Support Ted’s Work

The Final Countdown – 9/12/23 – Putin Reveals Why Global South is Supporting Russia

•
Ted Rall
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss top news, including Russia’s alliance with Global South countries. 
 
Tyler Nixon – Army Infantry Veteran
Mark Frost – Economist
Fiorella Isabel – Journalist 
Ted Harvey – Former State Senator in Colorado, Founder of StopJoe.com
 
The show begins with Army Infantry Veteran Tyler Nixon who joins The Final Countdown to break down the latest of Trump’s legal troubles in New York, Florida, and Georgia.
 
Then, Economist Mark Frost shares his perspective on the imminent United Auto Workers strike and the Google antitrust trial. 
 
The second hour kicks off with journalist Fiorella Isabel joining to discuss Russian President Vladimir Putin’s appearance at the Eastern Economic Forum, and Russia’s Grain Deal with China. 
 
The show closes with Former State Senator in Colorado Ted Harvey sharing his perspective on Kevin McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry into the Biden family. 
 
 
 

Deep Fake A.I. Ads Might Kill Us All

•
Ted Rall

            Seeing is believing. In the age of AI, it shouldn’t be.

            In June, for example, Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign issued a YouTube ad that used generative artificial-intelligence technology to produce a deep-fake image of former President Donald Trump hugging appearing to hug  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former COVID-19 czar despised by anti-vax and anti-lockdown Republican voters. Video of Elizabeth Warren has been manipulated to make her look as though she was calling for Republicans to be banned from voting. She wasn’t. As early as 2019, a Malaysian cabinet minister was targeted by a AI-generated video clip that falsely but convincingly portrayed him as confessing to having appeared in a gay sex video.

Ramping up in earnest with the 2024 presidential campaign, this kind of chicanery is going to start happening a lot. And away we go: “The Republican National Committee in April released an entirely AI-generated ad meant to show the future of the United States if President Joe Biden is re-elected. It employed fake but realistic, photos showing boarded up storefronts, armored military patrols in the streets, and waves of immigrants creating panic,” PBS reported.

            “Boy, will this be dangerous in elections going forward,” former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor told Vanity Fair.

            Like the American Association of Political Consultants, I’ve seen this coming. My 2022 graphic novel The Stringer depicts how deep-fake videos and other falsified online content of political leaders might even cause World War III. Think that’s an overblown fear? Think again. Remember how residents of Hawaii jumped out of their cars and jumped down manholes after state authorities mistakenly issued a phone alert of an impending missile strike? Imagine how foreign officials might respond to a high-quality deep-fake video of, for example, President Joe Biden declaring war on North Korea or of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeming to announce an attack against Iran. What would you do if you were a top official in the DPRK or Iranian governments? How would you determine whether the threat were real?

            Here in the U.S., generative-AI-created political content could will stoke racial, religious and partisan hatred that could lead to violence, not to mention interfering with elections.

            Private industry and government regulators understand the danger. So far, however, proposed safeguards fall way short of what would be needed to ensure that the vast majority of political content is what it seems to be.

            The Federal Election Committee has barely begun to consider the issue. The real action so far, such as it is, has been on the Silicon Valley front. “Starting in November, Google will mandate all political advertisements label the use of artificial intelligence tools and synthetic content in their videos, images and audio,” Politico reports. “Google’s latest rule update—which also applies to YouTube video ads—requires all verified advertisers to prominently disclose whether their ads contain ‘synthetic content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events.’ The company mandates the disclosure be clear and conspicuous’ on the video, image or audio content. Such disclosure language could be ‘this video content was synthetically generated,’ or ‘this audio was computer generated,’ the company said.”

Labeling will be useless and ineffective. Synthetic content that deep-fakes the appearance of a politician or a group of people doing, or saying something that they actually never did or said sticks in people’s minds even after they’ve been informed that it’s wrong—especially when the material confirms or fits with viewers’ pre-existing assumptions and world views.

The only solution is to make sure they are never seen at all. AI-generated deep fakes of political content should be banned online, whether with or without a warning label.

The culprit is the “illusory truth effect” of basic human psychology: once you have seen something, you can’t unsee it—especially if it’s repeated. Even after you are told that something you’ve seen was fake and to disregard it, it continues to influence you as if you still took it at face value. Trial lawyers are well aware of this phenomenon, which is why they knowingly make arguments and allegations that are bound to be ordered stricken by a judge from the court record; jurors have heard it, they assume there’s at least some truth to it, and it affects their deliberations.

