The Final Countdown – 1/30/24 – United Airlines Navigates Boeing Woes: Explores Possible Airbus Deal

On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss current events worldwide, including United Airlines and its Boeing woes. 

Jamie Finch –  Former Director, National Transportation Safety Board 
Tyler Nixon – Counselor-at-law 
Dr. George Szamuely – Senior Research Fellow, Global Policy Institute
Dan Kovalik – Human Rights Lawyer 
 
The show kicks off with Jamie Finch, the former director of the National Transportation Safety Board, who discusses United Airlines potentially entering a deal with Airbus following Boeing’s Max 9 blunders. 
 
Later, Tyler Nixon, counselor-at-law, weighs in on the IRS contractor getting sentenced to five years in prison following his leak of Trump’s tax documents. 
 
The second hour begins with the hosts talking to Dr. George Szamuely about Hungary accusing the EU of blackmail.  
 
The show closes with human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik, who shares his perspective on the strikes near the Jordanian border and the pressure on Biden to plan a military response. 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 12/21/23 – Jack Smith Bolsters Legal Team with Renowned Supreme Court Expert for Trump Investigation

On this episode of The Final Countdown, host Ted Rall covered topics from around the world, including lawyer Jack Smith adding a Supreme Court specialist to his legal team. 
 
Dan Lazare – Independent Journalist
Steve Gill – Lawyer and Political Commentator
Dr. George Szamuely – Senior Research Fellow at The Global Policy Institute
Esteban Carrillo – Editor for The Cradle 
 
In the first hour, The Final Countdown hosted Dan Lazare to continue the discussion on the news from Colorado, after Trump got nixed from the 2024 presidential ballot. 
 
Later in the hour, Steve Gill joined the show to discuss lawyer Jack Smith adding a Supreme Court specialist to his legal team in the case against former president Donald Trump. 
 
To begin the final hour, The Final Countdown spoke to Dr. George Szamuely, sharing his perspective on the French Senate’s new immigration bill. 
 
The show closes with Editor for The Cradle, Esteban Carrillo, weighing in on the latest out of Gaza, and the skepticism over a new hostage exchange deal between Israel and Hamas. 
 

Why Are You Not Rioting?

Americans ask: what’s up with France? Why are they so angry and rioting? You could easily ask the same thing about the United States. So many things are terrible. So many of our leaders are corrupt. Why aren’t we angry? Why aren’t we rioting?

The Final Countdown – 7/5/23 – Russia’s Nuclear Authority Warns of Potential Ukrainian Attack on Power Plant

On this episode of The Final Countdown, the hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan discuss top news including the latest out of Ukraine. 
 
Angie Wong: Journalist
Elijah Mangier: Veteran war correspondent and political analyst
Robert Inlakesh: Journalist, writer, and political analyst
Nebojsa Malic: Serbian-American journalist, blogger, and translator
 
The show starts with Angie Wong, a journalist who joins to discuss a scandal at the White House. 
In the second half of the first hour, the hosts spoke to Veteran War Correspondent  Elijah Mangier to discuss the French rebellions. 
 
The second hour begins with Veteran War Correspondent and political analyst Elijah Mangier on the France protests. 
 
The show closes with Nebojsa Malic, a Serbian-American journalist to discuss the Zaphorizha nuclear false flag. 

The Final Countdown – 6/290/23 – Bidenomics? U.S. President Unveils Economic Plans

On this episode of The Final Countdown, the hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan discuss top news including Biden’s economic plans. 
Ted Harvey: Former Colorado State Senator, Chairman of StopJoe.com
John Kirakou: Former CIA Officer, Co-Host of Political Misfits  
Todd “Bubba” Horowitz: Chief Market Strategist of BubbaTrading.com
Elijah Mangier: Veteran War correspondent and Political Analyst
 
The show starts with Ted Harvey, a former Colorado State Senator who joins to discuss the New Hampshire Republican battle. 
In the second half of the first hour, the hosts spoke to Former CIA Officer and Co-Host of Political Misfits John Kirakou on the UN criticism of Guantanamo Prison. 
 
The second hour begins with Chief Market Strategist of BubbaTrading.com Todd “Bubba” Horowitz on Joe Biden’s economic plan. 
 
The show closes with Veteran War Correspondent and Political Analyst Elijah Mangier on France’s birthright citizenship and the murder of an Algerian teen by the police. 

DMZ America Podcast #96: Trump Indictment, Progressives on the March, Is France Moving Right?

