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DMZ America Podcast #144: USC Censors Its Valedictorian for Being Palestinian, Trump on Trial, Biden’s Weird Steel Tariffs

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Ted Rall

Cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) are back at their respective abodes in New York and Alabama. As always, Ted and Scott put friendship first in their spirited but civilized debates and discussions about the issues at hand.

First up: The University of Southern California denies this year’s valedictorian Asna Tabassum

her right to deliver the commencement address because she is Palestinian and might have had the audacity to call for Palestinians to stop being slaughtered en masse by Israel in Gaza. If ever there was cause for people of all ideological stripes to be appalled albeit for different reasons, here it is.

Next: Donald Trump becomes the first former president to face a criminal trial. Scott and Ted dissect the nature of the charges, related to the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels, and explore the disturbing trend of prosecutors letting members of the public that they’re so out to get them that they’re willing to campaign on it.

Finally: Joe Biden imposes brutal tariffs to protect America’s steel industry, which is now owned by Japan, from China.

Watch the Video Version: here.

This Is a Golden Age of Censorship

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Ted Rall

            It’s too bad we can’t monetize censorship, because we truly live in a golden age of speech suppression. In this deeply polarized society, the one thing we can all agree upon is that people we disagree with need to shut up.

            Officially, freedom of speech is a key commandment in our national civic religion. We love free speech—in the abstract. Nine out of ten Americans told a 2022 Knight Foundation/Ipsos study that “protecting free speech is an important part of American democracy” and that “people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.” Yay, America!

            When people express specific unpopular opinions, not so yay. 70% of respondents to the same study said that, for example, COVID-19 misinformation ought to be banned. Some even called for those who spread it (even though some of it may turn out to be true) to be jailed.

            Young people often call for those they disagree with to shut their yaps. A College Pulse/Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression poll found that 71% of today’s college students would ban someone from speaking on campus if that person viewed transgender people as being mentally ill or they thought Black Lives Matter was a hate group. 57% said that anti-abortion activists should never be allowed to speak in public.

            And if objectionable speech manages to slip through? 63% think it’s OK to shout you down if you’re saying something they don’t like.
            Nowadays, though, young people are big targets of censorship too.

At my alma mater, Columbia, administrators have been coming down like a ton of bricks against peaceful student demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the university to divest its financial investments in Israel-affiliated companies. Back in November, long before American college and university campuses saw the current spread of encampments and other protests, Columbia suspended two student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Why? No reason was given. “The university did not elaborate on how exactly the groups did that except to say they had held ‘unauthorized’ events that included unspecified ‘threatening rhetoric and intimidation,’” The New York Times reported. As an alumnus and veteran of protests there, I can attest that Columbia’s rules do not require demonstrators to obtain authorization from campus authorities.

No pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia had carried out any actual violence or violent threats. They still haven’t.

After wealthy pro-Israel alums withdrew their donations, cash-grubbing Columbia president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik went full-spectrum fascist in voluntary testimony on  Capitol Hill. Calling the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” anti-Semitic (it isn’t), she cravenly groveled before a cabal of far-right Congressional goons, agreed that anti-Semitism is rampant on the Columbia campus (a lie), claimed that she had launched investigations of pro-Palestine instructors (if so, it was news to them) and when Republican lawmakers demanded that she fire a tenured professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies for allegedly saying the October 7th attack by Hamas was “awesome” (he didn’t), she agreed to get rid of and other educators him (she can’t).

To drive the point home, Shafik suspended pro-Palestinian student demonstrators (pro-Israel marchers get a free pass) and asked heavily-armed NYPD riot cops to violently arrest them and steal their personal possessions. Campus security guards shut down WKCR, the campus radio station, so student journalists could no longer report the news.

            Fascist administrators ordered similar police crackdowns at protests at such institutions as Princeton, USC, UT Austin, Emerson, Cal State Poly Humboldt and Emory, where Atlanta cops tased and maced students as they held them down. Brutal tactics only serve to further inflame passions, a fact reconfirmed when the encampment at Columbia was immediately reassembled the next day. USC valedictorian Asna Tabassum, denied her right to deliver her commencement address because she is Muslim and supports the people of Gaza, has received infinitely more attention to her message because she was censored.

            Not wanting to miss out on this latest McCarthyite moment, however, employers who support Israel’s slaughter of Gazans are firing journalists, teachers, athletes, editors and tech workers who disagree. Far-right Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has demanded that federal workers who oppose the bloodshed be fired while a group of pro-genocide corporate CEOs is organizing a blacklist of pro-Palestine college students to distribute to major companies so these young people won’t be able to find a job after graduation. (Student activists have taken to wearing masks and scarves to avoid being doxxed by reactionary supporters of Israel’s war.)