We’ve seen how pernicious misinformation like the Russiagate hoax and Bush’s lie that Saddam was aligned with Al Qaeda can be—over a million people dead—and how such falsehoods retain currency long after they’ve been debunked. Typical efforts to correct the record, like “fact-checking” news sites, are ineffective and sometimes even serve to reinforce the falsehood they’re attempting to correct or undermine. And those examples are ideas expressed through mere words.

Real or fake, a picture speaks more loudly than a thousand words. False visuals are even more powerful than falsehoods expressed through prose. Even though there is no contemporaneous evidence that any Vietnam War veteran was ever accosted by antiwar protesters who spit on them, many Vietnam vets began to say it had happened to them—after they viewed Sylvester Stallone’s monologue in the movie “Rambo: First Blood,” which was likely intended as a metaphor. Yet, throughout the late 1970s, no vet ever made such a claim, even in personal correspondence. They probably even believe it; they “remember” what never occurred.

Warning labels can’t reverse the powerful illusory truth effect. Moreover, there is nothing to stop someone from reproducing and distributing a properly-warning-labeled deep-fake AI-generated campaign attack ad, stripped of any indication that the content isn’t what it seems.

AI is here to stay. So are bad actors and scammers. Particularly in the political space, First Amendment-guaranteed free speech must be protected. But thoughtful government regulation of AI, with strong enforcement mechanisms including meaningful penalties, will be essential if we want to avoid chaos and worse.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

The Final Countdown – 9/11/23 – Georgia Grand Jury Recommends Charges Against Trump, Graham, and Dozens More

•
Ted Rall
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss top news, including the latest developments in the Trump Georgia case. 
 
Alan Grayson – Former U.S. Representative 
Scott Stantis – Cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune 
KJ Noh – Journalist and Political Analyst 
Thabiso Lehoko – Sputnik Correspondent in South Africa 
 
The show starts with former U.S. representative Alan Grayson sharing his perspective on the Fulton County grand jury recommending charges against 39 people. 
 
Then, Cartoonist for The Chicago Tribune, Scott Stantis, talks about how a recent ruling against Biden could impact government interference in social media companies.
 
The second hour begins with journalist and political analyst KJ Noh joining The Final Countdown to share his perspective on takeaways from the G20 summit, and how global South nations are standing up to Western nations. 
 
The show closes with Sputnik Correspondent in South Africa Thabiso Lehoko shares his perspective on the situation in the Sahel, including Niger accusing France of intervention, and terrorist attacks in Mali and Burkina Faso. 
 

DMZ America Podcast #116: Bidexit, UAW Strike Deadline, Autonomous Assassination Drones

•
Ted Rall

Editorial Cartoonists Ted Rall (from the political Left) and Scott Stantis (from the political Right) discuss breaking news and politics.

This week, Democrats are finally focusing on and starting to become alarmed by President Biden’s stubbornly-low poll numbers. 67% of Democrats say they don’t want him to be their candidate next year. Democratic senators say that even voters who think he has done a good job think he is simply too old to run again. Now mainstream media outlets are starting to float the possibility that he may decide to step aside, and either open up the Democratic primary process or anoint a successor. Scott and Ted handicap the various scenarios for Bidexit.

Four days away from their strike deadline against the big three Detroit auto makers, the United Auto Workers union is still far away from the latest offers on the table. In agreement that a strike currently looks likely, Scott and Ted discuss the state of negotiations, the future of the auto industry and the economic impact of a walkout.

Reuters has published a shocking expose of the advanced state of autonomous AI weapons currently in development and available for sale on the international arms marketplace. From drones to trucks to submarines to fighter jets, the dark vision of the Terminator movies is upon us. Will the world act to ban these dystopian killer robots?

Watch the Video Version of the DMZ America Podcast:

DMZ America Podcast Ep 116 Sec 1: Bidexit

DMZ America Podcast Ep 116 Sec 2: UAW Strike Deadline

DMZ America Podcast Ep 116 Sec 3: Autonomous Assassination Drones

The Final Countdown – 9/7/23 – U.S. Sends Ukraine Depleted Uranium

•
Ted Rall
Robert Patillo – Attorney and Executive Director of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition 
Rory Riley Topping – Legal Analyst at SpectrumNews 1 and Opinion Contributor at The Hill 
Mark Sleboda – International Relations and Military Analyst 
David Henry – Company Driver and Crazy Canuck Truckin Podcast 
 
The show kicks off with Georgia attorney Robert Patillo untangling Trump’s legal woes across several states, including a Fulton County judge ruling that two of Trump’s co-defendants will go on trial together on October 23. 
 
