeltsin. I mean, the Russians will never forgive us. No. And Ted, coming back to, you know, serving in Athens in in 99 while we're bombing Yugoslavia every year we have to vacate the embassy on the 17th of November because it's the it's the date of the uprising against the military junta that we

installed and there's a massive demonstration that marches from the polytechnic university where where the uprising began to the American embassy so we just shut the whole place down at 12 and everybody goes home. You just get a half a day off. We evacuated the American embassy at least a dozen times that year because these demonstrations were absolutely gigantic. And at the time, this is right before the Greeks converted to the euro. So they had these 100 drachma coins that were about the size of an Eisenhower silver dollar. And so you could fling them and they had some heft to them. So they would take these 100 drachma coins, which were, worth about a quarter, 27 cents, and they would smash all the windows on the front of the

embassy. And then they would fill balloons with red paint and with slingshots launch the red balloons. So the next day, the embassy is just peppered with red paint splotches and the windows are all broken from 100 drachma coins. It was awful. It was miserable. I bet. Hey, John, we got to answer USC Arad 21 who donated five bucks. Thank you, USC. I don't want to put you pardon to Jeopardy, John. But what do you guys take on South Park

going after Trump? I devirited. It was freaking hilarious. I haven't seen it yet. Oh, you got to see it. You got to see it, Ted. I won't spoil it for you, but you know, the creators of South Park just a couple of days ago signed a $1.5 billion

dollar streaming agreement. God bless them. It's obvious for the high quality animation. You know, I still watch South Park. I will admit to you, I watch Family Guy, Simpson, South Park, and Bob's Burgers. I love all the animated shows. Thank you, Caleb. South Park, thank you, Caleb.

South Park is by far the most cutting edge. Like, when I watch Family Guy with one of my housemates, I always say, oh, my god how can they get away with a joke like that but south park it's like oh my god like it's shocking to me that they're able to do what they're what they're doing now it's all for a good laugh it's all comedy but i i just love it i think it's great yeah well i'm my favorite um the thing that those two guys did that i love the best is still team america world police i can never forget over how I've seen it more than I could count. It's one of the funny.

Seriously. Seriously. Absolutely hilarious. Yeah. I wish I could be creative like that. I don't think I can be creative like that. See, I think I could. And I think I could be, I would know it's in the writer's room, you know?

Yeah. And you deal in in very sharp comedy. I mean, you're a political cartoonist. You have to have that kind of biting sense of humor. Yeah. Well, yeah, they are geniuses. You would totally think. But so many of my colleagues are just, you know, they're wussies.

It's because they worked at Daily Papers and they were scared. And they were, you know, I'll never forget. I got a job interview at the Asbury Park Press. He's dead now. So I'll name him, executive editor, Ray Oldwerther, brings me into his office. And you know, it's like one of those things where you really feel like it's going well. And see, I'm there for a good hour. I'm feeling like, oh, I'm going to get this.

And it should be pointed out that I've been drawing for them local, cartoons for central new jersey for a year so it wasn't like i was just blowing off blowing in off the street yeah like we've been dating now are you going to put a ring on it or not and so everything's going great and then ray goes leans back points out the window and says there's just one more thing am i ever going to look outside that window and see people protesting because of one of the cartoons you drew and i said i was i was flummoxed i hope so I said, I mean, I was honest, I said, it's not my intent, you know, when I sit down to make that happen, but I don't care if it does. And, like, if people are going to do what they're going to do.

Legit answer. And people get mad at stuff that I never see coming and other stuff that I think is going to blow up the world. There's no reaction. I don't know. It's like, don't you have security? I mean, I don't know. I'm like, I think that they've got looked like wrong answer, tilt. and you know never got the job and i had one interview like another like that after that

st louis post dispatcher same thing sacramento b i'll never forget the guy he goes he goes thank you guys howard weaver he goes um am i you know what i have to figure out here is if we're going to let the good burgers of sacramento wake up to ground glass every morning on their opinion page in other words if he hires me i'm like i hope so uh you know that's that's what it's for So, yeah, I mean, this could go, we could do a whole show on that, but that's, yeah. I've actually purchased their, I purchased years ago their Mormon's episode

that people are talking about in the chat. And I also purchased the, the lice episode. You remember the lice episode? Yes. Oh, my God. So funny. I still laugh out loud every time I watch it.