            Those who resort to censorship do so because they don’t have a credible message of their own. When the overwhelming majority of the American public, Democrats and Republicans alike, disapproves of Israel—a longstanding ally of the U.S.—it’s clear that the usual lame “if you oppose Israel you’re anti-Semitic” trope is no longer effective. We are no longer scared.

Like the political parties who work harder to suppress the vote for the other party than to motivate and excite their own supporters, those who have nothing affirmative to say for their own position strive to make sure that those on the other side, who have a strong argument, cannot express themselves.

            Censorship is a tool used by those who know they are wrong.

            Censoring antiwar voices is nothing new. Columbia suspended and expelled opponents of the Vietnam War in 1968. And when the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out in 2022, the U.S. government and its media mouthpieces censored Russian media outlets, boycotted Russian culture and even attacked Russian cats. But the truth about Ukraine—its corrupt president, its official romance with neo-Nazism, its anti-democratic regime and its low chance of success—is coming out.

            Yet optimism is the wrong response to this attempt to crush voices of conscience. Every spasm of mass censorship leaves a trail of cynicism, stifled voices, stunted careers and an ever-shrinking spectrum of expression. Remember Al Jazeera America? Phil Donahue’s show on MSNBC?

            They were casualties of the War on Terror’s Bush-era censors; we could use them now.

            Again, we are losing good people with important voices.

(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 – 3/13/24 – Biden-Trump Showdown: America’s Unwanted Rematch Looms in 2024

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Ted Rall
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss current events from around the world, including Trump and Biden clinching the nominations.  
Scottie Nell Hughes – Veteran Political Commentator, RT Host
Tyler Nixon – Counselor-at-law
Peter Coffin – Journalist, Podcaster, and Author 
Mark Sleboda– International Relations and Security Analyst
 
The first hour begins with Scottie Nell Hughes, a veteran political commentator, joining the show to share her perspective on the results of the Georgia primaries, and the upcoming Trump vs. Biden showdown. 
 
The show is later joined by Tyler Nixon, who talks about special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony on the mishandling of classified documents. 
 
The second hour starts with journalist Peter Coffin, who talks about Canada’s hate speech law, and the U.S. House passing the TikTok ban.  
 
The show closes with International Relations Mark Sleboda talking about Russian President Putin’s recent interview ahead of the country’s presidential elections. 
 

The Final Countdown – 11/30/23 – Fox Hosts First Ever Debate Between Rival Governors

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Ted Rall
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Ted Rall and Angie Wong discussed current events worldwide, including the upcoming Fox News debate between rival governors Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis. 
 
Mitch Roschelle – Media Commentator 
Todd “Bubba” Horowitz – Chief Marketing Strategist 
Jeremy Kuzmarov – Managing Editor of Covert Action Magazine
Professor Francis Anthony Boyle -American Human Rights Lawyer, Professor of Int’l Law 
 
The show kicks off with media commentator Mitch Roschelle, who weighs in on the upcoming, unprecedented Fox News debate between rival governors Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis. 
 
Then, Chief Marketing Strategist of BubbaTrading.com, Todd “Bubba” Horowitz shares his perspective on the imminent stopgap funding vote regarding the stopgap, as Congress members prepare for talks on the important bill next week.
 
The second hour begins with editor and author Jeremy Kuzmarov who discusses leaked documents revealing the “anti-disinformation” group CTIL’s role in online censorship.
 
The show closes with international affairs professor and human rights lawyer Francis Boyle to discuss the latest out of Gaza, including the Israel-Hamas truce extension. 
 
 
 

The Final Countdown – 11/7/23 – Key U.S. Elections Kickoff in Several States

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Ted Rall
On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Angie Wong and Ted Rall discuss major topics, including key U.S. elections in several states. 
 

Steve Gill –  Attorney and CEO of Gill Media 

Tyler Nixon – Army Infantry Veteran 
Peter Coffin – Journalist, podcaster, & author 
Elijah Magnier – Veteran War Correspondent 
 
The show kicks off with Attorney Steve Gill breaking down the elections in several key states such as Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Mississippi, Rhode Island, and more. He discusses how the results could set the precedent for the 2024 elections. 
 
Then, Army Infantry Veteran Tyler Nixon weighs in on the latest out of Trump’s New York civil fraud trial. 
 
