DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - It’s Piracy Time! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss: • The U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, a dramatic escalation in President Trump’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela. Is this why we’re spending $900 million a year on defense? • The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday in a highly contentious decision. The split among policymakers suggested that the central bank may be done lowering borrowing costs for the time being unless there are clear signs that the labor market is weakening further. Meanwhile, President Trump is trying to persuade the public that the economy is strong. • The University of Alabama has suspended the publication of two student-run magazines — one primarily focused on Black students and another on women’s issues — citing recent federal guidance against diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses. • Australia’s landmark new social media age law is set to go into effect, barring anyone under 16 from holding an account as the government moves to enforce one of the world’s strictest online safety measures.Scott Stantis, cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune, is filling in for John.

Ahoy, Métis. You're watching the D. You're watching D program with Ted Rall and John Kiriaku sitting over there in John's seat. Well, not literally, but in John's spot, in this version of the Brady Bunch opening theme, is Scott Stantis, editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. John Kirooku is out today. He'll be back tomorrow. We're here Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Eastern time, and we will be back again at 9 o'clock Eastern time with John. As I said, tomorrow we're doing something different.

It's going to be a call-in show via the Discord server. We'll bring in producer Robbie in a little bit to just discuss how that's going to work. So you can call me or John or me and John and talk to us in real time. That is only a Rumble exclusive. So YouTube will not be broadcasting live at the usual time 9 a.m. tomorrow. We will feed up a taped version of the call-in show later in the day as soon as we can. I'll probably get it up around, I would imagine, by 12 noon Eastern. So we apologize for that.

This is just trying something new. This might be further impetus to get over to Rumble. As always, if you have any comments, questions for Scott or myself, please put them in the Rumble or the YouTube chat and away we go. So Scott, thanks you so much for filling in for John this morning. Always great to see you. And just another bit of housekeeping, Scott and I will be back in two hours doing the DMZ America podcast. We will have our guest animated political cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Mark Fiore.

He's the only, I think, animated editorial cartoonist who have ever won the Pulitzer. sir. So he's the first and the last. Walt Handelsman won for his animation. Oh, that's right. Sorry, I apologize. He was first. Mark was first, though. And so, you know, and others, it's, so it's an interesting space that he's in. And, you know, we'll check in with him about how all things about satirizing Trump and lots of other stuff and the news of the day and whatever we want to talk about. Okay, so lots to talk about today. You noted my Ahoy Méti.

thing in honor of a piracy on the high seas. It hasn't really been enough for Trump to blow up Venezuelan boats. Now we're seizing oil tankers. Not to mention Venezuelans. And Venezuelans. That's right. So the U.S. basically boarded an oil tanker. It's not, I don't believe it's flagged as a Venezuelan tanker, but this tanker apparently has been used to ship lots of stuff. off, lots of oil, and including from Iran and also Venezuela. And basically, the legal justification being given is that this is sanctioned product. And that obviously this is just, you know, a huge, this is a, you know, another attempt to put pressure on the president, on President Nicolas Maduro. The Federal Reserve Bank, it lowered interest rates by one quarter of a point yesterday.

This was the most split vote in memory by the Board of Governors. And basically, they can't decide whether the problem is inflation or the weak job market or both or something else. They're all over the place here. Yes. And we've been here before. We have. We have been here before. University of Alabama, in your neck of the woods, where you used to be the cartoonist at the Birmingham News,

the University of Alabama has suspended the publication of two student-run magazines. One focused on black students and another one on women because they violate DEI, anti-D-EI policies issued by the Trump administration. And finally, last but not least, Australia has its new law is about to go into effect in which basically no one under today, I guess it already has because of the time difference. Yeah, teens in Australia, I'm not watching this right now. If you believe in a, like, time zones and, you know, circular Earth and all that crap.

What a lie. Anyway, the, oh, hey, YouTube, I'm kidding here. You know, YouTube actually will take you down if they think you're spreading misinformation. Anyway, so the no flat earthers here. Australia is, so if you're under 16 years old, you're not allowed to use social media at all in Australia. And we'll talk about that, whether that's effective or a good idea or whatever. And I'm going to check in and just see if, okay, so I think we have some, I'm looking at the YouTube chat right now. I'm going to wait for Robbie to put up the comments.

That's basically, or maybe I'll just do that right now because I want to. to be sure that I'm up to date here. Okay. Okay. It's not piracy. It's privateering. Yes, he's right. They're right.

We stand corrected. Yes, our apologies. What's the difference between privateering and piracy? Privateering was literally sanctioned piracy. A privateer was hired by a lot of times, either Britain or Spain. Or France, right? France did it too. Yeah, there were French pirates as well,

privateers. And they were pirates in the governments of these would say, okay, you leave our ships alone. You go after the Spanish ships. We won't mess with you. You know, you go do your thing and obstruct or, you know, and disrupt the Spanish supply chain. And, you know, you can keep what you find.

And that's the difference. Piracy was just sort of freelance. Like, you know, you and I are. You and I are pirate cartoonists now. We're no, neither of us is on staff or working for someone. So we're not privateers. We're just freelance. We're just pirates.

That's pretty hilarious. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, so this is a, this is totally true. I mean, we could talk about Australia first. We don't have to talk about anything in any particular order. Yes, if you're just joining us, that Scott Stantis is our guest host, John Giriaku, back tomorrow.

