Make America Crazy Again | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

  Trump caves in, reversing $2 billion in cuts to mental health and addiction programs after one day, after bipartisan pushback.

  75% of Americans don’t want the US to take control of Greenland.

Josh Hawley (R-MO) wimps out, and joins Todd Young (R-IN) in voting against a War Powers Resolution requiring Congressional approval for Trump’s war against Venezuela that they initially supported.

• Elon Musk’s Grok AI will no longer let users virtually “undress” people.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

What Happens on Epstein Island Stays on Epstein Island | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

  Bill and Hillary Clinton tell the House Oversight Committee say they’ve “had enough” of the Epstein investigation and won’t testify despite a subpoena. James Comer says he’ll hold the former First Couple in contempt of Congress.

  Iran says it may attack US military bases if the US attacks it again. Protesters claim 2,400 of their own have been killed in Iran.

• Ogala Sioux and Lakota Nation officials say tribal members are being targeted in Minnesota and held hostage by ICE to coerce them into allowing ICE operations on tribal land. HHS outnumbers cops in Minneapolis. And: federal prosecutors are resigning over the DOJ’s instructions to go after Renee Good’s widow.

Japan and South Korea cozy up to confront China.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

The Fix Is In | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

  The presumption that the FBI can be trusted to investigate the killing of activist Renee Good by ICE agent Jon Ross fairly has been all but destroyed by White House statements, freezing out local authorities, and  the DOJ’s refusal to allow its civil rights experts to weigh in. Does it matter if the government abandons all pretense of objectivity?

  As if life didn’t suck enough for Gazans who have survived the genocide, severe storms are ripping away the tents of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

• Western analysts are eagerly hoping for revolution in Iran.

• Malaysia and Indonesia block Grok over deep-fake porn. Even Renee Good has been virtually undressed.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

For Trump, Deprofessionalizing Government Is a Feature

The killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in a Minneapolis suburb has prompted a familiar debate over civil disobedience and government policing of the sort that typically follows these incidents, in which justification of the use of force, or lack thereof, depends on your political stance. There is, however, an aspect here that everyone ought to be able to agree about regardless of where they stand on the libertarian-to-authoritarian spectrum: ICE behaves highly unprofessionally.

All you have to do is look at them. Cops wear matching uniforms. So do soldiers. Cops identify themselves and drive clearly marked vehicles. Soldiers even identify themselves to the enemy if they’re captured in battle. ICE agents—assuming the unidentified, masked dudes terrorizing cities are actually ICE and not rapists and kidnappers masquerading as government deporters—wear a hodgepodge of off-the-shelf vests and insignia, cruise around in rented vehicles, and illegally change their license plates daily to avoid accountability.

ICE’s defenders argue that Jonathan Ross was justified in using deadly force because she was a “domestic terrorist” who had “weaponized her vehicle,” in the words of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and had to defend himself. Policing experts who have examined videos of Good’s death point out that a properly-trained law enforcement officer never should have been standing in front (or behind) her car in the first place—in other words, he shouldn’t have been in a position to make that determination. Noem’s intemperate description of a dead American, a mother of three, reminds us that her administration only cares about U.S. citizens who voted for Trump and support his policies.

Other aspects of the videotaped encounter point to an organization for whom professionalism appears to be an alien concern.

Ross and his colleagues rapidly escalate a situation that, let’s bear in mind, begins with an unarmed woman sitting in her car, smiling. Sure, she’s sarcastic. Sure, her car is parked diagonally, partly impeding traffic. It’s easy to see why ICE agents might feel irritated—that, after all, is one of the goals of a passive-resistance tactic like ICE Watch—but law enforcement officers are supposed to calmly refrain from reactions based on feeling triggered or provoked. Good may have been annoying. She certainly wasn’t dangerous.

Multiple agents race toward Good’s car. Why the urgency? She hasn’t moved in minutes. They shout. Why not talk normally? They shout conflicting commands—one tells her to leave, while Ross orders her to “get out of the fucking car!” One agent should do the talking, to avoid confusion and to avoid a fight-or-flight response. Cursing conveys hostility and raises the temperature. Federal officers should not swear at the public who pays their salary.

Inexplicably, because Ross was injured last year when he did the same thing and police are trained never to do it, he reaches through Good’s car window to try to open her door. Good does what many people would do in such a situation, especially if one is a woman and the intruder is a heavily-armed masked male—she pushes the gas. Never mind Good; Ross endangered himself and others with his reckless actions.

As a coda to an episode epitomizing unprofessionalism, someone—Ross or another agent—is heard shouting “fucking bitch” as Good begins to move.

