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TMI Show Ep 106: “Coalition of the Willing Proxy Warriors”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

The TMI Show with Ted Rall and Manila Chan dives into the French summit on the “Coalition of the Willing,” a pivotal meeting held in Paris. Hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and British PM Keir Starmer, the summit united leaders from 30 countries, including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, to bolster support for Ukraine amid its war with Russia. Key outcomes included a €2 billion French aid package for Ukraine’s military and plans for a European-led “reassurance force” to secure a potential ceasefire.

This coalition, spotlighted by NATO and EU officials, aims to counter Russia as U.S. support wavers under Trump. We explore Macron’s push for European autonomy, the strategic troop deployment debate, and the coalition’s resolve to maintain sanctions on Moscow. Tune in for an in-depth look at this critical geopolitical shift.

TMI Show Ep 105: “Rep. Massie’s Explosive Dual Citizenship Ban”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan dive into Representative Thomas Massie’s proposed legislation addressing dual citizenship among federal officeholders. Airing live at 10 a.m. ET on March 27, 2025, and streaming 24/7 thereafter, the episode explores the bill’s intent to require U.S. officials to renounce foreign citizenship, sparking debate over loyalty, national security, and constitutional rights.

Rall, a syndicated cartoonist and sharp-tongued leftist, teams up with Chan, a former news anchor with a knack for cutting through the noise, to unpack the implications of Massie’s proposal. They provide context on the history and current scope of dual citizenship in the U.S. government. The discussion promises to tackle the legal, political, and cultural dimensions of the issue, offering viewers a blend of hard-hitting analysis and the hosts’ signature wit. Catch it on YouTube or Rumble for a front-row seat to this timely conversation on identity and governance in America.

TMI Show Ep 104: “Trump’s Voter Citizenship Bombshell: Will It Rig Elections or Save Democracy?”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan dive into President Trump’s executive order mandating that states require proof of citizenship for voters in federal elections. The discussion centers on the legal and political ramifications of this controversial move, unpacking its potential impact on the U.S. electoral landscape.

Ted and Manila explore the constitutional questions at play, including whether the executive branch has the authority to impose such a requirement on states, which traditionally oversee their own election processes. They also examine the political fallout, considering how this order could shift voter turnout, influence party strategies, and spark debates over election integrity versus voter suppression.

The hosts break down the practical challenges states might face in implementing the policy, such as updating voter rolls or issuing new identification protocols, and how this could play out in courts as legal challenges inevitably arise. With their signature no-nonsense style, Ted and Manila bring clarity to the complex interplay of federal power, state rights, and democratic access, offering viewers a sharp look at a policy that’s sure to dominate headlines as the next election cycle looms.

DMZ America Podcast Ep 198: “The Boy/Man Problem: Too Much Empathy?”

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Ted Rall

Live at 4 pm Eastern/3 pm Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

In this episode of the DMZ America podcast, hosts Ted Rall and Scott Stantis dive into “the boy/man problem,” spotlighting the cultural, economic, and educational challenges facing boys and men.

We kick off with Elon Musk’s “Joe Rogan” claim that empathy is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization,” a “bug” exploited to foster “civilizational suicidal empathy.” Is society’s focus on empathy sidelining male struggles?

Rall and Stantis note the stark educational gap, with the female-to-male college ratio nearing 60:40, and the closing gender pay gap—driven not by women’s gains but by men’s stagnating or declining wages. We tie this to Kamala Harris’s 2024 election loss; she failed to address men grappling with economic stagnation and cultural marginalization, a misstep that cost her against Donald Trump’s hyper-masculine appeal. Rall, from the left, and Stantis, from the right, discuss root causes—systemic neglect versus cultural shifts. Let’s unpack why boys and men are falling behind.

The Era of the Wuss

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Ted Rall

American popular culture, ever promoting the myth that we live in the land of the free and the brave, wants us to believe that we stand up to bullying. Even if bravery is in short supply at times, like during McCarthyism, someone like attorney Joseph Welch ultimately comes to the rescue. Breaking the spell, the First Amendment hero stands strong: “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

It’s hard to imagine who would dare to exhibit such defiance today.

These days, the assault on freedom comes not from an alcoholic senator but a teetotaling president. Donald Trump’s presidency isn’t even ten weeks old, yet his threats have already prompted wealthy and powerful institutions to surrender their fundamental values.

On March 8th, Trump canceled $400 million in federal research grants to Columbia University for what he called “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students” during last spring’s encampment protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. Though there’s still little to no evidence that pro-Palestinian demonstrators made anti-Semitic statements or committed anti-Semitic acts—every directly sourced claim of anti-Jewish speech turns out to be anti-Zionist instead—accusing Columbia of inaction is unfair.

In a notable set of setbacks for academic freedom even before Trump returned to the White House, Columbia forced out its president, banned two pro-Palestinian student groups (including one run by Jewish students), fired at least one professor, and suspended, expelled or revoked the degreesof dozens of students. To prevent demonstrations, Columbia even commandeered a public street running through campus by indefinitely locking its gates.

