Wanna know how crazy things are? Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the voice of sanity when it comes to the Israel-Hamas War.
The Final Countdown – 12/6/23 – Israel Intensifies Gaza Attack Amid Move South
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On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Ted Rall and Angie Wong discussed various current events, including federal prosecutors’ latest allegations against Trump pertaining to Jan. 6.
Esteban Carrillo – Journalist, Editor of The Cradle
Dan Lazare – Independent journalist and author
Melik Abdul – Co-host of Fault Lines
Jeremy Kuzmarov – Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine
The show begins with the Editor of The Cradle, Esteban Carrillo, who discusses the latest out of Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing military offensive in the region.
Then, journalist Dan Lazare joins later to share his perspective on the upcoming Republican debate and Trump’s town hall.
Melik Abdul, Co-host of Fault Lines, joins the hosts at the start of the second hour to weigh in on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s evidence against Trump that he says proves the former president’s role in Jan. 6.
The show closes with Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine, Jeremy Kuzmarov, sharing his perspective on Putin’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The Final Countdown – 8/14/23 – Ukrainian Offensive’s Shortcomings Causes ‘Blame Game’
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On this episode of The Final Countdown, hosts Manila Chan and Ted Rall discuss top news, including the Ukrainian offensive’s shortcomings.
Ted Harvey – Political Commentator and Former Colorado State Senator
Mark Sleboda – International Relations and Military Analyst
Dr. Reese Halter – Ecological Stress Physiologist
Esteban Carrillo – Journalist and Editor of The Cradle
The show begins with Political commentator Ted Harvey, who joins The Final Countdown to provide his insight into both Donald Trump’s federal indictment and the Special Counsel appointment for Hunter Biden’s investigation.
In the second half of the first hour, military analyst Mark Sleboda talks to The Final Countdown about the so-called Ukraine counter-offensive shortcomings and the reactions from its Western backers.
The second hour is joined by Dr. Reese Halter, who discusses the ecological tragedy in Hawaii as the death toll rises. He provides his insight into the growing need to confront climate change.
The show finishes with Journalist Esteban Carrillo, who joins The Final Countdown to discuss the latest on the U.S.-brokered talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Biden Ghosts His Granddaughter. He’s Always Been Mean.
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Joe Biden recently told a group of children that he has “six grandchildren. And I’m crazy about them. And I speak to them every single day. Not a joke.”
Sounds sweet.
It’s not.
People who read and watch Republican-leaning news outlets have long known that the president has a seventh grandchild, the product of Hunter Biden and his former girlfriend, Lunden Roberts. Hunter, who lives at the White House with his dad, has abandoned his four-year-old daughter Navy Roberts. He has refused to have anything to do with her. Joe, her grandfather, also pretends his granddaughter doesn’t exist, as though he were Grover Cleveland in the 19th century. (Even old Grover didn’t get away with unpersoning his illegitimate baby.)
Last week, the New York Times broke the liberal media’s silence on the story, shocking Democrats. Among the yucky details: Hunter went to court to block the little girl from using her father’s surname, Biden. This is serious stuff: parental abandonment increases the odds that Navy will suffer from health problems, addiction and suicidal ideation as an adult.
Democratic operatives quickly went into damage-control mode, dissembling and making excuses for a politician who has branded himself as our national grandpa—kind, decent, inclusive and loyal to his family to a fault.
It’s a “private family matter,” Democrats say. But there’s nothing private about any First Family—especially not this one. A White House that releases photos of the six grandkids’ Christmas stockings hanging from the fireplace can’t demand privacy when people ask WTF.
What about Donald Trump? He’s no paragon of virtue, liberals deflect. But Trump’s flaws don’t include hypocrisy; he never claimed to be a big family man. Biden does.
Another Democratic talking point: Lunden is a Trumpie. She hobnobs with right-wingers! How can Joe associate with Navy? There’s an easy retort to that one: Hunter ghosted her. You can’t be picky when you’re low on friends.
Because it undermines the president’s political brand, the Navy Biden Roberts issue won’t go away. Voters are finally beginning to ask whether Biden’s carefully crafted Irish-American just-a-boy-from-Scranton charm was malarkey all along.
Of course it was.
Behind Biden’s carefully-cultivated nice-old-man persona is a vicious SOB who screams and curses at his aides. He’s a sadist who enjoys humiliating people in front of their colleagues. He’s a colossally abusive boss; the difference between him and Amy Klobuchar is that the press covers up for him. “God dammit, how the f**k don’t you know this?!,” Biden screams at White House staffers. “Don’t f**king bullsh*t me!” and “Get the f**k out of here!” are other standard Bidenisms.
