DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Regime Change Against Venezuela?”

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou analyze the Supreme Court’s probable gutting of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Trump eyeing covert strikes and land airstrikes against Venezuela, the decline of the power of the U.S. passport, and archivists race a looming "digital dark age.” House Gerrymandering by the Supreme Court: Republicans redraw districts, targeting Southern Democrats, but Democrats hold a House path—unless Louisiana v. Callais strikes Section 2. This would gut majority-minority mandates, enabling elimination of 7-8 Black-majority districts in Alabama through Florida by 2028. Democrats would face +5-point popular vote hurdles for competitiveness, turning all midterms into GOP locks.Trump's Venezuela Escalation: Trump has drawn a bead against the government of President Nicolás Maduro after five boat strikes killing 26. Now he’s considering U.S. military land strikes to halt Venezuelan drug flows and authorized the CIA with a “finding” that allows the agency to conduct covert operations there. Is this regime change?U.S. Passport Downgrade: Henley Index of “powerful passports” drops U.S. passport to 12th—first time outside top 10 in 20 years, tied with Malaysia, down from 7th last year. Trump's immigration crackdowns trigger reciprocity losses from Brazil, China, Vietnam, stagnating access to 180 destinations. Experts warn of fading soft power in an openness-driven world.Rescuing Floppy Disks: Cambridge archivists tackle 113 boxes of Stephen Hawking's papers, extracting data from degrading 1970s-90s floppy disks via the Future Nostalgia project. They battle magnetism loss, mould, and obsolete formats to save physics insights and personal notes. This combats a "digital dark age," preserving 50 years of computered history.

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I go fund me. Good morning and thank you for tuning in to D-Program with Ted Raul and John Kiroaku. That black space over to the right side of your screen is John Kariaku's voice. He's still in Mexico and the signal is not awesome. Good morning, John. Oh, John, John, please say that you're there. We had tech issues. That's why we started the countdown, the countdown. a little bit early, I mean, sorry, on the late side this morning and why we're coming in at 903. By the way, we're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time. John, I don't think can hear me. Let me, this is only for two more days today and tomorrow. Here we say, John, we don't see or hear you. This is how we communicate.

try refreshing okay this is real radio people this is how it goes anyway so I'm going to keep talking until John pops back up maybe I'll bring in Robbie here just to like fill up the space

hi Robbie how are you doing good hey we do have good news we can share though we do let's go ahead and do that yeah let's go and make that happen so we fought the bastards a scary girl says and we won. We got re-monetized over on YouTube. So for those of you who have been wanting to be able to donate and stuff over on YouTube,

you are once again able to do that. So that's all taken care of. Also, today, I will be going through and I will be adding a bunch more of John's interviews over on the Rumble channel. For the reason I'm doing on Rumble is because YouTube will blow you up if you have duplicate content, whereas Rumble doesn't care. So if you want to see John's interview with Joe Rogan or Tucker Carlson or anybody else, hopper over to Rumble, promise you that the weather is fine. And it is not behind a paywall.

So come right on into the kit to the kiddie waters. It's very nice. A redneck like me can do it. Y'all have no trouble at all. You're muted. Now I'm muted. So, yeah, and also you don't have to use the PayPal anymore, although you're welcome to do that. that PayPal is deprogrampodcast at gmail.com.

Like I said, the new time is now permanently until it's not Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. John will be back stateside Monday, so hopefully the signal issues will go away. John, if you can hear me or if you can just say something, we are here. Yeah, I get you just a little bit of time. It's a computer talking to me, and I apologize for this connectivity. they air quote upgrade the internet overnight and it's just told all of us there i think we're all familiar with that that phenomenon yeah the upgrade was actually a downgrade that happens john you're muted right now i i can you can you repeat that ed i just said we're

all familiar with that phenomenon of the tech people making things worse while they're trying to improve them yeah seriously they put routers on practically have a country around here and you think it would make it excellent coverage, and instead it ruined it. I mean, it's from the size of the tarantulas. It could also be signal interference from the tarantulas. Yeah, very well could. So, John, I'm glad we have you. So, John, we're going to keep you on audio only throughout this program and probably

tomorrow as well, unless that upgrade actually manifests. And Robbie was just bringing us up to speed on the fact that we are now re-monetized on YouTube, which means people, what's that called? The super, uh, super chat or super chat. That's it. Yep. So super chat and also if they want to, they can also become channel subscribers. Uh, to be honest with you, um, if you wanted it on on YouTube, we appreciate it.

But now here's the thing. YouTube takes a 40% cut whenever someone becomes a channel subscriber and really y'all get anything extra out of it. On the flip side, though, if you come to Rumble, uh, become a channel subscriber, it's $5 a month. They keep it all. And you can see all of the premium content that YouTube won't let us put up. So you're going to get more bang for your buck over on Rumble, honestly. Speaking of Rumble, if you do decide to subscribe, Robbie and I did some detective work yesterday.

And we discovered a quirk, Robbie. Yep. So what the quirk is, if you go over to Rumble and if you click on the D program channel, you'll see a red button that says subscribe. If you click on that, then what happens is that John and Ted, because we're in the creator program, they actually get profit sharing off of that. So in addition to the $5 a month, Rumble will actually pay them kind of like a headhunter's fee. So they actually will earn more money as just another way for them to monetize. And the reason why money is important is because just like us, they've got bills to pay.