Trump demanded more. So, choosing stability over principle, Columbia appeased him further. Though there’s no credible allegation against it, the school’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department will be neutered and discredited as it’s placed into a watered-down form of federal receivership. Columbia will create an anti-protester security squad. Protesters will no longer be allowed to wear masks, so it will be easier for pro-Israel groups to doxx those remaining who haven’t yet been expelled, banned, and cowed into silence.

Stability is proving elusive. Several Columbia students have been arrested by Trump’s immigration officers for participating in pro-Gaza events. One, Mahmoud Khalil, a recently graduated master’s alumnus, was dragged from his university-owned apartment and is now in a notorious for-profit Louisiana ICE detention center. Wary of Trump, Columbia officials have expressed nary a syllable of concern.

Not to be out-wussed, the University of Maine system reversed its policy and banned transwomen from women’s sports after Trump threatened to pull $30 million a year in research funding.

Then Trump threatened to remove national security clearances from a major Democrat-aligned law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. So Paul, Weiss agreed to dilute its DEI policies and donate $40 million in pro bono work to causes to be specified by the White House. A D.C. lawyer—speaking anonymously, naturally—told NBC News called the firm’s decision to cut a deal “as craven and despicable a decision as you will find.”

Then there’s the media. ABC News will give $15 million the Trump’s future presidential library to settle a defamation case it would normally have fought and likely won. Meta will do the same, to the tune of $25 million. If it looks like a bribe…

It’s not so much whether or not they have abandoned laudable stances in favor of bad ones to curry favor with Trump. Anyone who reveres free speech should agree with the University of California’s abandonment of the woke requirement that faculty members sign “diversity statements”—another change prompted by a Trump threat to slash federal funding.

Whether Trump is right or not is not the point. The problem is that he’s getting his way by thuggery rather than persuasion.

He is the president. He has the bully pulpit. The fact that he’s not leveraging his position to try to convince citizens of what’s wrong and how it should be fixed signals that he does not believe buy-in is necessary. This is not the way things work in a representative democracy.

It is Trump’s authoritarian style, more than his politics, that ought to animate resistance.

But who will stand up to him?

If a law firm with $2 billion in annual revenue and a thousand lawyers, and an Ivy League university with a $15 billion endowment won’t tell the president to pound sand, who will? Though Trump’s threats to Paul, Weiss and Columbia would have been a hit to their bottom line, neither would have been existential. They would have survived. They might even have thrived as liberal clients and alumni wrote checks in support.

Perkins Boie, another firm in Trump’s crosshairs, is doing what it does best—it’s suing and has obtained a restraining order against the president.

If the story of Trump’s attempt to govern by individual fiat is to have the kind of happy ending we saw to McCarthyism in 1954, it will take longer and be harder to achieve after so many well-connected and deep-pocketed institutions that could have easily resisted caved in so quickly. If and when Trump’s wrath homes in on smaller targets with fewer resources, we will need people with more courage than we have seen in a long time.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)

TMI Show Ep 103: “A Signal Leak: Trumpies Blab Classified Info”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan dive into a stunning security breach involving top Trump administration officials. The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally added to a Signal group chat named “Houthi PC small group,” where senior figures—including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz—discussed classified plans for U.S. military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

The chat contained operational details like targets and timing, with Hegseth outlining the attack two hours before bombs fell in Sanaa. Despite using encrypted Signal, the inclusion of a journalist exposed a glaring violation of security protocols, sparking outrage over the administration’s handling of sensitive information. The White House confirmed the chat’s authenticity, launching a review into how Goldberg’s number was added. This episode explores the fallout and implications of this unprecedented leak—how it undermines national security, the legal risks for officials involved, and its impact on public trust. Join Ted and Manila for an unfiltered look at this explosive story rocking Washington.

TMI Show Ep 102: “Daily Wire’s Epic Collapse Exposed”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan team up with guest Peter Coffin to tackle the explosive implosion of The Daily Wire, a titan in conservative media. The Nashville-based outlet, co-founded by Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing in 2015, is reportedly teetering on the edge of collapse amid whispers of financial mismanagement and internal strife. Shapiro, the company’s star pundit and host of The Ben Shapiro Show, has been a driving force behind its rise, leveraging his sharp commentary to build a massive following. Boreing, stepping down as co-CEO just days ago to focus on creative projects, leaves a leadership void as the company faces a rumored staff revolt and near-bankruptcy. Rall, a provocative cartoonist, and Chan, a fearless journalist, join Coffin, a keen cultural observer, to explore how this shake-up is reverberating across the conservative media landscape. They’ll dig into what it means politically as a key right-wing voice falters ahead of a pivotal election cycle.