Then, Legal analyst Rory Riley Topping shares her perspective on the potential indictment against Hunter Biden and whether it is a conflict of interest. She also discusses how this will affect the upcoming presidential campaign. 
 
The second hour begins with International Relations and Security Analyst Mark Sleboda providing his insights on the controversial weapons package of depleted uranium to Ukraine, and the rift between the Biden administration and Zelensky. 
 
The show closes with David Henry, Company Driver, and Crazy Canuck Truckin Podcast who joins to discuss the Freedom Convoy trial in Ottawa. 
 
 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 9/6/23 – Proud Boys Ex-Leader Gets 22 Years as Freedom Convoy Trials Begin

•
Ted Rall
 
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss breaking news, such as the sentencing of ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and the Freedom Convoy Trial in Canada. 
 

Steve Abramowicz – Host, Mill Creek View Podcast 

Dan Kovalik – Human Rights Lawyer 
Larry Ward – President, Constitutional Rights PAC
 
 
The show kicks off with the Host of Mill Creek View Podcast Steve Abramowicz discussing the Enrique Tarrio sentencing. Abramowicz and the hosts break down the possibilities of the ex-Proud Boys leader getting a pardon from a Republican administration. 
 
Then, Human Rights Lawyer Dan Kovalik joins The Final Countdown to discuss Elon Musk’s defamation case against the ADL. He also critiques the organization’s history of attacking the Palestinian rights movement. 
 
To close the show, President of the Constitutional Rights PAC Larry Ward rails on the trial of the Canadian Freedom Convoy from the perspective of a conservative. 

The Daunting Physics of Bidenomics

•
Ted Rall

Unemployment is low—lower than at any time since the Vietnam War. Real wages are increasing. Inflation, voters’ top concern for the last several years, is slowing. Democrats are confident enough about how things are going that “Bidenomics” is at the center of their case for another four years in the White House.

Yet this is a rosy picture few voters can see. Americans consistently give President Biden low marks for his handling of the economy.

“I’ve never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is actually doing and key polling results about what people think is going on,” Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, tells the New York Times.

What gives?

Jason Furman, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, points to a years-long trend that only ended recently: wages haven’t kept up with inflation, leaving the average worker $2,000 worse off than under Trump’s final year. “The way to think about that is people were in an incredibly deep hole because of inflation and we’re still not all the way out of that hole,” Furman says.

The problem for Biden is, what people would need to have happen in order to feel that inflation was truly behind them would be horrible for the economy, not to mention his prospects for reelection: deflation.

During our lifetimes, ideal economic conditions in a healthy economy feature an annual official inflation rate in the single digits, a policy economists call inflation targeting. Prices rise, but if wages go up even faster employees are happy. Low inflation incentivizes consumers to buy sooner rather than later, when prices will be higher. But, as Furman points out, that hasn’t been the case lately. Airfares went up 28.5% in 2022. Butter rose 31.4%. Eggs a whopping 59.9%. So we’re displeased.

What will it take to convince voters that inflation is no longer a problem? In the short term — i.e., between now and the presidential election—prices would need to fall back to pre-Biden levels. The average US gas price in January 2021 when Biden took office was $2.42 per gallon. Now it’s $3.95.

The Federal Reserve Bank’s efforts to reduce inflation appear to be working. Prices are rising at a slower rate. And that’s the problem for Democrats.

Mechanical physics provides a helpful parallel. Many economists and political analysts seem to think of inflation rate as analogous to velocity. In their view, reducing the inflation rate from 8% to 3% is a victory for inflation-targeting fiscal policy. Indeed, if a 3% inflation rate (coupled with wages that rise faster than 3%) remains in effect indefinitely, people will eventually feel good (or less bad) about the economy. As the economist John Maynard Keynes observed a century ago, however, “In the long run, we will all be dead.” And the Democrats’ calendar is much shorter than that, a mere 14 months.