And it's just simply the best way to help them, honestly. I'm working for these guys for free. I'm happy to do it. And the least that the viewers can do is support them, if nothing else, just by watching them on Rumble where they actually will get paid for it. Honestly. John, you still there?

Okay. I can't hear anything. I can't see anything. Everything's just frozen. Oh, my God. We, okay, Robbie, please tell him that we, you hear him. I will text him right now. Okay.

All right. So in the meantime, let's talk a little bit about what we intend to talk about here today. Hopefully, we may not be able to do it, or maybe Robbie and I will end up doing it. But here we go. So today we've got a big story out of the House of the U.S. Supreme Court. It looks based on the oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Louisiana v. Calais, that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is likely to be gutted completely. Now, what that would do is basically get rid of the race-based mandates inside the Voting Act

for the way that the districts are gerrymandered or not gerrymandered. And so what that would do is ultimately eliminate seven or eight black majority districts in southern states, Alabama, through Florida, by 20. 28. So effectively, if this goes through, and it looks likely to happen, Democrats would need to basically win elections 55, well, by five points or more in order to win at all. So basically in order to, this would sort of hand the House of Representatives to the Republican Party for a generation or more. So we'll get into that. The situation in Venezuela, which I'm really hoping John's audio works for during that time is escalating.

Donald Trump has issued a finding that allows covert action against Venezuela inside Venezuela, including, and he's not ruling out air strikes on land. He's been blowing up boats off the coast of Venezuela. Now he's saying that he might carry out airstrikes. That's looking increasingly like a war for regime change. The U.S. passport is losing its prestige. A powerful passport is one that allows you to visit as many countries as possible. The United States used to be one of the most powerful passports in the world.

Its ranking keeps following. This is not unique to Trump, although Trump's immigration crackdowns are contributing to it. It's been a steady trend, though, for years under Biden and Trump before, as well as Obama. Now we're down to number 12, tied with Malaysia. And finally, but not exclusively, we want to talk about these floppy disks, the digital dark ages. I wrote about this years ago when I discovered and heard about the fact that digital data degrades. So like floppy disks and things like, but not just those, even CDRs, which we were told were like permanent and would last millions of years and all

that. All digital data degrades and ultimately rots. So it's like there's all sorts of of archives that are composed of stuff that was stored on floppy disks and CDRs and, you know, all jazz discs, if you remember those. And those things, archivists are working hard to retrieve that data and converting it into more modern form. So we'll be getting into the digital dark ages, which is a cool idea. John, are you back? Yeah, I'm getting to what you're saying, Ted. Can you hear me okay? Yes, absolutely.

I noticed that the U.S. slipped into the second 10 of best passports for the most part are far superior to American passports. But, you know, the issue is for the United States is just conflicted because we can put more and more restrictions on other countries, and they're going to travel to the U.S., and then what's going to happen to us, because there's no such thing as reciprocity. Well, in fact, there is such a thing as reciprocity. If you want to, the United States has to you have access to the country. That's just not a happen from. I think I understand what John's saying there.

John, you're basically every third word or every third syllable or so is dropping off there. but I'd rather have this than not at all. So, yeah, I mean, yeah, reciprocity is important. That's something that a lot of Americans don't really understand. So what it basically means is that when it comes to diplomatic relations and things like visa fees, they go both ways. So, for example, when I wanted to go to Russia the first time, I was shocked to learn that the visa fee was $400 U.S. dollars to go to Russia.

And I thought, man, those dirty Ruskis, well, it turned. out that it was the U.S. that started this and basically had increased, they didn't want Russians to come to the United States. This was during the 90s and they were, you know, all, if you remember, the Russian mafia in Brooklyn and places like that was a thing. So they were trying to discourage Russians from coming to the U.S. So they slapped, they increased the visa fee to $400. Well, the Russians reciprocated. That's reciprocity. So, you know, but these days, the U.S. has been making it harder for people to come from their country to the U.S. than the other way around.

That's been going on for years. It's not just a Trump thing. And so now other countries are starting to respond. And even with Europe, you now have to apply. It used to be like with a U.S. passport, Americans didn't need a visa. You could just go to Germany to show up at the airport with your passport and you were good to go. But now you have to file the security. thing and ahead of time and get that approved.

So, and now, you know, it's, and the, and the Europeans are reciprocating there, too. So I have a question for you, Ted. I mean, I have, I have not traveled overseas for, oh gosh, 20, 25 years. But me and the misses, we've been thinking about getting a passport and a visa and that kind of thing, just, well, I mean, we're just south of the Canadian border. Why not? what kind of advice would you give me and her as far as just be able to just be able to travel to more places without just getting hamstrung?

I'm only an American citizen, so it's not like I can get citizenship someplace else, but I just wonder why have options are there? Well, I don't want to exaggerate. I mean, the U.S. passport is still number 12 in the world, and there's 197 countries or so, right? So that's still pretty good. So the thing is that you just have to be aware. that, oh, there's John, let's get him back. Hey, John.

Do we hear you? Do you hear us? I'm trying to do you. There you are. I hear you. Man, this is brutal. Sorry, I'm sorry to everybody. This is not expected this morning.