NPC3PO says that VPN prices. in Australia are going to skyrocket. Yeah, so let's talk. So we start with Australia because, you know, censorship is obviously an issue near and dear to us. So, I mean, you know, John, I mean, Scott, you asked me earlier today when you put up this story in the chat, you know, that, you know, what did I think of it?

And I said, well, you know, I mean, I hate social media. And so I kind of think it has a toxic effect on young people in particular. I think it has a toxic effect on everyone. Yes. But, and I think it's done a lot of harm, more harm than good overall. So I have no problem with this except for the fact that I don't think it's going to work. And you ask me why. And I said, kids always find a way.

And I'm reminded of, you know, like the, you know, the horny eight, nine, well, I wasn't horny. The curious eight-year-old I was and the horny 14-year-old I was in search of porn. And I found a way, you know, it's like my friend's dad's had it. favorite. We used to have a Boy Scout, I was in Boy Scouts, and we had a newspaper and magazine recycling drive. And so people would drive up with their station wagon full of old, full of newspapers and magazines for us to recycle. And there was always a father who would come up with like a giant pile of penthouses or playboys. And we were like, yay. I mean, those just fall right into our lap, there's always a helpful, you know, there's always a clerk, you know,

a scummy clerk at a cigar store who would sell you a magazine. I mean, you people would lie about their age if they looked, you know, if you had a friend who was 16 but looked 18 or could pass, you'd get them to go buy it. I mean, the point is VPNs, you know, which of course make it look like you're in another country. Those will be a workaround for anybody who wants to do this. There was a story. I think we talked about it here on the show a couple of days ago where a girl who was wanted to go do a workaround, basically the screener asked her for her photo, I guess on the, I guess it's designed to facially recognize youth. So I would never pass. I wouldn't, you know, people think I'm so youthful. I could be 15. But,

If, but anyway, she just, she just held up a picture. She just went over and took her phone over to a family photo of her mother, clicked it. And it was like, that'd be an old lady, done. I mean, you know, I mean, how can you, how can you really verify that an internet user is over 16? You can't. I'm not sure what the technical aspect of this bill said and how they monitor it. And I suspect they're going to put pressure on. on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram or TikTok or whatever the latest, you know, the social media

platform is and put constraints on them. So if we're going to, and that may be how they enforce this, which would be the smart way to enforce it because, you know, hundreds of thousands of Australian teenagers trying to go on social media, you're not going to be really have the numbers or the, your own interior architecture to monitor that. I we need to learn more about that but can it be a fact it is a problem it's a I mean it's a and Ted you're absolutely right it's a problem for everybody my god I go out you know go out to dinner with friends or family and I look at tables of people who are not talking to you they're

on their damn phones and I'll let me let me hand this over to our our viewers and listeners um look at someone especially if they're under 50 although I found that that's not the case as much anymore but just just for shits and giggles let's say under 50 and they're on their phone and they put it down and they Ted they can be on a date clearly obviously on a date and then watch them and look at your clock look at your watch and they start showing signs of addiction like they start shaking I'm not kidding they start getting very twitchy and within two and a half to three minutes, they will be looking at their phone again. I guarantee it. And that's addiction. That's not, you know, just some, and it's not rare. And this isn't just Scott talking that, you know,

I'm going to a restaurant in, you know, Hoover, Alabama. This is everywhere that I go. Go on and Ted, you travel with some frequency on airplanes. Now many of them offer texting. But did you ever watch someone before they offered that service? Have you ever? watch people on those planes? I can remember, this is how old Scott is, when people used to smoke on airplanes. And then they banned smoking. They had the smoking section and the non-smoking section, which hilariously was partitioned by a curtain because nicotine and other, which you must have, because you have lung issues. You must have hated traveling back then. Oh, my God. I was miserable. Yeah. And I mean, you were better off. If you were in first class, you know, the smoking section

was in the back. So the, you know, if you were in first class, you probably didn't really directly encounter the full effect of the fumes, but obviously the air circulates in the cabin, right? But I was, you know, flying coach always. And typically, like, near the back row, restaurants were the same way, Scott, right? Where it was just like they had a separate smoking section,

maybe six feet away from the non-smoking section. But then they banned. smoking on airplanes. And these people, you could see the smokers. They were demonstrating the exact same behavior I just described for people on social media. They get very twitchy, very snippy, very clearly agitated. And that's what social media has done to us. And this damn brick we carry around with us.

One of our colleagues, who I loathe, Art Spiegelman, who is a cartoonist who did mouse, graphic novelist. He is a famous cigarette addict. He got caught smoking in the bathroom of a transatlantic... Yeah. Not vaping even? No, no, no. This was maybe about, I'd say about 10, 12 years ago.

Yeah, flying between France and New York and he couldn't make it. He's just, he couldn't do it. And yeah, you know, basically, you do see these people raw-dogging it now. Like, they can't even distract it. distract themselves with a movie or a, or a book. They can't, they're just like literally, like you said, they're literally like this. Or they're staring at the map, just waiting for like, okay, I'm going to, this two shall pass. I will get there.

It's the reason I stopped going to movies is people on their social media. I went to go see, this is how long ago it was. Oh, what was that awful Cameron animated semi, you know, CGI film about, you know, Paradise? Avatar. Avatar. So you saw Avatar 2? This was recent? No, no, this is how long ago was Avatar. And the kids sitting next to me could not not text. And I asked him to stop. I said, hey, listen, that lights are really bright. Can you not do that? It's against the rules. They tell you not to. Well, sure. But have you ever known an addict to follow the rules? I mean, that's.

