DeProgram with John Kiriakou and Ted Rall - Professor Who Attacked Jason Arday Suspended | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss:• Nathan Cofnas, the U.S. professor who raised plagiarism concerns over ‌Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who then committed suicide, has been suspended by Belgium's Ghent University and is under investigation for discrimination. Arday, Cambridge's youngest Black professor, killed himself at age 41. Arday denied plagiarism but ​acknowledged mistakes.• The Navy is discussing renaming an aircraft carrier after Trump. The ship, which is still under construction, was set to be named the USS Doris Miller in honor of an enlisted sailor who famously staffed an anti-aircraft gun during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Miller, a mess attendant, grabbed the gun shot down at least one Japanese plane and dragged wounded U.S. sailors to safety.• Democrats are preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting President Trump, his family and administration should they flip the House. Leading the effort are California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is poised to lead the Oversight Committee under a Democratic takeover, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the Judiciary Committee. They are planning to investigate Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet and his family’s cryptocurrency investments. Democrats want to build an accountability message for 2028.LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShowLIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShowhttps://x.com/tedrallhttps://x.com/JamarlThomas#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

Good morning. It is Friday, August 21st, 2026. And that means it's time for D-Program with Ted Rawl and Jemaril Thomas. If it's 9 a.m., it's time for D-Program. And it is 9 a.m. here on the East Coast. Thanks very much for joining us. I'm Ted Raul. Sitting next to me is producer Robbie West. Well, not sitting next to me, really. He's 3,000 miles away or thereabouts. But sitting in the chair that is soon to be occupied by Jamaral Thomas is Robbie West. So here's the story of what we've got going on for you today. We have this regular show, 9 to 10 a.m. We will then have a Q&A show at 12 noon. This is a new thing. Robbie, I think we're not really ready to go exclusive, right, on this one yet. I wouldn't. I think that probably this one, probably the next one, just have it be free range.

Let's just say how it goes. Let's know that we're here. And we'll just kind of go from there. At least that's my advice. All right, I'm going to take your advice as usual. So the plan is to, as Robbie suggested, for the month of August, we'll have two Friday shows that are going to be open as usual, like the way the Monday and Wednesdays ones have been and will continue to be.

This Friday show is a new thing, but in the future, after September, it's going to be for subscribers to the show only. We're going to be rolling out a, you know, all the usual stuff is still going to exist the YouTube subscriptions, the Rumble subscriptions, the Rumble Rants, the YouTube superchats, all that stays the same. We're also going to be supplementing all this with a Patreon page, which is going to be a one-stop place, not only to go to Patreon if you want to support us that way, because there are people who prefer to do it that way, and you have a little more flexibility.

But we'll also have other ways you can support the show, including the PayPal link and all that kind of thing. I was kind of like working on that yesterday in the afternoon. And I think it's almost ready to watch. But I want Robbie and I want Jamarral to take a look at it first. All right. What's going on with JT? Is he talking?

He's still streaming. I don't know who he's talking to, but he's still on the air. Okay. That's fine. We'll see him when we see him. Yeah, I'm always happy to have you. No problem. No must, no fuss.

All right. So Robbie, here's what we can. got going on for today. We, of course, remember the tragic situation with Cambridge University professor Jason Ardei. He was accused by a professor at Ghent University. He's an American guy who's in Belgium. His name is Nathan Kofnass. And he basically accused Jason Ardei of plagiarism. And basically went after him on social media. Jason Ardei, age 41. Basically, at the center of this media controversy, ended up killing himself. And he always denied the plagiarism, said that he'd made some mistakes.

He wasn't specific about that. He certainly spun a story of a life that seemed probably a little bigger than it probably really was. Like, for example, he claimed that he was running like marathons every single day, which is something that only elite runners can. do and he didn't seem to be an elite runner. He also claimed to have been nonverbal by the time he was eight until he was 18 years old and nevertheless got to go and got admitted to prestigious colleges and had a storied career. Anyway, the point is that now, Nathan, the targets are, is on the back of Nathan Kofnas as well. And he is currently been suspended by Ghent University.

he's being investigated for discrimination. So, you know, it's just kind of like a crazy thing, a story that just sort of refuses to end. Discrimination about what? Pointing out that the guy was a liar? That's not discrimination. That's called telling the truth. There's no discrimination there.

Well, I mean, I suppose this thing will play itself out in whatever passes for an academic trial at Kent University. But, you know, I mean, the big story here is that academia, has become, you know, even more than it ever was in the past, in the light after Me Too and in the age of woke and all that, it has become just a place where there's no, like, there's no grace, man. I mean, it is a hotbed of backstabbers. And, you know, it's at the point now where if, you know, I were offered a job and I used to dream of getting a job as a professor of cartooning or history or something like that at some small college,

somewhere in the United States. I mean, I'd still be interested, but I have to admit if one were offered to me, I would have to think twice, three times, four times, just whether I was interested in it because, I mean, it's so rough. I mean, look, here's the thing. Jason Ardei became the target of racially coded attacks. There's a lot of professors who make things up and are accused of making things up. But this guy was young. He was black. He was the first tenured black. professor at at at uh at at Cambridge and that painted a target on his back and they went after him the right went after him with him on social media with a vengeance that's sort of disproportionate to the seriousness of the matter I mean let's not forget these are American conservatives

going after a professor in England right I mean he's not even here and um they went after him like crazy and I mean arguably drove him to take his own life so I mean I think they're going to what they're investigating him for, and I'm not saying that it's deserved or not, but is whether he discriminated against this, against our day, because he was black. And I mean, certainly the, the attacks were no question racially coded. I mean, I think, you know, if you go back and look at the way, you know, that they were phrased, it wasn't like, hey, here's this lying professor and someone should call him out. It was like, hey, here's this lying black professor who probably wasn't qualified because he was black. I mean,