The fact that Joe is a mean old man shouldn’t come as this much of a shock. After all, this is a man who fist-bumped Mohammed bin Salman shortly after the Saudi dictator lured a Washington Post columnist to his consulate so he could torture him to death, chop his body into pieces, dissolve the chunks and dump the acidic gristle into the Istanbul sewer system. That gesture required a barrel of cynicism and one hell of a cast-iron stomach, not to mention a total lack of ethics. Biden chuckled when a reporter asked him whether MBS might commit another murder like the one of Jamal Khashoggi. “God love you,” Biden laughed. “What a silly question. How can I possibly be sure of any of that?”
Ha ha.
“The president’s cold shoulder—and heart—is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead,” Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote. And she doesn’t shock easily.
The truth is, Biden has always been a cruel person. Democrats don’t want to see it and, if they do, they won’t admit it, so they’re no different or better than the Republicans who stand behind Trump no matter what. Team Politics demands that fans of a party pay fealty in the coin of denial, policies and principles be damned.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee presiding over Clarence Thomas’ 1991 confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court, Biden repeatedly failed to protect his witness Anita Hill, who credibly accused Thomas of sexual harassment, from his Republican colleagues’ smear campaign. As if throwing Hill—an intensely private, shy person terrified of becoming the center of a political firestorm—under the bus wasn’t bad enough, he brought key corroborating witness Angela Wright to Washington yet never called her, leaving her to watch the hearings at her lawyer’s office. Hill was scarred, Thomas corrupted the court, and Biden moved on.
As chairman, Biden’s duty was to his witnesses, whom he abandoned. As a Democrat, his duty was to try to prevent Thomas from joining the court. Instead Biden sided with Thomas and his fellow senators.
Biden stands accused of staggeringly scurrilous misdeeds, including accepting millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for changing U.S. policy. But no single event showcases his willingness to screw over an innocent person to gain political advantage like his slanderous account of the circumstances of the deaths of his first wife and daughter in a car crash in 1972.
“A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly—and I never pursued it—drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly and killed my daughter instantly and hospitalized my two sons,” Biden told an audience in 2007.
In 2001 he falsely blamed an “errant driver who stopped to drink instead of drive” and “hit my children and my wife and killed them.”
He told this phony story over and over.
Curtis Dunn, who was driving the truck that struck Neilia Biden’s stationwagon, died in 1999. He had not been drinking. The accident was her fault; she blew through a stop sign; Dunn’s truck had none. Dunn stopped immediately and raced to help Biden and her children.
What kind of man would make up a story like that? Who would smear an innocent man just for fun? The same kind of man who would unperson his own granddaughter.
(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.)
DMZ America Podcast 69: Could Ukraine War Go Nuclear? Are Saudis Fixing the Midterms? How Bad Is Afghanistan?
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Editorial cartoonists and best friends Scott Stantis (Right) and Ted Rall (Left) discuss the week’s news for their DMZ America podcast, where disagreement and civility go hand in hand. First, Washington floats the idea that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons and suggests the US might escalate to a “hot” war with Russia. Second, Scott offers a unified theory explaining why Saudi Arabia and OPEC denied Biden’s pleas for increased oil production and how this might be an October Surprise. Finally, Afghanistan has collapsed again. Here’s why you should care.
DMZ America Podcast #57: Cowardly Cops and the Middle East: Who Should We Cozy up with, Iran or Saudi Arabia?
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Political cartoonists Scott Stantis and Ted Rall engage in a lively debate over the Middle East. Iran claims to have nuclear weapons technology, whatever the hell that means, which has Scott worried to the point that he’s contemplating bombing the country. Meanwhile Biden cozied up to Saudi Arabia’s dictator this week, prompting Ted to to go off the rails. But first, the final report is out on the police non-reaction at the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the question is: can the cops be redeemed?
Saudi Arabia is a Bulwark against Iran. So Who’s the Bulwark against Saudi Arabia?
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The Washington Post recently published an op-ed purportedly written by President Joe Biden that tried to justify his visit with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the psychopath who ordered the murder, dismemberment and dissolution in acid of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for—wait for it—The Washington Post. Let’s hope MbS likes Biden’s “writing” better than Khashoggi’s.
A publication whose motto is that “democracy dies in darkness” probably owes its readers the truth about who writes its articles. There is 1,000,000% no way in hell that Biden wrote that piece. Listen to him talk, then read it, you’ll see. Truth in advertising is important; accurate labeling more so. When I purchase a can labeled carrots, I don’t want to find pigs’ feet inside. Yet many newspaper opinion pieces and books bylined by high-ranking political figures and celebrities, like the piece that got Amber Heard sued, are ghostwritten. These are flagrant violations of journalistic ethical guidelines regarding attribution, a fraud against the readers, propaganda that elevates inarticulate fools into ersatz statesmen, and if editors won’t cut it out Congress should make it illegal.