Oh, my heavens. You know, I mean, it's like one of my, I mean, I have to say, if the animation were better, I would have seen every episode. The animation's a little rough. It's terrible. Yeah. But I think that's part of the charm.

Oh, well, obviously, it's their 27th season. I think they've kind of got it figured out. Yeah. It's just crazy. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, I wish I could be. I'm not complaining about them.

But I remember right, but I just don't feel like it because I don't think it would be true. All right. So let's see what else we got to talk about here. Yes, I did. That stuff to hit. Oh, yeah. She's Lane, how we pronounce her name? Yeah, Galane.

Galane, I can never pronounce it. Galane, milady, Galane, Maxwell. She's still, her prison photos. She's still hot. Yeah, she looks good. Anyway, so she's, so she, so John, I'm a little bit confused by this. So I don't understand. I mean, I know that obviously the heat is on, on the Trump administration over Epstein.

I get it, but now, is this just window dressing? Are they just pretending to look into it? I mean, it looks like she requested the interview with the DOJ, and they've complied and went in and had a wide-ranging conversation with her about anything and everything. And she answered everything. She answered everything. She seems like she could be, if she committed perjury, she would be, she would have exposure to the prosecution and could extend her.

It was very risky. to answer these questions. To me, that indicates someone who's probably telling the truth. Yes. When you take a risk, it's sort of like when you sue for defamation, then you affect yourself to discovery and everything. So what is this about? Like, why did this interview take place? And what was the desired outcome from both sides?

And what's the actual outcome? Well, we, this has to be speculation, because we really don't. No. Totally. Thank you, Houdini, very much. And I'm thinking that, do you remember last week, Ted, when we were talking about the comment that the Attorney General made about the videos being just child porn? And they will never see the light of day, Pam Bondi said, we will never release.

And I said, we don't want to see the child porn. We want to know the names of the men committing crimes against. children that's what we want to know um so it could be that it could be that that she's naming people who would be on uh those hard drives apparently that happened yeah um reportedly according to her counsel much of the uh much of the uh reporting has been on you know these allegations and they're not a stretch by any means that she wants a some sort of a commutation even a pardon and trump being trump wouldn't rule it out well why would he give it to her right doesn't he want her to shut up i can't i my brain can't wrap itself around

what in the world would possess donald trump to to to throw her a bone yeah i mean wouldn't he get wouldn't he wouldn't he wouldn't he pardon her for being quiet right right Right. Not blabbing everything. And it turns out that, you know, remember we were joking the other day about it depends on what your definition of a list is? Well, apparently we were right about that. And it turns out that some of the names that are popping up are Bill Clinton and John Kerry and a handful of other people who are well known to every single American. But the question remains, who were the guys committing crimes against children? Right. Like, I mean, yeah. So in the Mayflower Madam, you know, oh, yeah, I remember that. Oh, you're going back now.

Very old 80s. There was a very famous little black book that belonged to her that made its way, unlike the Epstein files, into the public eye. And the thing is, what was notable is, of course, yeah, she had her Johns in there and she had her girls in there, but she had a dry cleaner in there. And she had her Chinese food in there. I mean, the point is, that's what people do, right? And anyway, so there's, it's not, I guess if, like, you're looking for a spreadsheet that says, my child sex client, cell dot, XLS, yes, it's not in there. Okay. But that's not really the issue. I mean, it's kind of like, as usual, the Trump administration is playing, well, like all administrations, they're playing it too cute.

Yeah, yeah, they are. That's right. And so was Maxwell railroaded? Oh, I don't think so. I think she was guilty. I think that there were a whole bunch of people who were guilty. They shouldn't have gone after just her and Epstein. But yeah, I think she got what she deserved.

Okay, so she got what she deserved. I mean, okay, she got what she deserved. She procured for Epstein. We know that. Now, the question is, basically, what this looks like to me is they partied a lot. They probably had lots of young girls around. They passed them around. It's not about necessarily a honeypot operation.