That is the way it was Cody. Good morning, Jamar. Good place. Good morning. You always come in the best times. Yeah, always come in at the great part. You do. Listen, I'll be the first one to tell you,

ever since I've really started to really big on over there on pickax. I almost never going to X anymore. It's a sewer. I just, I don't like it. It is a sewer. So, you know, the attacks that you're talking about,

I've never seen them. I don't know. Sickening. Really? But here's what I would say. And again, I haven't seen these. So I don't know. So if you're attacking somebody because you are a, specifically because you're a certain race, like you're white, black, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, what Martian? Okay, that's fine. But if you're using it as an adjective, especially in the age of DEI, and I think that's really where a lot of, this comes from again i haven't seen this i'm saying this might need jerk reaction where certain people certain groups are lifted up by by an immutable characteristics like who your parents are you are first generation minority from where you know wherever hell is it where no it is that you are kind of like um no Biden's press secretary uh bozre lepierre i mean john pierre yeah the the very first the

Very first, if you put this as part of your identity, you deserve your attack. Wait, I'm sorry, Robbie. She said, I'm historic. She did. So she's a woman of color, check. She's a lesbian, she's probably the shortest press secretary. And so she listens as one of the real things that make her so great of her job. Don't forget that, right?

I put it on there. I put that she's a carpet muncher, but the point that I'm trying to make is that if you make that part of your identity. If you make that part of your identity and then if I attack you, using the identity that you gave me, that does not make me a bigot. That means that I'm using the exact same characteristics I use to always yourself. I mean, I'm with you a lot of the time, Robbie, but that's not true. I mean, if if like I, you know, if let's say Jamaral is just sort of like gets a big job and he's like, hey, I'm the first black guy to have this job. And like, you know, okay, that's notable. Okay, it's not not notable.

And it's like he's using it to promote himself, whatever, good for him. And then like, and then let's say, and I'm like, oh, and I've got, and I've got Jamal, the first black, whatever, who has got this. And then like, and then you attack him. And it's like, oh, well, he doesn't, he's not qualified because he's, you know, he's just got the job because he's black. That's still a racist attack. I mean, you're not opening yourself up to being, you know, attacked over your identity,

just because you pointed out yourself, you know? That doesn't make you, that doesn't make you vulnerable to that type of attack. I mean, it's still, it's still racism. It makes no difference. I guess it just, I guess we're just pulling the scale and I'll go away because the other guest is here, but just hear what I'm saying. If you go in, if you're going on these speaking circuits and you talk about how historic is that you are, and you're using things that you have to completely outside of your control,

like you are this success story. you run a marathon two times a day. You have hair that goes down to your butt. You're a stunning beautiful dude. Okay, those last two parts are true. But then you talk about how you are functionally alt- You're completely out. You're basically a vegetable till you're touched by the spark of the divine when you turn 18.

Because you're super goddamn genes kicked out. That's probably wasn't true. And then you're going to take it a step further. So in addition to writing two marathons a day, you also find time to get cats out of trees because of your superior, no, athleticism. And you go and you help little old ladies while you're between marathon ones. That's your point. He had a, I get to attack you.

Then I get to attack you using those things that you put up because it's so obviously fake. That does not make me a racist. That makes me a realist. Right. And if you say like, look, you know, that guy who happens to be black is a liar, that's okay. But if you say that black guy, that's a black liar. But as far as JT goes,

if JT you got ever got a job in a high end field, like a tech or something, it would not be, I'm convinced it would not be because he's black. It's because the dude's wicked smart. That would be why. As his story. My gay was a smart guy too, actually.

He was a gift of storyteller, for sure. I don't know how smart he was. As the historic first Black coast on the program, I would like to point out. Look, okay, look, the DEI thing has always bugged the hell out of me if I'm being bluntly honest with you. Because the truth of the matter is you have a country that for, I don't know, hundreds of years, I suppose, worked on a racial premise. many the DEI thing started when whites were effectively installing themselves in particular positions and would exclude blacks from positions it didn't matter how smart they were it didn't matter how smart women

were it didn't matter if they were capable they just weren't going to get the job right and this goes all the way up to like the 80s where people were being red line and housing people were being kept out of certain positions because of their race and so in fact it even became like the shiny object thing where they would say, I'm going to put this black person in a particular position. Okay, but why are they saying that? They're saying it because it's an anomaly that they're putting the black person into position. Right? Like, that's not the black person.

Like, that's not, I am black, and I got this position because I'm black. It's an anomaly that a black person or a person of color is getting the position at all. That was in government and that was in public policy. And so this idea now, from my point of view, that it gets. flipped where whites were the ones that were protecting whites in those positions and nobody said squat. That was nobody complaining about that, right? It was just normal. And now that African-Americans or people of color are getting particular positions, you get white saying DEI. Maybe they're competent. Maybe they're capable. It's just almost as an oddity that they got the position, which is why

the fact that their black becomes an issue or the fact that their woman becomes an issue. To be clear, I don't want anybody getting a position just because there are anything. I don't want a dumb pallet getting a position because the Air Force says we need diversity. Diversity is our strength. Not if the guy's incompetent and not if he's going to take a plane. So just to be clear, no black person wants an incompetent black person doing anything if their lives are going to be at risk or if competence is required for the position. I want to make that clear. As a flat fact with metaphysical certainty, there will be

no black person short of people who are just racially oriented who are going to say, yes, the black palate, I want a black captain, I want a black doctor, I want a black anything if the guy's incompetent. You'll be pleased to know I have been watching D-Space 9.

Oh, good. And I do believe that Captain Cisco is a competent, strong black captain. Oh, dude. He, And it's not because of DEI. It's not because of me, right? That's what I mean, right? I want Cisco in that row.

I don't want Picard in that road. Picard would have lost war. Cistow would win the war. I guess to your point about, and I'm probably going to take some flack in this to comments. Don't go away because nobody have a show to do. All right. I don't know if it's so much.

