DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Let’s Talk, Scums! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Today we discuss:• We can’t decide to make nice, or kill you. President Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo he views the war with Iran "as very close to over." The U.S. and Iran could begin a fresh round of peace talks as soon as tomorrow after Trump's administration imposed a blockade on Iranian ports.• Can Lebanon expel Hezbollah? Following the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1993, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter hailed what he called a convergence of opinion about removing Hezbollah's influence from Lebanon. "The Lebanese government made it very clear that they will no longer be occupied by Hezbollah," he said. "Iran has been weakened. Hezbollah is dramatically weakened. This is an opportunity." But nothing can happen without regime change in Iran—and maybe not even then.• Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in Amherst founded in 1965, is set to close permanently due to low enrollment and financial problems.• Gov. Kathy Hochul proposes a tax on second homes in New York City worth $5 million and more, dubbed a pied-à-terre tax, aimed at the ultra-wealthy. It would affect roughly 13,000 homes, and would bump for homes valued at $15 million and again at $25 million.MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.livehttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomasLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8ZuAPPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Good morning. You're watching Deep Program with Ted Raal and Jamarle Thomas. It is Wednesday, April 15th, 2026, which means if you live in the United States, you got to pay your taxes because Israel's wars don't pay for themselves. Good morning, Jamarle. What's going on, man? How are you doing today? I'm good. How are you feeling? Tell me hurts, but I'm okay. I'm here. Good, good. I'm blessed. I've never really had that particular health issue. I was just a the urologist the other day, and he's like, you know, do you poo? Everything's pooing regularly. Everything's peeing, right? The urologist? Yeah, and he did the thing. He was up my ass like an IRS guy.

And literally. And he wants to have a conversation with you, but like, hey, he's like, You're going up normally? Are you doing okay today? It's like, dude, can you get your finger on my ass before we have this conversation? Yeah, it's like, it's like I went into, see my podiatrist, right? I had like an ingrown toenail. And so it's an un-air-conditioned office.

It's summer, right? It's in eastern Long Island. So it's hot. It's like in the 80s in there. And for me, if it's over 60 degrees, I'm sweating. I'm a hot guy. So, so anyway, the doctor's like, oh, so, you know, did you know that you? you have sweaty feet?

And I'm like, well, you're cutting into them without anesthesia with a scalpel. So that's not really surprising. And then also, like, you're, you know, you're in an on-air-conditioned office here, inexplicably, even though you have a medical procedure going on. And he totally ignores everything I'm saying. So it's like being married. And he, and then he goes, well, you know, we can take care of that. We can resolve this.

He goes, and I'm like, you can? I'm like, I didn't realize it was a problem. He goes, yeah, he goes, we operate on your spine. I'm like, what? What? We operate on your spine, and it like several, like, basically, there's some there, something in your central nervous system that controls, like, your sweat glands and your feet, and it'll make your feet sweat less.

And I'm like, so just for the record here, I'm not one of those guys who takes off his shoes and, like, holy shit, it's like the sock smell grows. It's not like that. It was when I was a teenager, but not now. And he's like, so I'm like, so this would solve, you would operate on my spine and it would solve the problem of my sweaty feet. And I'm like, I know the boat, those boat payments don't pay for themselves, but. You know, it's about it. I'm wondering is this a pedigris thing?

Because mine was similar. Like, they would be like, hey, we can fix this. We can fix that. I'm like, dude, I didn't come here for that. I just gave me from. It's like they're trying to upsell you, like at an Indian restaurant. They're like, come on, you know you want the chappati. It's like, no, not really.

I'm sure you don't want that? It's like, positive. Yeah, I came for a specific reason. I'm here for that specific reason. I'm hitting it and quitting it and getting the fuck out as soon as I can. Okay, well, let's see what we're talking about today. So obviously, the war in Iran grinds on President Trump says that he believes that the war, will be is very close to over.

That's not really been, he said the same thing weeks ago. I guess four weeks ago, he said it would be over in two weeks. That was two weeks ago. Okay, so that hasn't happened. But there might be peace talks in Islamabad picking up where J.D. Vance and the gang left off last weekend. That would be as soon as tomorrow. The blockade continues.

Apparently, we got a bad, faulty report about China running the blockade successfully and telling the Americans to fuck off. That didn't happen. The Chinese ship was turned back to the Strait of Ormuz and the Persian Gulf. So we can talk about that first. We're also going to talk about Lebanon and Hezbollah. I think that's interesting. Hampshire College is no more. That actually matters more than people think.

And Kathy Hockel is sort of floating. an idea for a luxury tax on second homes in New York City. Is she? She is. So basically the way this would work is if you own a second home in New York City worth over $5 million, it would be called a pieda-taire tax. You would basically pay a supplemental tax. This would affect not that many houses.

It would affect about $13,000, or I should say apartments. and it would bump up if your house is worth more than 15 or 25, there would be a step-up tax here, too. What do you think about that? Well, I guess it's two questions. A, what does the tax money be used for? And D, what do you think about it in general? Well, so it's going to be, so the fact is New York State and New York City are in deep budgetary disaster morass post-Earch. post Eric Adams, post-pandemic, post, you know, Texas and other southern states,

sending immigrants to New York. So the city is really fucking broke. And in fact, Mayor Mandani just had to back away from his promise to expand a program for the unhoused, and particularly for kids. And he's like, look, we just can't afford it now. I thought we would be able to. It's already a billion-dollar-a-year program. My idea would have been $4 billion a year more.