It's not about Mossad necessarily or probably. It's probably just like gross dudes drinking and doing drugs and having a good time. Yep. And doing shit that's illegal and immoral sometimes. Not all. Some of them. It's sort of like you're at a party and there's something going on in another room and maybe you don't go into that other room. And maybe you do go into that other room. I think that's what it was like. I think that's, I think you've hit it on the head. You know, there's another thing too, and this is a minor point, but it's something that I've often wondered about. I've spoken publicly a lot about how pedophiles are almost always locked up in low security prisons. They're not eligible for minimums because they're pedophiles, which means they're dangers to society. But they don't go to mediums or maximums because they'll be attacked or killed or beaten or torture or whatever. By the bad people who are already there.

That's right. She's at a minimum security work camp. How the heck did that happen? Why were the rules waived for her? Why is she getting special treatment? And what's your answer to that question, John? I don't know. I don't have an answer. It doesn't make any sense to me.

I mean, that's the whole thing, right? Like, there may not be a conspiracy, but when things don't make sense, people are in the blanks. And I mean, look, in all fairness, there's weird shit that happens in the real world. I mean, you know, I mean, how the Concord crashed is very strange. Right. Not a conspiracy, just a piece of metal. Just strange. fell off a plane that was in front of it and went to the engine and blew it up and now we can't

fly supersonic transport anymore. Michael Gardner says rich people get different rules even in prison. Absolutely true. Listen to this. There was a guy in the next row of cells over from me. Oh, I can't remember his name, but he was a quarterback for the New York Giants in the early 1970s. and he was a he was in for like 25 years for running this major massive Ponzi scheme and you know let's say he made a hundred million and they made him pay 50 million in restitution he still had 50 million left over so what this guy did he was a real scumbag too what this guy did was he paid off all the the mexican and black gangs to ensure his safety right so he you know paid like $500 a month i think is what he told me like 500 a month to the ms 13 shot collar 500 to the crips 500 to the bloods 500 to the mexican mafia and then he he hated the food in the cafeteria everybody did but but he hired one of the Hispanics to be his personal chef and so other guys their their side hustle in prison is they steal food

out of the cafeteria, and they're allowed to steal food. The guards look the other way. So he would spend his 500 a month in the commissary that he was allowed to spend, and then he would buy the rest of it on the black market stolen from the cafeteria, and he had this personal chef, make him three meals a day. So you're right, Michael Gardner, rich people. It's good to be king. Yeah, it's good to be king.

Rich people are different. There are different rules, even in prison. I wonder how it was for Martha Stewart. Oh, everybody loved Martha Stewart. Yeah. She taught them how to make soap, and she taught them how to make little handicrafts. And, you know, I think Martha Stewart's experience in prison was kind of like mine, where I'm still in touch with a lot of the Italians. I spoke to two of them last night.

We did a little Zoom call to say hi. There was a crooked congressman from Ohio. who went to prison a couple years before I did. He was in my prison. Oh, I remember that guy. Remember him? Trafficant. No, no.

This was actually the district immediately south of Jim Trafficant. Okay. I forget his name now. But anyway, he said when he got out, he was in for like two years or two and a half years. It was a corruption charge. And he said, oh, my God, Clyde Hall. Yes, it was Clyde Hall. How in the world did you pull that up?

Must be in Ohio. Wow. Wow. Listen, man, R.S., I'm impressed. Yes, it was Clyde Hall. I have not thought of that name in a decade. So he got out of prison, and he said, you know, they say that you don't go to prison to make friends. And he says, I came out of prison having made some of the best friends of my life.

And I remember thinking at the time, this was before I was ever in trouble, thinking that he was nuts. but he's not nuts and I understand it now is it trauma bonding in part it could be but but the people that you trauma bond with you tend to walk away from these guys were genuinely

good guys I mean some of them did some very bad things like I remember one of them saying I said so what are in here for and he goes like this he goes the cops found a body in a barrel in my

storage unit. I don't know how that body got in there. I said, no, no. I said, I'm not judging you. Seriously. It could happen to anybody. He goes, a hundred people had access to that storage unit.

