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Trump’s Sneaky Social Security Plot Exposed

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Ted Rall

Is the Trump Administration secretly waging war on senior citizens? A suspicious new trend suggests they’re passive-aggressively piling on extra hurdles to snag Social Security benefits—bureaucratic hoops and red tape that’d make even the sprightliest grandma groan. Why the sudden change? Maybe it’s a cunning ploy by the president, a self-proclaimed beacon of physical fitness, now teamed up with health nut RFK Jr. Could this be their bizarre masterplan to Make Elderly Codgers Limber Again (MECLA)? Forget bingo and rocking chairs—Trump might want seniors doing jumping jacks to prove they’re worthy of their checks!

Trump’s Greenland Military Overreach

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Ted Rall

Trump’s fixation on Greenland might be military overreach, a risky move given America’s war record. Since 1945, the U.S. has lost or stalemated in Korea (1953), Vietnam (1975), and Afghanistan (2021), with Iraq’s 2003 “victory” devolving into chaos. Greenland, a Danish territory with 56,000 residents and strategic Arctic value, isn’t for sale. Trump’s bluster ignores history: of 12 major post-WWII conflicts, the U.S. decisively won just three.

ICE Targets College Students Over Criminals

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Ted Rall

Trump rode into office vowing to secure the border, yet ICE’s deportation of criminals crawls at a snail’s pace. Fewer deportations have occurred since January 20 than during the same period in his first term. Instead, armed ICE agents are absurdly chasing college students like Mahmoud Khalil, kidnapped from Columbia for protesting Israel’s Gaza war, which has killed over 50,000 since 2023. Yunseo Chung, another junior, remains at large. In 2025’s first 50 days, ICE prioritizes campus activists over cartels. Border security? More like political theater.

DMZ America Podcast Ep 197: “Trump’s Iron Fist: ICE Nabs Khalil, Tourist”

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Ted Rall

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

In this important episode of the DMZ America Podcast, hosts Ted Rall and Scott Stantis dive into the escalating fears of authoritarianism under Trump, spotlighting the chilling ICE arrests of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card-holding Palestinian activist, and a German tourist along with his American girlfriend. Khalil, a Columbia grad targeted for his pro-Palestinian advocacy, and the tourist couple, caught in a murky immigration sweep, highlight a disturbing trend: even legal status offers no shield. Rall, the fiery leftist, argues this signals a deliberate erosion of rights, while Stantis, the libertarian conservative, questions the government’s overreach. They wrestle with the core issue—if a green card isn’t enough, does citizenship truly protect anyone? With sharp debate and dark humor, the duo unpacks the implications for liberty, immigration, and America’s democratic facade in an increasingly authoritarian climate.


TMI Show Ep 88: Chaos in Trumpworld

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Ted Rall

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

The Trump administration has sparked controversy with aggressive moves to reshape the federal government and military. Budget director Russell Vought ordered federal agencies to plan mass layoffs, targeting thousands of workers at agencies like the IRS, FEMA, and Social Security Administration, aligning with Trump and Elon Musk. Over 20,000 federal employees have been fired, prompting lawsuits from unions and outrage from affected workers. Now a federal judge has ruled that all of those firings were illegal and must be reversed.

Simultaneously, Trump executed a dramatic Pentagon purge, firing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. C.Q. Brown and five other top officers, aiming to make military leadership loyal to him, and plans to expel transgender soldiers, airmen and sailors. Critics, including lawmakers, warn this politicizes the military, with some alleging a rejection of “woke” policies. Courts are blocking other initiatives like changes to birthright citizenship. Public and political backlash is growing, with protests across the country, yet Trump presses forward, framing the chaos as a drive to achieve efficiency.

As the rapid, polarizing overhaul continues to unfold, “The TMI Show” hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan predict the road ahead for the mayhem in Trumpworld. Will the deep state strike back?