Listen, England and the 800, one last point. One last point to touch your point. Look, one thing to attack a guy. Why does race need to come? Like if somebody says that guy's a liar. Doesn't matter that he's black in line? Right? Does the black make it worse? I don't know. Let's just say, let's just say, for example, if I came on this show, as I've been accused of being, is it a white wasp evangelist,

evangelical for Christ. And they came to find out that I've been going to the titty bar down in Missoula, getting drunk and cheating on my wife. Would the people in the audience who be following a long, proud tradition, I have to say. Right, right. It would be long. I would not be proud, but would then would the people in the chat then be right and pointing out my hypocrisy as being a white and lost? When you say white, they would just say that guy was going to the titty bar.

Dude, they're 100%. They never 100% dropped the white card. Let's just say TisDade was. They wouldn't add white to it. That's what I'm saying. whether you were white, black, Chinese, whatever, it wouldn't be that black guy went to the titty bar, that white guy went to it.

It was just the white guy went to the titty bar. No, it would be like that Christian guy went to the titty bar. Meaning, what does the reason to do with it? That's a hypocrisy thing, right? But that's not the same thing. I mean, our day was never accused of anything hypocritical, like going against, I don't know, going against his blackness or anything like that.

I mean, he was accused of fabulousism and plagiarism. Now, the thing is, I got to say that in academia, plagiarism is by far the worst offense, right? In journalism, too. Okay, I've been accused by the L.A. Times of fabulousism. I've never been accused of plagiarism. But the point is that, like, our day really probably isn't guilty, wasn't guilty. wasn't guilty of plagiarism. I mean, there's been already some investigations.

It looks like really he's in the clear there. And so what we're really talking about is fabulous. And it's like, okay, so, you know, a lot of people at that state. I mean, you know, Jason, there's James Frye, right, who wrote that book, A Thousand Little Pieces, right? He's a white guy. He's been rehabilitated. Oh, Oprah Winfrew one, right?

When he was on Oprah Winfrey, and she was. Oh, she ate him alive. She did eat him alive, but he's been rehabilitated. He has a new book out. I mean, you know, it's the American tradition. You lay low for 10 years and then you come back out. You know, I mean, the thing is, and I know people were pissed at him. I'm one of them.

And, you know, it's like Stephen Glass. I know I was really close to friends with an editor who hired him. You know, he wasn't at the next. You know, my editor was not at the New Republic. But the point is Stephen Glass, he's, you know, he could reenter journalism if he wanted now. I mean, it's like, Jason, I mean, I think with, you know, it's harder for black guys who do shit like this. The guy at the New York Times, he was a black guy who got caught as a fabulous. Oh my God, it's going to come to me.

Jason Blair. So Jason Blair, right? I mean, he claimed that he was like, I don't know where, but he was basically supposedly like in the hinterlands of West Virginia talking to conservative voters when he was actually just on his banging out, bang on his laptop in Brooklyn, right? And the point is, okay, Jason Blair is no more, right? Like, it's kind of like, if you're black and you do something like that, you are never going to be heard from again.

There was some lady who won a Pulitzer in the early 80s. she was a black writer for the New York Times. I forget her name. She was stripped of her Pulitzer, fired from the Times. Again, never to be seen or heard from again. I mean, my point is, when, you know, same crime, different time. It's sort of like the criminal justice system. I think probably a better example it was you're talking about.

The NBC anchor, Ryan, what the hell? I think it was Brian, what the hell was his name? Brian Williams. Yeah. So he was talking about we came under fire and just talk about just all these things that never, ever happened. Right. Or Hillary Clinton famously, they're on the tarmac in Sarajevo. Right. I was under sniper fire. She's walking around sunny day. Perfectly fine. So to your point. Donald Trump, every fucking sink, every second of his life, constantly spewing bullshit, right?

I think those would be better examples as well as you're talking about. I don't know if that's even a race thing. That's the thing. That's just probably more of a class thing. You're part of the elite ruling class. You just get a pass. I don't know what you do. But it does become a race thing. I do think this is a race thing.

Look, I try to look at this from the white perspective to understand how they get this wrong. Because, look, I would tell you, from the black perspective, it is fully believed we grow up with the full knowledge. It is beaten to us. you can't get away with the same things they get away. We understand it. It is built into us. We get it, right? You've got to be better in order to be equal.

Meaning it's not an equal race. You have to be better than them. And as a living example of us, Obama, Harvard, if I'm not mistaken, Yale, Harvard Law Review, et cetera, that's what it takes to become president to be black. Right. And then behind him, you get Trump, one of the dumbest people on the planet. Do you don't think that J.C. Smolett played in this at all with this family? Obama, he would.

The wrong. Jesse Smolett and shit out of people. He can't do that. Trump can do that. It's accepted with Trump. It wouldn't have been accepted with Obama. Maybe. Maybe not.

Obama did it. What are you talking about? Obama did it. He's the one that normalized assassinating Americans without due process with drones. That was funny. No, no. That's a normal presidential function. What about that?

That's murder. No, no, no. I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying any president would have gotten away with it. True. Donald Trump has been presiding over an Americans getting killed in Israel, right? I mean, the Palestinian House right now take a place. There will be no consequence if that American is killed. I don't think they're Americans. Like, those are American, those are typical American presidential functions that American presidents will do because media and everything else would allow them to do it, whether they're black, white, gay, straight, or anything between. I'm talking about just personal activities. in the way that people act.

Donald Trump can get into the presidency, despite being rotesquely incompetent, narcissistic, and everything else. Obama could have never gotten to the presidency if he acted that way. I'm saying this is the way black people think. We must be better. The same rules are not going to apply

between blacks and whites. And I think that's the Ted's point. White people do this all the time. Right? They can be rehabilitating. People do this. Not so much. People make shit out.