Before inflation-affected consumers can be persuaded to tap their feet to “Happy Days Are Here Again,” they’ll have to pass through several stages of recovery. First, they’ll feel less bad. Then comes meh. Penultimately, they’ll see themselves paying off credit card and other debts they ran up during the inflationary period. Only after those lingering financial hangovers are past will they be able to achieve what feels like the final stage, prosperity: earning enough to pay one’s bills while setting a surplus aside in the form of savings.

With Americans’ credit card debt hitting the staggering benchmark of $1 trillion and rising, we are currently in the “less bad”/”meh” stage. But it’s hard to see what Biden or the Fed or anyone else can do in order to promote a sunnier view of the economy.

A lower inflation rate—even an ideal one in the low single digits—still means higher prices. We will probably not see $2.42 per gallon gas, the price in early 2021, any time soon, if ever. Gas prices will likely continue to increase, to $4.00 and $4.05 and $4.10 and on and on and on, adding minor injury to gaping wound.

Inflation is really like acceleration—the rate at which speed increases. If you fall off the roof of a tall building, your speed at the beginning of your plunge will be exponentially lower than when you hit the ground. The ground approaches, not at a steady rate, but faster and faster. As your body rushes toward doom, you’d likely welcome a physical intervention to reduce the rate of acceleration. You’d live a smidge longer but it wouldn’t save you. Reducing the acceleration rate to zero might help, assuming your initial rate of descent was low. But what you need in this dire situation is negative acceleration—a force that neutralizes gravity and then some, returning you back up to the roof of the building.

Negative inflation would, in many people’s minds, set things straight. If Biden could return prices to pre-2021 levels, that would look and feel like a return to a period of normalcy.

But negative inflation is deflation, the disaster last experienced in this country to a significant extent during the Great Depression, when prices dropped 7% each year between 1930 and 1933. Knowing that goods and services were becoming cheaper, Americans were incentivized to horde cash. Consumer spending declined, triggering a doom loop in which manufacturers laid off workers and cut salaries, further reducing spending and prices. Given a choice, economists choose inflation over deflation.

From an economics standpoint, Biden’s only option is to hope for a quicker trip through the psychological stages of economic recovery than Americans have seen in their lifetimes.

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

 

The Final Countdown – 9/5/23 – Polls Show Biden and Trump are Neck and Neck as 2024 Elections Approach

•
Ted Rall
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss the top news, such as Biden and Trump’s performance in the 2024 polls. 
 

Ted Harvey – Political Commentator and CEO of StopJoe.com

Tyler Nixon – Army Infantry Veteran, Counselor-at-law 
Mark Sleboda – International Relations and Military Analyst 
Thabiso Lehoko – Sputnik Correspondent
 
The show begins with Political Commentator, Ted Harvey delving into the 2024 electoral landscape and offers perspectives on the poll findings of Trump and Biden’s performances. 
 
Then, Army Infantry Veteran and Counselor-at-Law Tyler Nixon joins The Final Countdown to discuss the sentencing of Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio. 
 
The second hour starts with International Relations and Military Analyst Mark Sleboda sharing his expertise on the latest out of Ukraine, including President Zelensky sacking his Defense Minister. 
 
The show closes with Sputnik Correspondent Thabiso Lehoko discussing Gabon swearing in a new interim president. 
 
 

DMZ America Podcast #115: Rudy Giuliani Gets SLAPPed, Don’t Run Joe! & the Tipping Epidemic

•
Ted Rall

Editorial Cartoonists Ted Rall (from the political Left) and Scott Stantis (from the political Right) discuss breaking news and politics. Former New York City mayor and Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani, loses his anti-SLAPP motion against Georgia election workers whom he libeled during the 2020 election controversy. Ted and Scott discuss the ramifications on the upcoming Trump RICO trial in Georgia. Plus, we discuss Ted’s recent birthday and his getting closer to Medicare and thus death.

In the second segment, more and more commentators from the left and the right are saying that President Joe Biden should not run for reelection in 2024. Citing the enthusiasm gap, which Biden can’t seem to close, leads many in his own party to hope for a big convention surprise.

The last segment finds Scott and Ted discussing the deep ramifications of the tipping epidemic. Besides being super annoying, are there deeper, more nefarious reasons for this? Ted and Scott dig deep and give you even better reasons to be pissed off the next time you’re asked to add 30% to the barista handing you a latte.