They can't. It's part of their charm. So will this work in Australia? Yeah, there's going to be workarounds VPN like the the commenter said VPN sales are going to go through the roof for kids in Australia to get around this. But that's going to add a level of a firewall that's going to be not as easy to climb. So by the way, I looked up how this works. So basically they have a thing. You're going to love this.

You're going to die laughing. So this is called Kid ID. And the reason I'm saying you're going to laugh is because it's a company based in Singapore. Okay. So you know you can try. trust it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, you can have, there's three methods you can prove to say that you're over 16.

One, a yes, no message is sent from your bank using Connect ID. So that's not privacy violating at all. Or you can scan in your government issued ID card, in other words, a passport, driver's license, et cetera. And KID will scan and validate that with the government. So it's great because the government will know about your predilections on Snapchat or whatever. Or you can take what most kids do is they take a selfie and KID estimates an age range, which is, I guess, what's been going on. And there's been lots of mistakes, as you can say.

So for, you know, so for example, so like people who like scrunched, my son opened TikTok this morning and received this message. The social, that your age is estimated to be 18. he is 11 my 13 year old son passed the face scan by hiding his teeth and scrunching up his face it basically figures he's over 30 plus he is 10 he looks like 10 my son is almost 16 and was kicked off snapchat already but my daughter who is 14 hasn't been asked to verify her age we know multiple children who are 13 who passed the face ID test you get the idea Yeah, I get it. I mean, there are people who look younger and people who look older and that one girl you mentioned earlier who just took, you know, walked her phone over to a picture of mom. She didn't even say, hey, mom, look at me.

Yeah, just, well, why? That would incur human communication and interaction. And that just can't happen in this day and age, Ted. That's one of the problems with social media. That's what it fights against. I'm you know I'm kind of you know as someone who leans libertarian I'm kind of torn by this oh good I wish that I do wish that parents acted responsibly first off my my my my kids have there and we have our first grandson and they're being extremely conscientious about screens they don't watch TV with them they don't watch movies he's just turned two they're saving that until I think he's three to see his first feature film I suggested, you know, the Godfather, one and two. That's an excellent film.

Not, don't just don't go to Godfather three. It's going. No, it's awful. It's awful. Yeah. Stop it too. But also, I think they're absolutely right. We go out to dinner with this kid and he actually talks to us and we talk to him.

And he's looking around his environment. He's looking at the table. He's looking at the food that comes. He's making decisions. He's talking about why he likes things and why he doesn't like things versus the conversation that most families around us are having, which are not exactly. I was just, I'm stunned.

I'm stunned at family. When you go out to dinner, you mention your son. I mean, do you guys, I mean, you pull out your phone from time to time. First of all, full disclosure, your Ted and I use our phone because it's part of our jobs. And as freelancers, we have to be on top of things. And so an editor may try to reach out to us or, you know, there's something that we need, but it's not all-consuming.

Ted and I did not grow up with this technology. So I think it's probably easier for us. But when you guys go out, do you, is it phones away and talk? Or can you? So it's been an adjustment period. Now it's phones away and talk. you know, as the adult, as the father, I set the tone. And so I put, you know, and I used to be pretty bad.

I used to be like, you know, like just scrolling until the food game, right? And we both would be. And then at a certain point, we didn't even have a discussion about it. I just realized I needed to just, you know, step up and just engage in conversation and make an effort. And, you know, once you do it a little bit, it just becomes natural. and, you know, it's more civilized. And, you know, the thing is, I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be that person at the restaurant with my kid.

It's just, it's not cool. I mean, look, the thing about this, I mean, I think the purpose of this band, though, is not to just make sure we all, you know, have better conversations, you know, at restaurants. I think, I mean, you know, look, the fact is, you know, kids have committed suicide because they've been, because of cyberbullying.

This mostly takes place on social media. It's particularly bad for girls, but not exclusively. There's, you know, obviously there's, you know, child predators and all sorts of evil motherfuckers on online. I mean, how many parents who have a kid, you know, have had to have lost, you know, hundreds or even thousands of dollars because their kid ran up some crazy bill because of a scam, right? So, you know, so basically it's like, you know, it's a treacherous territory for anybody. so I can see what I think society has an interest in protecting kids I just don't think I just don't I think the whole nature of the internet though makes it impossible to verify people's ages because of VPNs and stuff like that so I just think it's it's just like sort of impossible I mean I guess I would rather saw it almost go supply side and and regulate the the social media companies themselves and make it so that they don't like you know there's several one of the Like one of the commenters said, oh, Cobra 180, thank you.

Social media is designed to be addictive and young people don't have the mental resilience yet to resist. That's exactly right. I mean, I don't think it's just kids either, by the way, but let's begin there because we've lost a generation. How many schools now across the nation? How many high schools have banned cell phones during school hours? Oh, well, not enough. I mean, honestly, they all should be. A. Lee, A. Ali is saying, even so, why does the government have the right to govern what children can and can't do?

Isn't that the responsibility or right of the parent? I mean, the government regulates tells kids that they have to go to school, whether the parent wants them to or not. They can't drink alcohol. They can't drive a car. Right. They can't own a gun until maybe, it depends on the state, right? But at least 16 in most cases. There's all sorts of things the government tells kids they can't do. or must do right because they're a protected class they're because they're they're an at-risk class that's why you can tell that now you know should you leave it to the parents you should but

my god there's some shitty parents out there true true true true okay side issue real quick Ted and it's a yes or no short answer but i've noticed lately that i teenager is driving around with muscle cars and big old SUVs are you seeing that where you live yeah no especially well i mean I guess just given the fact that most cars are now SUVs that are sold in the U.S. Yeah, I mean, look, okay, full disclosure, my first car was a muscle car. But in my defense, what was it? It was, okay, so it was a 74 Nova, but with a custom V8 Corvette engine. Ooh.

