Podcasts Archives - Ted Rall's Rallblog

Band of Pigs | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 15, 2026•

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Crisis in Cuba: Cuba’s oil reserves have run dry, which will plunge the country into even more frequent, bigger and longer nationwide blackouts. Venezuelan fuel stopped flowing in January, after the US kidnapped Venezuela’s president and stole Venezuela’s oil industry. Later, Trump imposed a blockade barring oil from reaching Cuba, which had also received shipments from Mexico.

• The US is moving to indict former Cuban president Raúl Castro. The charges are related to the Cuban government shooting down two planes operated by a right-wing group in 1996.

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe leads a delegation to Havana to deliver a message from Trump to Cuban officials and Raúl “Raulito” Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the elder Castro’s grandson. Last week, the U.S. State Department ⁠said it had privately offered the $100 million in aid to Cuba, in addition to “free and fast satellite internet” on the condition that it agree to “meaningful reforms.”

• The Justice Department accuses Yale School of Medicine of discriminating based on race, by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over White and Asian ones. The DOJ looked at median grade-point averages and standardized test scores broken down by race, and concluded that “Yale’s use of race resulted in a Black applicant being as much as 29 times higher odds of getting an interview for admission than an equally strong Asian applicant with similar academic credentials.” The investigation did not address other factors, such as essays, transcripts, letters of recommendation and interviews. The median entrance exam score for admitted Black students last year was 518 and for 517 for Hispanic students. The median score was 524 for both White and Asian students. The highest possible score is 528. The median grade point average for Black students was 3.88 and 3.91 for Hispanic students. For White students, it was 3.97 and for Asians 3.98.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

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https://x.com/JamarlThomas

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Blue Dot Makes a Point | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 14, 2026•

Ted Rall

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Backed by $5.6 million in outside money, Corporatist Denise Powell has narrowly defeated progressive State Sen. John Cavanaugh to win the Democratic primary in the race for Nebraska’s second congressional district. Powell will go on to face Brinker Harding who is endorsed by Trump. The race for the state’s second congressional district could help decide which party controls the narrowly divided U.S. House after this year’s midterm elections. The district, which includes Omaha, is known as the “blue dot” because it was the lone Nebraska district to vote for Kamala in 2024 and Biden in 2020. It is currently represented by Republican Don Bacon, who is retiring.

• The South Carolina Supreme Court has unanimously ruled to overturn the 2023 double murder conviction of disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, saying the jury tampering actions of former Colleton County Court Clerk Rebecca “Becky” Hill denied “Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.” Murdaugh’s case will now return to circuit court. He is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and younger son Paul at the Murdaugh rural estate in Colleton County on the evening of June 7, 2021.

• JPMorgan warns that oil prices may hit $150 per barrel by June 15th, the time available to reach a diplomatic resolution is narrowing, and the economic consequences of delay are compounding in ways that are not yet fully visible in either securities markets or inflation data. Global supply disruptions reached 13.7 million barrels per day in April 2026, roughly 14% of total world demand. Spare capacity from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is effectively offline due to the Strait of Hormuz closure. 75 percent of Americans say the war has had a negative effect on their finances.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

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LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Q&A | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 13, 2026•

Ted Rall

Live 12 noon Eastern time today:

Have a question for Ted and/or co-host Jamarl Thomas? Join the hosts of “DeProgram” for a full hour of nothing but LIVE Q&A! Any topic, any question, goes—it’s up to you. Q&A extras are every Monday and Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern time.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live https://x.com/tedrall https://x.com/JamarlThomas

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Sucks To Be You! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 13, 2026•

Ted Rall

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Trump says that he is not weighing the economic burden of the Iran war on everyday Americans. Asked to what extent “Americans’ financial situations” were motivating him to make a deal with Iran, he replied: “Not even a little bit,” Trump said. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran — they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

• Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted. Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile.

• Dozens of Gulf citizens have been accused of belonging to Iran-linked terrorism cells as the war accelerates a shift toward deeper authoritarianism in the region. Shiite religious leaders in Pakistan also estimate that as many as thousands of Shiite Pakistanis have been deported from the Emirates since mid-April.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition may collapse next week, after one of his key ultra-Orthodox coalition partners called for the parliament to be dissolved. The political crisis comes after Netanyahu told ultra-Orthodox political leaders that he would not advance legislation to exempt ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis from military service.

• More than 10,000 times, judges have said ICE detentions, typically carried out with no opportunity for detainees to plead their case, are illegal. That’s roughly 90 percent of all cases — a staggering rejection of a core piece of Trump’s immigration agenda. Presidents’ signature initiatives often end up in court. But this flood of adverse rulings is unique — a never-before-seen reaction to a never-before-seen policy.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

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LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Dems Run Against Trump, Again | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 12, 2026•

Ted Rall

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Since Virginia’s Supreme Court struck down state Democrats’ new congressional map and SCOTUS narrowed the Voting Rights Act, Democrats are arguing that Republicans’ aggressive moves to dismantle Black- and Hispanic-majority districts in the South will outrage voters of color and spur them to the polls in record numbers.

• The former mayor of Arcadia was expected to plead guilty after being charged with acting as an illegal agent of China. Eileen Wang, who was elected to the Arcadia City Council in 2022, as well as Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills, allegedly worked at the direction of China and operated “U.S. News Center,” a news source for the local Chinese American community between late 2020 and through 2022.

• Israeli legislators have approved a bill to establish a special tribunal with the power to impose the death penalty on Palestinians accused of involvement in the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. The bill explicitly permits mass trials that deviate from standard rules of evidence, including broad judicial discretion to admit evidence obtained under torture.

