The Supreme Court’s de facto approval of Trump’s illegal ballroom construction and destruction of the East Wing is the latest example of a White House determined to outrun the slow-moving court system in order to remain unaccountable.

The post Move Fast and Break Laws appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• US Vice President JD Vance blurts “sometimes things happen” when asked whether an American bombing attack was responsible for killing four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran. The strike has been independently confirmed.

• Tensions rise between Germany and Russia. Russia will close German cultural centers, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says, in a retaliatory measure after Berlin blamed Moscow for an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport. In Munich, several incendiary devices were thrown at a construction site near a building where several companies, including from the defense sector, are located. Two Bulgarian nationals were arrested.

• First the Ballroom, now the Arch. Trump is breaking ground on his 250-foot-tall triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, even before a federal review panel has approved the project.

• Argentine President Javier Milei escalates his country’s dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands, vowing new measures to halt an oil project near the British-controlled archipelago and praising Trump for saying Washington could reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty.

MERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.com

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post JD Vance Laughs Off Civilian Deaths | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

These days, many of the things you feel you might have to do in order to get ahead are things that make you completely hated and reviled.

The post Brad Throws Down appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• For 24 hours after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told Trump the US has lost to Iran and a US bomb attack killed at least 5 guests at a wedding party and wounded at least 67, Trump’s familiar playbook for his war for/with Israel was on full display. The president went from boasting that Iran was defeated militarily, a “failed nation,” to threatening an apocalyptic attack that would leave “very little left” of the country. Then he was back to trolling, asking his followers whether the United States should name the Strait of Hormuz the “Trump Strait.” Foreign policy experts say he has run out of options.

• Citing an “unprecedented lowering of standards,” a career ICE official who stepped forward as a whistleblower said that “systemic breakdowns” had allowed applicants to receive job offers before they had passed basic fingerprint, identity or credit checks in a preliminary vetting process. Political appointees had unjustly skirted background investigations and received national security eligibility.

• Global heating will reach at least 1.8C under even the most optimistic future, well beyond the Paris agreement goal of 1.5C, according to a UN report that warns every fraction of temperature rise intensifies destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and island and coastal city submersion. The report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme confirmed overshooting the 1.5C goal inscribed in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015 was now “unavoidable” and, despite some progress in addressing the human-caused climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels, likely in the next few years. It said: “There are no good outcomes above 1.5C”.

MERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.com

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Trump “Out of Options” Against Iran | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos said he is “very ashamed” for supporting Trump after ICE thugs deported him back to the UK. Yiannopoulos called his experience “humiliating and disorienting.” He said he experienced “brutality.” “It was physically degrading, it was frightening,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been frightened like that before … And I was weeping like an old woman for an hour. He reflected on being “a little bit blasé” and “cavalier” about when people shared their traumas. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” Yiannopoulos added.

• German officials blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack last month at Leipzig/Halle Airport, close a Russian consulate and take other measures in response. A drone stacked with military-grade explosives was found Aug. 4 next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at the airport. Security camera footage appeared to show the weapon striking the plane’s wing before falling to the ground without exploding. Later that day, a second drone collided with a cargo plane in flight. Ten days later, a third drone was found with traces of military-grade explosives in a field near the airport. Germany has concluded the attack was plotted by professionals working for the Russian state, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.

• Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian student at Wright State University, struggling mentally and emotionally with the shame of being forced to wear an ankle monitor by ICE, said he had been bullied at school and felt “humiliated” by the device. Bel committed suicide by walking into Interstate 70. His family blamed the humiliation brought on by the ankle monitor.

MERCHANDISE: DeProgram.MySpreadShop.com

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Milo Y Is Very Sorry and Ashamed for Supporting Trump | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Why would the same government that doesn’t allow a 17-year-old kid—or even an 18-year-old—to rent a car or order a beer at a bar allow them to enlist in the United States military and carry a gun into combat, where they can kill and be killed? Shockingly, there’s no contradiction at all.