It's your fault. John, this reminds me of trying to broadcast from Afghanistan in 2001. It was with a satellite phone. But, you know, I might have a better chance with a sat down. Oh, you would, for sure. Listen, in all fairness, if Afghanistan has better roads, it leads to the reason they have better Internet. So I'm just going to throw that out there.

Just saying it. Afghanistan does have, you know, what, it's so funny, right? So because they never had landlines, I mean, or I guess all the landlines were destroyed in the, starting in the late 1970s, they built a really robust system of self-rength. phone towers under NATO, and we left them that. And it's crazy. Even in rural areas, you will get four bars in Afghanistan now. But back in the day, like, you know, I was thinking, like, there's

sections of, you know, Melrose Boulevard in Los Angeles that are complete blackout zones. Lower Manhattan along the Hudson River is a blackout zone. Gotcha. It's just, it's crazy. I mean, it's not not like a lot of people live in Manhattan or L.A., though, so they don't really need good cell phone and cell service. Yeah, no, for sure. But what advice could you give me about a passport? Oh, well, I mean, you know, just get it. I mean, you know, my big advice also is, I always tell everyone,

get the passport card too. It's a, okay, here we go. Let's bring John in here. Okay, John. Okay. It's right. Huh? I even see you.

Yeah. at least it's that I can't hear you well I don't know about that what do you think Robbie I think that's going to fly out like a lead cloud there

Oh here we go maybe Or not No not today John your your video is frozen Maybe just go audio only again Yeah Because the video eats up a lot of bandwidth.

All right, try now. Okay, I'm trying. I can not much in the way I watch. All I can say is I'm glad I have earphones. Not for sure. I can hear John. Johnny, there? Yeah, I'm getting like every third or four.

All right, we're talking. Robbie is asking about the power of the U.S. passport. He doesn't have a passport. He wonders what to do. We're talking to the passport you said. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I can understand.

Well, John, just whenever you want to talk, just start talking and I'll shut up. So, all right. All right. So, Robbie, I mean, basically, so you know, there's the passport card that you can use for land crossings, like into Canada and, let's try this. Yeah, there is. From Canada and Mexico, and you can use it for cruise ship destinations in the Caribbean. Definitely get one of those because I always think of things go tits up in the United States. You're going to have that in your pocket. You're not going to carry your passport with you. And if you ever need to hightail it to the Canadian border, you You know, you'll be able to, like in a quick, in a blink of an eye, if there's ever like a national emergency of some sort, which these days is, you know, still unlikely, but more likely than it has been at any point in my life, I think. But just, you know, just get the passport. Don't take for granted that a country you want to go to is going to be visaless just because it's a U.S. ally. You know, France is a U.S. ally, but you now, you don't really need a visa, but de facto is a visa.

Gotcha. That makes sense because the only foreign country I've ever been to was Brazil, and that was a very long time ago. And that was a fun time, but things have changed. F. Huso is saying, thank you for the donation, by the way. So you're telling me there are criminal U.S. gangs wreaking havoc in Venezuela. I bet they have specific gang tattoos. We're talking about the CIA, of course. I'm dying to hear John's thoughts about Venezuela. Johnny, you there? I hear, I hear a fumbling with the mic. John, you there? This is, all right.

All right. So anyway, you know, I think, look, the import of this passport story, Robbie and John, is just that it's going to be, it makes it feel less prestigious to be an American citizen than it used to be. I mean, I've long noted that being a French citizen, which I also am, and I know you hate that, seems more powerful in many respects. Like if you're a French citizen and you're arrested in a foreign country, there's a far greater chance that the French will pull strings with the local authorities and pressure them to get you out, even if you've committed a crime. In the U.S. case, that just doesn't seem to be the case at all. It's kind of like,

well, you're on your own. You have to deal with the U.S. authorities. And if they say, send you to some gulag. Maybe the U.S. consulate will send someone out to visit you in prison to make sure you're not dead, but maybe they won't. And to me, the fact that, you know, you now have to get visas to go to countries where we didn't used to have to makes U.S. citizenship feel less important. You know, I think about, like, my ex-wife, who was Taiwanese, she had a Taiwanese passport, which I think is one of the least powerful passports in the world.

it's like i think it only gets you into about 11 countries and a lot of them are like pacific islands nations like tuvalu and vanuatu um you know it's like there's not many like real countries quote unquote that you can travel to it on although Taiwan's not a real country either so i mean that's true it makes sense that they have a a week passport because it's it's a province rebellion so that's true it is what it is right right that that's right the Taiwan pass but although it's like I always want to wanted a Taiwan passport because I was married to a Taiwanese national. But they're misogynist of Texas dogs there.

You have to, I don't know if they've changed the rule. But at the time, until we got divorced, you had to be, if a Taiwanese man married a foreign woman, she could get Taiwanese citizenship, but a Taiwanese woman cannot confer it to her for her foreign husband. Oh, that's kind of sexist. but no whatever i guess you think patriarchal society much yeah just a little bit but i mean here's now granted you and john shovel a lot more than i have obviously i guess the thing that i don't really understand about the whole thing about visas if we occupy the country by definition we own it so why do we need even need that to begin with like for example germany

germany's our bitch they're on their they're on their knees we occupy them what say do they have i mean i understand i know what you're saying you're exaggerating we have a base there right but like or a you know maybe maybe several i don't even know yeah no no we have several bases there i mean we have like a hundred thousand men there yeah no they are our bitch that's true and technically speaking until very recently we didn't need a visa to go to germany you could just show up but that's not how it is john any luck oh man All right, so I guess we'll leave that there. This is going to be the Ted Robbie show.