I said, I'm not judging you. Don't worry. But, yeah, we're still in touch. And it's a strange place. How do people get so jacked like bodybuilders? That's a good question. And

I saw that there are three, three guys that pop into my head immediately as like the most perfect human specimens I've ever seen in my life because there is literally nothing to do but work out. Nothing. What about you? I walked. I made sure to walk five miles a day around the track. And when it snows, they close the track and you're only allowed to walk around the basketball court. So you walk around 500 times.

You know, when I first arrived, I was walking around with a captain from the Banana family. So this is a very senior guy. And it was the first really great advice anybody had given me in prison. I had been there about two or three weeks. And it's pouring down snow. It's like 10 degrees. And we're walking around the outside basketball court.

And he said to me, how much time do you get? I said, 30 months, feels like 30 years. And he said, let me give you some advice. He said, if somebody asks you how much time you have, you say five years. I said, why? He said, there are guys in here with 20, 25, 30 years. If they hear that you have 30 months and you're pissed off about it, they're going to kick your ass. So tell them five years.

does anybody ever ask to see your paperwork only when to find out if you're a child molester or whatever only when you first arrive to see if you're a child molester so i had to give my paperwork to the to the shock caller for the arians and um and he he read the paperwork and he he goes intelligence identities protection act he goes what the fuck is that and i said it's like it's like a conspiracy charge and he goes okay so i sat with the arians for a while till the italians took me yeah at meals yeah there are some guys who like will just sit with the arians and then the shot caller will go up and say who the fuck are you and give me your paperwork and then the smart ones will just go sit with the pedophiles without saying anything

Some will just claim that they can't find their paperwork or they'll have their lawyer write a letter. It's like, no, no, no. If you have any idea what's good for you, you're going to get up and move to the pedophile table right now. And they always do. Well, I mean, I think this is, I have to put this question up. How bad are the showers? We've all seen the movies. Yes, you know what?

That was one of the very few questions I asked my attorneys. One of the things that my attorneys did for me was they schedule. to lunch a couple of weeks before I left for prison with a former professor from George Washington University who played fast and loose with the National Science Foundation credit card and got two years. So the very first question I asked him was, what's the situation with the showers? And he said, oh, no, don't worry about that. He said, it's nothing like what you see on TV. You're going to go to a low or a minimum. And they're all individual showers completely enclosed with shower curtains same with the toilets they're all individual toilets with shower

curtains don't worry about it at all and he was exactly right and and i'll say you know one thing um i never saw a guy naked in prison well that's not true we we did have one strip search once um but you do not walk around exposing yourself unless you want to have like every bone in your face broken. There was an Afghan child molester who came into myself just before I left. I have an entire chapter about him in my second book. And he went out to play soccer one day. And then he came back. We had these huge fans, like a four foot tall fan because there's no air conditioning in prisons. And so the fan was on like for months at a time in the summer. So this guy went out to play soccer and he came back and he takes off all of his clothes his his his clothes are literally

dripping sweat it was disgusting and he goes up to the fan and he's airing out his balls and i walked past him and i said sheer you're going to get your ass kicked you can't i said this isn't a fucking country club you're in prison right he's like fuck you i don't answer to you four guys were on him like white on rice they left him in a bloody pulp on the floor. Not surprised at all. Told you, a moron.

And he's like lifting up his balls and air in a mount. We're like, what are you doing? Are you out of your mind? I mean, it's always weird to me when people are in situations like this and they just don't know how to act.

I like this question. That's a good question. Criminals actually respected of child molesters slash chomos are at the bottom who's on top or does it work that way? Oh, yeah, yeah, very much works that way. The chemos are at the very, very bottom.

The rats are very, barely above the chomas. The Italians were at the very top, very top. And, you know, it was funny because of all the gangs, and they're considered a gang. Mafiososos or Italians? Or is there a differentiation? Oh, there's a difference. You have to be connected in some way.

Like, they'll, the Italian network is very strong. And so they'll know weeks in advance that you, you're coming to the prison. So this is also an important. That's a good question. Okay. That's a good question. I think about change during and after your imprisonment.