Two of America’s best Editorial Cartoonists dissect the issues of the day. First up: the Trump Indictment. Is it folly? Or good justice? Scott and Ted take a deep dive into the recent, historically unprecedented arraignment of former President Donald Trump on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records. What are the repercussions and what can and should come next? Following that, Ted and Scott look at not one but two high-profile progressive victories: one for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, assuring abortion rights in the state for the foreseeable future, and the other for Mayor of Chicago. Is this a sign of a leftward movement by the country, or a pair of anomalies? Lastly Scott and Ted (both of French descent, Ted even holding dual French-U.S. citizenship), discuss a recent poll showing current French President Emmanuel Macron trailing far-right politician leader Marine Le Pen. Does this poll reflect a shift in French attitudes, or is it more of a reaction to Macron’s unilateral decision to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64? This DMZ America Podcast spans the globe!
 

 

Watch the Video Versions of the DMZ America Podcast:
DMZ America Podcast Ep 95 Sec 1: The Indictment of President Trump
DMZ America Podcast Ep95 Sec 2: Progressives Win Elections in the Midwest
DMZ America Podcast Ep 96 Sec 3: Is France Moving Right?

DMZ America Podcast #94 (Audio or Video): Is TikTok a Threat? France is Burning! The Non-Arrest of Donald J. Trump

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (Left) and Scott Stantis (Right) debate breaking news across the nation on a busy week.

Congress grilled the CEO of the Chinese-owned social-media app TikTok, reminding Ted of the PMRC hearings of the 1980s, another moment when Congress worked hard to appear anti-fun and out of touch. Scott calls China a “threat”; Ted prefers to see them as a “challenge.” What do we have to fear from TikTok, other than becoming even stupider?

France is burning in the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s sop to the neo-liberal class: raising the national retirement age from 62 to 64. Scott asks Ted, a French citizen, why younger Frenchmen are demonstrating in solidarity with older people they have to support in old age? Ted addresses the fact that pension reform might have been greeted differently from a different, more populist president.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg didn’t file charges against Donald Trump last week, but next week might be different. Scott and Ted agree that an arrest will empower the former president. Ted takes a victory lap on calling for Trump wanting a perp walk last week. Scott deplores liberal gloating because it feeds into Trump’s narrative.
 

 

Watch the Video Version of the DMZ America Podcast:

DMZ America Podcast Ep 94 Sec 1: Is TikTok a Threat?

DMZ America Podcast Ep 94 Sec 2: France is Burning!

DMZ America Podcast Ep 94 Sec 3: The Non-Arrest of Donald J. Trump

DMZ America Podcast #91 (Now with Video!): Abortion Bans Kill Women, France’s Fight for Retirement, “Liberal” Media Companies Line Up Behind Fox News

American political cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) discuss the hottest issues of the week. Abortion is at the top of the news again in the week of a landmark lawsuit filed by five Texas women who almost lost their lives because Texas Republicans have banned abortion in the state. As the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, pro-choice sentiment hits a record high in the polls—what does this mean for Republicans? French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to increase the national retirement age from 62 to 64 has united the French people against him. Biden and the Democrats think they have a winning issue here with Social Security and Medicare, given Republicans’ previous messaging on the entitlement programs. Corporate media lawyers fret that defamation defendants could be vulnerable to accountability for their newsroom decisions should Dominion Voting Systems prevail in their $1.6 billion libel claim against Fox News. Would that be so terrible?

Watch the Video Version of the DMZ America Podcast:
Ep 91 Sec 1 – Texas Abortion Lawsuit
Ep 91 Sec 2 – France’s Retirement Fight
Ep 91 Sec 3 – Dominion vs. Fox News Defamation Lawsuit

 

 

Better a Pretend Fight Than None at All

           A friend and I were at a bar when someone opined that France didn’t resist the German invasion in 1940. “It’s true, France lost fast,” my friend replied. “But they fought hard. They lost 90,000 troops in six weeks. It was a bloodbath. We lost 58,000 over a decade in Vietnam but we’re still whining about it.”

            Every conflict ends with a winner and a loser. There is no shame in losing—only in not trying.

            Democrats need to learn this lesson. Voters want their elected representatives to fight for them.

This administration is not without accomplishments: last year’s coronavirus stimulus package saved millions of Americans from bankruptcy and prevented a recession; though poorly executed, President Biden deserves praise for the withdrawal from Afghanistan; and, inflation aside, workers are benefitting from rising wages and record-low unemployment. The pandemic seems to be in our rearview mirror. Now, The New York Times reports, party bosses are trying to decide on a unified message for the midterms: “Should they pursue ambitious policies that show Democrats are fighters, or is it enough to hope for more modest victories while emphasizing all that the party has passed already?”

            Democrats have been bragging about their accomplishments for months. But “Democrats deliver”—their flaccid midterm slogan—hasn’t delivered.