And it was, it had bench seats, it was sweet, it was blue, I miss it. It had bench seats. Yes. So I'm so right. You'll notice that guys our age will say bench seats several times. You know what that means. Yeah, you know why bench seats are important. They are tray important.

Yeah, my first car was a 68. Mine was not. Mine was a 1968, Rambler American. Three on the tree, baby. That's a great car, though. It could. I bought it for 25 bucks. I sold it a year and a half later for 100,

and it made it between Madison, Wisconsin and Denver, and Denver, Colorado three times. So do you know, do you know the singer-songwriter, Ben Vaughn? sure so ben vaughn recorded an entire album in a 65 rambler really it's i think it's called rambler 65 and it's actually one of his better ones yeah that's like a legendary album isn't it um i don't know but i mean but you know he's great he's one of those underrated unsung undersung heroes for sure um by the way Robbie if we got like a oh i like Robbie's comment here okay meanwhile the government will let a kid get sex changes and mutilate themselves.

Fairpoint. Don't forget the debate about, you know, abortion and that parental notification. The kid wants to get tonsillectomy. The kid wants to get an aspirin. I'm not kidding. An aspirin from the school nurse. They have to get your permission as the parent. But, you know, terminating a pregnancy.

Cutting off their dick. Well, actually, they do have to get your permission to cut off their dick. But to start wearing your dress at school. changing in their locker or whatever um yeah all right well we'll talk about we have other stuff more to to get to and we should probably move on robbie uh if and when you're ready uh put you know if we have any ads please let me know and i will read those okay so um so we'll see what we'll follow the australia thing obviously okay so let's talk about venezuela that's the main story of the day um the administration has now killed at by its own count 87

Venezuelan nationals in the southern Caribbean in about a dozen probably drone strikes. Okay, here's that ad. I'm going to go ahead and read that, Scott. Still haven't tried 1775 coffee. Now it's your shot. The 1775 starter kit just dropped. Only 1,000 units.

You're getting the bold, dark roast that hits hard. The smooth, medium roast and the vitality, mushroom coffee for clean energy and laser focus. No crash. All single origin, small batch, toxin-free and mold-free. whilst you're also getting a gold spoon clip because freedom isn't scooped with plastic.

A father, strong enough to stir up your coffee and your mother-in-law's opinions and a black 1775 tumbler. 170 bucks worth of coffee and garis year, yours for 99. This is for the ones who've been watching 1775 blow up on Rumble, wondering if it's actually worth it. Spoiler, it is.

Go to 1775 coffee.com slash studio and grab your starter kit before they're gone, bold beans, clean fuel, and a morning routine that stands for something just like Rumble does. Okay. So moving on. So, you know, so Venezuela has had apparently an oil. It's fair to say, a not a Venezuelan tanker, but a tanker carrying Venezuelan crude was seized by the U.S. I mean, this is not the first time, right, that the U.S. has seized a vessel on the high seas, is it? Well, I mean, you mean, in our history, hell no. I mean, we do this from time to time. We do, but this is, I mean, this is such a provocation.

This is, I mean, this is clearly Donald Trump in the Trump administration looking at the numbers. That idiotic rally they had the other night with the slogan behind them, you know, lower prices, high, you know, big bigger wages, both of which are untrue. You and I both know that the wages going up have not gone up nearly enough to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, you know. go up with inflation. Inflation is an issue. You can't stand in front of people and say this, you know, you're not paying more when you're paying more, you know. So how do they distract from that? Let's go to war with Venezuela. But not like full war, right? I mean, nobody thinks that Trump is going to go like Bush in Iraq and, you know, stand in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. Ted, I believe this administration is going to go as far as it has

to go to take people's minds off the economy. The economy is by far and away the driving factor coming up to the midterm elections. Well, I'm glad you brought that up, and we should talk about some breaking news that's relevant to that. So the new AP poll just came out looking for it here. Well, I don't have it right in front of me, but I remember the numbers. So basically, the AP poll is echoing results that we've seen from other mainstream polling agents. that shows that Trump is way underwater, especially on the economy. He only currently has a 31% national approval rating, barely squeaking by even with Republican voters. And that's way down from his approval rating back in February.

And then similarly, he's now underwater on immigration, which actually surprised me. Because I thought, you know, if you're, you know, he promised mass deportations. He promised a cruel ice policy. He promised these raids. And, you know, if you're into that, he's delivering. I mean, you can argue about the methodology or the lack of prioritizing the worst of the worst, which they're not doing. You can, you know, you can complain about the execution. But he is delivering mass deportations.

I mean, that's true. You know, we could bring in, I see Robbie. smiling here i'm going to bring in robbie because he always likes to talk about this topic and he always says stuff to say all right robbie hey go ahead i saw you gritting back there well yeah no it's true i mean but really what my question is honest to god is why would anyone vote for a republican when you can get a democrat without the hypocrisy and and here's what i mean about that in trump's first term and this one of these you kind of sparred about before the show started Trump promised no more omnibus bills.

He's promised he's going to drain the swamp. He was going to balance the budget. He was going to be fiscally responsible. Yes, I realized he bankrupted the casino. However, comma, he was at least saying the right things. And now, lo, his second term, he gave us the mother of all omnibus bills, crammed it down our throats. And this is one thing.