Your prison was like the California system that I've read about where everything is racially segregated. Absolutely everything. You, in fact, at higher levels, you cannot have any contact with other races because you're then branded a race trader. and then you're friends with say a Latino just to be like absolutely not I made a conscious decision when I first arrived and I say that in my in my book I made a conscious decision to ignore those racial divisions and at the end of my my sentence the black shot caller a guy named Ali from Newark he was at the tail end of a 25 year drug charge he came over to hug me and to tell me how much he respected me.

I helped him. I wrote his resume for him. I helped him happen if you weren't allowed to. Because I refused to respect those racial divisions. So you were, I just refused. Did you get any shit for that from whites? No, I got shit from the Hispanics.

And I was like, you guys all hate each other. Like the Mexicans hate the, the, the, the, the, the Puerto Ricans and the Puerto Ricans hate the Dominicans and the Dominicans hate the Costa Ricans. It's ridiculous. I was like, you guys all look exactly the same to me and you all hate each other. I just never understood it. Um, so the Italians were by far the most respected. And that was the point I was going to make of the gangs, right? If you're, if you're in an organized gang, MS-13, Bloods, Crips, Mexican Mafia, Buracos, Nortenos, all these guys, your prisoner number ends with the number

dash 4-7. 47 means organized gang. The Italians were also 47s. So of all the gangs, the Italians were by far the smallest and by far the most highly respected.

And was there a charge that was most respected, like rock, like in the hierarchy of robbery, murder, RICO. Rico. Yeah, Rico. And Rico usually had murder attached to it.

Usually it was conspiracy to commit murder because, you know, a guy will murder somebody and then 20 people will get charged for it because they're all part of the conspiracy. I'll tell you who they didn't like. They didn't like these big rich white-collar criminals. Really? Yeah. Yeah, they didn't like those guys. The only ones who, you know.

Why were they just viewed as soft and? Yeah. So, you thought you're going to get it. away with it. No, poor you. You got caught. Now it's like, oh, I'm in prison. Oh, my God. So it's a class thing. It's a class thing. The only, the only guys who were in where nobody gave a shit was like arson. I knew three arsonists. People are like, eh, arson. Did you kill anybody? No. Okay. Nobody cares. Like insurance fraud, mortgage fraud. One guy was property fraud, which I had never heard of before. It's funny, he, he just forged papers

transferring ownership of a golf course to himself. And then he tried to charge people he's like one of those squatters that write up the fake deed. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of a big deal, right? It's sort of like how

car theft is, you know, is, is a direct care to horse theft. And it's, and you're basically stealing a man's livelihood so it's yeah not cool really serious and sealing a man's home is the same way um this question from nick um what are our thoughts about all the recent trade deals the trade you know i i told my sister this the other day i can't believe trump is actually getting away with it i know and people are saying oh my god he's nuts of the tariffs a hundred percent and

50 percent oh my god he's coming to deals with all these countries And there deals that favor the United States? I can't believe I'm saying it. So, yeah, no, I don't have anything to add to that. That's very, very, very true. All right. So finally, but maybe not least, Donald Trump issued an executive order, stating that he's very upset about the explosion of homelessness.

Yeah. The executive order actually understates the problem. It says that there's 250,000 homeless people in the United States. There are actually 770,000. I was going to say by a factor of three or four. Yeah. And it's gone up a lot. That number was 550 for years.

And then it shot up really over the last four years since COVID and prices shot up. And people got priced out of housing. That's not counting the millions who are couch surfing. That's right. Hidden homeless. But he doesn't care about that. He said it's a bad look in D.C. for foreign dignitaries to see 10 cities as they drive in from Reagan Airport. He's right. He says that it's, you know, it's disturbing and dangerous for

law-abiding citizens to see people pissing and shitting outside. Yeah, nobody wants to see that, but, you know, that's capitalism for you. That's capitalism, and you can't keep cutting the budget and starting with services. Right. So, so, so here's what you, so Donald Trump, I think, is really good at diagnosing problems. Like, hey, factories and the Midwest have closed and we haven't retrained anyone and everybody's just depressed and poor and addicted to opiates yeah that sucks yeah it's for me but he's and he's right and honestly that is not a small thing being able to diagnose the problem is very very important like i didn't see joe biden doing that i didn't see carmel harris doing that okay good for you but trump's very

bad at coming up with the cure and the treatment. And so here, he's basically the thesis here is that the vast majority of public homeless people are mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, drug addicts, or some combination thereof. That's probably true. If they aren't before they get on the street, they rapidly deteriorate. I've seen that happen in my neighborhood here in New York. So what do we, so the question is, what do we do about it? His answer seems to be forcible commitment.