TMI Show Ep 87: Recession Fears

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Ted Rall

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

Historically, Bloomberg Economics has used a recession probability model that incorporates factors like housing permits, consumer sentiment, corporate profit outlooks, and Treasury yield gaps. It doesn’t always work. For example, in October 2022, they projected a 100% chance of a U.S. recession by October 2023, driven by aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes, tightening financial conditions, and persistent inflation.

Here we go again. Consumer confidence fell this month by the most since August 2021 on concerns about the outlook for the broader economy, Bloomberg notes. Many consumers think we’ll see a recession later this year. That pessimism has more than half of consumers delaying major life plans due to uncertainty over the economy and the consequences of Trump’s tariff threats. Of those, about a third said they were putting off buying a home while one in six have postponed education plans—and one in eight have pushed back retirement.

On today’s episode of “The TMI Show,” Ted Rall and Manila Chan discuss the prospects for the economy with finance expert Aquiles Larrea.

TMI Show Ep 86: Ukraine Shakedown!

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Ted Rall

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

When the Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2022, the U.S. and the West promised to help Ukraine win. But they only provided enough weapons for parity, turning the conflict into a meat grinder of attrition. And the Biden Administration didn’t just give money and arms to Ukraine—they were loans. Now that Ukraine has clearly lost to Russia, you’d think Russia would ask for money as reparations, but it’s not. Instead, in an act that would have even shamed the British Empire at the height of its colonial era, the Trump Administration is calling in the U.S. debt by forcing Ukraine to turn over a substantial percentage of its mineral wealth, crippling the Ukrainian economy during its postwar reconstruction phase.

On today’s episode of “The TMI Show,” Ted Rall and Manila Chan discuss the bizarre and embarrassing specter of a superpower shaking down its defeated ally.

TMI Show Ep 84: Media Mayhem: the Trump Effect?

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Ted Rall

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

Even before the election, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times read Trump’s polls and censored their own Kamala endorsements. Then the tech bros who run social media donated to his inaugural. ABC News and Meta decided to punt in court and pay out big defamation claims Trump would probably have lost–were they bribes?Is Trump’s bullying chilling the media? It certainly looks like it. MSNBC has canceled Joy Reid’s primetime TV show. In another indication that journalists are under siege, a Mississippi judge ordered a newspaper to take down an editorial.On “The TMI Show” Ted Rall and Manila Chan, fresh from CPAC–where the big names didn’t bother to engage reporters–discuss the muzzling of the news media, the watchdog of democracy.

TMI Show Ep 82: Trump Wants To Slash Defense

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Ted Rall

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

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered Pentagon officials to draw up plans to cut 8% from the military over each of the next five years, the most radical attempt to rein in such spending ever.
There would be 17 exceptions to the proposed cuts, including military operations at the southern border. Cuts to defense will face opposition in Congress, where lawmakers focus on budget cuts that could affect their districts.
On “The TMI Show” Ted Rall and guest cohost Robby West discuss this shocking attempt to co-opt anti-militarism as an issue away from the Democrats.

TMI Show Ep 81: Ukraine: The Jig Is Up

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Ted Rall

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

The United States and Russia have moved toward a total reset in Riyadh, agreeing to work together on ending the Russo-Ukrainian war, financial investment, eliminating sanctions and re-establishing normal relations. The meeting was striking after three years of American efforts to isolate Moscow. After more than four hours of talks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that both sides had agreed to work on a peace settlement for Ukraine as well as to explore “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians,” both geopolitically and economically.

“We weren’t just listening to each other, but we heard each other,” Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said.

The meeting signaled Trump’s intention to reverse the Biden administration’s approach, which focused on sanctions, isolation and sending weapons to Ukraine.

What’s the next step? What will peace look like? What role will Ukraine itself have in the negotiations? What will it take Europe to sign off? Do they have to?

On “The TMI Show” hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan talk to Ukrainian whistleblower Andrei Telizhenko about what comes next.

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