It will be. I hope that gets resolved by tomorrow, but yes, it is what it is. Robbie, I'm curious what you're going to have to say about this. John, if you have something to say, seriously, just talk. So, okay, so the Supreme Court has just heard oral arguments about this lawsuit called Louisiana versus Calais. It's about court redistricting slash gerrymandering in the House of Representatives. And they're trying to determine. And under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the act requires that racial composition be taken into account in redistricting. And specifically, that you can't use

redistricting to, for example, chop up contiguous black neighborhoods into separate voting districts in order to separate what would be most likely a majority Democratic vote. So there's been an argument that conservatives have been making for years, which is that the voting rights act is no longer pertinent. Race relations have evolved and progressed a great deal since 1965, and that these requirements that were necessary under Jim Crow are no longer needed. And so it looks like the Supreme Court with its 63 conservative majority is inclined to agree with the Republicans on this point, and then that'll go away. If you look at the map in the New York Times story about this, you see basically a sea of red districts in the south, as you'd expect. But I should also point out that even states like Mississippi and Alabama, which are the most Republicans,

states in the country are still 40% Democratic, right? So it's not like there's no Democrats who live there, like two-fifths of the population is democratic, but they don't have very many congressional districts, many congressmen to represent them. This situation will make it so that there's almost no democratic seats anywhere in the South. There's only going to be like one or two here and there. And so what would be needed then? So it used to be, that like to control the House of Representatives, Democrats roughly needed nationally on average by district a just, you know, obviously 50.1% of the vote or more. Now that that has been sliding and this would probably increase it to Democrats would have to get a 5% lead. In other words,

52.5 or more to 47.45 or less in order to get the House. I mean, that doesn't seem very small D democratic, does it? No, it doesn't. But, I mean, I can also see, so here, I can see both sides of the argument, right? So one, in 1965, the country was majority white. And now that's because of, because of a demographic change, immigration. That's obviously no longer the case. All you have to do is just search, no, demographic change in the United States on Google.

And you see that racial mix, makeup isn't what it was in 1965. Also, I want to point out that the Democrats have California, and they don't mind jurymandering the hell out of that state for their own benefit. So political parties are going to do what they're going to do. It sucks. It's factional politics. And I don't really know how you, I don't know how you fix this because the whole,

no, why he's racist there in the South doesn't really make a whole lot of sense when you have mass immigration of millions of people, both legal and illegal, don't change the demographic makeup. So it doesn't even matter anymore. Well, I mean, for the record, though, I mean, California is doing this in response to the Republicans. And even though both parties have been, you know, have been doing it, there's no question that the record shows that the Democratic parties don't done it a lot less than the Republicans have in recent decades. So it's, you know, I mean, it's, to me, this is an unresolvable problem because, like you said, parties are going to do what parties are going to do. And the thing is, how do you resolve it, right?

How do you come up with a fair district? I mean, part of me thinks like, well, some parts of the country, a district is really obvious. In the district where I grew up, which was the third congressional district in Ohio, it was the county, right? And it's like a very simple thing to understand. There's the Montgomery County. Smackdown, dab in the middle is the county seat, which is Dayton, the major city where I grew up. and then in the middle of and then you have like out the suburbs which are a ring around Dayton then you have farmland out on the hinterlands of the county this is to me a logical congressional district

like you know it's like Montgomery County has a discreet culture that is represented by the third district of Ohio or at least I don't know if they've gerrymandered it since I lived there but that's how it was then you see some of these crazy gerrymandered districts in the in the like places like north carolina or hell here in new york city i mean i don't know how familiar you are with the geography of new york city roby but but okay there is literally like my district the last time i checked is a thin strip of the western manhattan based to the west of uh basically broadway all the way down to the battery and then it jumps across New York Harbor and incorporates parts of Brooklyn. That's Gerald Nadler's district. And I was always

like, these districts have nothing in common with each other, except I guess they're near water, but culturally, politically, they just don't have anything in common. This is a gerrymandered district. And so you could be like, well, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, that's a district. It has a discrete culture. The Upper East Side has a discrete culture. Greenwich Village has a discreet culture. You know, and I think you kind of know it when you see it. I'm sure it's like that where you live as well. Sure. And, you know, but you kind of like, but it's inherently subjective, just like in the same way that here in New York City, people argue about where the East Village begins and ends. You know, like, no, it's really First Avenue. No, it's Avenue. A. No,

it's second avenue. And like, you know, so it's always going to be subjective and people are always going to bitch and moan about it. And there's really no fair way to resolve it. Well, there's not. And as a right winger, Ted, I'm probably about to surprise you. I think that the constitution that we currently have just simply doesn't work. It was designed for 13 colonies that became independent states united in a federal union where- In a very agrarian society. In a great society and the fastest and the longest that you could travel in the day was just like it was for the Romans 2,000 years earlier. Yeah. So, I mean, it just simply doesn't work anymore.