Now, I'm not the kind of liberal who's going to say that someone has a moral and legal right to sleep outside in Manhattan when it's five below zero. Right. No, no, I want them picked up, dragged off and taken somewhere, but I want them taken somewhere safe and nice and warm. I don't want them to be abused, treated like shit, humiliated, attacked, raped, whatever. So the problem is that there's no facilities here. So it's a two-part thing, right? We've got drug addicts and we've got mentally ill people. And he's like basically reopened the insane asylums, like the old Creedmoor scandal from the 70s.

Oh, yeah. Where people were changed to, you know, to their beds and stuff. Yes. Well, the point is, Mr. President, there are no facilities, right? Where are you going to put them? This reminds me of the mass deportations. There's no facilities to handle the mass deportations. deportations. There's no facilities to handle the mass removal of the homeless from American

City streets. I mean, where are you going to put them? And that goes double for drug addiction. There's no treatment really available. There's no services available. If you want to create a massive infrastructure, a massive safety net to deal with these people, God bless you. And I will help you. And I will support you. And I will scream it to the heavens, what a great president you are. But I don't see that happening. No, I don't see it happening either. Our viewers are making a lot of really good points here. First of all, the tent right behind the executive office building.

There's also another one now up at Union Station, same idea. My guess is he'll find some pretext to move them out. You know, Reagan, well, it started really under Carter, where the Supreme Court ruled that people could not be. held against their will if they were not a danger to themselves or to others. But a lot of them are a danger to themselves or to others. And they're deserving of mental health care. So what do we do?

Do we make it easier to force people into mental health care? And then on the other side of it. Lots of abuse, right? I mean, when I was a little kid, my neighbor, he decided that it was like a lot easier and cheaper than paying alimony to have this wife who was. was perfectly wonderful and lovely and sane forcibly committed. And she spent six months at the local insane asylum in Dayton before she managed to get out. That kind of shit used to happen all the time.

Yeah. So, I mean, you don't want to make it too easy, but you don't want to make it too hard either. California suffered with that for many years, many, many years. And it was in the 1970s that they finally changed the law so that the police couldn't forcibly commit you. can you imagine the cops just ring your doorbell and then by force take you and put you in a mental institution and there's literally nothing you can do about it well i mean in a sense in a sense that does happen now i don't know if you've seen that netflix i think it's netflix the movie we care a lot but oh i have oh my god real phenomenon yes it is like so basically

um these nursing homes they they they conspire to have people your power of attorney yeah And it's for people often who are perfectly fine, nothing's wrong, but they target them because they're rich and they're going to take their money. And they do. They take their money. But, you know, we really, we spend scandalously little money on mental health. And in fact, even though mental health parity is in the Affordable Care Act, completely unenforced. Completely unenforced. And in most counties, I read this. I think at the Rutherford Institute website. In most counties in America. Forcing into mental health care, shall be done after mental health care is vastly improved, if at all.

If at all. Exactly. That's right. So in most counties in America, there are more mentally ill people in the county jail than there are in mental hospitals. Yeah. Well, there's just aren't to make them not mental hospitals.

And the mental hospitals that are there suck ass. Yeah. So, yeah, I had a friend. her, she discovered her ex-husband had committed suicide. She walked in on him and found him. The guy had almost took a butcher knife and nearly hacked his own head off in his kitchen. So, unsurprisingly, she freaks out, runs into the streets of Brooklyn, screaming and screaming, you know, I want to die.

NYPD shows up, understandably, they think they have a mentally distraught woman on their hand, which they did. And so they dragged her off to Bellevue and put her in, like, the padded room. She saw her phone. So she called her sister. Her sister came to visit. And her sister was like, honey, I know you're really upset. She said in a really low voice.

