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TMI Show Ep 141: “Biden’s Cancer, Democrats’ Reckoning”

May 19, 2025•

LIVE 10 AM Eastern time, Streaming Anytime: This week on The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan confront the stunning news of President Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis, a bombshell that escalates calls for the Democratic Party to answer for its handling of his health. The revelation intensifies scrutiny over the party’s cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline, which ushered in Trump’s sweeping victory. Ted and Manila dissect the political wreckage, probing how the Democrats’ reluctance to address Biden’s senility shattered public confidence and altered the nation’s course. Why did party leaders prioritize lies over victory? How does Biden’s cancer diagnosis deepen doubts about transparency in governance? With their fearless, incisive approach, the hosts unravel the consequences for the Democratic Party’s credibility and the evolving political arena. This is The TMI Show at its most gripping—delivering unflinching analysis of leadership, health, and accountability. Plus: Joined by guest Todd “Bubba” Horwitz, the show examines the U.S. economy’s current trajectory, marked by…

How Zionism Causes Anti-Semitism

May 15, 2025•

Ted Rall

Ted Rall examines how Zionism’s aggressive tactics, from campus censorship to deportations, fuel rising anti-Semitism. Dive into his provocative take on this complex issue.

Trump Is Shocking But Not New

May 7, 2025•

Ted Rall

The philosopher Nigel Warburton shrugged: “Users of slippery slope arguments should take skiing lessons—you really can choose to stop.” But slippery slopes are a thing precisely because people often choose to keep cruising along until they smash into Sonny Bono’s tree. Critics from both parties describe Donald Trump’s behavior and policies as unprecedented. This presidency, however, did not emerge from a vacuum. Everything Trump does builds on presidential politics of the not-so-recent past—mostly, but not always, Republican. Trump has shocked free speech advocates and civil libertarians by ordering his masked ICE goons to abduct college students off city streets for participating in campus protests criticizing Israel for carpet-bombing Gaza. (An aside: what will he say when someone avails themselves of their Second Amendment rights rather than allow themselves to be chucked into an unmarked van by random strangers?) Government oppression of dissidents in America has a rich and foul history. During the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, which included many college…

50 Years After the Fall of Saigon, Let’s Accept Defeat

April 30, 2025•

Ted Rall

Fifty years after Saigon’s fall, Ted Rall reflects on America’s Vietnam War defeat, urging acceptance of self-determination and an end to costly imperialism. This poignant piece, published April 30, 2025, calls for investing in domestic needs over foreign wars, echoing themes from Rall’s What’s Left: Radical Solutions for Radical Problems.

Detonating Democracy: The Threat of Obsolete Laws

April 24, 2025•

Ted Rall

In “Detonating Democracy: The Threat of Obsolete Laws,” Ted Rall reveals how outdated U.S. laws, like the Alien Enemies Act, enable government overreach, threatening civil liberties. He calls for systemic reform to modernize or repeal these legal “landmines” before they further erode democracy.

ChatGPT Is Disappearing Its Enemies

April 18, 2025•

Ted Rall

People worry about generative artificial intelligence. Some are afraid it will put them out of work. Others think AI could become too autonomous, like the drones programmed to select their own targets. It will almost certainly accelerate the spread and power of government surveillance. Deep fakes are already being used in efforts to impact public opinion in politics. Add another reason to keep awake at night: AI could “unperson” you. Under Stalin the Soviet Union disappeared not only anti-government dissidents but evidence that they had ever existed, famously airbrushing those who had fallen out of favor out of official photos. Retro-engineering history was the inspiration for Orwell’s main character in 1984, who toils at a government ministry in charge of rewriting the past. Eliminating an enemy of the state is one thing; ensuring that their ideas can never inspire anyone in the future by erasing them from history is especially sinister. The Internet has replaced print newspapers as the first…

What Is Resistance?

April 11, 2025•

Ted Rall

France’s shocking surrender to Nazi Germany in June 1940 left citizens stunned and unsure how to resist the German occupation and Vichy’s collaborationist regime. Distrust was everywhere—few knew whom to confide in without risking betrayal. Prewar political parties, blamed for the defeat, lay discredited; the French Communist Party, later a Resistance powerhouse, stood down under Hitler’s nonaggression pact with Stalin. It took a year for the Resistance to gain traction. Backed by the Allies, De Gaulle’s Free French in London parachuted agents into occupied territory, uniting disparate groups with clashing ideologies. After Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941, communists joined en masse, adding militancy. By late 1941, 10,000 to 20,000 fighters were sabotaging factories, cutting rail lines and assassinating German officers. Americans who want to resist Donald Trump face similar disarray and demoralization. Liberals blame progressives for failing to turn out for Kamala while leftists point fingers at Democrats for failing to counter a hard-right turn. Unlike France, where…

Surprise Casualties in the War of Words Over anti-Semitism

April 3, 2025•

Ted Rall

Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? Before Hamas attacked Israel, American voters had not arrived at a consensus. They hadn’t thought much about it. Asked whether the two terms were synonymous, 62% of respondents to a Brookings Institution poll taken seven months earlier said they didn’t know. 15% replied yes and 21% said no. For the time being, that argument is over. Supporters of Israel won. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution that “clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” A task force created to deal with anti-Gaza War protests at Columbia University, a hotbed of campus activism a year ago, has defined anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. The policy change was announced in an Israeli newspaper. NYU and Harvard followed suit. If you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you redefine criticism of the State of Israel and/or Zionism as anti-Semitism, it turns college campuses into hotbeds of anti-Semitic bigotry. “Since the terrorist attack…anti-Semitic incidents against Jewish students…

The Era of the Wuss

March 25, 2025•

Ted Rall

“Donald Trump’s presidency, not yet ten weeks old, has already coerced powerful institutions like Columbia University into abandoning their values. From canceling $400 million in research grants to forcing out professors and banning student groups, Trump’s threats reveal an authoritarian style that stifles freedom, echoing McCarthyism—but with far less resistance.”

We Are the Fourth Branch of Government

March 18, 2025•

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…

TMI Show Ep 141: “Biden’s Cancer, Democrats’ Reckoning”

How Zionism Causes Anti-Semitism

Trump Is Shocking But Not New

50 Years After the Fall of Saigon, Let’s Accept Defeat

Detonating Democracy: The Threat of Obsolete Laws

ChatGPT Is Disappearing Its Enemies

What Is Resistance?

Surprise Casualties in the War of Words Over anti-Semitism

The Era of the Wuss

We Are the Fourth Branch of Government

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