And again, I'm breaking everyone here's brain. And that's why nobody's copying our constitutions anymore, right? Like when they start a new country. Well, it needs, I mean, honestly, it needs to be replaced. It simply does not work for a transcontinental nation and in a modern age. now how do you now here's now here's the question for that if you do this then how do you guarantee things like freedom of speech you have people out there saying well you have freedom of speech unless it's hate speech i said there's no such thing as hate speech speech is speech so then how do you reconcile that how do you reconcile the second amendment i'm opposed to given the federal government any kind of monopoly on force well then you have people on the on the uh i use the term left for just for grins and giggles i guess We're going to say, well, then you've got to do something about gun violence. So, I mean, I don't know how you reconcile those differences.

Not to mention, here's the thing, too, right? So, I mean, and I don't know if the law or a constitution can ever resolve this issue. But, you know, the U.S. Constitution basically is we've got a government. And the government lets us have rights and privileges, which so, and by definition, if rights are God-given, then they're not given by the government. they're God-given. They're provided by, you know, we're entitled to them just by virtue of being humans or by being American citizens or whatever. And so when you talk about like gun rights, well, the U.S. government in its infinite wisdom

has decided that like some people in some states, now recently all states, can have guns, but only certain kinds of guns, right? Like you can't have a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. And yet it would be so fun. it's like so so why are we not allowed to have military weapons ah because that wouldn't make sense so it's the politics in true i mean and i kind of agree with it but it doesn't really make sense constitutionally or legally well just you know again i mean you have to kind of go back you know to what to the the intention of the constitution was when the constitution was first

ratified it was a restraint on federal power not state power that's why states have their own constitutions. So, no, for example, the second amendment, what that was in terms of this conversation said that the federal government could not go in and take, and cannot go in and take away the guns and say someone in Alabama or Virginia. On the flip side, though, if the state of Virginia decided through its constitution said no, private ownership of guns is not going to be allowed, the original intent of the constitution, that was that state's right because it was a independent sovereign state that that kind of thinking died in 1865 so this whole no this whole idea of a supreme federal government was completely foreign to the to the to the drafters of the

constitution and i mean that's so i mean this this low role that we're on right now i don't see how it gets resolved and it doesn't get look i do say look it's right now i'm saying i'm about what i'm about to say is being belied by the current political situation in france where literally the current constitution is on the ropes and may be tossed in favor of a new constitution. But I will give the French this, right? They have a constitutional convention annually, and they get together and they amend it annually in a number of ways. So they recognize that, like, things need to be tinkered with.

We don't, we can't, we can't amend our constitution in any meaningful way. I mean, it's too hard. I mean, we can't even pass the Equal Rights Amendment. to say that, you know, women are equal to men. We can't even do that. Every other modern country has that. It's bizarre. Well, I just, it's just complicated about what I just now said, though.

I mean, the system that we currently have just simply does not work. Like, for example, this whole idea of having districts, yeah, it is a idea to have representatives based on states based on population. But why not just do a census? And then each state just has, like, Like, say, in case of California, I don't know how many, how many seats. I like that idea. Yeah, I think California has about 45.

Yeah. Then what you do is just, you know, you have, you have how many people are going to run for states, and then the people who win the, who win, no, who win those. Yeah, then they get their, then they get the seat. What's the point of even if having a district? I understand counties, because, you know, you have a county sheriff who's a supreme law enforcement of, of, of that particular area. Or in the state house, you can see why they need to be represented by districts,

because the districts are like many states within the state. Right. But as far as a federal system goes, it doesn't make any sense to me. I agree with you. That's a great idea. I never thought about that. Robbie, that's fantastic. I totally agree with that.

If you so, thank you for the other contribution. Don't vote for either Democrats or Republicans. Well, that's what I do. I don't vote for Democrats or Republicans either. So I have a question before you said, I'm going to kind of bounce off. By the way, before you say that, just for people who are just joining us and wondering, Whereas John, Robbie West is sitting in right now because we're trying to get John, John's in Mexico, in rural Baja, California, and he's got like no signal strength whatsoever.

So we're trying to get him back. But in the meantime, we're going to try to keep the needle moving, as they say. Go ahead, Robbie. Yep, for sure. So a couple of people have made comments over on YouTube. I just want to, I'm just curious about your take on this. Great. For example, you know, talking about, you know, the Second Amendment specifically.

My whole idea about it is not so much and so much about guns and ownership. It's about denying the federal government or any government a monopoly on force. For example, if you support the Black Lives Matter movement and you oppose the militarized police, which I do, then it's kind of hard to do that if you don't have any way of pushing back because they have a monopoly on force. And if you believe that you have a systemically racist government, which a lot of people do, I do. How do you push back on that then if that government has all the guns? Mousy Tong said it best. Political power grows out of the barrel of a rifle. So if you have no guns, how do you push back?

Well, that's right. I mean, it's kind of like, I mean, basically 99% of the time, that's the situation. The government has a monopoly on, on military power and the force of the police. Look what's going on right now with ice, right? Chicago is resisting ice. They're throwing things at them. They're trolling them. They're following them around. But the point is, ICE has the advantage because they have the weapons. Now, the only exception in a historical moment, as you know, Robbie, is during a revolution. We know that every revolution has involved a popular uprising against a superior armed governmental force. And then what that usually entails is the collapse of the former, of the outgoing regime. And it internally starts to crumble.

and often members of the military basically refuse to fire on their fellow citizens because they start to feel more compassion and alignment politically and otherwise emotionally with their fellow citizens than their bosses who are telling them to kill their fellow citizens. So that's the only exception. And revolutions obviously don't happen very often. In the U.S., I don't know, we obviously only had one real one in 250 years. I would argue that, you know, the civil war comes close to qualifying. Well, there's a failed revolution.