I'm really curious about about y'all's opinion on this, Scott and Ted, is I'm of the old school definition with inflation that inflation is the expansion of the money supply. It's not rising prices. So the rising prices are a symptom of inflation, but inflation is actually the increase of the money supply. Well, if you're spending like a drunken sailor and you don't have enough tax dollars to pay for it,

so you're running a deficit, if you're then printing money, then you're creating inflation, which then destroys the purchasing power of every single dollar in circulation. Now, let's circle back to the spending policies of this administration and the Republicans in general. When Republicans remember fiscal conservatism folks, remember that? No, neither do I.

But it was a thing, believe it or not. When you spend more, that means that you're taking out loans. That's federal government spending money it doesn't have. So those loans have to be serviced. So that puts strain on the budget, which means you have to spend more money, which means how does the federal government get money? It prints it. It doesn't cut spending because this administration is done. Towards the purchasing power of every dollar is in circulation.

And that's one of the biggest reasons that we start about immigration. But Robbie, I got to tell you, I mean, there's more to, I mean, inflation is a feature of this consumerism-based economy, right? Like roughly two-thirds of the GDP of the U.S. is generated by consumerism. And inflation creates an intentional policy. that's made to devaluing the dollar incents you to buy things now as opposed to later when they're more expensive. It's the opposite of we've talked about deflationary spirals like during the Great Depression, where if something costs 100 bucks now, but it's going to be 50 in six months, you're going to wait. And maybe, and then in six months you might be like, well, it's going to be 25, I should wait.

So nobody buys anything. And then you don't have a concern. So I don't know how this system can pivot to low or no inflation and still be consumerism-based. I mean, the Soviet state economy didn't care about selling lots of consumer items. Like when they made a car, they were trying to put a car in a Soviet driveway and leave it there. They didn't want a Soviet citizen to be back in the market two years later for a new car. But America does. America wants that car to fall apart and you and you to be back.

So, I mean, it's a completely different economic model. I don't see how many. So I see this as a multi-pronged problem. One, if you want to drive wages up, which if you want to have a stable country, you got to be able to afford the things that that you need, then you have to reindustrialize. Like, you have to bring jobs back. That's one thing that does not make any sense to me about Trump and his tariffs. If they were serious about this, what you would do is that you would pressure Congress to pass a, this thing called a law.

It's their legislature. They can do this. And they say if you, if you do not bring the, if you're, if you do not bring these factories back, then this will by, by force of law, this is the price that she will pay for exporting all these jobs. I understand that what I'm saying is protectionist, 100% because it is. Well, Scott and I have argued without you, over the. the years, I'm very protectionist and anti-free trade. Well, the country's getting looted. But the point that I'm trying to make is, if you want to bring wages back, then you have to bring back good jobs. And then you've got to figure out what

are these jobs going to look like in the age of AI. And so as jobs are being shed, and you have inflation, which is destroying the purchasing power of every dollar in circulation, and then you're further depressing wages through immigration, which we do not need, then really what you're doing is that you're setting up the total employment. of the middle class of your country. And I cannot think of a single representative style of government that has ever been successful without a middle class. That's how you become Venezuela.

You know, Carl, this man with a magnificent beard named Karl Marx saw all this coming, you know, almost 200 years ago. And he said, you know, you're going to end up with a, what we are now, us Marxists, it's called a crisis of overproduction. We now have a lot of consumer. goods sitting in warehouses and on the shelves that increasingly people are not going to be able to buy, right? I mean, so then. Wait, see, and right there, that's where your argument, well, right there, that's where your argument about deflation falls apart. What difference does it make

if I as an individual wait to buy something because it might be cheaper in six months versus not be able to buy anything now because I simply cannot afford it? I mean, as you'll, in the end, in the end, those two things are going to be the same because it's a consumer-based. society but how you get there the road looks different so that's where immigration comes in and that's where you create more and more uh consumers and grow the grow the population because where it's not happy naturally uh it never has no no absolutely yes that's exactly we've done it about 250 years but for most of that time scott we did not have a welfare state now we do and we're 37 trillion dollars in debt so that's not due to welfare well no not due to welfare i'm talking about just passed a

900 billion dollar defense plan they just agree the house it's going to it's insane which will pass it which will go to the president if you slap the name defense on a bill a spending bill they're going to pass the damn thing it's insane 900 billion dollars we should close we should close every overseas base tomorrow reduce the size of military by 90 percent hallelujah i would not disagree with you I realize what point at all. We don't. I mean, it's like, because, by the way, in the extremely unlikely event, we need to send troops overseas, we do have boats and planes.

We can use those and we can send them. Look at England. How long are it to take them to get down to the Falklands and kick the Argentines? Yeah, that's right. Well, at the outbreak of World War II, the United States Navy was, I think, the 15th largest on the planet. So, I mean, you were right. I think France was the biggest, actually.

Yes, France was massive. We were right behind Portugal. Obviously, that French Navy really helped in 1940. Well, the Germans were thrilled because they got a huge, they got the ports, they got those shipyards, they got the ships. It was awesome. One thing I'll say before I pop off because of nobody to continue, the whole reason why Russia defeated the United States and the West collectively in Ukraine is because they do not have a consumer-based economy. they have a resource and production-based economy. They build things and they have things that people need.