We just don't have it. So this is to fill the budget gap. The thing about Kathy Hokel is she changes her mind more often than Donald Trump. So who knows whether this will happen or not. I mean, she first had the idea of congestion pricing south of 61st Street in Manhattan. Then she canceled it. Then she brought it back. And who knows it might be canceled again in the future.

So who knows? Did you say adjusted pricing? Yeah, so congestion pricing means... Oh, congestion pricing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if you enter the lower third of Manhattan, you get dinged by a $9 fee automatically.

What? Yeah. I mean, basically what it's done is it's made life very pleasant for rich commuters. Because they're like, hey, I pay $9. And now the roads are a lot less congestion. and there's more parking spaces for me. It's totally regressive, of course. Yeah.

Yeah. It affects basically the poor. Yeah. And so this, I guess, is kind of on the other side of it. I think this is just a, this is like one of those raising the flag to see if anyone salutes kind of ideas. I don't think it'll actually happen because of the influence of the rich and powerful. But it's near, it's kind of near and dear to my heart.

I feel that in a country that has 770,000 people officially living outside every single night that no one should have two houses. And if you do, you should pay through the nose for it. Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, yeah, I guess we're of one mind on this. If there's even one person living on the street, there should be no billionaires. That's it. And, you know, it's wild about it.

People make this argument. It's like, well, that's just jealousy. And it's like, dude, that's not jealousy. I don't the issue It's about pigishness Right It's like something

It's like something you learn In kindergarten Right? Like there's enough For one cookie For each of you And if little Becky Takes two cookies

Then you know Nancy doesn't get a cookie Then that sucks And by the way That's a governmental issue That's not magic Like it's not like That guy's rich

Because the guy's just rich It's policy That allow the person To be that wealthy That rich And unfortunately the sad part about policies like that is the person thinks they did it all on their own. Like I did this by myself.

And it's like, dude, you didn't do it by yourself. You had a government, you had roads being paid for, you had clean air, you had industry, you had policy, you had laws that allowed you to get rich as opposed to somebody else getting rich. You had advantages. It's like, I don't, it's not that I want people to be poor. It's not that if that makes sense. Meaning I'm okay with people accruing a certain amount, but after while it's like, okay, dude, you have $100 billion and all of these people are living on the streets.

How is this right or even good for the society for all of these people to be living on the streets like that or for people to be in situations where can they rent get paid? Can they get medical care? Are they going to be able to go to school? All of these things matter and influence how your society actually functions. And so, no, I agree with you. I guess my thing is these are policy issues. And unfortunately, these are policy issues that are fundamentally failed when you have nearly people living on the streets. Now, the problem is tomorrow, right? Like, so even if this passes,

it doesn't do anything to help the homeless. It just brings in more money into city coffers, right? It's, so that's kind of the issue. Now, if we were talking about confiscating or under eminent domain, some of these homes and turning them over so that the unhoused could be housed, oh, man, I'm on team hokal all the way. You know, this is kind of like when liberals talk about, like, oh, we need to tax the rich more.

and, you know, okay, so great. That brings in more money to federal coffers, which they just use to kill brown people overseas. That's not really solving any problems. Right. I mean, it solves a budgetary issue, but I don't really, I have to admit, I'm kind of like on team Dick Cheney.

I don't think deficits really matter. When you can mint your own, I mean, if you can mint, they do, I guess it's kind of like, they don't matter until they do, and we don't know when they do. Right, right, right. It's like Malthusianism. right?

Like Thomas Malthus probably was right. He was just premature. I don't even think he was right. I mean, this is the Thanos argument, right? Like, well, if we get rid of these useless eaters, the universe will be great. And it's like the moment that you, Malputh, he never conceived a technology

being able to feed billions to be able to house, you know, all of these. Like, meaning the moment that you get technological innovation, your capabilities dramatically increased, depending upon what you're using that technology for. If you're kind of like China and you're using robots in factories in order to increase production of goods and services, et cetera, like that, okay, then Malthus is wrong.

The catch becomes, what are you using the technology for? If the U.S. decided, all right, let's create a society where everybody is fed, everybody is housed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to have greenhouses built into some of the factories that have fallen apart and gone into the disrepute. We can do that. We just don't. And, you know, this whole thing about, like, for example, just as a detour, quick,

we will get to the point within the next 10 years where shipping will be automated. Uber's automated. This idea of taxi drivers may be a thing in the past at a certain point. I mean, you're going to get to the point where people are going to lose their jobs because it's technological innovation. It doesn't have to be that way. But it doesn't seem like a government is oriented itself around this idea. of technology moving to a point where people are required less in a work capacity.

That's good to me. The catchment comes. How do you feed and how does and how do those people get money when those people lose their jobs? Because those jobs become unnecessary. We completely unprepared. Like, meaning it doesn't seem like we've done anything to prepare for that eventuality. Then you can say Malthus is making this argument that, well, we have too many people in general. I will make the case it's the way technology is being used and how that's being used.

and how that's being used in order to feed, health, educate, etc. We just don't use it in those terms. I agree. I agree with every word you just said. I mean, I guess the whole point is Thomas Malthus has been proven wrong, but you could see a world in which, you know, maybe it's not 8 billion people,

but maybe 80 billion people. Right. Where you do tip into this planet is too small and this population is too big and we just can't support it. I mean, but you could also say maybe we never get there. I mean, the earth is a very, very big place. When you fly and you look out the window, mostly nobody lives there. Yeah.

It's a super interesting, you know, and obviously, I think fundamentally unanswerable question without, even with a lot of sophisticated AI modeling. Yeah, I mean, so I guess, you know, look, if I were, the problem here really is the, it's not homelessness that's being resolved or addressed here, right? unfortunately. If it were, we'd be looking at a different set of solutions. But I mean, I keep saying the solution to the city's budget gap is a securities tax. They should impose a $50 surcharge on every transaction on the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange. And that would bring in the money, close the gap. It's fair because if you have only, you know, No one poor owned securities. It's a little bit regressive if it's a flat tax.