Right. It's a revolution, but it's a failed one. Most revolutions do fail, too, or they turn into something completely like the French revolution. It's succeeded, but it ended up destroying itself. So, correct. I mean, was it better than what you had? My arguments, no.

Well, I mean, yeah, no, I mean, the French Revolution is a very complicated story, of course. I always like the Jean-Lie quote where he met Richard. Nixon for the first time. I'm sorry, Henry Kissinger. And Kissinger, you know, asked him, like, so what did you think of the French Revolution? And Joanne Laiz famously said, it's too early to tell. Yeah, sure.

It's so great. No, which is accurate. So we're still trying to get John back. In the meantime, let's talk about Venezuela, shall we? Sure. So a couple days ago, Donald Trump announced yet a number of, a number of, A fifth boat strike, total of 26 or 27 Venezuelans, depending on how you count them, have been killed in boats off the coast of Venezuela.

Supposedly, these are drug runners going to southern Caribbean, like places like Trinidad. And supposedly, they were members of Trende, Aragua. The most recent strike, Trump didn't even say what gang or what organization these guys are supposedly in. And I do have a question that's come up before, Robbie. And this question, though, it's been nagging at me. And that's sort of the way my brain works. Sometimes it's like a little man, like to quote Edward G. Robinson in double indemnity, is just bugging me. And my little man is asking me like, Ted, why are there so many people on these drug boats?

Drug boats usually are filled. John pointed this out. filled to the brim with, you know, drugs, you know, and, like, I weigh 215 pounds or so, and I'm not worth nearly as much as 215 pounds of cocaine. So, you know, why would you bring, like, I don't know, even a skinny 160-pound Venezuelan, why would you bring him on a boat, you know, why would you need six or eight guys on one of these boats? You wouldn't, right? I mean, so they're probably, so are they, are they really drug runners?

If I had a hazard a guess, I would say no. I mean, that's, of course, that's what it is. I'm just some, I'm just some hick here in Montana who plays on computers and kind of read stuff for a living, but I mean, if I had a hazard a guess, then no. I mean, that's not how you'd do it. And besides, even if it was, you don't break the law to enforce the law. Like, I have no problem at all with putting the army on the border. as you know, and then just going Vlad the impaler on people crossing the border illegally.

I have no problem with that. Well, a lot of countries do that. Yeah, well, it's our border. I've seen what that looks like. I mean, the border, like China has thousands of miles of border that are very, it's hard to believe anyone could ever cross them. You know, I mean, like, I remember I traveled from Kyrgyzstan into China, and this was quite the border crossing. So if memory serves, there were 12, you'd leave Kyrgyzstan, then you'd drive through 12 kilometers of no man's land, which then you arrive at half a kilometer of minefield, which is swept frequently, and then you get up to the, you arrive finally at the border crossing. At that border, there is, you know, obviously there's guards.

guards are stationed at watchtowers every half kilometer with snipers. There are also dogs that are vicious, bitey border dogs. I don't know how they avoid getting blown up by the mines, but somehow they do. And then on the other side of the border in China, it's the same routine, half a mile of minefield and then 12 kilometers of no man's land. I mean, you ain't crossing that border. you ain't well that's just the thing right i mean you don't have a nation if you don't have a border and one of the foundational and i think this is something that people on the left and people on

the right like like like we are can agree on is that the government's first duty is to determine who gets to live in a country i mean if you don't if if anyone could just walk in and just settle and say okay this piece of lamb and that belongs to me by definition you're not in a country because citizenship has to mean something where you live has to mean something language culture history that has to mean something yeah that's what the definite i agree with you i mean look that's the definition of a country right is a it's a defined territory that people um that people say this is ours and outside and if you if you want to come in here you have to get our permission right that's that's what it is that's what it that's that's totally what it is and

And if you don't have that, then you literally don't have a nation state. You have something. I don't know what, but you don't have that. Well, you have a failed state. You have Libya or you have Zimbabwe. I mean, that's what you have. I mean, put me wrong. Show me any nation state in history.

In 6,000 years of human history that was actually a functioning nation that had functioning institutions, a working economy that had open borders. I can't think of one. and what and what trump is doing in the caribbean is totally illegal i agree with people with the trump's critics on this it's illegal it's immoral it's wrong it should not be happening i'm i'm team ted and team manila on this i mean my question is is where's congress they could come off the funding for it why are they doing their jobs they're not but congress does do its job anymore that's the problem that started back on obama you know why do you have congress if you have a president that has a pen and a phone and that's been the that's been the that's

been the model for the last three. That is, no, I'm totally, totally. Sorry, I'm distracted here with the tech stuff here. No, you're, no, you're good. I'm trying to keep track with the text, with the chat and stuff. Yeah, I'm just, yeah, it's hard for us to do it all. It's like, it really is a three-man operation for a two-man show. It really just, it just is.