We have debt. We have credit cards. We have banking. Banking does not win wars. I'm not going to argue with Robbie when I don't have anything to argue with Robbie about. Okay, Robbie, we'll get back to you. Okay, so we have lots of, we have, so let's talk about the economy. Nobody can, so the Fed, it's a little disconcerting that they can't.

decide what's going on in the economy. So basically we have, it looks like we're headed towards your favorite stagflation, where basically you have a stagnant economy with low or no job growth or maybe job losses. By the way, in Q4, we are currently anticipating job losses. What percentage? We don't know, but the point is, you know, we need two to 300,000 new jobs just to sort of keep our heads above water every quarter, right? And we're not. getting that in the last quarter if I'm not mistaken it was higher than we expected but it's still about a hundred hundred and three hundred thirteen thousand it was yeah and before that I think it was 22,000 it was pretty low it was anemic yeah it's anemic

so I mean this is bad I mean job losses is like you know well warning warning you know recession on the horizon or worse and then inflation seems really it does seem a bit out of control right now yeah and I don't believe that the number is under three percent i mean that's the number that's the official number you and i like i said you me and everyone listening goes out to the super goes out to the supermarket and buys groceries we go and buy gas we consume stuff and i went out for fah last night which is we go out because it's fairly affordable you know it's not affordable anymore ted we went out and can you guess how much and my foe is just so so according to rob he just put up in a chat which you can't

at sea. We're, they're anticipating a loss of one million jobs over the course of this year when they announced the new, I mean, that's absolutely devastating. Yeah, I mean, we're entering some very dangerous and. It is the AI thing, among other things. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, look, honestly, we have to pay people to stay home. We just do. And we're not going to, but we have to look seriously. And don't forget, I mean, for my conservative friends, you know, coming from a libertarian standpoint, I probably fight against this. But conservative is Adam Smith advocated for a minimum guaranteed income

so that people could afford the Andrew Yang thing, yeah. Live. And we're entering, if we're entering those waters where a million jobs, I'm not sure if it's a million jobs to, then that's very, very, very. It's like gave like Bill Paxton and alien,

game over, man. Game over. Well, because I'm not sure how you, With, and where I love Robbie to death, but I disagree with them on immigration and the way you grow an economy is with consumers and people to, you know, people consuming things. And how do you get that? Well, Europeans aren't great at making babies, apparently. And we never have been. So we've always, this country has always depended on an influx of immigrants.

So as I mentioned before, Germans in the 1700s, Irish, Chinese, Italian. Big influx before the German again, before the beginning of World War II. Large number of immigrants build economies. And that's now you don't do it, health or skeletalter. You don't do it. You don't just fling open the doors and say, come on in, kids. Don't mess up the carpets. You do it in a reasonable, measured way.

But you can't, but to just shut things down to go after. There's a favorite restaurant of ours near us. It's a Thai restaurant. And ICE just raided them a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, they deported that very dangerous cook and the dishwasher because that's a threat. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's obviously a lot. I mean, God, a million jobs. Do you believe that, Ted?

Pardon? A million jobs. Do you think that that could happen? I find it very hard to believe. I'll believe it when I see it. I just don't think so. But if that, I mean, you know, if that happens where, you know, it's a, it's a, whole new world. And this administration is not going to know what to do. I mean, previous

administration wouldn't have known what to do either. You know, I mean, it's the system's not set up for this. They have to completely rethink everything. They're going to have to start pretending to care about ordinary people like, like us. And they're going to have to start paying us to sit around on our asses, which they can afford to do. You know, the productivity is in the economy. You can't go out and have a rally that says, are you going to believe me or you're lying eyes? Well, that's what Trump did. That's what Trump did the other night. And you can't do it.

George H.W. Bush to be exact same thing. That's how Biden lost too. Biden did the same thing. Everything's fine. Don't worry. Well, for him it was because he had his soup. Right. Good point.

You know, we just feels like we're entering into some very bad waters. and it's all it's economic um the the i'm deeply disappointed that the fed the fed which i also deeply despise as i've made no secret over the years but for them to capitulate to the president's urges to lower interest rates that's just going to increase inflation when you have this is economics 101 this i'm not you know this is insanity ted it's insanity interest rates The Fed always does the wrong thing at the right time. When they should boost the economy by cutting interest rates, they don't. And then when it's like you're head into recession, then, you know,

or you're dealing with an inflationary stagnation situation. I mean, here's the thing. The Fed's trying to juice the job market by cutting interest rates. But that's not going to work if you have a structural dynamic in play like AI. It's like that assumes no big change. changes afoot but we have big but that's not true no yeah very big and the thing is it wasn't that high i mean i'm sorry i hate to sound like the president or george hw bush but it wasn't that high and it also allowed for returns for savings accounts to actually get you some money back if you

put your money in the bank you know that's what a crazy idea to encourage americans to save you actually get you know money from your from your from your savings they're not going going to get that. I had to laugh when people I knew were buying houses or looking at houses and complaining about the interest rates being 6%. I'm going, you know how much I pay? Interest rate I paid on my first house. It was 10%. And we paid points to get it down from 11 and a half. I hear you. By the way, Jensters has a good comment here. Don't pay people to stay home, pay a good living wage for a 20-hour work week. Well, that is something that the French have played with because they've had unemployment has been a perennial problem in the French economy for

decades. And one of the things they've been doing is steadily reducing the work work week until Emmanuel Macron came along and started to, you know, change, stop that or try to reverse that. But I mean, that makes sense too, right? I mean, in a lot of businesses, you really don't, you probably can get almost as much done in 20 hours as you can in 40. I mean, let's face it. You get to the office. Oh, man, I got to get some coffee. Oh, now that coffee, it really made me need to poo. So I'm going to poo. Oh, like, the poo economy. The poo economy. And it's like, oh, I'm going to make some personal phone calls. You don't really, it's like, you start to get, you roll up your sleeves. You start to work around 1115. Oh, man, look lunch. It's like, oh, you're absolutely right. That's one of the

things. I was more productive working from home than going into the office by a lot. Because you're going to, especially a newsroom, which is, you know, what's the point of a newsroom to collect news and to disperse it? And so you walk into a newsroom, people want to disperse the news to you. I get this. And so my warnings were always wasted by exactly what you're describing, Ted, always. You're talking to this person, that person, you got to stop by this person's desk. I could bring a present that for this other guy's birthday or his work anniversary. And then you had to go grab a cup of Joe. And then you drank that. And it was, of course, it was hyper-caffeinated.