I could easily see imposing a percentage tax on securities. The reason that hasn't been done in the past in other places is because it's hard to calculate. But now it's not really. I mean, it's just a computer just does it. But back when I worked at Bear Stearns, we were still doing stock transactions manually. And, you know, it's like you basically fill out a ticket. I did about 4,000 filling. I used to write out 4,000 tickets a day.

So it's crazy, like how quickly things moved. But now it's all automated. Well, I guess this kind of hits my point. Right. Like, you need less people to do more things. Mm-hmm. Which is good. Like, I don't want people working at McDonald.

It should be good. Right. Yeah, like, it's like the toll collectors. Like, I'm okay with the fact that no one's sucking up carbon monoxide fumes on the bridge. Yeah. No one should do that. Yeah. I don't want records.

Right? Like, I don't want all the capacities of a human being in regards to art, music, literature. Coal mining. It would be great to automate that. Coal mining. Same thing. Right. It's like, I don't want people doing these jobs.

Those jobs suck. Well, and you're going to hear people say, yeah, but people need to earn a living. No, they don't. People need money. People need money. That's what it boils down to. People need money. People don't need work.

I mean, we have just, we've been programmed to believe that, you know, the only way you can get money. And that's true. If you live in Mali, the only way you can get money is by work, but not if you live in a rich country. Well, and it's been true for thousands of years, right? And so it's kind of hard to kind of break their program. But no, people need money. I think they need something to occupy their time. Yes, but they need much.

I don't want their need to occupy their time to be conflated with the need for cash and goods, if that makes sense. Totally. All right, then. Let's take some questions, shall we? And then we'll talk about, we can go backwards. We'll talk about Hampshire College. I don't know if you're interested in that subject. I saw that.

Yeah, I did see that. It is interesting. I mean, like, the idea that H1B1 visas became an issue, like before the election took. Oh, I'm sorry. Let's go to questions first. Okay, let's do questions. All right. Okay, quick question, and I apologize if this has been addressed,

but is the go fund me for Robbie still taking dose? donations. I'll put Robbie up here since it concerns him. We are, so the answer to your question is the GoFundMe is still there. And I'm putting it up on the screen. GoFundMe.com slash F slash D program Robbie or you can just go to GoFundMe and search for D program Robbie and he'll get the money. And we may or may not bring this back. But we basically, because of the reshuffling on the show, we basically thought, that we wanted to. It was Robbie's suggestion that we suspend it until we sort of make sure that money's flowing into the show generally.

But Robbie is a man who needs money in a capitalist society. So if you want to send money to Robbie, please do. I would vastly prefer, I would vastly prefer that if you're going to do that, you'd donate to the show. And I mean that sincerely. I do not feel right in any way, shape, or form. taking donations when these two guys right here work every bit as hard if they're harder than I do. So I appreciate the sentiment.

Truly, I do. But I am not an Israeli and I'm not a bitch. I don't want it. What? I'm not going to explore that comment at all. What? Well, you're going to see it through. Listen, listen, seriously, I appreciate the people who have been reaching out.

One of the best things, if you want to support me, just watch myself on Rumble. I don't care if you're a gamer. Just go over Putin by gaming. Just have the videos run. Make a comment if I go live. Come on. Call me a Nazi, whatever. I don't care.

We'll have a good back and forth. I'll call you an idiot. You can call me a racist. All will be well in the world. It's great. What game do you play, Robbie? Oh, right now I'm the Immortal Combat One. It's freaking awesome.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I don't know if you're a gamer or not, but if you are, we've got to do some collabs. But, Balders Gate, Baltimore's Gate, Baldur's Gate 3 is awesome. I do a lot of variety of games. But seriously, as far as the GoFundMe goes, listen, I appreciate it.

But with the hit that the show has taken after John left, I would feel like a complete and utter piece of crap taking a donation when these two guys, fittingly to my left, are doing without. I appreciate it. But if you want to contribute, do it to the show. Thank you. Okay. And any chance you guys can comment on Salem Media. And separately, Ashley St. Clair, all about exposés about right-leaning media. I don't know anything about this.

So you're going to love this. My boss, in fact, the guy who used to, one of my teachers used to work with Salem Media, the bullshit. If it's the same company that I'm aware of, they used their like a religious-based thing that deals with right-wing. media for my understanding. He used to be an engineer at Sailor Media. He doesn't work the now. This was years ago. And he was effectively trying to get a job. If I'm not sick, I think they even tried to get a job there at one point.

But this was before it became political. And I think I made this joke about friends at the death star. Like basically, I said something to the fact of because they asked me, do I have issue with, let's say, their media space, meaning what they project in their media space. And I kind of pointed out, I was like, you know, I have friends on a death star. And they were like, what? I was like, you know, like, there are certain people who work on a death star who are doing data, who are doing janitorial work, who are doing all of these other things.

And I think what they heard was, wait, you're comparing us to the death star? Well, obviously I didn't get that job. You were comparing them to the Death Star. I was comparing them to the Death Star, but I think it was like, hey, somebody's doing data entry may not care about the politics. Right. No, no, for sure. No, no, for sure. Yeah, they didn't.

I think they laughed, but I never got a callback. Yeah, it's right-wing media. They're doing their job. Apparently, they see the world in certain terms. They believe that the world is better off of the terms to which they see it. And maybe for them, specifically it is. And so they project their point of view. It is what it is.