• Kuwait accused Iran of sending an armed paramilitary Revolutionary Guard team to launch a failed attack earlier this month on an island in the Middle East nation home to a China-funded port project. The accusation came as the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said that Israel sent Iron Dome anti-missile batteries and personnel to operate them to the UAE.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

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LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Q&A | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 11, 2026•

Ted Rall

Live 12 noon Today and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

Have a question for Ted and/or co-host Jamarl Thomas? Join the hosts of “DeProgram” for a full hour of nothing but LIVE Q&A!

Any topic, any question, goes—it’s up to you. Q&A extras are every Monday and Wednesday at 12 noon Eastern time.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live https://x.com/tedrall https://x.com/JamarlThomas

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Is the Left Picking on Israel? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 11, 2026•

Ted Rall

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Writing in The New York Times, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) argues that the Left is picking on Israel but gets a free pass: “The Democratic condemnation piled on Israel’s government is overwhelming in comparison to other allies. It’s also louder than Democrats’ condemnation of Iran’s regime for the slaughter of thousands of Iranians in December and January. Israel has been decried by some leading Democrats as an ‘apartheid’ state. But I haven’t heard any of them claim apartheid when it comes to how women and LGBTQ people are treated across the Middle East.”

• A report, from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based advocacy group, concludes that Israel employs “systematic sexual violence” in jails and prisons that is “widely practiced as part of an organized state policy.”

• Netanyahu says he wants Israel to wean itself off the $3.8 billion it gets from the US each year over the next decade.

• Six people are found dead inside a cargo train boxcar in Laredo, home to one of Texas’ largest hubs for trade with Mexico, accounting for roughly 62% of the state’s land port trade, or $340 billion.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

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LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Saudi Nay-rabia | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 8, 2026•

Ted Rall

Live at 9 AM Eastern & Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM Eastern time.

Today we discuss:

• Trump’s announcement that the U.S. military would escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz under Operation Freedom angered Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who denied U.S. access to Saudi airspace and American bases in the country because he wants to end the war and saw the idea as a provocation. Prince Mohammed’s action stunned U.S. officials and forced Trump to abandon his plan. Trump’s unpredictable and whipsawing approach to Iran has strained ties with one of his closest allies.

• Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party suffers big losses and the hard-right party Reform U.K. made major gains in partial results from local elections that are widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer. Reform UK, led by nationalist politician Nigel Farage, won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north such as Hartlepool that once were solid Labour turf, and also made gains from the Conservatives in areas like Havering on the eastern edge of London.

• A crowd at a military Mother’s Day event laughed lightly when Melania Trump referred to her husband’s empathy. “Most know my husband as the strong commander-in-chief, but his empathy transcends the role,” she said as laughter bubbled up among military moms.

• The Washington Post editorial board argues: “Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) doesn’t just think there should be no billionaires. She believes accumulating that much wealth is inherently immoral, probably criminal and definitely illegitimate. How does she grapple with the 3,400 or so people who have that much? ‘You can break rules,’ she explained. ‘You can abuse labor laws. You can pay people less than what they’re worth. But you can’t earn that.’ To say that it’s impossible to legitimately earn a billion dollars is to put an arbitrary limit on human potential. And presuming that anyone who becomes too successful must be cheating shows a lack of imagination as to what humans are capable of accomplishing in a free society.”

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All to Screw Memphis | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 7, 2026•

Ted Rall

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Tennessee Republicans propose a new congressional map that includes a district stretching nearly 300 miles from Memphis to the Nashville suburbs. The 9th Congressional District, which historically covers Memphis, would be redrawn to stretch from the bottom of Shelby County to the edge of Nashville. This move is designed to split Shelby County into three districts and split Nashville to maximize Republican representation. The new districts cover a massive geographic area, spanning from the state’s poorest ZIP codes in Memphis to the wealthiest in Brentwood and Franklin, totaling a distance of nearly 300 miles. The proposal follows a special session called by Gov. Bill Lee aimed at redrawing the map following a Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act, allowing for the elimination of a district that is 61% Black. Tennessee, which is 1/3 Democratic, would have zero Democratic Congressmen.

• Voters across Scotland and Wales will elect members of their national parliaments, while residents in many parts of England will choose members of local councils. In place of Labour and its traditional opponent, the Conservatives, many voters are embracing other parties in what experts say represents the largest transformation in British politics in a generation. The two biggest beneficiaries are Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage, a supporter of President Trump, and — on the other side of the political spectrum — the leftist, pro-environment Green Party. Polls suggest that the Conservative Party, known as the Tories, will continue to lose seats after cratering in local and national elections over the past two years. In some parts of Britain, the party once led by the “Iron Lady” of British politics, Margaret Thatcher, could come in fourth or fifth, with support in the single digits.

• You might not have asked for an AI model on your computer, but you might have gotten it anyway. Google Chrome has been installing a 4GB model onto devices without asking or notifying users. Google has been installing Gemini Nano — an AI model that runs on devices like smartphones and laptops instead of in the cloud — onto some people’s Chrome browsers, without their permission, according to Alexander Hanff, a Swedish computer scientist and lawyer known as That Privacy Guy. And Google doesn’t tell you that it’s on your device after it’s installed. Hanff said Gemini Nano will only be installed if the person’s device meets the hardware requirements. It’s unknown how many people have gotten the install.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

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LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

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

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

Q&A | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

May 6, 2026•

Ted Rall

Live Today at 12 noon Eastern:

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Band of Pigs | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Blue Dot Makes a Point | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Q&A | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Sucks To Be You! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Dems Run Against Trump, Again | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Q&A | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Is the Left Picking on Israel? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Saudi Nay-rabia | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

All to Screw Memphis | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

Q&A | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas

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