The post No Judgement appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

If you think the Langtang Lirung glacier disaster on the Tibet-Nepal border was bad, wait for Lake Sarez.

There is no reason to downplay the August 26th catastrophe, when a large section of glacier and underlying rock at 17,000 feet of elevation failed and plunged almost 4,000 feet into the valley below. The impact registered as a magnitude 5.2 seismic event. Thousands of people died.

Himalayan glaciers have been melting at an accelerating rate due to climate change, causing ice avalanches, rockfalls and glacial-lake outburst floods. And the worst is yet to come.

A thousand miles northwest across the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt from Langtang Lirung in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan is Lake Sarez, 10,700 feet above sea level. Experts call it Central Asia’s Sword of Damocles.

Lake Sarez formed in 1911 when a massive earthquake (estimated at 7.7) triggered a massive rockslide that blocked the Murgab River, creating the Usoi Dam—at over 1,500 feet high, the world’s tallest natural dam. The lake has backed up, deepened and lengthened over the past century.

I trekked up there in 2007 to research an article for Men’s Journal. Sarez was 37 miles long, a mile wide and 600 feet deep. As in the Himalayas and in mountains around the planet, glaciers in the Pamirs that had been frozen solid for thousands of years are melting away. The lake is now about 40 miles long, more than 1,600 feet deep, and holds four cubic miles of water.

Water wants to come down.

A lot of water.

At high altitude.

Usoi Dam has held for more than a century. It even survived a 7.2 earthquake in 2015. The big worry is that a major landslide from the unstable slopes around the stunning, bright blue lake falls into the water, generating a displacement wave capable of overtopping the dam (a similar scenario to the failure of levees during Hurricane Katrina) and releasing a destructive flood beginning as much as 1,000 feet high down the narrow Bartang, Pyanj and Amu Darya river valleys.

Such a A worst-case flood would sweep through Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

I wrote from a cliff overlooking the Murgab River in 2007: “Looking back down the valley, it was easy to envision floodwater gushing toward Barchadev and beyond, turning south at the Murgab’s confluence with the Bartang River. The 75-mile Bartang Valley, cultural and spiritual heartland of the Ismaili Muslims, would lose 30 villages and 7,000 people. The Bartang empties into the Pyanj, a large river that marks the border with northern Afghanistan, then Uzbekistan, then Turkmenistan. Six hundred miles downstream from Lake Sarez, the flood would cross into another time zone. Even this far downstream, Scott Weber of the U.N. Department for Humanitarian Affairs told New Scientist in 1999, ‘the wall of water would still be as high as a two-story house.’”

I described the worst-case scenario: “The city of Termiz in southern Uzbekistan is home to 140,000 people, the Uzbek-Afghan Friendship Bridge that the Soviets used to invade Afghanistan, and currently a German airbase with 3,000 NATO troops. Termiz would be obliterated. The water would keep going. The Pyanj is a tributary of the Amu Darya, which Alexander the Great knew as the Oxus. The flood path would continue along the Amu Darya, roughly marking the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, before emptying into the shrunken Aral Sea, 1,200 miles downstream of Sarez. The flood would actually do the Aral more harm than good, dredging up heavy metals and toxic sediments currently locked in the dry seabed. The ancient Silk Road cities of Khiva and Turkmenabat (100,000 people total) would be destroyed, as would most of the arable land in Central Asia. Five million people—mostly residents of landlocked deserts that routinely reach 125°F—would be drowned by snow melt.”

A tunnel mitigation project to slowly lower the level of the lake, tap its hydroelectric power and/or bottle its crystal-clear water would eliminate the threat. But the site would be expensive to reach. There is no proper road. Tajikistan is a poor, remote and mountainous country that can neither finance a multi-billion-dollar high-altitude construction job nor attract international attention, much less donors. (I sent my 2007 story to the UN and other international entities; no one ever replied.)