There's no different than us. I mean, maybe they have great reach. But everybody projects or tries to get the world what we want. I think it's wrong. I guess. I mean, yeah. I mean, like this show isn't really, it's not a propaganda show, right? This show, like you and I both have a point of view.

Everyone who watches the show knows what it is. Robbie has a point of view. You know, everyone who wants the show knows what that. is but this is about trying to analyze what's going on and trying to tell you explain the world to you and and help you figure you know figure out what's going to what it all means and what's going to happen next maybe that's different but if you're doing a you know propaganda show then you're you know like like a propaganda show if it was you and me probably wouldn't have Robbie on you know it's like but it's like but you know we're open to all points of view here

because like, you know, look, you know, I know my side is often wrong about shit. And so, you know, I'm happy to say that, you know. I'm pretty sure I would like if after a revolution, I'd get ice picked like Leon Trotsky, right? I mean, because I would be still critical of the new regime because they would fuck up and make mistakes and I would hate what they were doing, you know, and I would say so. I'm not, you know, if Bernie Sanders had been elected president, I'm sure I would have had a lot complain about. Oh, dude, I have a video with testicles in a jar. And I remember doing a video saying, these are Bernie Sanders' testaments. And this is the DNC. have them in the DNA.

Yeah, I'd be brutal. And I love Sanders, right? I have a soft spot for him. Yeah, me too. It doesn't stop me taking a piss out of him. Gotta. Gotta. This is funny. The war in Iran is perpetually two weeks away from being over. Yeah, it's like Zeno's paradox, right? You just never quite get there. Otherwise, so is the war in Ukraine. And Iran is always two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. Everything's two weeks. Manchild, thanks for the $5. Good morning, fellas.

The Guardian is reporting that big oil is banking $30 million an hour in war windfalls while consumers suffer. Is this unearned profit, you know, we used to call that a windfall profit, right? The real driver behind the U.S. blockade, any thoughts? I do not think this is the real driver behind the U.S. I think the U.S. blockade is an act of desperation by an administration that started a war that has not gone the way that they wanted and are trying to end it with a minimum of, with as much face saving as possible and as much damage mitigation as possible. They want to do it. They want to end it as quickly as possible. And I think, frankly, the Iranians are giving them an out and they should probably take it. Did it. I think Trump engaged in this war under this idea that this war was going to be short, sharp, and brutal. And that for all the intensive purposes, that the U.S. was going to enforce what it wanted on Iran in regards to some kind of negotiated settlement. Venezuela 2.0. Exactly. After decapitation of the leadership, et cetera, et cetera. That didn't happen. And when it didn't happen, it becomes, okay, now what? And you get this kind of weird fallback position, especially when you realize, We can't take the straighter from Usback.

Like, you started a war where I realized with the most part. It was perfectly happy to let ships go in and out. And the moment that you've done that, now they've taken the street. And you're stuck in this position where the world is watching. And it's like, wait a minute. You mean the superpower can't necessarily take the straight back? They can have the straight all to themselves, right? I mean, the U.S. definitely can invade and occupy Karg Island and the Tunes and they can and the area around it.

They can. It's just that then that not, but the thing is, you know, land occupation of the strait is not controlling the strait. If you're within missile range of the strait, you control the strait. Iran is always going to be within missile range of the strait. Yeah, you're not stopping them from doing what they're doing in regards to the context. All you're doing is creating more targets for the Iranians to hit and kill. To make it even wilder, the facts on the ground, as the Israelis like to say,

where you have this thing of like other countries saying, okay, we will, make agreements to pay the toll that you're effectively enacting, meaning those countries acknowledge Iranian control of the strait by paying those tolls. Well, it's undeniable. Yeah, it's undeniable. So if you're Trump and you're looking at this and you have no power to do anything about it, what do you do? In his case, he's screaming blockade, meaning the blockade is not the position that the U.S. wanted. That's not, right? It wasn't the objective. Yeah, and it's not. And look, the thing is, the entire global economy, including the American economy, is going down the shitter. The IMF yesterday, we talked about it with Robbie, just announced that we're now, we were looking at steady growth.

Now we're looking at a likely recession or worse. Yeah, so this is a big fucking problem for Trump, and he's got a, you know, we're in damage mitigation mode. Now, yesterday, you missed it, but we had Professor Mark Bartow, who is an oil. And he's an oil markets expert come on the show. And he kind of explained some really interesting shit about how oil markets work. And one of the big questions I had for him in case you missed it, well, you missed it, was that why is it that if we're energy independent here in the United States, we produce enough that we produce more than we use. Why do we care about global markets? And the answer basically boils down to not all oil is the same.

So we need kinds of types of oil that are available in other places. We have to buy those at the market rate. And we don't swap oil. It's not like because those people don't need the oil we have. So it's all a global market, whether you like it or not. So, no, I mean, I don't think there's any advantage here to be, you know, there's no financial advantage here for the United States at all. You know, we're in, I mean, we're in deep shit.

I mean, by the end of this month, holy shit, it's so scary if they don't resolve this war. Even if they do, the economic pain is going to be there for months, maybe years. Yeah, not to mention the stuff that was blown up in regards to the Gulf states or Iran, not to mention the Ukraine war still going on with Europe talking about, you know, limiting Russian energy or Russian oil. No, it's going to be a mess. It's going to be a mess. And it's a good mess. It's a necessary mess.