Yeah, it has nothing to do with him. Like, I guess the point is, it should have nothing to do with him being black. Any attacks on him should go with the fabulosity thing, not the fact that he's black. When white people do it, they don't bring up the fact that they're white. It's not like, oh, this white person did this, and now you have all of these racial things that go along with it. Well, if he's being attacked on Twitter for being black, okay, what does I have to do with him being fabulous? It's that. That's the thing, yeah, because the coding in the attacks was always like, well, of course.

course he turned out to be a plagiarist and a lying sack of shit. Yeah, which is because he's the first black guy that they hired and also he's young, right? But he's like, but he's, but mostly, look at him. He's black. I mean, that was the application with Jason Blair, too. Like maybe the New York Times shouldn't have hired this guy, right? Because look, you know, some white guy didn't get a job. This guy got. I mean, but believe me, I know white guys at the New York Times who are. every bit as full of shit as Jason Blair, and I see their bylines every single day. It's a whole as apple pie.

It's a human thing, not a race thing. I hate the shit when it's like, oh, we finally hired a black guy and look how it turned out. By the way, why do you think black people are magical beings? It's also conflating, right, two things, right? One is about ethics and one is about qualifications, and they're not the same thing. I mean, you know, I mean, it's like, so you could say like, you know, but generically, like, let's say a Jason Blair, you know, I don't know if he was qualified or not. I certainly know white people who have been hired at the New York Times who were not qualified. I remember talking to an editor who was 25 years old and she told me, she was my editor. She told me she had never held a job before. And I'm like, any job? Like, you never worked as a barista. You never like, you know, you like you never did. You never cut your, you. You know. ever babysat? Like nothing.

I'm like, so this is your first gainful employment. And of course, obviously, you know, daddy worked at the times, right? You know, nepotism is a big thing. But they're not the same thing, right? Like you can hire someone who's really qualified, objectively, 4.0 from Harvard, you know, great resume. And they turn out to be a lying sack of shit. Or like Jeffrey Dubin's highly qualified.

He shows his dick to his co-workers. You know, or conversely, someone could end up having perfect ethics and, like, never make anything up, but just be a dingus. And they're not the same thing. But it's all conflated. It's sort of like, oh, like, look at him. And even the photos they were using of this dude, you know, there's thousands of photos of this guy. But they were picking, like, the most unflattering ones and putting them online. It was gross.

It was gross. I do that, too. When I don't like somebody, I put on the most unflattering. I think that's just, that's just a shuman. But now, now, listen, after the show, you've got to be more careful when you're going after a, you know, a person of color. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Well, equality means you don't have to be, right? There's no equality. You treat everybody like, listen, you should have one the same. If you're going to elevate someone because of something that they have no control over at all, and then you're going to put them in such a way where you can't attack them the same way you attack someone else? You just said it. I wasn't in the hiring committee. Were you?

We don't know. What you just says is that you cannot attack somebody who's a person of color different than much you could at a generic white guy in a majority of white country. Disagree. Equality means you treat everybody exactly the same. Sorry, Ted. That's a loss on your part there, brother. No, I'm just saying that like, well, okay, so theoretically, sure. But in reality, yeah.

I mean, you know, when you're like, it's a personal choice. Like, I mean, I drew Obama more flatteringly than I drew other presidents as a car. cartoonist. And you still got called a racist. Tell them working for you. Going after me, okay, and calling me a racist at all. But, and, you know, all the Democrats were like, well, I wasn't flattering. I'm like, everyone's, I draw everyone ugly.

You know, it's my drawing style. I think what it is is that you're conflating equity with equality. Those are two very different things. Equity doesn't work. Equality does. And equality should, everyone should be measured just kind of just flat, based on your performance, based on your character. like if I sucked at my job you know working for you

especially with the stiller amount that I get paid from you all every month you would replace me with someone more competent now I can push back and say well you're discriminating against me because I'm the only white southerners on the show and you want to hire a good idea oh that's

I so agree and disagree with that because that argument and I don't mean to God I hate I don't mean to be to racialize it but it has to be just as a fact to racialize it in this case because this is the country that we're in. Look, how on earth can you be in a country that for the expanse of the country, like 95% of the country's history, it has worked with a racialized idea, meaning the country was, it was in the bricks that it was racialized in a

particular direction with a particular bias, where all of the gains, all of the resources, all of these things effectively went to one particular side. I could see it in the amount of wealth between whites and blacks, where you get whites with like a hyridden. 40,000 on average and blacks with $14,000 on average. And you look at it. You'd be like, whoa, that's wild. And then somebody says, hey, from this point on, everything's equal. It's like, no, it's not. No, it's not. Let's say South Africa, for example. And you're all the way up up to the point apartheid ends and it's like, all right, everybody should be equal now. Okay, you're owning 99% of the resources of the country. How are we pretending that we're

starting from equal standing? It's not. It's not. Like so I get your point about the equality thing, but the equality thing assumes that everybody is equal and things that are, things are not equal. Right. Listen. By the way, just one last point. Sure. Even like that argument of we should be just equal now. Okay, but you, we're, but the country wasn't built that way.

It's not in the bricks that way. The people's heads aren't arranged that way. The culture isn't built that way, meaning none of those things are built that way in order to allow that. And the catcher comes, okay, well, how do you? do that in a way that makes sense. Because as a black person, I'm going to look at this. Well, the stats of this are pretty clear. This is not equal.

So how are we pretending that we're equal as a movement before? I mean, I'm curious on your answer for that, because I don't have an answer for that. Yeah, no, listen. Africa doesn't have an answer for that either. Listen, I get it. I hear exactly what you're saying. And, you know, and. And by the way, you can trash a while.

No, drawn like an April drum. I mean, maybe this is some of the right-wing communists coming out of me. I just, I think it's more of a class thing. And so let me unpack this. I don't go away because we do have a show we have to do. I do agree with you about the class thing. I do think it's more class. So, no, I grew up homeless.