Other than a primitive monitoring system that may or may not get warnings out to lower altitudes,, nothing has been done. Meanwhile, Sarez is warming even faster than the global average. More extreme freeze–thaw cycles, less snow cover, and thawing ground are loosening rock and debris on the lake’s banks. The landslide threat is more pronounced than ever.

Yet the world has no interest in dropping the $4 billion—what it costs the U.S. to fight Iran for four days—that it would cost to avoid a Sarez dam collapse. Fatalistic Tajiks wait to die in a natural disaster so predictable that the earliest prediction models date to the Soviet era.

In the high Andes of Peru, Lake Palcacocha poses a similar threat to 900,000 people living below in Huaraz. Tibet and Nepal must still worry about Sarez-like lakes including Cirenmaco, Galongco and Gangxico.

From the Texas Hill Country disaster of 2025 to last weekend’s fatal inundation of the Grand Canyon, Americans are not immune from climate change-related flash floods.

The world has decided not to try to arrest or reverse human-caused climate change. Anyway, it’s probably too late. The question for us has become: will we act now in order to mitigate the damage and death tolls from the inevitable catastrophes we see coming?

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

The post Death From Above appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• NBC correspondent Matt Bradley says his team is “recovering well” after they “all took hits” from Israeli settler-terrorists during an interview the day before with elderly Palestinian woman Aida Ahmed Abdullah, who was knocked unconscious in Saturday’s attack. While interviewing Abdullah, whose home has been occupied by Israeli thugs, a group of masked men in a car with Israeli license plates descended on them with sticks and stones, beating them. One of the attackers could be seen swinging a stick at the cameraman before the camera fell to the ground.

• Laura Berlin built an interactive Google Map titled, “Who is Profiting from ICE?” The U.S. government found her website, too – and has labeled it a tool for domestic terrorism.

• The Supreme Court lets Trump proceed with plans to build the White House ballroom. The 5-4 ruling is likely the final word on the project. The majority decision noted that the justices did “not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project.” The real issue: Constitutional separation of powers.

• The U.S. Postal Service could “derail” the midterm election if it continues rushing out “untested” technology as part of President Trump’s push to restrict mail-in voting, a newly released whistleblower report warns.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Israeli Settler-Terrorists Maul NBC News Journalists | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• “Too Much, Too Long”: Top generals warn in the the Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB) to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonged large-scale operations against Iran are unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland.

At the same time, the U.S. attacks Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz as Iranian forces were allegedly preparing to disperse sea mines into the waterway. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps warn that the U.S. strikes would “result in the punishment of the aggressor” and fired ballistic missiles at a Jordanian air base housing U.S. troops.

• The U.S. government says it is entering into a joint venture with a private Venezuelan energy company to loot oil and gas. The Trump administration says the U.S. would get 55% of the oil from the joint venture. That’s equivalent to about 65 billion barrels of oil that’s under the ground. Trump called it the “biggest oil deal in the world.” But energy experts say there are many reasons to be skeptical.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Hegseth Warned by US Experts to Stop Iran War | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Pro-Israel “hasbara” internet warriors frequently regurgitate the same arguments to defend that country’s actions against the people of Gaza and the West Bank: there was never such a country as Palestine—not that Palestinians ever claimed that there was. Israel is merely defending itself. And so on. Chillingly, these are all arguments that have close analogies to those used by Nazi Germany during World War II to justify the Holocaust against the Jews.

The post The Arguments Are Timeless appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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

Today we discuss:

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s mysterious trip to Moscow this week was preceded by fresh U.S. intelligence indicating that the Kremlin sees the US as weakened by the Iran war, offering Russia an opportunity to escalate action against American interests and allies in Europe. The CIA chief warned Russia against ramping up its war against Ukraine, arguing that such a move would backfire.

• Parents say that because of the $17 billion Meta settlement, they have been robbed of seeing evidence of Meta’s awareness of harm due to its products.