The second hour begins with Journalist, podcaster, and author Peter Coffin weighing in on Jim Jordan dropping a “bombshell” report that highlights the U.S. government’s role in social media censorship before the 2020 elections. 
 
The show closes with Elijah Magnier breaking down the latest out of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as the death toll surpasses 10,000 and Israel’s ground invasion ramps up. 
 
 

Embrace Partisanship, Encourage Censorship

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Ted Rall

            We already know partisanship can be toxic. It also has some overlooked side effects. Team politics — the type of partisanship in which adherents of a party excuse every act of hypocrisy and wrongdoing by their own side while exaggerating and lying about the purported evils of the other — fuels censorship.

            Consider climate change, by some measures the issue about which Democrats and Republicans most disagree. During its four years in power the Trump Administration deleted more than 1,400 references to global warming from U.S. government agency and department websites. Climate scientists reacted by censoring themselves, using terms like “global change,” “environmental change,” and “extreme weather” instead.

After Biden took over, it was Democrats’ turn to suppress dissent. The new president’s top climate-change advisor pushed Silicon Valley to crack down on climate-change skeptics. Facebook, which like most social media companies is aligned with Democratic politics, now classifies posts that deviate from majority scientific opinion as “misinformation” and deletes them. In response to the change in political winds, some scientists have reversed their public stances in order to reduce their risk of losing funding.

Whatever you think about climate change or other issues, reasonable people ought to be able to agree about how to disagree: let everyone speak. Open and vigorous discussion and debate is the most effective way to arrive at societal consensus based on solid information. There’s a catch: you have to be willing to hear and listen to opinions with which you disagree expressed by people you may dislike.

We are moving away from that ideal. According to polls, we are becoming less tolerant of opposing views. 55% of Americans tell Pew Research that the federal government should restrict false information even if their censorship restricts freedom of information, up from 39% in 2018. (70% of Democrats share this view as opposed to 39% of Republicans.) 65% are OK with tech companies censoring speech, up from 56% in 2018.

Americans support free expression of views with which they agree. The other side, they think, should be neither seen nor heard. 36% think banning hate speech is more important than free speech and 35% don’t think the First Amendment should protect comedians and satirists, according to a 2021 Freedom Forum survey. Only 63% would vote for the First Amendment if it were on the ballot.

So Southern conservatives ban LGBTQ+ books while liberals turn a blind eye to Twitter shutting down accounts belonging to Donald Trump and the right-wing New York Post, the latter over the Hunter Biden laptop story—which turned out to be true. Democrats lose sometimes, Republicans lose other times, and the censors win all the time.

As a left-leaning cartoonist and writer, I have often found myself under political fire amid calls to silence me by terminating my employment or not permitting my work to be distributed. A former candidate for president even suggested that I ought to be executed. Even though I have spoken out publicly against liberal censorship campaigns directed at right-wingers like Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rush Limbaugh, no conservative has come to my defense.

Now the cancel-culture brigade has moved from right to left and the censors are targeting conservatives. The satirical news site Babylon Bee, the social media platform Rumble and other figures on the Right have filed a court challenge to a new New York State law that prohibits social-media posts a court determines to “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group” over “race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” The law, backed by heavy fines and probably unconstitutional because “hate speech” is protected under the First Amendment, also requires aggressive comment moderation and mandates that angry readers be provided with a venue to report offenders.

My first reaction is to be appalled by Attorney General Letitia James’ heavy-handed attempt to curb freedom of expression. My second is to note the right-leaning politics of the plaintiffs. Conservatives are silent when their allies and fellow travelers go after people like me. Why should we speak up on their behalf? Why not zap up some popcorn, pour a glass of Chardonnay and bask in the schadenfreude?

            The answer, of course, is that the enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend. As committed as I am to my Marxist-Leninist point of view, rhetorical class war must take a back seat to the fight against censorship even when the censors identify with the left and their victims belong to the right. A society in which censorship becomes normalized is doomed to authoritarianism and dictatorship without any political debate whatsoever; odds are slim indeed that what remains will be an ideological orientation that you will personally find agreeable. Team politics divides victims of censorship and benefits the forces of repression.

            Whether they know it or not, the editors of the Babylon Bee and their allies are defending people like me. I hope that conservatives will draw the same conclusion and start to form alliances of convenience with the left when we struggle for the right to be heard. As for me, I support anyone who takes on censors, liberals and conservatives alike.

(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

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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. 
 

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

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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 Right To Be Wrong

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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.)

 

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