This sound is captured on video that should not exist. Ross was holding his personal cellphone to record the encounter. His other hand holds his gun. But he was wearing a body camera. “Now that we can see he’s holding a gun in one hand and a cellphone in the other [hand] filming, I want to see the officer training that permits that,” Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, told NPR. Why did Ross constrain himself, unless it was to create images he could control and edit?

Adding to the chaotic impression created by manic, masked, armed men running around the suburbs in unmarked vehicles in search of anyone who looks vaguely Latino, the ICE paramilitaries allowed Ross to flee the scene.

As Good sat in her car dying, they refused to allow a physician bystander to attend to her.

“It’d be unprofessional to comment on what I think happened in that situation,” border czar Tom Homan, a former ICE director, initially told CBS News. Noem, as well as the president and vice president, stated within hours of the shooting that Good was at fault and a “domestic terrorist,” and that the ICE agent was blameless. A few days later, official government social media feeds were calling for citizens to defend ICE.

That the Trump Administration falls short of basic standards of professionalism is beyond dispute. The question is, are Trump’s hiring managers incompetent? Or is the deprofessionalization of government an intentional tactic deployed by the first president to have neither political nor military experience? If ICE—the agency receiving the biggest pay increase and hiring the most new workers­—is an indication, the answer is clearly yes. Just about any thug over age 18 with a pulse can get hired by ICE: drug addicts, gangsters, white nationalists, criminals, illiterate morons.

As the Nazis learned in the 1930s underqualified workers, especially very young ones and those on the margins of legality, are likelier to be malleable. They’ll probably be willing to bend the law. Knowing that they’re overpaid and given more responsibility than they deserve—and that they’d never find as good a job anywhere else—ICE recruits may not be intelligent or kind or thoughtful, but they will be loyal. They’ll do what they’re told, no matter how violent or unethical.

The Trump Administration will require this blind obedience as they segue from imprisoning illegal immigrants to jailing American citizens.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou.”)

 

We Love (Iranian) Protesters | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:


Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

  Iran threatens to retaliate if the US follows through on its threat to militarily attack to defend protesters, while requesting negotiations with the White House.

  Back home in the US, the Trump Administration characterizes anti-ICE protesters as domestic terrorists and threatens to send in more ICE forces.

• Trump threatens to veto extension of Obamacare subsidies.

Trump to meet with Denmark over Greenland.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

On Thin ICE | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST. Producer Robby West fills in for John today.

Today we discuss:

  The ICE agent who shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good to death in her car has set off a confrontation between the federal government and local law enforcement. Protests heat up and major questions about ICE tactics and training arise as the weekend begins and ICE shoots two more people in Portland.

  Oil executives head to the White House to discuss looting Venezuela’s oil. Major companies want taxpayers to guarantee they’ll be compensated if their risks head south. Meanwhile, Russia is being accused of spreading propaganda about US imperialism.

Gavin Newsom is pre-running for President.

Trump says he’s only constrained by his own morality. Is that enough? 61% of Americans say they want America to be a moral leader. 39% say it is.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Checks and Balances Are Dead

Checks and balances, our teachers taught us, were America’s ace in the hole. Human beings are highly fallible and easily corruptible. Because the Founding Fathers knew that—“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted,” James Madison warned—

they crafted the three branches of the new federal government as counterweights in which the natural impulse of officials to jealously preserve their power and prerogatives was accepted as a given rather than as an evil to be controlled. Accepting human nature as it was formed the basis of what was credited as one of the most ingenious systems ever created in the West.

Checks and balances, it turns out, are bullshit. Because sometimes, like now, the desire to accrue and preserve personal and organizational power takes a back seat to sycophancy and cowardice.

The 25th Amendment created a mechanism for suspending the authority of a physically or otherwise unfit president. Those who drafted it invested that power in the hands of an office holder with great interest in enforcing it, the vice president who would take over. All they needed to remove an incompetent or dangerous head of state was a simple majority vote of the cabinet.

What these lawmakers failed to consider were party loyalty and the desire not to be perceived as self-dealing. Kamala Harris knew Joe Biden wasn’t up to the job. But she wouldn’t have triggered the 25th, even had the president been more of a wreck. Party fealty trumped everything, even patriotism.

Now we find ourselves with a president who has gone rogue. Not only has his lust for emoluments achieved the level of a 20th-century third-world dictator, deporting U.S. citizens and deploying federal troops to American cities in the absence of civil strife, he is bombing and invading and threatening to attack countries without the flimsiest thread of a legal pretext, dressed up in brazen lies and misrepresentations—some of those countries are close U.S. allies—and he keeps threatening to seek a third term. All these actions are serious violations of the constitution, federal law, international law, traditional norms and common decency.