I have no formal education. I'm pretty much self-taught with everything I have. The first real job I applied for was for a, the power company down in Gulf Power in Pensacola, to do, to do IT work for them. So I had a letter of recommendation from George Stone, went there, I took the test, passed the test. We had to do a biography as explaining, you know,

why is it that you're, why is it here that you're doing this? Basically, just it's a sales pitch. And so I put up my biography. The professor said, he came up and said, Robbie, you knocked out of the park, I would hire you, but I can't because of affirmative action. I have to give it to a minority because we were at our quota of white men. Now, to say that white people, people as a monolith are always better off than everybody else is actually incorrect.

I never said that. I know, but that's the society. I said, no, you have white privilege, you have all these things. You have so many more advantages than what other people have. The advantage I have is I was living under bridges and eating swamp cabbage. That's the advantage that I had and I just refused to give up. So now people look at this and well, that's just that's just a rando white guy who's mad because he got butt hurt, got screwed up a job because of affirmative action.

At the end of the day, kind of like we talked about yesterday, resources are scarce. They're finite. You're always going to have a winner. You're always going to have a loser. And I think that I think that you're putting race into this is the worst possible way to do it because that creates animosity. I didn't put race into it. I know you. I'm not seeing you.

That's what that's what DEI and culture does as a whole. So, I mean, if you live in a majority, anything country, like majority Japanese, majority Chinese, majority white, whatever else. Of course, the majority of the jobs will go to the majority of the population. That's math. But it wasn't just the majority of the jobs going to the population. It was the society itself making a choice for whites forever. Like, meaning, look. Come on, Robbie, it's not like roughly 13% of congressmen are black or roughly 13% of actors on TV are black.

You know what I mean? Or corporation owners or XYZ owners. I mean that society itself made a specific determination almost as an apartheid state or its entire existence. And I'm not talking about this on individual terms. And I'm not talking about this because, look, the majority of people in welfare are white. So this is not, this is not like all white people are rich. I don't believe that at all. In fact, when I was at the radio station, my argument was your argument.

The issue is class. Like, that's the issue. That's the main issue. But the problem is that after a while, which ironically, a white guy got across to be better than anything else, that over time in people's heads, race becomes a real thing. And when you have a society where that racial divide was instantiated from the beginning of the country all the way to like the 80s, meaning where a black person can live, what jobs a black person can do, where they can, work. Those things directly affect society and perpetuity. It's one thing if I'm, um, if, if the reason why the Cosby show or part of the reason, it was so big and despite the fact that Bill Cosby couldn't keep his dick to himself. Besides that point, a show showing a black doctor and a black lawyer as a family with fucking awesome kids leaves an impression in not just society, but also in the

black community of, holy shit, that's amazing. Now, tell me, what do you think those kids are going to do and what do you think those kids going to be? They're a lawyer and adopt it. I would wager they travel. I would wager their politically connected. I would wager that living in a decent community. And when they have kids, those kids are going to be oriented around that level of success. They're going to expect it. And the family is going to expect it. Those kids are probably going to be more successful, probabilistically, than they would be if they were living in some slum. And when they have their kids, the same thing. Meaning, this echoes through time. What happens when that is prevented from you? Meaning, when you are living in a society that bars you from that shit, it puts you in the

cycle of poverty, in a cycle of things that is just bad. Like, meaning, I'm trying to point out that history reverberates throughout history, and there are consequences for the things that a particular country or society does, especially in regards to a particular race. So I'm not, I'm not taking it away from you, I agree with you that the issue is class. The Cosby's are in a different class. Their kids are going to act and function differently because of the class that they're in, not just in a rando direct sense, but in an implicit sense for what the family is effectively imparting to those kids. What happened when that's not the case? So I'm not taking anything from you, and I'm not trying to beat a drum of race. My point of view is basically like yours.

The issue is class. If you deal with issues, if you deal with race too directly, you're going to alienate people. Because as you point out, well, what the fuck? I'm poor. I'm white. How are you doing the shit for blacks that advantage them over us? They're not going to care about the fact that the majority of society for the entirety of the country's existence with the exception of the last second was already oriented around the white race, meaning it was already protected. even if you were poor, you still had a better standing to somebody in the country.

He was black. So I say all of us to make the point of saying, your point is apt. The reason why I agreed with Sanders, and I was against this idea of, what is it called, a reparations. I'm four reparations because I think they're open. But the way I didn't agree that Sanders should do it because I thought he'd lose because I thought the majority of whites would say, you're out of your goddamn I'm poor myself. how on earth are you going to make these programs for blacks? What I'm also poor,

but I'm going to think about the larger repercussions of, well, wait a minute, this is up reverb or the society. Well, more to the point also, how would you do it? I mean, would someone whose ancestors immigrated here in 1890, would they be on the hook for? I want to check. Yeah, but that's the point that I'm trying to make. Where you're coming from, I think, is the main point.

And then also, like, should Obama get a check? You know, I mean, he's real. No, he should. He's, you know. I'm going to go, well, let's do. Well, let's do a show because we've got a bunch of comments. Yeah, we have a show. Just to be very clear, I agree with your point.

The DEF programs are very difficult to pull off today and they create alienation. By the same token, it needs to be understood what that stuff was coming from. It didn't just come out of the bullet. So the whole reparation is saying, I'll go away. So I'll be an interesting test case. My great-great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier. He was a dirt farmer. He didn't own any slaves.

He was fighting because the Yankees were there in the South. That says, Diaries. The Yanke asked why you fight this? because you're down here. It's like, thank you, you go home. Yep. And then my wife, her great-great-grandfather was a slave. So in that case, how does that work?

Do I pay reparations to myself? She gets a check. Well, and it's that you pay reparations. It's the government. The government, well, the government gets money from tax dollars are just printing it. So it's the way they got to take it for someone else. The origin entity of a bunch of a collection.

The country does it. The country is illegal fiction. It's an idea. It's the country that allows slave. not you as an individual. In fact, you weren't even living at the time. Well, I'm going to go away before this. We derail this any more than we already have.

All right, with 23 minutes left, let's do some comments. And we have another race-related story, which we know. Right. About this Navy. It's great we can have these conversations without people screaming at each other. It's awesome. All right, here we go. Jason, this is from Golden Talon.