So, like you said, the poo economy kicked in. Yeah, it was 20 hours. Yeah, you could probably reasonably do that. I think the French work week is now, what, 36 and a half hours? No, no, no. I think they're at 30. Is it 30 now? Holy Mary.

Wow. Yeah. And don't forget they have those awesome summer vacations, right? They kick off for six weeks from July to the end of August. We have friends who are Australian. Which, by the way, does stimulate. the economy, the tourist economy. I mean, everywhere, they all, they all, they all travel.

Oh, yeah, no. Like I was Australian, they're bananas. They go, they have a month to travel. Mm-hmm. I mean, how cool is that? And because they understand, we're an island in the middle of friggin' nowhere with kangaroos and a big rock in the middle. That's about it.

You should go to the rest of the world. We've got to go, I mean, we can drink at home or we can drink overseas. They do drink. Oh, my God. They do drink a lot. I mean, what I like about the Australians is they're the one other nationality that when you travel overseas, you're like, look, there's people even more loutish than Americans. So that's cool.

All right. So a couple of comments I wanted to get to. Monty of the cat says one thing Robbie misses is that a lot of rich kids of politicians and businessmen from poorer countries come to America. So they aren't all poor. A lot of them spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the year. U.S. And they attend these pricey Ivy League schools and pay full tuition, right? So, yes.

And they're subsidizing these schools. University of Alabama, I imagine Columbia is in the same position and other universities made bank. I mean, to the point where- 27% of Harvard students are over, are international students. Seven? By the way, 27%. Oh, yeah, no.

It pisses me off, actually. You want to get really pissed off, Ted? Let me throw this one out at you. seven and a half percent of students in state colleges in California are from California. Seven point two percent. That's a fucking outrage. They paid for it. Californians paid for this and they can't get into their own university.

And if they do get in, they can't graduate in four years because there's so little availability of classes. The whole system is fucked up. It takes five years to get a four year degree there. I blame Robbie. I blame Robbie, too. It's all Robbie's fault. Let's talk about University of Alabama.

So I have to admit, why don't you tee up this story? Because I'm not really clear. So first of all, let me just ask you, University of Alabama, is that a public or a private school? Public. Okay. So the Trump administration has issued federal guidance, threatening the removal of federal funds from institutions, private and public, that have DEI slash woke stuff. So pursuant to that, you have.

has suspended two student-run magazines. Take it away. Yeah, one is called, I believe, 1954, which was the year of the first African-American student was admitted into the University of Alabama. And we all remember George Wallace standing in front of the door and all that bullshittery. And the other publications called Alice,

which is a feminist or a publication directed towards women in women's students, both of which Alice has been around for 10 years, 1954 has been around for longer. How long? I mean, there have been traditional publications for women. There have been traditional publications for the African-American community, as there is for Latino or for any other community.

These publications service them to shut them down. First of all, I'm not sure. It's so funny, Ted, the editor of Alice said, what about the First Amendment? I go, what about it? You have a right to go ahead and keep saying what you're saying and publish it if you can find someone to pay for it. the university has rescinded underwriting of these two publications.

DEI, I have profound issues, and obviously being a white male, it really kind of some of their edicts and some of their overarching and overreach was galling to the extreme. And you and I have talked about the boy problem, and that's another podcast, and we're kind of running out of time here. But briefly, so can you ratchet and pull some of that stuff back? Yeah, a lot of, but should you get rid of it? Can you say that this was never, ever a problem in these communities don't deserve any kind of servicing or recognition? That's absurd as well. There is a middle ground here, and that's always what I argue.

These publications serve a vital service. I suspect they're probably the only conduit for a voice of two large, dynamic entities at the University of Alabama, and to shut them down to put at the altar of, Trumpism is bananas. Ted? I guess, yeah, I guess I think I agree with you on all of that. I mean, the one, what I guess I would like, I understand if the university wants to say, we're not going to fund you anymore in the same way that the federal government has decided not to fund PBS or NPR anymore, but shutting it down goes further, right?

It's shutting it down as saying not only, well, we're not paying for your lifestyle anymore, But literally, we're not even going to let you, we're not going to let you pass out a cup. We're not going to let you reach out to alums. We're not going to let you sell subscriptions. You're just not going to be able to operate on campus. I'm sorry, that's censorship. I think that you can, I mean, if there were a lawsuit here, I would say the real cause of action isn't the cutoff of funding. It's the fact that they're not even allowing these publications to be distributed.

should they find alternative sources of funding. Yeah. No, it's absurd. And the First Amendment does apply if it's a public school. I think, yeah, you may be right. We had constraints for school publications. Did you work for, when you were going to Columbia, did you work for?