Because the U.S. Like, there should be consequences. Like this idea that we can go around the globe murdering people and starting wars of aggression. And we've been doing this for decades without there really being any real consequence or paying from the standpoint of the American public. This is not like during Jim Carter, right? Where you had these oil lines because of Gulf states got pissed off

because of what the U.S. was doing. It's not that. This is something else. And I guess the reality of it is, if there are consequences needed out to the public, does it change? the behavior of the U.S. government going forward if those consequences are deep and painful enough, a kind of great depression type thing. This is not what I want. I hope you, it's, I just deem it to be

required. It's necessary. Yeah, it's necessary. How do you stop a superpower for behaving this way? There are no external threats in the case of enemies that are gates, right? This is not like, what, 1860, whatever, with the Brits. 18, 18, 18, you know, the, it's. You know, the, it's, Exactly. Where they torched the White House? Oh, yeah. The War of 1812, yeah. Yeah, it's not that.

No, no. That's the last time the United States was really truly invaded. By the way, it's just a little housekeeping. If you want to buy any of those leftover, the last remaining John Kiroku t-shirts, those are over on DProgram. Live. They will be discontinued this weekend. So go and get them while you can.

And after that, they are, like the Violin Fem song said, Gone Daddy Gone. And we'll have new ones that we're working on. Just sneak preview. We are working on a Clovis shirt or two. And there will be Jamal and there will be a Ted and there will be a Ted and Jamal. But that's all in the future. Also, Q&A show coming up at 12 noon here Eastern Time. today, Wednesday, April 15th.

Tune in for that. What else am I forgetting? I don't know. Robbie, am I forgetting anything? No, not that I can think of. All right. And we need a, and we have a, if we have an ad, I'll take it when you're ready. All right, I'll go ahead.

Throw it up there for you now. People are saying that we should make a, I am not an Israeli whore shirt. Where to your next bar mitzvah? Okay. Sure. All right. Okay, I like that. Okay, let's do some more questions.

Guatemalan immigrant. Thanks for the two bucks. We just got back from China and didn't see a single unhoused individual or pothole. Now I'm back on Long Island, L.O.L. Yeah, I lived on Long Island for 16 years. I feel your pain. Are you living in China, by chance? I've been to China a few times.

Yeah. How about you? What did you ever? Only for 12 hours. Oh. like changing claims. Yeah, but clean.

Oh, as he pointed out, I didn't see potteros in the location that I was in. And housed, I don't think I'd seen any homeless when I was there. I did not. I mean, certainly I saw poverty,

particularly in rural areas. And, but yeah, I mean, look, the Chinese, when they see a problem, they step it up. Like if they have massive mad air pollution, they're like,

holy shit, we've got to step it up. We got to put on filters. That is a society that is imperfect for sure, but they recognize the main problems affecting people's quality of life, and they try to address them. That sounds really basic, but we don't do that here. Right.

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fertilizer. It's a Trumpian miracle. You saw that picture, right? Oh, God. And the numerous takeoffs, like with Epstein and. Yeah. Yeah. There's a picture that came out of Trump, just the case the audience, it was like a generated video of like, or picture of Trump as Jesus or something like that, the Pope had feelings about it. Yeah, he's basically like, yeah, he is Jesus. He's doing the laying of hands on a sick man. there's people sort of praying next to him. It's sort of like a hodgepodge of militaria and medieval images of Christ.

And there's the American flag. And it's just all this like weird. I never understood really the conflation of American shit with Christian shit. And political right wing shit with Christian shit. I mean, those two two things don't really mix well, I think, aesthetically. But there they are. Yeah, I mean, look, here's the thing, right? Like Trump's defense was incredibly lame, right?

Like he said, I thought it was me as a doctor and I was healing people as if that. Whatever. As if that would be normal. And we thought it was supporting the Red Cross. There's no references to the Red Cross whatsoever here. Do you think he, did he, when he comes up with these defenses, Is that part of the trolling? Like, does he know it's ridiculous?

And he does it on purpose in order to wind up to own the libs? Or is he really trying to spin get out of it? So I think there are two things happening at once. Sometimes just because there's an argument makes it seem like there's an actual argument. Like meaning, just because I say stuff or making a case, sometimes you can make a case that is nonsense, but you're arguing nonsense. Just make it look like there's an argument. There's that. to there's an argument to be made and this argument was made in Dune, God Emperor.

I think it was like the fourth book in the series, where any religious, any political organization needs a religious tradition associated with a political organization. Basically, you can't have politics that's off. There has to be some kind of religious. Well, I mean, socialist regimes were anti-religion though. True. But that's just the argument of God emperor, that eventually those, run out of scene on their own merit. You need some kind of devotion associated with it. Like for example, like if you, let's look at America. America's a really good example.

Supposedly, I'm not going to say atheistic, but at the very least, the government is supposed to be non-military in the way that it operates. Yeah. But you get a system that the original ideas for that system have fundamentally be dropped. like this idea that, hey, we shouldn't be going for foreign wars. We shouldn't, we need to deal with the population.

This is about freedom and liberty and all this stuff, eventually it gets a point, but that stuff matters less in a political space. Those ideas become antiquate. It's not what they operate on. They operate under pure cynicism with the veneer of these ideals and these things that they seem to care about. So wars are done under this idea. Well, we're helping. You know, it's like we're dropping humanitarian bombs.

or capitalistic ideas as opposed to what is in the best interest of workers, what is in the best interest of the public, we need to ensure the well-being of the citizenship, that stuff gets trashed, and that is not the model to which they are effectively operating another.