There's just a comment. Jason Ardae was lynched by white gatekeepers who are convinced that blacks don't belong at Cambridge. I think that's correct. The veteran sergeant, the harassment of Jason R. Day was just a racist lynch mob that drove a man to suicide. Should he have been fired by Cambridge? Probably, did he deserve to be terrorized by inadequate white men? No, I would agree with that. F.E. So, more university professors will off themselves in the future when AI replaces them all and things through the dollar. Digital design, let's assume they're unqualified, treat them as such, then find evidence or don't, and

treat to the mat, that's the problem. I have to admit, I don't really quite understand that. If you say, I'm a Ferengi guy. Why do we clothes our women? Okay, that's an inside baseball comment there. They're women to wear clothes. Yes. It's because they are sexist-race.

Okay, so in Anon for us, perhaps there's still a class component that isn't being addressed by racial quotas. America may have been built to help white people, but mainly the wealthy barons above everyone else. I wanted to remind everyone of something that I said at the beginning of the show, but we have a lot more listeners and viewers right now at this stage. I'm working on, and Jamaral and Robbie, I need you guys to look at it too, but I'm working on the Patreon page for this show that we should be able to launch next week. So people will be able to support us that way at different levels.

There'll be more flexibility, and it'll be kind of a place where you can go, even if you're not using Patreon, you can go. go and look at like where the PayPal link is and all that stuff. But rather than set up a website, I just thought, well, you know, just do, we already have the Patreon and we can just do it that way. You know, and if people have, you know, other suggestions. Okay, here we go. Okay, let's talk about this other racially tinged story.

So the Navy, what has a aircraft carrier under construction that was about to, was the name had already been selected. It's the USS Doris Miller. So Doris Miller, despite his name, is a dude and not a trans dude, but he was a dude. He was an enlisted sailor who was not trained to use an anti-aircraft gun, but when the Japanese attacked on Pearl, the, you know, the naval base at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, he was a mess attendant, which means he worked in the kitchen. He ran out, and by the way, in the movie Pearl Harbor, you see him do this.

It's like he's memorializing. It's really famous. And he like basically ran out of the kitchen. Someone had already been shot to death, manning the anti-aircraft gun. So he took over and basically shot down at least one Japanese plane, dragged a bunch of wounded comrades to safety, was awarded a bunch of decorations by the military.

And so this aircraft carrier was going to be the USS Doris Miller. Now Trump wants to, the Navy, is probably going to rename it instead after the orange one. The one who not only must not be named, but must be not named on everything, including the Kennedy Center and Penn Station and Washington and Reagan National Airport, and he wants to have everything named after him before he croaks.

This is, I mean, come on, this is red meat for the racist base, right? I mean, that's what this is. Well, they would say, well, no, we're just renaming it. And blacks would say, you're fucking insane. And they're just renaming. It's not about race at all. They can you get this one, blah, blah, blah. That's what I mean, right?

This is nonsense. This is obviously red meat for racist base. And I mean, for one, it's very badass. I'm in the cooked kitchen. We're being attacked. I run out of the kitchen, get behind a gun, and start shooting in order to defend. You've never been,

that you've never worked on, ever. And I've never worked on. The country hates my guts, and I'm still defending the country while it's under attack. And I'm not talking about, like, a war of aggression where we're going after Iran. I'm talking about in our port,

in Pearl Harbor, fighting the Japanese. That's badass. And he shouldn't be commemorated on the floor. He deserved a phrase, and it was kind of like, I don't think there was ever any controversy about him things being named after him at all.

Nope. Graham can have a fucking base named after him. President Bonespurs. Doris Miller should be able to. And the other thing is if you want to choose something to rename, all right, I'm sure there's other boats that you could choose that are not named after famous black dudes, right? Right.

I mean, Donald Trump, Bonespurs, avoided the military. Yeah. The idea that they're named a boat after him is outrageous. over a guy who's like a, you know, like a metal war hero. A literal war hero. Also, he was portrayed in Torah, Toro, Toro, Torah. That old World War II movie that picked his World War I don't know if you ever sold her. Great.

In my opinion, it's probably the best movie about Pearl Harbor ever made. Like, awesome. The movie, Pearl Harbor, just by that name, is not that great. No, Toro, Toro, Toro. The Pearl Harbor movie, that was when, what Ben Affle F, Lach, yeah. There was this love triangle with the nurse. A pointless attack after being attacked on Pearl Harbor that the movie talked about.

But also, one thing about Doris Miller, who's not realize this. I mean, he was killed, I want to say, the Battle of Coral Sea like a year and a half later. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, he was killed. He was killed in action. All the more reason, right? So, yeah, I mean, Trump is just, this is one of the problems. The three of us can have a real.

conversation about race and class and equity on this other stuff and and we're coming back from an honest place. Trump is in this case doing a dog whistle and it's pathetic and the guy should, I hope, listen, I pray every day he just drops up from a heart attack. I'm so done with him. I'm hoping he sucks. Ball cancer, that works too. Or multiple generations. Some like that. By the way, yesterday I was reading the White House Twitter feed and it said the X feed and it said it had a picture of Trump dressed as a general in AI, like a military general. And it said like under the U.S., as long as he is president, the U.S. will be a moderate and economically advanced nation.

And I'm like thinking, so are you saying really truly that like when you leave office, that like, you know, even under Vance, ideally, from your point of view, that we become Afghanistan? Is that what you're saying? And by the way, what's ironic about that is what are you trading in debt? Right. I don't know if you've noticed this. Japan is selling U.S. treasuries.

There was a big sell-off yesterday. Yeah. Big sell off. And what's interesting about it, if you remember, a week before that, the United States was trying to prevent that very thing by bailing out Japan with billions of dollars in Europe.