            The news that the United States Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade may well sweep aside the other issues that have been percolating in voters’ minds over the last few months. But conservatives are just as energized as liberals when it comes to abortion. And many progressives are asking themselves: why didn’t Democrats pass a federal abortion rights law when Obama had a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate? At other times, why didn’t they go on the record with a vote? Abortion repeal probably helps Democrats, but not as much as they think and not enough to keep control of Congress.

Before the Supreme Court leak, Joe Biden’s own pollster was repeatedly warning Democrats that disaster loomed in November. The president’s approval ratings stubbornly refuse to budge above a dismal 40%, hobbled by incredibly shrinking support among voters under age 30. Vegas bookies give the GOP three-to-one odds of recapturing the Senate and a 90% chance of taking back the House. “We haven’t sold the American people what we’ve actually done,” Biden moaned recently.

            Messaging isn’t the only problem. “Allies and some voters note that polling is partially driven by anger over extraordinary events, including the war’s impact on gas prices, that the White House could not fully control,” the Times says. Of course, it was Biden’s decision to get involved in Ukraine and to impose sanctions against Russian oil and gas. Gas prices wouldn’t be soaring if Democrats hadn’t gone after Russia. It was an unforced error.

            When you control Congress and the White House, and voters are angry at you because they don’t think you have done anything for them, you don’t calm them down by telling them that they are wrong and stupid and that, actually, you have done all sorts of good things for them that they have been too ignorant or ungrateful to recognize. There’s only one way to campaign: tell people that you get it, you understand their pain, and you’re going to fight like hell to make them feel better.

“People can forgive you, even if you can’t get something done,” Nina Turner, a progressive challenging an establishment Democrat for an Ohio congressional seat, argues. “What they don’t like is when you’re not fighting. And we need to see more of a fighting spirit among the Democratic Party.”

For Democrats, however, not fighting – not even going through the motions of pretending they are fighting — is longstanding procedure. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi maintains a strict policy of not putting a measure up for a vote unless she is certain that a Democratic bill will pass. Like other corporate Democrats, she believes a losing vote is a sign of weakness.

Thus the refusal to try to federally legalize abortion rights.

Refusing to hold losing votes in Congress has led to one disappointment after another for progressives. After counting votes in the Senate, President Barack Obama decided in 2010 not to hold a vote on a “public option” in the Affordable Care Act. He blamed recalcitrant Republicans. Without forcing them to oppose this wildly popular idea on the record, however, Republicans could never be held to account in attack ads. (“Congressman Jackson hates people like you. That’s why he voted against health care for your babies!”) Meanwhile, Obama took heat from the left for breaking his campaign promise.

You can argue that you secretly, in your heart of hearts, wanted something that you never put up for a vote. But who will believe you?

Obama betrayed his promise to close Guantánamo for the same reason: he didn’t think he had the votes in the Senate. No one remembers that now. Americans who care about the issue remember that Obama was unwilling to spend political capital to shut down the camp.

Joe Biden’s adherence to Democrats’ count-votes-first practice on his Build Back Better infrastructure plan was more understandable. After conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced that he wouldn’t support it, the White House pulled the $1.75 trillion bill from Senate consideration because it would have highlighted internal divisions within the party. Sometimes, however, a rogue member of your own caucus must be reined in. If Democrats wanted to show their left-leaning base voters that they were fighters, they would have disciplined Manchin by taking away his committee memberships and held the vote despite inevitable defeat. Then they could have run ads against Republican senators who opposed a giant jobs package.

Democrats have failed to hold votes on increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, student loan forgiveness or bold action to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis. While it is true that these ideas might go down to defeat against a united GOP and Democrats in Name Only like Manchin, young voters in particular would like to see them put up for a vote and fought for. And those “nays” could be leveraged against vulnerable Republicans.

Republicans understand the optics of appearing to fight for a cause dear to their voters even if it’s doomed—especially if it’s doomed. Knowing full well they didn’t stand a chance at succeeding, the GOP voted 70 times to repeal Obamacare. After Trump won in 2016, however, they didn’t move to repeal or truncate—because the ACA was popular. “Now that it makes a difference, there seems to not be the majority support that we need to pass legislation that we passed 50 or 60 times over five or six years,” Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama admitted. Fighting and losing—even pretending to fight only when defeat is assured—gets more results than pointing at your supposed actual accomplishments.

It may well be that corporate Democrats are too beholden to their major donors to, say, increase the minimum wage. Unless the polling changes in a big way, Democrats will have an opportunity to virtue-signal about the minimum wage and student-loan forgiveness the same way the Republicans did on the ACA beginning early next year.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, “The Stringer.” Order one today. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

We Will Never Be so Stupid Again until We Are

This is a really stupid country and it gets even stupider during war. After war fever abides and people calm down, they inevitably look back and wonder what the hell they were thinking. Then it happens all over again.

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