Meaning you need something else to tether to it in order to keep those ideas intact. At least that was the idea that they were arguing and do. But that seems to be what they run with with those kind of Christian stuff too. And I see Rob is here. So Robbie... Well, yeah, and I really want to hear Rob,

I mean, Robbie is the resident Christian here. I don't, I mean, I think there's obviously a brazen attempt here to make Trump look at least like the agent of Christ or of God. That, you know, God works in mysterious ways as the argument we've all heard. And obviously, with all this kind of imagery, even when it's not quite so blasphemous, you know, there's this idea that some. somehow he's doing the Lord's work, you know, isn't the Lord's supposed to do the Lord's work? And, you know, isn't Trump supposed to be doing the people's work, which, I mean, obviously, those don't have to be in conflict. But, you know, it seems like this is an effort by the state or by the Republican Party or by

Trump or whatever to grab the faith and devotion that Christians have for Christ. and for God and to take it for themselves. Well, I don't know how you're doing the Lord's work by murdering innocent people. So I'm going to start off with that right there. You don't. This is a play for the Christian Zionists that have infected America's churches. This has nothing to do with Christ. This has nothing to do with the message of Christ.

This has nothing to do with the work that he finished on the cross. This is a political agenda for the benefit of his. boss Benjamin Netanyahu. That's what this is. Can you just explain, I mean, I agree with you, Robbie. Can you explain to me why the fuck a Christian would be a Zionist? I mean, the whole point of being a Christian is that you now believe in a whole New Testament to coin a phrase, right?

Like, you're not Jewish, right? You're not, like, Christians are one thing that they are not is Jews. So why do they care about Zionism? well i mean the bible actually takes it a step further it it calls them the enemies of the gospel so they're called the synagogue of satan i mean those are not terms of endearment now to answer your question although synagogue of satan would be a great name for a heavy metal band just saying it would be by the way well i wouldn't i'm i have a problem with it because there's a heavy metal a heavy metal band it's called pantera and if you read the talmud pantera is the name that the jews

out was Mary's lover who is a Roman centurion and the and the father of a bastard Jesus. So talk about the most blasphemous thing that you could possibly say to a Christian. That is what Pantera is. It just shows how wicked that band is. Now to answer your question, what they do is that they conflate Genesis chapter 12 and the promises that the Lord made to the Jews specifically, specifically to Judea, regarding the Babylonian captivity and their return to the land after Cyrus comes in the power. They tried to conflate those two things and make them one and the same. They are not.

Nowhere in the New Testament ever does Jesus or any of the apostles ever say that the kingdom of Israel will be restored to a physical, earthly kingdom. That does not happen. That happens in the millennial reign of Christ. Well, you're telling you what they're doing wrong. But like I said, but what does this come from? I mean, obviously, first of all, Zionism only goes back to Theodore Herzl in the 1880s, right? It's new. And then the state of Israel is 1948.

Right. And then, I mean, so politically in the U.S., when did this, I mean, I don't remember this when I watched the TL Club and the 700 Club when I was a kid in the 70s. I don't remember this shit. When did it start? And like sort of where did it take hold? Really the big push is a six-day war. They said that was a miracle that when Jerusalem was captured, that that is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

The city of David has been returned to his people. And that's really when this big push goes in. Also, coincidentally enough, that's also when APEC was really first got at start and got seated here. And really where they got into it, if you ever read this, if you ever want to do a fascinating study, read the origins of the Schofield Bible.

because most preachers back in the early 1900s, they'd go to seminaries. So what they would do is that, and Schofield is really smart. So he put his notes that were very Zionist in these Bibles that they sold and marketed, specifically for preachers who could not afford to go to a seminary. So that's where that got in,

then infested the Moody's, and it infested a lot of the Bible colleges, and that's where this all comes from. So it's coming out of places like Liberty University and stuff like that? Oh, very much so. but that's where I got it start. And then what they do is that they take Genesis chapter 12 out of context. So it's a big double whammy.

First, politically, you must support this political entity of Israel. Because if you don't, God's going to smite you, if you don't support people who do not believe in his son. So make that make sense, first of all. Second, they say that the Jews are God's chosen people. Well, if a Jew dies without Christ, does he go to heaven or hell? he goes to hell according to the Bible. Okay, well then how does that person, a chosen person of God?

Because sitting someone to hell is not a loving act. So, none of it makes any sense. The problem is that Christians do not read their Bibles. You got to turn off your pastor, and you've got to pick up the book and read it for yourself and study yourself approved. I have found that to be true. I've had debates with people who are Christian,

who clearly I'd read the Bible a lot more than they had. Is it that they think that, the Jews are required for Christ to come back. They basically certain things have to take place. Yeah, millinarianism. Yeah, they think that the third temple has to be rebuilt on the temple Mount. The problem is that the temple wasn't even on the Temple Mount to begin with.

If you read, again, read your Bibles. The temple was built by the key, by the, by the Keedron Brook, the Brook of Keedron. That's on the Temple Mount. That wall they're praying to is a wall of the importance Antonica, which is built after. So whenever you say that that temple, that wall is a part of, as a part of the original Jewish temple, you're calling Jesus a liar because he said when he was being led to the cross, not one stone would be left atop the other, not one. And if you go through and read the historical record, specifically from Josephus, when the Roman sacked Jerusalem, Titus is so thorough, he had

the foundation stone dug up. It looked like a field when he was done that no one had ever lived on. read it. It's a fascinating story. And so I guess what I'm getting at it's, regardless of what's in the Bible, they had belief set that requires certain things to take place, like the red heifer, for example, that they're trying to create in Texas. Right. The, like, as you point out, the Temple Mount. Like, they have all of this mythology associated with what's required for Jesus to return. Do they actually believe this? Or is it like? Or is it?

Some of them, like, it blows my mind. It blows my mind. but something really seemed to believe it for like they're trying to build a red heifer in Texas. Yeah. They're not doing that for no reason, right? Well, the thing is also, I mean, you can go in and there are charities that you can donate money to for the rebuilding of the third temple. Yeah. I don't necessarily agree with this. I think that the temple that they're talking about is not talking about the third temple in Jerusalem.