If this situation were framed theoretically, as a blank TK without naming a specific person or party, most political experts would predict a bipartisan response. The president would be removed, whether by the 25th, pressuring him to resign, or via impeachment. Congress would act to protect its war powers, the party whose president was acting erratically would seek to staunch the bleeding by refusing to defend the indefensible, and the courts would demand that laws be enforced.

Alas, we don’t live in theoreticals. As heir apparent, the vice president is biding his time until his coronation for the nomination. The GOP has embraced a base-above-all strategy, which has been working, and is thus reflexively disinclined to cooperate with any Democratic initiative, least of all one that would involve the removal of their own two-term president. The Republican-led House is the most supine in memory—perhaps ever—so much so that it refuses even to protect its power over the purse, not to mention its war powers. (In fairness, congresses of both parties have surrendered their control of the military to the executive branch.)

Checks and balances rely on the assumption that officials prioritize powers and privileges. These days, however, politicians believe that they maintain their positions only as long as they curry favor with the president. (Note that I said “president” rather than Trump. The same calculus applied under Democrats.) Our system has evolved. 250 years into the American experiment, elected officials crave titles and status above all else, and the money they confer. Power is still important, but not for them to hold personally. Leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson sell their power to the president, who himself exercises his expanded prerogatives, primarily to build his empire of official grift.

At first glance, the lickspittle rulings of the Republican majority of the Supreme Court appear to deviate from the new model. Don’t justices enjoy guaranteed lifetime employment?

Like a home buyer signing a lien on “their” home to a bank, most of the six obtained endorsements by the right-wing Federalist Society, whose imprimatur Trump and his GOP predecessors required to nominate them to the court. Conservative Supreme Court nominees mortgaged their would-have-been future judicial independence by signaling their adherence to outlandish, conservative legal doctrines like “originalism”—a concept considered fringe a generation ago, but now so au courant with the Right that even Biden’s “liberal” justice told the Senate she believed in it. True, they could welsh on that bargain once they sat on the bench. But then they would risk impeachment over some unrelated matter. The justices’ sellout differs only in chronology.

At the root of assurances that checks and balances worked and will (eventually) work again is the question: who or what will save us?

Not the press—it’s dead. Not a peaceful protest movement—there isn’t one, and if there were one there is little reason to believe it would be effective. And certainly not checks and balances.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou.”)

 

Venezuela Crackdown | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

  Trump’s plan to run the Venezuelan government via coercion and threat of force is turning the acting post-coup government paranoid. Will this powder keg explode into civil war? Meanwhile, Bruce Fein joins Nicolás Maduro’s legal defense team. Will Trump’s continuing recognition of the Venezuelan government validate Maduro’s claim to be a POW?

  Abruptly changing course, Trump invites Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House. Can Petro trust Trump not to arrest him too?

Trump pulls the US out of a key climate treaty and dozens of others.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Greenland Is Next | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

  Under a 1951 agreement, the US can “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.” Will Trump exploit it to seize the island?

  Trump says Venezuela will send 30 to 50 million barrels of oil — about two months’ worth of production — worth between $1.8 and $3 billion to the US. It is unclear if it would receive anything in return. Meanwhile, Russia has deployed a submarine and other vessels to escort an oil tanker — which is also being pursued by US forces — across the Atlantic.

Aldrich Ames, the counterintelligence officer for the CIA who spied for the Soviet Union and later Russia, has died at age 84. The 31-year veteran is believed to have compromised more than 100 intelligence operations and sent a number of Soviet agents to their deaths or prison, as he traded information for large sums of money that funded his lavish lifestyle.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

Rogue State | DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou

Live 9 AM Eastern and Streaming All Day:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

America’s Coup Against Venezuela: The UN Security Council and many nations, including US allies, criticize Trump for overthrowing and kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro, and Trump threatens a second military attack unless Acting President Delcy Rodriguez collaborates with the US to expel Cubans and Iranians, cracking down on drugs, and ceasing oil sales to US adversaries. Venezuela braces for economic collapse. Oh, and Canada is worried about the effect on its oil industry. Maduro calls himself a POW.

• Cuba in Trouble: Venezuelan oil supplies likely to be cut off, but neither Mexico nor Russia is inclined to fill the gap. Will the US intervene militarily in a country likely to resist?

• Trump Targets Poor Kids: HHS to cut off Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois and Colorado—Democratic states—from $7 billion for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

JOIN US LIVE ON RUMBLE!

https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

FOLLOW TED:

https://rall.com/

https://x.com/tedrall

FOLLOW JOHN:

https://www.instagram.com/realjohnkiriakou

https://x.com/JohnKiriakou

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY:

https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

LISTEN ON APPLE MUSIC:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-john-kiriakou-and-ted-rall

keyboard_arrow_up
css.php