TMI Show Ep 101: “JFK Assassination Files Released”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter

In this episode of TMI with Ted Rall and Manila Chan, the hosts dive into the National Archives’ recent release of JFK assassination files, spurred by an executive order from President Donald Trump. With over 63,000 pages unredacted, Ted and Manila unpack what’s new—and what’s still missing. They explore tantalizing details, like the CIA’s surveillance of Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City and Kennedy’s growing distrust of the agency post-Bay of Pigs, as revealed in a memo by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

We don’t shy away from the letdown: no “smoking gun” upends the lone gunman narrative, leaving conspiracy theorists hungry for more. With sharp wit and skepticism, they debate whether this transparency push—tied to Trump’s alliance with RFK Jr.—clarifies history or just muddies it further.

We Are the Fourth Branch of Government

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Ted Rall

In high school, when we studied the separation of powers, I asked my civics teacher: “What happens if the executive branch ignores the judiciary?” He didn’t have much of an answer.

It has happened before. One famous case was President Andrew Jackson’s refusal to enforce a Supreme Court ruling overturning Georgia’s seizure of Cherokee lands. “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it,” a defiant Jackson supposedly said. Georgia expelled the Cherokees in an act of ethnic cleansing known as the Trail of Tears. Lincoln shrugged off a federal judge’s habeas corpus order to release a Confederate sympathizer. The administration of George W. Bush defied the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rasul v. Bush (2004), ordering Guantánamo prisoners be given access to U.S. courts for habeas petitions. Still, presidents usually respect the courts. The Constitution’s checks and balances have mostly held up over 236 years.

But there’s another factor—one that political scientists and teachers like mine rarely mention: we the people. We are the fourth branch of government.

Throughout U.S. history, direct protests have reined in an out-of-control executive branch that disregards the judiciary.  During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, state governments in the South routinely violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and federal court orders, like Brown v. Board of Education (1954), mandating desegregation. Sustained protest demonstrations like the Montgomery bus boycott and Freedom Rides culminated in the 1963 March on Washington, attended by more than 250,000 people. The March amplified pressure on JFK and Congress, leading to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, based on an incident that likely never happened, allowed LBJ to send troops to Vietnam. But the expansion of the war under Nixon and especially his “secret bombing” of Cambodia in 1970 marked a seeming usurpation by the president of the constitutional assignment under Article I of the right to declare war to Congress. Massive popular demonstrations erupted across thousands of cities in 1969, including a November rally in Washington that drew over 500,000 people, and then the violence of the Kent State shootings in 1970, forced a debate over war powers that led Congress to pass the 1973 War Powers Act, which reaffirmed the legislative branch’s supremacy over military action.

Now we face new executive overreach. President Donald Trump has ignored a federal court order, and signals that he will keep doing so. This time, however, there probably won’t be enough big protests to slow him down.

On March 16th, the Trump Administration deported 238 alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. This happened despite an explicit order by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg not to. Airplanes carrying the Venezuelans were ordered to return to the U.S. The administration blew off the federal court order. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele even mocked the federal court’s impotence, saying, “Oopsie…Too late,” while Trump officials thanked him.

There’s a broader pattern here. In February, a Rhode Island federal judge ruled that the administration had defied his order to unfreeze federal grants. If the executive can ignore the courts without consequence, the judiciary is no longer a co-equal branch.

While the courts risk diminishment, the fourth branch of government that might restore balance—we the people, exercising political force via sustained popular protests in the streets—is all but dead, as are the grassroots organizations, Left of the Democrats, that have typically organized them in response to constitutional crises. American Leftists are splintered into a myriad micro-causes, scared off by state surveillance and repression, and sidetracked by digital slacktivism. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a radical Left group, claimed 100,000 members in 1968. Today, the Communist Party, with a few thousand, endorses Democrats.

The Black Lives Matter marches of 2020 rivaled the sustained, high-attendance scale of the 1960s. But they took place during the unique circumstances of the pandemic lockdown. As one BLM demonstrator told me that summer in New York, “I’d usually be at the Yankees game. There’s nothing else to do!”

Failing another lockdown, Trump will likely keep steamrolling the system.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)

TMI Show Ep 99: “Time to Cut Israel Loose?”

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Ted Rall

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan address the escalating conflicts in the Middle East, starting with Israel’s latest bombing campaign in Gaza. The airstrikes, which began days ago, have killed over 400 people, including many children, shattering a two-month ceasefire. We examine the scale of the destruction, with residential areas reduced to rubble and an ongoing aid blockade exacerbating the crisis for Gaza’s surviving residents.

We also talk about Donald Trump’s recent military actions in Yemen, where airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels have killed at least 31 people since Saturday. Trump has intensified this proxy war, with the U.S. deploying what he called “overwhelming lethal force” to counter Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes, which are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

We also cover the broader rivalry between Israel and Iran, a key undercurrent in both conflicts. They discuss Israel’s strikes as a signal to Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—collectively known as the “Axis of Resistance”— as well as recent U.S. warnings to Tehran to cease supporting the Houthis. The show ties these threads together, analyzing these interconnected crises.

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