But listen, they're going to keep you here unless you can pretend like you're okay. Like, do you understand what I'm saying? They're going to keep you here like indefinitely, maybe forever. You have to get it together, stop crying, stop sobbing, and just be like, I'm good now. I can go home and just keep it together so that they'll let you go. And she did. And then she fell apart later. But, I mean, it's like, that's how it works.

There was even an episode of Lou Grant about this. I happen to see on Hulu years ago where. this investigative journalist who was working at the LA whatever it was called dispatch got himself committed to a mental hospital so he could write an article from the inside

and that's what happens with the Queenmore doc yeah that's right but he couldn't get out yeah couldn't get out and they drug you yes so yeah

I mean they drug they drug the seniors and old folks home too to make them compliant yes and there's they weren't great before they showed up and they're definitely not great after that um they did it to my mom i watched them do it you they were doing it and there's it was you know basically when they say you need an advocate when you're in there they're not wrong you need you need to be there like all the time um i wanted to yeah this is a good question actually so there's a border oh yeah border conflict right i land in cambodia going on right now It's not like war in the Southeast Asia has ever been a problem for the United States,

so maybe we don't need to talk about it. But in all seriousness, Thailand deployed an F-16 across the border into Cambodia, and it took out artillery positions. They claimed that they were retaliating. This all boils down to a, goes back to a treaty from 1907 by the French colonial power that set that border. As usual, the text, so this is fascinating as a graphic artist, right? So the text of the treaty says that basically the border follows the natural flow of the river.

But the drawing that went with it that some Frenchman in 1907 drew doesn't really do that. And it puts this temple that's on the Cambodian side of the border. And the Cambodians are like, thank you. And everybody went with the with the. drawing. And that's a graphic artist. I agree with that 100%. But, you know, I think actually under most treaties, you look at the words. And the ties are like, well, we're looking at the words. Fuck the drawing. And so that's what this is all about. It's like art versus text. And it's about this temple. This seems like maybe not a big deal, but it's not a big deal either.

tell you the truth i didn't even realize that the cambodians had a military oh really seriously yeah well it got really over well the cameroge got overrun by the vietnamese yeah that was a long time ago yeah sure sure it must not it must not be much of a military it it can't be and they still have all those minds all over the place yeah when i when i first saw this i was like wait what and then i had to i had to reread it like like okay and they're they're firing at each other across the border too yeah this happens between india and china every few years that's true yeah yeah this kind of major war over it in yeah yeah um and then there's uh yeah yeah like a few years ago right drunken border guards

they drink a lot up there nothing to do nothing get out of control that's what i always say is like that's why that's why putin never wanted a nato country on his border he knows is about drunken border guards. Yeah, that's right. And then the next thing you know, you've got like French nukes headed your way. Crazy. With Article 5 of NATO.

We were asked, and I'm sorry, I apologize to whoever it was you asked this earlier in the chat, but I'm going to do a callback. I hope you're still here. What do we think about Trump's reversal on NATO? He used to hate it. Now he loves it.

Well, you know, Trump's always flip-flopping like a fish on a dock. I think he really believed that Vladimir Putin would do what he told him to do. And I think he's just so angry that Putin won't just go to the negotiating table and settle this thing with Ukraine that now he's got to embrace NATO. He's got to.

Otherwise, he's going to be out there all alone. Well, this is like, this is what we were talking about earlier, right? I mean, it's like diplomacy takes fucking work. Exactly. I mean, Bill Clinton, I know. So neither of us supported his actions against Serbia, but I do have to hand it to him. You know, I love the story about how the Dayton Peace Accord came to be, right? So he cleverly brought the three leaders of Serbia, Croatia, and who am I forgetting here, Kosovo?

Yeah. To Dayton, to the Air Force base, right? Patterson Air Force Base. And, you know, having growing up there, I'm pretty sure Bill Clinton was aware of the fact that it was one of the most boring places in the United States. So he's like, you got, you guys work on this, you work it all out, and then you get to go home. And anyway, so he left them there. And they were kind of kept prisoner. Yeah.