And by the way, if you're just joining us, where we are currently Johnless due to his crappy connection out there in Mexico. Maybe we'll go to war over that. So, okay, so Venezuela, so now. So Goddeth says that the British Empire didn't I have borders. I beg to differ, the British Empire, they would send you to the next world if you tried to violate their borders. Read about the great game, if you doubt me. you know i was going to say i mean certainly there would you i mean there are places that were

like trading capitals in the you know for example and on the silk road where anybody could come and go they didn't really uh you know but they had city they had walled cities they did have guards they did control things they had emirs right i mean it's uh Tibet had ferocious borders It was almost impenetrable until the latter part of the 19th century, at least to non-Tibetans. Sure. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess a good example of a non-nation state situation is Central Asia before the, before the Tsarist expansion. Those were just basically nomads running around like the Kyrgyz, the Kazakhs, the Tajiks, and so on, the Uzbeks. And they sort of all mixed around and they just, you know, basically brought their, their, their, their, their,

to feed wherever there was food, those were not to find nation states. Sure. Yeah, and by nation state, I'm talking about, no, a, a geographic area that had a, again, had a strong central government, some kind of institution, like think Rome, think Byzantium, think Egypt. I think you could, you could include the, the, the Aztecs as well. Yeah, yeah. No, like, no, no China and of its different variations.

I mean, there are times where China was a unified empire called the Celestial Empire. Other times, it was just a failed collection of warring, of a warring tribe states. It's just, it is what it is, right? But at the, but at the end of the day, though, China is still China because the majority of people there are Chinese with a, with at least a common language or the common culture. Sure, there's a bunch of different dialects. It's a huge place. But, I mean, the idea of what it means to be Chinese. China is the same. The idea of what it means to be Mexican is the same.

Right. That's what I'm saying. This whole thing, the Trump's saying, well, I'm going to secure the border, but blowing a hell out of speedboats in the Caribbean, it's not securing the border. You secure the border by telling the cartels of Mexico, if you keep doing this, I will send you to the next world. That's how you do it. You'd do it at home. So, but these are random people, right? Sure. It's a criminal act. It is definitely a criminal act. And even if they were drug dealers, I mean, the thing, too, right? Like, the administration probably knows who these people are. The fact that they don't want to tell us or Congress or even a limited group of Congress, like, you know, they had the gang of four that they used to bring in for briefings for things like this in the Senate,

the fact that they don't want to brief our elected representatives at all, it's really chilling. It is. And all Congress has to do is cut off funding. That's all they have to do. Seriously, it's the easiest thing to do and the question is for us this is one of those things that people on the left right now they have cut off funding right I mean there's we have a government shutdown funding is cut off

well for some things but not others I mean we're obviously still able to go and blow up speedboats in the Caribbean there's money for that the military is getting paid because of some executive order where Trump ordered them to shake out the couch cushions to find out to find whatever they could that they

weren't sending to Israel and Ukraine Yeah, of course. I mean, there's a lot of overlap between the populist right and the populist left that people could agree on if people get through their thick heads that if you look and sound like me and I'm not your enemy if you're on the left and vice versa. There is common ground we're able to work on on this kind of stuff. And you're able to do it by having civil debate. And let's sell the big issues first.

And then if we can settle on gun rights and abortion and gay marriage or everything else, let's just try to actually secure the country first. I think that's a good place to start. Definitely seems like a plan to me. And then we've got to talk, I guess we have time to talk about one more story unless any of the chatters who I'm not able to see right now.

So I apologize to the Rumblers and the YouTubers because I'm not able to see you guys and keep the show going at the same time and try to get John back all at the same time. But we're going to try to fix all that. An engagement for me is hard because y'all keep seeing me looking over the right. It's not because I am a right winger, which I am. It's because I'm doing my day job at the same time.

So I'm watching the chat, doing the back end, and trying to keep the needle moving. So we're not trying to ignore y'all. It's just a bit of a shit show today. Yeah, it really is. And it might be again tomorrow in the interest of full disclosure. I don't know, maybe tomorrow we should run that episode that we taped with Jake Tapper. That might be the move, right? I'll check in with John and we'll text if we can get in touch with him.

That's a fair warning to everybody. Tomorrow might be a taper. John will be back stateside on Monday, so hopefully that'll work out. Oh, here's one for you, Ted. I'm going to just jump in rudely. Fraz is pointing out that, but no, Trump wants to build his triumphal arc in D.C. What are your thoughts on that? Oh, my God, yeah.

Well, you know, he does, I mean, it's going to be. be hard for me to top my revulsion at that with the fact that he's going to do that super that ultimate fighting thing at the White House on July 4th of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next year. So that's going to be hard to beat. You know, I'm a little bit, I have to admit, I have a soft spot for triumphal arches, you know, and look, let's face it, a Democratic president's never going to sign. up for anything like that um it's very roman it's kind of like it's kind of goche of course the design of the one that i've seen online kind of sucks but you know i don't i have to admit i can't really

summon any outrage for it i mean Donald trump is a silly silly man and this is a silly idea but uh you know so what like there are there are worst things what do you think ravi i think he's just going full augustus i mean And when Augustus became the emperor of Rome, people didn't realize that the Republic had fell until after the end of his reign because he kept all the trappings. That's all this is, in my opinion. It's just, it's just more symbolism. It's just, it's trying to keep up the veneer. It's trying to make people think that elections continue to matter, especially in the current system that we have.