They didn't even tell Europe they're going to do it. I just thought by it. back with euros. The wild part about that is the whole point about that was we're trying to stop Japan from just selling this stuff on an open market because it's bad for the dollar if they do. What did the U.S. do? Nobody wanted those treasuries. So the U.S. ends up buying treasuries, meaning we're spending our money to buy U.S. treasuries so those things don't hit the open market in any particular way that damages the United States. Part of the reason Japan is doing this is because the United States is increasing fuel costs because they attacked Iran.

this is insane. Like, it's it's insane. It is totally insane. I mean, the economic ramifications of the war, I think, have yet to really hit home, but... Oh, wait until he hits

food. The cost of food is going to go through the roof. It's in the mail. I mean, food's already crazy. I mean, it's like, you know, I come out of the grocery store with, like, one small bag of stuff that's 90 bucks. I'm like, what the

fuck is not? I was in Malaysia. I used to be able to buy, like, $20 worth of stuff and have like four bags. Yeah. Not now. Beautiful thing. The food has gone through the roof here. Totally.

Yeah. No, that's the big shortage. I mean, and, you know, I mean, look, we should probably talk,

see if we can get an expert to come in and talk about this power generator story that the New York Times, you know, came out with. I mean, I don't know if you had a chance to read it, but it's crazy. But we should,

you know, we, but before, but I don't want to get too sidetracked here. Although, I did want to just sort of do a side thing. Did you see where there's been an arrest in the Nordstream 2 pipeline? Yeah, I saw that. I mean, I'm waiting for Joe Biden to be taken out handcuffs. I mean, look, let's be honest, right? If Joe Biden comes out and says, like, if a president comes up and says, if Russia goes into Ukraine, we're going to effectively blow up the pipeline.

And then the reporter says, well, wait a minute, that's not your pipeline. How are you going to stop the German-Russian pipeline? It's a European halfway anyway product. And your wife said, we'll do it. The Russian go in. The pipeline blows up. You had effectively, let's say, NATO countries' coverage over it at the time of the thing blew up.

And then they're like, we have no idea what happened. Right. Okay, it was trying to psychic. Did your Biden have psychic? What's that? How did Joe Biden know that the pipeline was going to blow up? And then all of them are turning around like, we have no idea what happened to this pipeline. Yeah, and very little interest in even pretending to want to find out.

Yeah. The U.S. obviously blew it up. Like, and they obviously blew it up. Why are we pretending that this is like a mystery? It took us. And then they're like, well, we think four Ukrainians in SS Minow, you know, on a Tuesday, did it on a drunken bender. And then they keep changing stories. And it's like, well, Zlugny did it. Oh, that's pretty convenient that you're losing as a political opponent of Zelensky. And now you're saying that he was somehow responsible. But just to be very clear, he didn't tell Zelensky. Like, okay, guys, just stop. Just stop. Roby, I'm, hold on a second. Let me put Robbie on here. Robbie, what's this question that you're talking about here?

So, Fraz says, but it's more of a comment. Let me go up and see. Forget. So this is from Frazmataz. Good morning. I have a question for Ted, you, and Jamarro. The author of the Maturian candidate based the author, or based the Handel Mother of Roy Cohn, True Story, Look it up.

Basically, he wants us to just do a deep dive into the Manchurian candidate. say there's a parallel between that book of all those that we're seeing now. Well, we talked about it yesterday. I mean, I read the book. No, I don't know. But they just asked us to just take a closer look at it. Okay. By the way, CIA did do psychological research, but meaning they did, you see like LSD and these type of experiments in order to see whether or not they could control people to do certain things. I mean, they were working in these areas. I don't know how far long they got with it,

But they were. Pretty far. I don't know. That movie Jacob's Ladder is a fictionalized version. Oh, that's so good. So good. Terrifying. Scared to shit hug me when I first watched it.

Totally creepy and weird. Yeah, it's great. Let's, all right, let's talk about, all right, so let's, I think we can, so, all right, let me, let's talk about the Democrats who are salivating at the possibility, the probability of taking back the House of Representatives. Wait, I like Cynthia Nixon. I like her.

Oh, I like her too. Yeah. I had an opportunity to watch a few of an interview. She's really good. She's likable. I like her. I voted for her for governor, but, you know, didn't work out. So anyway, so Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat of California and Jamie Ruskin,

Democrat of Maryland, are basically in line to run the oversight and the judiciary committees under a Democratic House next year, assuming that that happens. I think it's likely or not, it'll happen, right? So basically what they're teeing up is that they want to make the 2028 election about accountability for specifically against Trump and that they want to be part of that. They want to, yeah, and what they want to do is spend next year having lots of investigations of Trump's acceptance of the Air Force One from. Qatar and like the

crypto investment schemes and all the grifts that Trump has, I have thoughts, but let's hear yours first. It's look, I want them accountability should be item B

about it. Right. Like maybe go after him. God bless you. Yes, do that. First and foremost, give me your manifesto. Right. I want a real manifesto. I want acknowledgement of we fucked up. We got this wrong. We had to focus on things that weren't really in Americans public centrist or that America didn't necessarily care about. Our over-focused on Trump was a problem. We are sorry. We will do better. We will be transparent from here on out. And this is the items that we want. These are the top three. And we're going to go to the mat. We'll crawl on high glass to get these three things accomplish. Everything else matters less. item B, we're going to put Trump in jail.

Right? Don't, don't, I want you to focus on Trump. I don't want to be the main focus. What are your thoughts? That's exactly what I was thinking. I'm like, no, by no means, should you not do this? It should just not be the main thing you're worried about or thinking about or working on, right? I mean, the number one thing you should be working out is the main problems of the American people.

And those are, you know, high prices, low wages, not enough jobs, AI. climate change, those are the things you guys have to be focused on. And, you know, it just seems like they want to run out, they want, they ran against Trump throughout the Biden administration. Now they want to run against Trump after Trump leaves, assuming that he leaves. I mean, I mean, that's what you want to spend all of your time doing. I mean, definitely. I mean, he should be nailed to the wall for the crypto stuff. But that doesn't put any money in my pocket, right? So, like, I mean, I think everybody's looking at it, like, what are you doing?