And he did give them soccer balls. I remember that. But they were getting really desperate. And finally, he was like, I tell you what, there is a. French restaurant called Loberge, just south of South Dayton. It's the only French restaurant in Dayton. You guys, you fellows can all go down there and you can have a good meal, but you got a sign.

You got to sign the agreement. And so Slobin on Milosevic and the rest, they were like, man, I got to have me a good meal. Dayton sucks. So they all signed. And, and like, so they, I grew up like, you know, I don't know, quarter of a mile from L'Berge. And they, so I used to walk by it on my way, on my way from my house, my mom's house to my school every single day. And anyway, so they, they went to L'Barrish and had a nice kind of old-fashioned, too much sweet sauce, you know, old-style French place. It's gone now at town and country shopping center.

and they used to have a seating chart like with you know they showed like where all of the diplomats sat that's cool where Clinton was and all that what type of wine they had but I always always like I laughed at that I was like this is like French food diplomacy we're hungry

we can't eat the shitty base food anymore no no it gets to be too much yeah by the way totally true two toes yeah that's a surprisingly excellent museum. It is big. It's not like a, oh, pop in for 30 minutes and you'll see everything. That's a half-day event, and it's good. I mean, it's also got a strong aeronautics aspect to it, also. And also all the space stuff is amazing, too. Yeah. So I lived in Dayton then.

The story back then is that Milosevic insisted something needed to be signed. I think it was Clinton, but I don't know. Who knows? Who knows? All we know is that people were hungry and they ended up at L'Berge. Indeed. But yeah, and it was a boring place. But anyway, yeah, I love that story. So let's talk a little bit before we should wrap it up. The homeless executive order. Yeah. This could be an opportunity for Democrats to say, you know what, Mr. President, you're right. homelessness is a national shame for the world's richest country. We shouldn't have anybody sleeping outside. Let's work together on this.

That can't happen, right? No, there was a piece in the post today saying that, you know, it's all fine and good to sign an executive order, but the truth of the matter is that this is a state issue. And he might be able to fiddle with what little federal funding there is, but there's nothing he can do to force, you know, tent cities to be removed or to force people into mental institutions or whatever. You can't do anything.

Now, if he wants to make a proposal to take abandoned or mothballed military bases and turn them into housing for the homeless where maybe they can undergo some job training, get mental health care, whatever, and then be reintroduced into society, I guess that's something else, but I think this is mostly talk. I agree. Yeah. I mean, I don't think this is one of those things that can get done this way. Very, I think we could maybe answer this last question.

I think we need to, and then we should be on our way and start our weekends. So what do you think about Trump saying Obama could be arrested over the Russia election scandal? Well, thanks to Donald Trump going to the Supreme Court, a president can't be arrested for anything. Correct. Issues done, closed. If it was, yeah, all that Obama would have to argue is that he did it in the exercise of his functions as president of the United States. Yes. Now, John Brennan is another issue. Just before we started this show, I interviewed Matt Taibi for my other podcast, Deep Focus. And Matt says, I sort of lamented the fact that what the Justice Department has had referred to it is, misdemeanor charges against Brennan and Comey related to allegedly lying to Congress.

And he said, yeah, that's true. But he said, what he's hearing now is that they are actively pursuing felony conspiracy charges against at least Brennan and maybe Brennan and Comey. Wow. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, I mentioned to you offline the other day, I will go to Brennan. trial every single day. I mean it.

With a big fat grin on your face. Karma is real and she's an evil bitch. And I think that's a perfect place to start our weekend. John Kyriaki, thank you so much. As always, it's a pleasure to be here with you. That was so much fun. It's always fun. We're deep program.

We're going to be here again next week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 5 p.m. Eastern, maybe we should try for the week, the whole every day the week after, maybe. Sure. We could try that. Okay. All right. So Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Eastern, 5 o'clock, please like, follow, and share the show. Seriously, please share it. Like, you know, just find the link and pass it around. Massive thing for us. It is. We're trying to get it. I mean, the numbers are definitely going the right direction, but anything you can do to make them go there even faster would be much appreciated. as always thanks for your questions it was always fun to answer them we have the best the best viewers

love you guys take care thanks everybody