Absolutely. So you'll like this story. I worked for the Columbia Daily Spectator. And I was the, well, what? It's just like, why wouldn't it be the Colombian? seems to me would be. Oh, well, that would have been a better name, but it was the Columbia Daily Spectator. I had a terrible masthead. But anyway, the point is, you know, a lot of its alums went on to the New York Times and places like that. And I wrote and I drew cartoons. And then

ultimately, I got in, I mixed, I got really angry because they kept shrinking my cartoons more and more, you know this story. And the last one they ever ran, I swear on my mother's non-existent grave that it was one it was a four-panel cartoon and they printed it one and a half inches wide. Oh, good God. So literally, it was smaller than it would have appeared had they existed at the time. Did you confirm the editor? Did you ever confront the editor on this? Yes.

What was their explanation? She was basically like, sucks to be you. I was like, fine, fuck you. So I quit. And RJ Mattson ended up taking my spot in the, in the spectator. And I went over to, and I went over to Barnard, across the street to Barnard,

the girls college, which didn't have a cartoonist. And even though I'm not a girl, I was like, hey, can I draw cartoons for you? And they're like, sure. So I worked for the Barnard Bulletin, and then I worked for the jester, which was the equivalent of the Harvard Lampoon, except not as good at Columbia.

Wow. You know what? I have never heard that story. that is that's insane it's it's actually i still have it i'll i will find it and i will send it i would love you you will die laughing somewhere you'll die of laughter because it's i mean i kept it literally part of me at the time was like this is it's gone past being insulting to the point of ridiculousness i i you know i used to be disgusted now i'm just amused as alvis costello said um so all right so i mean do you think there's going to be a lawsuit here i mean oh i would i mean i would

that the AFLCAI are the American Civil Liberties Union will step up and I think they have a case in this instance this is this was this was again this is a this is a gift given to the Trumpies in the area and believe me Alabama has one or two of them as you might imagine in 2020 says let them make zines yeah well you do have that option and I went to a long Beach State. And Long Beach State had the Daily 49er, which was the, you know, the one that was the official organ of the approval, approved by the administration of Long Beach State University. But they also had a second publication that was published off campus, distributed on campus, and it was a lot more fun. It was a lot more interesting. It had a lot more interesting articles.

And quite frankly, they had an artist who ended up doing storyboards for George Lucas. Oh, wow. great guy he once told me that he could not he could not draw unless he was stoned you know um i knew i know a cartoonist like that who says um that he can't draw unless he's drunk really yeah well i mean yeah i'll tell you later who it is but when i tell you you're going to be like but he's an amazing draftsman and that's true wow no this guy was a remarkable draftsman he was incredible but he swore that unless he was stoned he couldn't do it i'm like i can't draw when i'm stoned there's just

just doesn't work i just oh god i mean i yeah no i mean i i have even if i just have like a beer while i'm drawing i'm even shittier than i usually am yeah have you ever driven i'm okay full disclosure then we're because we're over time yeah and i've got to bring robby in to talk about tomorrow's show but go ahead okay i'm just going to say have you ever drawn drunk i have so have i it doesn't it doesn't go well it does not your brain is like going okay you need to be CWI cartooning while intoxicated Should be against Friends don't let their friends draw drunk

Yeah Robbie let's bring it Robbie tell us what's going on tomorrow With the call-in show here on Deep Program Okay so tomorrow the reason why we're doing it As a Rumble exclusive is because It's going to be a live show And I cannot control what comes out of your mouth

So if someone comes on And they go on a verbal tirade Against a protected class Then YouTube will definitely nuke that episode if not the entire channel. Thus, the Rumble exclusive. Let me go and share the link for you all real quick on the chat.

You'll be able to, basically, there's going to be a call-in lobby. You'll just, you'll log in there early. The early that you get in there, the better off you're going to be. And then I will drag you and drop you into a hidden room that John and Ted will be in and probably me myself. I don't know, we'll kind of figure that out how it goes. Probably be all three of us. And, Robbie, you're going to put the calls up.

Yeah, I will put the calls up. I will be doing everything. So something breaks. Since I am a married man, you can legitimately say it is all my fault because it will 100% all be my fault. And I will go away on this little tidbit. If I was a Catholic, my patron saint would be Vlad Teppish because good fences make good neighbors.

And thank you for that, Robbie. Okay, so please stay tuned. We have a full morning here, at least I do. and I hope you are along with me for the ride. We're one-third of the way through it. Coming up in just two minutes is the TMI show with me, Ted Rollin, Manila Chan, where we take a lighter take on the news.

And then at 11 a.m. Eastern time, one hour later, DMZ America podcast with Scott Stantis and myself, if you haven't got enough of us. But we'll be joined by our colleague, animated editorial cartoonist. I mean, he's personally animated, but his cartoons, he's a great guy.

I guess. Yeah, and he's really, really smart and really funny. And it's Mark Fiore, based in San Francisco. And the odds are you've probably seen his work. He's been all over the internet for many, many years. And, you know, he's still doing it. But he's, his life is taking some new turns. His career is taking some new directions. So do stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, the program with me and John. We'll be back tomorrow at 9-8. am. And one, Pat, one more note. Thank you to 1775 coffee.com for sponsoring this episode, this show, this commercial moment was brought to you by 1775 coffee. Thank you. Oh, by it. Yeah, Robbie says, Robbie says it's good coffee.

So, you know, I love good coffee. I know with the hours he keeps, he'd be drinking some strong coffee. So, uh, all right. Thanks, everyone. And stay tuned. And we'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Thank you.