What are you going to do for us? I mean, we have this, you know, old people are big voters. I'm one of them, right? It's like social security is in deep shit in six years, you know, save social, promise to save Social Security. Medicare for all, right? Do something about college causes. Do about something about the fact that young people can't get, they can't go to college,

they can't afford a fucking, they can't get a job when they do go to college, and they can't buy a house or a car, right, assuming, like, if they want to. It's like, do something about that shit, you know. Go big. Get to work, you know. Go big. Like, if nothing else, what Trump has shown us is that the political space is wide. If not, he has, like you're talking about, because Obama and many Democrats,

function is like, oh, we're in the box. We can only do X or Y. Nonsense. The president, this president, has shown that there is wide political bearing that the president has power over and the things that they can do. Oh, God, yeah. He's proven that. Yeah. Go radical. It's like, I would argue that the, they are functioning in a space that no longer exists. Also, what about using some novel, like some novel new approaches, right? Like, move into the 21st century. What if, for example, the House Democrats were to say, we're holding a national plebiscite on what the biggest problems are today. And you list like 10.

And everybody's going to get an app. And like you can answer those questions online. And like we're going to take and we're going to be in like this is what the, I mean, you could make it. You could gameify it. You know, you could make it exciting. You could be. And it's like, oh, who do you want?

Who do you want? What experts would you recommend to us who we may not even know, who could like, you know, inform our thinking about, from the left, from the right, from the middle, about, say, affordability, you know, like, you know, just like, you know, bring the American people into the, not have it be top down, bring us into the conversation. Because that's what people respond to now. Yeah. Businesses do that, successful ones do.

And be radical. Yeah. And I'm using the term radical, but I would argue that I don't think radical is radical. No. Especially in this space. I always say radical problems call for radical solutions. We have radical problems right now. Donald Trump got elected. Forty trillion dollar national debt, right? That's a radical problem. That's a radical problem. And I guess I'm making the point of saying, under normal circuit, how can I say this? When you're in certain times, things seem normal. Donald Trump is not normal. The fact that Sanders was able to nearly got elected, that's not normal.

Meaning, I'm trying to take the point of what people think is normal is not normal in the context of what we don't. The American people don't currently feel that things are normal. Right. Hence, the political situation and what Democrats can do is expanding. If they came out with either a plebiscite or they say, look, these are our national priorities. Everything is important to this. This is what we're going to do. You put us in office.

These are the things we're going to do. If you give us the power to do it, we're going to do it. Now, the problem is trust. Right. Nobody believes that shit. In which case, from my point of view, you have to come out with a we fucked up. It's like an alcoholic. I'm an alcoholic.

I drink, I don't know, five gallons of vodka every day. I didn't think I was an alcoholic, but apparently I am. Yeah, you're a drunk. Yeah. I need to acknowledge that before you kind of do something else. I think there needs to be a come the Jesus moment. You'd be like, listen, we're addicted to corporate money. Yes.

But you could help us. You could, like, if we got small donations from you guys, and again, you guys could do a game show. Like, you could do a fundraiser, like a Jerry Lewis Telethon. Hey, so that we can tell APEC to go stick it up their ass. Like, we're going to need $150 million tonight. Come on, America. your Democratic Party needs your help.

They got to do something. I guess my point is space is wide open. It's not constrained. It's not constricted. They need to go big. And as you bought, corporate cash is the issue, right? Corporations are not necessarily going to be fond of this idea of

Medicare for all. Well, maybe. Actually, you can sell Medicare for all the corporations because you're effectively saying, look, you don't have to pay for your employees. Right. And then it's going to pay for it, in which case, that's something that's off your business. I never and I understood why it started that way but it's obviously a drag it was a it was a stopgap thing during the Truman administration right but now it's just a drag on businesses other countries don't have to don't do that right all right we got comments here we got two minutes left or maybe a minute and a half uh dead meme club thanks for the 10 bucks Robbie is cracking up JT cracking up JT is hilarious JT has the most contagious smile and laugh do you all think that everyone in the future will have the same scheme color of light brownish like the South Park episode. That's also in Ursula Liguin's left-hand

darkness. Oh, you write that book. Great book. Yeah. Yeah, she's great. And basically everybody, yeah, it's like basically a person who's omnipotent wishes for an end to racism and the solution is everyone's gray kind of. P.W. They have the same race. Yeah, I don't think it would be. good. I don't have a strong opinion about it, but overall, probably not. Differences are good. P.W. To solve modern problems, Democrats would have to go after the monopolies and cartels. The problem is that the last thing that they want to do because they're subservant to the ownership class. True, a dollar closer to revealing my magnificent tities, according to Manchild. P.W. Walker, Democrats obsessing for no work, no show jobs once they leave a public service.

you don't get those by getting in a way of the ownership class. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it should be illegal, by the way. That's another thing Democrats could propose. Like, it should absolutely be illegal to serve in a private industry that's even obliquely related to the function you served in government for 10 years after you leave, right? Like, if you worked for the agriculture department, you don't get to work, you know, go work for a combine company.

You know, like, no. Yeah. Like Dick Chain and Halliburg. And then BVP. All right, I hear coming in February. I'm going to go ahead and, oh, I know, that's the MI. There we go, that's off.

Anyway, that reminds me. TMI is coming up right now. Please go ahead and check that out. DMZ, it looks like it's going to be 8 a.m. tomorrow, because Stantis just can't get his shit together for the 11 a.m. on Fridays. But that's just as well. just as well because I don't even know what the fuck we're going to talk about today.

So we'll figure something out by tomorrow. Check that out up here up early tomorrow or stream it later. TMI up next, Q&A show. First time on a Friday, 12 noon, 8.2 hours. See you then. Have a good, guys. You should invite Manila on here one day. Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll do it.

I will bring that up as soon as we come on. All right. Have a good, guys. Hi.