Watch the Video Version of the DMZ America Podcast:

DMZ America Podcast Ep 115 Sec 1: Rudy Giuliani Gets SLAPPed

DMZ America Podcast Ep 115 Sec 2: Don’t Run Joe!

DMZ America Podcast Ep 115 Sec 3: the Tipping Epidemic

 

The Right To Be Wrong

•
Ted Rall

Many medical experts and journalists believe that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is wrong about vaccines. They say that Kennedy, a candidate for the 2024 Democratic nomination for president, wrongly says that COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective and incorrectly validates assertions that childhood vaccinations can cause autism.

Many people, all of whom are pro-Biden Democrats, say that RFK Jr.’s opinions are so dangerous as to automatically preempt anything else he has to say about any other issue. They say that society would benefit if he were to shut up. They say that he should not be given a public platform, that he should be silenced, that we should not hear him because we might believe him and that could cause terrible harm.

Even his family is telling him to STFU.

As a long-time non-epidemiologist with no medical education, I don’t know who is right. However, I do know this: anyone who thinks they have the right to decide what information I get to hear or who I get to hear it from can go to hell.

Let us stipulate, for the sake of argument, that these journalists and doctors, none of whom I have met or know anything about, have no bias and no axe to grind, that they care about the well-being of all humans, especially me. Let us further stipulate that they are 100% right and that RFK Jr. is 100% wrong. Let’s even pretend that these folks have never “debunked” “conspiracies” that turned out to be true or promoted conspiracies as though they weren’t lies.

Even so: I demand the right to hear from him if I so choose. RFK Jr. has the right to be terribly, dangerously wrong, l have the right to listen to his stupid incorrect rants in which he gets absolutely nothing right, and I have the right to be deceived into believing things that are stupid, false and even dangerous if I so choose.

My brain, my choice.

Not according to the elites, however. They think they’re smarter than you and me. That we should listen to them. That those who disagree with them should be shut down.

The Biden Administration came under fire in 2022 when its Department of Homeland Security, a government entity with a fascist name, rolled out its Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board whose stated goal was to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.”

The DGB was killed, but censorship efforts with a Father Knows Best spin have proliferated in recent years, mostly from Democratic-leaning institutions. Newspapers and other media outlets rolled out fact-checking websites and chronicled lists of the president’s purported lies, the latter beginning and ending when the president was named Trump. The FBI and other three-letter agencies told social media companies which posts to throttle or kill and handed them lists of accounts that should be shut down. At least one company, with deep ties to covert intelligence agencies, purports to tell you which news outlets you can trust. The war between Russia and Ukraine prompted the Apple and Google app stores to deplatform Russian state media outlets.

The push to characterize news and opinions that deviate from a “mainstream,” i.e. corporatist, narrative hit full steam during the pandemic. Government and media partnered against what they called misinformation and disinformation (others’, never their own). Their obsessive efforts to marginalize and hobble RFK Jr.’s candidacy and access to the information space is a continuation of the COVID information war.

Mis- and disinformation are real and they have real-world impacts that ought not to be minimized. The bizarre QAnon conspiracy game/cult has contributed to or caused, among other events, the hammer attack against Paul Pelosi, a coup attempt against the German government, death threats and mass shootings, not to mention January 6th. Lies can be dangerous, whether they originate from the podium at the United Nations or an wacky underground cell.
            Censorship is an understandable impulse. As a cure, however, it’s worse than the disease. Citizens forced to navigate a world where they know that many things are not as they seem on their face learn to hone the critical thinking skills that tell them not to click on the link in a phishing email and to question whether an especially ridiculous political attack may be a deep fake. No matter how benevolent and adept a government can be—and ours is neither—the collective BS detector of 330 million Americans is likelier to identify and debunk the cleverest act of disinformation than an agency of bureaucrats. If the government and its media allies get their way, we’ll trust them to suss out what’s true and what’s false and, of course, set the stage for them abusing our gullibility. And they’ll do it on a far grander scale than QAnon.

Besides, taboo and forbidden material is inherently more attractive than stuff that’s freely available. From pornography to Cuban cigars to the dark web, nothing is more enticing than something that’s hard to access. If the powers that be don’t want us to hear from RFK Jr., many voters are thinking, then I really want to find out what he’s about. The DNC and the New York Times have no business telling me I’m too dumb to assess his statements about COVID, Israel or anything else.

My brain, right or wrong!

(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)

 

keyboard_arrow_up
css.php