And it's just, he's going for the symbolism, but the thing is, though, symbolism doesn't really work if you have a popular. that can't agree on anything. And that is the thing that Augustus accomplished, right? I mean, he came in after the brutal Roman Civil War, and he did unify Rome. I mean, he created an idea of Rome that lasted for 400 years or more. And, you know, and Rome, as we know it, I mean, he's kind of like an amazing dude, really. Yeah, for sure. And I agree with you.

I mean, I think, look, I think that's the problem with the Republicans at this, and Trump and they're trying to unify the country under this sort of whole like, we're all patriots, we're all the same, we're all Americans, but you can't do that and say that half the country are scum and anti-American, you know, traitors. You know, if you had, you can do that in a country like where you scapegoat 4% of the population, but you can't do, you can't scapegoat half the population. and then claim you have any unity whatsoever? Well, it's worse than that. I mean, you can't try to unite the country and what it means to be an American whenever you import millions of people every year legally and illegally. I mean, that by definition dilutes the culture. Immigration is a thing and it has a good side, I guess, and it definitely has a bad side. The bad side is that immigration depresses wages and it dilutes a nation culturally.

That's a statement of fact. That's not a racist thing to say. it's just it is true the reason why Japan is Japanese is because it's majority of Japanese if if you brought in 50% Haitians into Japan Japan as we know it will no longer exist you have fewer dogs and cats probably no who could say but one could but one could definitely say though that Japan would not look like Japan if even 30% of the population was from Haiti so

to me it doesn't make any sense about building the symbolism and trying to rally around the flag whenever it doesn't mean what it means to legacy Americans like me. That's a problem as well. And I guess we only have a few minutes left, but I don't want to leave without talking about this story about the digital dark ages. So at Cambridge University in England,

archivists are basically trying to rescues. you a ton of information that they got from Stephen Hawking, from his estate. And his papers, as you would imagine, considering that he worked a lot in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s include things like floppy disks and jazz discs and zip discs and all sorts of stuff like that. And the archive, it's an interesting story, right? The archivists are worried that they're, they have a bunch of challenges here. First of all, it's hard to get the devices that can still read these things, then some of them are covered with mold and they have to be like scraped away without hoping that you don't scratch the magnetic, you know, tape the magnetism off.

The magnetic rot that we talked about at the beginning of the store, right, at the beginning of the show, data rot is a real thing. You know, I mean, basically, look, this brings up for me a much bigger issue than just like, oh, can't we, you know, why can't we get information off these things? the book is probably like one of the most sturdy forms of information storage that's ever been existed that's ever existed because it's like you know even if half of it's been burned away or sogged you can read the other half right like digital media is really dangerous because if one zero or one one is gone out of billions on the same piece of information it's all gone right

You can either, like, watch a DVD and have it be perfect, or you can't watch it at all. You know, a CD, if a CD is fucked up, like, you know, you may not be able to listen to that CD at all, even though it has a minor glitch. And the same thing is true. We've all had, if you're old enough to remember, I know you are, the floppies, and the click of death, the click, click, click, click. You know you're not going to be able to get the data off that thing. Robbie, all of our stuff now, it's in the cloud. It's all digitized, right? Analog information is gone.

Are the archivists of the future just not even going to be able to know anything about who we were or what we did or what we liked or what we were like? To be honest with you, the entire idea of having a digital archive scares the hell of me more than anything. because the beauty about a book is that no one can censor a book that I have in my house I can go through and I can read that book I can go to the library

but if I go to find the book I can read it whereas what like how I have with you with chat GPT they erased you you don't even exist as a person anymore so if you go through take that a step further

you can wipe out books and just suppressed thought and it terrifies me it's not a good idea. We need more books. We need physical hard copies. We need analog, yeah, we need analog backups at least, right? But, I mean, in reality, it's not going to happen.

And think about, it's also funny, right? Like, we've never taken as many photographs in our, in any time in US, in America, in world, in the industry. Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously everybody, there are billions of photos being taken every day on iPhones, right? But nobody keeps them. They stay on your phone. If you lose your phone, you, you lose those. those pictures.

Nobody ever goes back and, like, processes them and then occasionally prints them out and creates a photo album. They're just gone. I mean, they're going to be gone. Like everything where we're recording like crazy, we're not keeping anything. No, I completely agree.

And it's not a good thing. You know, it comes, for example, with what's going on in Gaza, no, but the genocide there. you have you have a handful of oligarchs that control what can be of what can be shared what can't be and you're completely at the mercy of Elon Musk and people of his ilk and said this is offensive this is anti-Semitic this is bad this is a social pathogen and it's not a good it's not a good thing it's not a good look now I got to jump over so I get the TMI show ready Ted So you'll be on your own here for just a second.

No, you're muted. Sorry about that. I was just talking, apologizing for the tech glitches we had here on D-Program with Ted Rall and John Kyriaku. John will re-attempt tomorrow. We will, if not, it'll be a Robbie and Ted show again in all likelihood. We'll see what happens there. Thank you for bearing with us. Please like, follow, and share the show.

If you're watching on YouTube, we are remonitized so you can re-donate. You don't have to worry about the PayPal anymore. Stay tuned if you'd like to the TMI show with me and Manila Chan. Manila Chan is stateside, so we shall be able to hear her. John, I hope you're able to hear this in some form or hear about it. But anyway, stay away from the tarantulas, and thanks and take care. Thank you.