DMZ America Podcast Ep 194: Is This 1933?

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

Hitler was elected democratically and consolidated his dictatorship after seizing power. Donald Trump just won a fair election. Is he plotting to subvert American democracy?

There are signs that suggest “yes.”

Presidents may only serve two terms, yet Trump repeatedly suggests that he ought to run and win a third term. A “Third Term Project” was announced at CPAC. This past week, Trump called himself “The King” and quoted the French Emperor Napoleon, who argued, “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”

More materially, Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other top military officers. He will be replaced with a MAGA loyalist. History shows that the military is key to a successful coup d’état or revolution. And Trump has a strong reason to want to stay in office: if and when he steps down, he again becomes vulnerable to criminal charges.

Is it 1933 in Germany? Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) talking about the prospects for democracy under Trump on today’s DMZ America Podcast.

DMZ America Podcast Ep 193: Democrats Say Resistance Is Futile

Live at 12:30 PM Eastern/11:30 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

House Leader Jeffries sounds like a Vichy Democrat who has given up. “What leverage do we have?” he asked reporters at his weekly news conference on Friday. “They control the House, the Senate and the presidency. It’s their government.”

Yet Republicans had a very different attitude when they found themselves in the same position Democrats are in now. They threatened to shut down the federal government and sometimes did so. They extracted concessions in order to raise the debt ceiling. They blocked judicial and other nominations.

What parliamentary and other tools could Democrats deploy to block or slow down Trump and his initiatives? Do they want to use them? If not, why not?

That’s what editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) are talking about on today’s DMZ America Podcast.

 

DMZ America Podcast Ep 192: Trump Trashes Checks and Balances

LIVE at 10 am Eastern Time/7 am Pacific time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

Is this the end of the American experiment? Donald Trump, Elon Musk and his administration are flouting the Constitution and making a mockery of the checks and balances that have kept U.S. democracy going over nearly a quarter millennium. Congress has signaled that it does not plan to rein in the president so it’s mostly up to the Supreme Court. With governing norms demolished, will we still be able to say this is a nation of laws?

Editorial cartoonists and best friends Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) draw on history to forecast what appears to be a rapidly growing constitutional crisis.


DMZ America Podcast Ep 191: Political Potpourri

LIVE at 12 noon Eastern today, Streaming 24-7 thereafter:

It’s Trump’s second week as president and he’s a busy boy. He’s expanding Guantánamo Concentration Camp to accommodate as many as 36,000 migrants in perpetuity, working on ways to get a third term, firing the inspectors general and running roughshod over the hapless Democrats who still seem to think they shouldn’t change a thing.

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) could talk about all that and more. And maybe they will. But this is a Political Potpourri episode in which they’re going to roll open mic style: whatever comes to mind is what will come up.

 


DMZ America Podcast Ep 190: So It Begins…Trump 2.0

Live at 1 pm Eastern/12 noon Central time and Streaming anytime after that:

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) break down Donald Trump’s first week as president. From pardons to executive orders to cabinet appointments to the inauguration to domestic and foreign policy legislation, what does what we’ve seen so far augur for the next four years of the Trumpian restoration?

On the DMZ America podcast, political cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) let you know how they see things without indulging in the usual fussing and fighting.


TMI Show Ep 64: Trump’s First 100 Days

Ever since FDR, we’ve watched a new president’s First 100 Days. Never will Donald Trump have as much political capital as he does now, so he’s jamming through as many executive orders as he can. Will he also be able to get his entire slate of top nominees through the Senate? What should we expect legislatively? From foreign policy?

On “The TMI Show,” co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan, are joined by Richmond, Virginia-based talk show host John Reid for an inside look at the immediate impact of Trump’s second term.

TMI Show Ep 62: “Trump’s Busy First Day”

Listen and Watch LIVE at 10 am Eastern time/7 am Pacific time today and Streaming 24-7 thereafter:

After a strange inauguration speech that really wasn’t, President Donald Trump charged out of the gate on his first day with a blizzard of executive orders and actions designed to remake the government as quickly as possible in his image. Within hours, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of the January 6th defendants and inmates, declared an emergency at the Mexican border that allows him to send the military, shut down the main immigration app, declared drug cartels to be terrorist organizations, fired over 1000 Biden appointees, threw a lifeline to TikTok, re-declared Cuba a partner of terrorists, withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization, and attempted to end birthright citizenship.

Oh, and the DOGE bromance ended 6.75 hours into Trump’s second term.

On today’s “TMI Show” hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan tell you what’s likely to stick and what’s not, what’s happening and why it matters, and predict what’s coming next down the pike.

TMI Show Ep 38: “Citizenship for All?”

The United States is among the 32 countries, mostly in the Americas, that have birthright citizenship. If you are born here, you get a US passport. Conservatives have long complained that the 14th Amendment provides a loophole for so-called “anchor babies,” of whom there are at least 4 million born to illegal immigrants. But those numbers are dropping annually. Jus soli, or the right of the soil, is in the crosshairs of the incoming second Trump Administration, with the president-elect threatening to eliminate it by executive order. Without it, however, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people could be forced back into the shadows, refusing to call the police or the fire department for fear of deportation, and become stateless. In France, there are second and even third-generation stateless people who couldn’t go back “home” even if they wanted to.

The TMI Show’s Ted Rall debates the issue with guest co-host Robby West, filling in for Manila Chan.

It’s the Thoughtless That Counts

Apparently as a way to promote the Democratic Party leading into the 2022 midterm elections, President Biden is pushing through executive orders that make headlines but don’t have much practical effect. It seems to be helping at the polls, but what happens when voters learn the truth?

DMZ America Podcast #63: Student Loan Forgiveness, Quiet Quitting and Zelensky’s Big Lie

Joe Biden wants to forgive up to $20,000 per student loan borrower. Ted and Scott do a deep dive into who qualifies and why and why it’s weird, and Scott takes a stand against executive action rather than congressional debate in the situation. America’s favorite left-wing and right-wing political cartoonists discuss the phenomenon previously known as slacking, now known as “quiet quitting.” Finally, Ukrainian President Zelensky has been outed as a major liar to the Ukrainian people, some of whom are not pleased about it. In a democracy, or what passes for one, what if anything are the people entitled to know?

 

 

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