I don't know what it is specifically. It's not temple it is. I don't know. It's not that temple because it will never be rebuilt. I mean, but Robbie, theologically, I mean, and we should. move on after this, but do you believe that, like, you know, in terms of the gospel, that it's a Christian duty to try to help, you know, like, you know, Mark Furman helped justice along by throwing the glove over the wall, gave your lady justice a little kick in the ass. Do you think

it's Christians' believers' duty to, like, you know, help, you know, the final judgment come, you know, and the return? Or are we supposed, or are you just supposed to, you know, do your, do you, live your life and then, you know, wait for it to happen and it happens when it happens. A miracle needs a hand. If your God needs your help, you have a very small God. And also, if your God can be explained in a book, you have a very small God. My God does not need my help. And his ways are so far above mine, I cannot understand everything.

I'll be the first one to tell you that my Christian walk is full of paradoxes that I cannot explain. And it's because I cannot understand the mind of God. And so if your God needs your help, you have a pathetic weak. Sorry excuse of a God. Sorry to interrupt, but we do have to keep going. All right. So, Zoila Rosa, thanks for the $5. Amazing duo.

Thank you very much. I think billionaires should not exist. Free Palestine. I agree. F. U.S.O. He felt that he had the multitude with McFish sandwiches. It's fish and loaves. Zola Rosa, thanks for the five bucks.

Why does anyone ever talk about how much better it was during COVID? working from home and the government was helping more. And that is true. I mean, you know, there were people getting, a lot of people, I knew some, who were getting $600 a week as COVID payments, and they had never earned that much before. Studies have shown that the millions of Americans were able, they didn't use the money for meth.

They paid off old credit card bills. They got out of debt traps. they ended up improving their lot in life quite substantially. It was kind of like a universal basic income experiment, and it worked fantastic. I do think this is a, it's a topic that's really worth talking about. I agree with you. On the, see, COVID was driving people crazy. That's the raw up, though, like being stuck in the house, having this kind of weird viral thing.

But from the same point of government intervention, Yeah, agree. I mean, you can look like, meaning I don't take issue with the government intervening and stuff like that. Like when Joe Biden was trying to give the $300 a month for child care, right. Mind you, they only kept it for a year. Right. It should have kept going, yeah. It should have kept going.

It was not enough either. No, but it's like a social security for kids. And if we indeed make the argument that kids matter, then how those kids are raised matter doubly so, right? It's like, that's your society. Whatever those kids. If you live in a city like Washington or New York, you know that's true because one of the dirty secrets is 95% of street crime in New York City is high school kids, you know, middle schoolers and high school kids. Kids do matter. So, Kay Gray, thanks for the 10 bucks, enjoying the show.

Thank you. And thank you very much. Zoylerosa, thanks for the five bucks. Do you guys enjoy the Lego Iran war propaganda as much? as I do. Oh my God, they are so good. Don't let the Lego award. You know the Lego. What? You don't know? The Lego. The Lego. Oh, no. The Iranians make, there's this one, there's a now there's a bunch of them. The best ones come out of some company called Explosive Media, some Iranian company. And they make these like Lego every day. It's like reacts to the day's news. And it's always like making fun of Trump. There's there's like distrack.

It's hip-hop. And basically, it's Lego Iran movies. The distrax thing is. Funny has all held to me. Like, the idea that the government is putting on discracks is just, like, it is saying something about where we are. Like, this is not like the old Soviet war era things where war is just done by serious men and suits. They're making distracts. Oh, it's very modern, right?

Yeah. I didn't know that, you know, until all this happened. didn't know that they had rap in Iran, but of course they do, right? I mean, yeah, the music thing. But it's just wild to me, right? Or Legos. I didn't know they had Legos in Iran. And even Legos.

Like, even that's funny to read. I enjoy it. I do. I love them. I look forward to them every morning. I'm like, oh, God, please let there be a new one. Yeah. And there usually is.

Now there's a bunch of knockoffs. There's also this crazy, have you seen the Chinese ones where they're like, They're basically kung fu like things like with like my faith. So it's the the American eagle. It's the Trump eagle with a crown. And then there's because it's Chinese, they don't use the visuals to really, to really mock like Trump, right?

It's more like this is just the American eagle. And then there's the Persian cat who's like, you know, like a like a warlord like wearing a black bat. And it's all kung fu. like stuff like medieval. And the thing is the metaphors and allegories because it's Chinese are so thick that it's like impossible for a non-Chinese person to understand anything that's going on. They just look really, really cool.

That's so funny. That's the modern war, man. I mean, and to be fair, though, they used to have those were propaganda posts. Like when fighting the Germans, the Germans. Oh, I have files of them, full of them. I collect them. Do you? Yeah.

Like, no, when it comes to, I love Soviet propaganda posters. I have so many. My favorite Nazi propaganda poster was the last one issued in Occupied France as they slapped it up on the wall as they were retreating. And it said, we're leaving, but we're going to come back. And so if you do anything that violates German law while we're gone, we're going to come back and kill you. So you keep doing German shit while. we're gone. It's like, uh-huh. By the way, you know, you know that poster, the, the British poster, keep calm and carry on? Yes. Like, nobody knows the story about,

do you know the story about that? No. So that poster was never actually released in, in Britain. People don't know that. They think it's like a World War II poster. That poster was kept in reserve, and it was going to be posted if the Nazis invaded and took over Great Britain and the royal family and the English government had to flee into exile, they were going to slap that on the wall as they left. Keep calm and carry on. It changes the meaning when you really think about that, right? Yeah. Context. Keep calm and carry on. I thought it had to do with the kids being sent to the thing and people having to deal with the bombings and shit like that. Yeah, I thought it was released. I didn't realize it wasn't released. Yeah, the stiff upper lip. It's more

like, you know, like we're gone. Just keep calm and carry on. It's a very strange. message to send, you know, like basically in response to society, to defeat, right? Yeah, kind of. I mean, but it's Brits, right? Yeah, it's very cultural. Yeah, it's very, yeah, it's hard for us to kind of get because, you know, you think people be panicking and whatnot like that, but from there, it would be, keep calm. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, that's together.