It is the underlying argument, however, that makes “Why I’m going to Saudi Arabia” interesting. “I know that there are many who disagree with my decision to travel to Saudi Arabia,” “Biden” “writes,” going on to “say” that human rights concerns must take a backseat because the kingdom can help the U.S. “counter Russia’s aggression” in Ukraine, “outcompete China” and serve as a bulwark against Iran.
Even by the standards of the Beltway natsec Blob types whose “Risk” worldview considers countries and governments to be little more than pieces to be shuffled around a gameboard, “Saudi Arabia is a bulwark” is a shibboleth hard to top in its idiocy.
A bulwark?
Against what?
MbS rules the most notoriously barbarous, moronic and viciously violent regime on earth—one that by any metric is far worse than Iran, Russia or China. Torture, arbitrary arrests and political murders are commonplace. “Saudi courts have sentenced people to flogging for extramarital sex, drinking alcohol, and other offenses. While rarely, if ever, carried out, stoning sentences have been issued for adultery. The authorities have used and carried out sentences, albeit rarely, for amputation of limbs for theft,” according to Human Rights Watch. Saudi Arabia executes people, including children, for nonviolent drug offenses as well as witchcraft and sorcery.
In a single day this past March, Saudi Arabia executed 81 people, including non-citizens, for a variety of crimes, including “disrupting the social fabric and national cohesion” and “participating in and inciting sit-ins and protests.”
Saudi Arabia is one of the top destinations in the world for human traffickers, slave labor and sex trafficking.
Saudi women are treated like children under the law by the nation’s male guardianship program. As a result, the kingdom has the lowest female worker participation rate in the world, 5%.
Saudi Arabia finances countless radical Islamic terrorist groups around the world, including those who carried out the 9/11 attacks, and has spent an estimated $100 billion to spread its toxic brand of Wahhabi Muslim extremism to other countries. It has waged a brutal proxy war in neighboring Yemen, creating one of the worst humanitarian disasters on the planet.
The moral bankruptcy of American policy is exposed by the fact that Iran, which we target with sanctions, is a much more pluralistic and secular country than our frenemy Saudi Arabia. Iran has Jewish synagogues, Christian churches and Zoroastrian temples; its parliament has 14 non-Muslim members. Saudi Arabia, where anti-Semitism is widespread, required U.S. soldiers stationed there during the Gulf War to fly to international waters to observe Jewish services.
Iran’s support of international terrorism pales next to the Saudis’.
“For the past few decades,” Omar Bekdash wrote in the Cornell Diplomat in 2019, “women have enjoyed many more rights in Iran than in Saudi Arabia. In Iran, women are allowed to vote in every election and stand as candidates: six percent of Iran’s parliament is comprised of women, which is greater than the rate in cosmopolitan Lebanon, four percent. Women work and open businesses in Iran without the need for male approval—either from their male elders or their husbands.”
Iran has a vibrant opposition press; Saudi Arabia takes a zero-tolerance approach to dissent.
Given the record, it would make much more sense to cozy up to Iran as a bulwark against Saudi Arabia. The truth, of course, is that we have more in common with Saudi Arabia—because they’re the worst.
(Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, “The Stringer.” Order one today. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)
Next Time Write a Letter to the Editor
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Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who had Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered, chopped up and dissolved in acid, is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden. Biden is visiting the Middle East in order to ask Saudi Arabia to ramp up oil production to make up for the shortage of Russian oil created by his sanctions. If I were the president, I would be nervous—especially since he just published an op-ed justifying the trip in the Washington Post.
DMZ America Podcast #53: If I Were President! What We’d Do on Inflation/Economy, Human Rights/Foreign Policy & Guns/Red Flag Laws
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Ted Rall and Scott Stantis believe that every political cartoonist should know what he or she would do if they became President of the United States. This week we put that question to the test. What, if anything, can the president do to combat inflation? As President Biden prepares to suck up to murderous Saudi Arabia, does he have an alternative? Are red-flag laws common-sense gun legislation or are they the first step down the path to dystopian authoritarianism?
The Only Thing Necessary for Evil to Triumph
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“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” That statement is often misattributed to Edmund Burke. After Russia invaded Ukraine, many Americans who didn’t have anything to say about the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, much less torture at Guantánamo and elsewhere, or Yemen, or Palestine, suddenly started wearing blue and yellow flags. They weren’t good before, so how can these self-serving souls think they are suddenly being good now?