Yeah, that's not what the, like, when the French government collapsed, and it's analogous to, like, when Saddam's government collapsed in, in the face of the, U.S. invasion. In 1940, when basically the French army was retreating, the trucks pulled into villages and dropped off tons of weapons and guns and said, hide these in your barns, you know, use these for the resistance after we're gone. And people did, and it helped, you know, those were the first source of weapons. Also, they tore down all the signs, you know, those famous French signs, like they tell you which direction each town. is in the there's always a traffic circle they tore all those down so that the germans would get lost

saddam did the same thing they tore down the highway sign so the americans would get lost um yeah although being occupied yeah yeah totally hampshire college um yeah i had an ex-girlfriend who went to hampshire college uh she and and you know um and basically she loved it it was a very special place um first of all no grades so when you took when you took a class at hampshire college when you take a class so hampshire college is closing it's in amherst which is where there's a lot of colleges right there's umas amherst um there's uh you know just a god i'm forgetting all the other ones but anyway there's there's like it's a shit it's a monstrously big um you know college town anyway hampshire is a small liberal arts school and they were famous for basically when you got your grades um

you got a giant like essay written by your professor in response to your work instead of a grade. Wait, wait, look. You said you got an essay written by your professor about you and your work. Okay. And I know because I've seen these because I used to work in the admissions office at Columbia. And sometimes we'd get a transfer student from Hampshire. And so they didn't have a transcript. So in lieu of a transcript, you'd get this giant she,

of like essays from the professors. So you had to, you know, as an admissions officer, I had to read all of the, all of these, you know, Hampshire College thing. And I remember just thinking, this professor really spent a lot of time thinking about and analyzing this person's work in a way that says a lot more than say,

Jamal Thomas B-plus, you know, Ted Rao, C-minus. It's like, you know what I mean? It was, I mean, it's really sad. And I also think, and by the way, they've had some pretty important alums come out of that college. What was his name? The PBS documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns. He graduated from Hampshire.

Okay. And the point is that, like, I guess what does it say about the United States? And Hampshire's not the only liberal arts college that's in trouble. A lot of them are in trouble. What does it say that a country that has basically the same number of seats that it did for college students, you know, when the population was half this current size, can't keep these colleges in business? I think, okay, let's make a comparison for the moment. Let's say China, where you have, and even Europe on some level. We have all of these masses, well, let's say science and tech and all of these kids going into science and tech. And the number of kids they're pushing out that are getting degrees in that country with the recognition that technology, science, those type of things are going to be necessary for a country to compete in a global current, modern economy and society, especially with this kind of world society.

I think it says it shows priorities. Like, you know, think of what they were doing with the Department of Education. The Trump administration comes in, tries to give rid of the Department of Education. This is while simultaneously, there's this argument about H1V1 visas. So in one case, it's like, we are not going to fund education in a way that we need to fund education. While simultaneously making the argument that we're making the argument that we're not, we're We need to bring in workers from, let's say, India or somewhere else that can do X, Y, Z jobs. It's kind of weird having these things step by side one another.

A, we're not going to pay attention to the needs of an educated public and what we need in regards to a skill set internally in the country to ensure that Americans can get certain jobs. Those jobs, in order to get those jobs, you require education and get those jobs. While simultaneously is the same, we need to bring in more people because Americans are too dumb to do various jobs in the country. It's very strange. in the way that these two things are working. And is that even a Democratic-Republican issue? This would happen under a Democratic administration and under a Republican administration,

maybe not getting rid of the Department of Education, but definitely not necessarily dumping the funds into it or in the population. That would be necessary for these things to function and then it may take to keep going. Look, from my point of view, school should be free. Yeah. And this issue may be... And it is in civilized countries.

In civilized countries, it is. And why? You can make the case. that says, well, people should pay for their own schooling, but let's be honest, schooling, it's not just for the individual. Like, it's not a situation where everybody said, we're not going to go to school. It's for our economy. It's for our national growth. You know, you know, by the way, we're not going to need to do like Lebanon and Hezbollah. We can maybe do that tomorrow. I got to say, I was wondering yesterday, like, how is it that we can't go land

on the moon again. And, you know, why? I mean, a lot of people are saying, well, maybe we never did because, and that's why we're like, can't land. Well, so the two explanations that I've read are, number one, we, they took bigger risks in the 60s and 70s. They kind of like, were like, whatever. And number two, we had a better trained workforce at NASA back then. We don't have the personnel anymore. We don't have a scientifically grounded workforce. force to do this. We've just got 15 seconds left. We can do it. It's just like intent, but I agree with what you just said. Yeah. So guys, we're doing a Q&A show in two hours, 12 noon Eastern time. So bring your questions. If you have leftover questions from today's

live feed on Rumble and YouTube, please bring it over there. We'll be on the same exact that channel, bat time is a little bit different 12 noon. See you then. Jamel see you in a couple hours. Please stay tuned for TMI show with Manila Chan and yours truly. Bye.