• The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is blaming the location of a temporary Ellipse site for an incident in early August when President Trump’s Marine One helicopter came within a mile of a passenger jet. The agency flagged twice that the helicopter attempted to contact controllers to give the typical three-minute liftoff warning to clear the airspace at 2:31 p.m. Aug. 4. The first attempt was not received by National Airport’s air traffic control tower while the second was “broken and completely unreadable.” When this failed, the helicopter attempted to relay the three-minute warning “through the helicopter facility at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, which was also unsuccessful.”

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post CIA: Putin Thinks USA Is Now Weak | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Multibillionaire Mark Cuban is one of the many incredibly wealthy men who have warned that ideas like the wealth tax currently on the ballot in the state of California would be a disastrous idea. Talk about self-interested!

The post Objectively Speaking, the Wealth Tax Sucks appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• Canadian trade officials acknowledge that their retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on $20 billion in American goods are intended to exert pressure on key U.S. states. The tariffs could hit states in the Midwest and Northeast particularly hard.

• Meta reaches a landmark settlement with 47 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, agreeing to pay up to $17.1 billion in penalties and make major changes to its products over claims it endangered children with addictive social media platforms. The settlement effectively ends a bellwether federal trial in the U.S. Northern District of California in Oakland, where California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were seeking roughly $200 billion over accusations that Meta harmed children. Meta’s stock rose on the news, closing up just over 1 percent. The company is valued at $1.47 trillion and most recently generated $60.8 billion in quarterly revenue. The full value of Meta’s payout depends on whether other social media companies also settle with the states and agree to financial penalties and product changes. Meta will initially pay about $12 billion. It will pay an additional $5 billion if Snap, TikTok and YouTube also settle with the states and agree to financial penalties and product changes.

• The massive expenditure of U.S. munitions in the Middle East is worrying Asian allies and frustrating Pentagon officials overseeing the Indo-Pacific, who fear that the prolonged war with Iran could undermine U.S. readiness for a conflict with China. One Taiwanese official said they expect “significant delays” of Pac-3 Patriot missiles due to the drain on supplies as the Pentagon has depleted most of its interceptor stockpile in the Middle East. Japan has been warned by the Pentagon of possible delays in defense shipments, including Tomahawk cruise missiles.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Canada Retaliates Against U.S. with 50% Tariffs | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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:

• At least one in four NFL players will probably get chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Should football be banned? At least 215 of 878 players who died from 2016 to 2021 — 24.5% — had CTE. The actual prevalence could be far higher. This does not consider the 643 brains that were not examined. Studies have shown that the rate of CTE in people who have not sustained repeated impacts to the head is nearly zero. Professional football’s rate of brain disease is an occupational safety hazard with little comparison in the American workplace: asbestos workers and coal miners. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion and uncharacteristic mood swings, decreases in executive function and increases in erratic and impulsive behavior, including addiction.

Should we ban other sports with high rates of CTE, like boxing, ice hockey, rugby, soccer and wrestling?

• Huge mudslides sweep through villages in Nepal and Tibet, and China’s Gyirong port. Hundreds are missing and feared dead. Nepal’s foreign minister said an earthquake triggered a large landslide, which in turn blocked a river, sending a torrent of water downstream. Could Central Asia’s “Sword of Damocles”—Lake Sarez—be next?

• CIA Director John Ratcliffe quietly flew to Russia, where he met with his FSB intelligence counterparts. The topic of discussion, however, was probably not the Russo-Ukrainian War.

SUBSCRIBE on YouTube/Rumble: $5/month

$20/month on YouTube: Get a Closing Credit

$50/month on YouTube: Exclusive Monthly Hangout with Ted and Jamarl (Rumblers: contact westglaciergaming@gmail.com for details)

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

The post Should Football Be Banned? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Many professional women complain that they can’t find “quality men,” which means those who are financially and professionally successful. Seventy years into feminism, however, female advancement has largely come at the expense of men, who cannot reasonably be expected to continue to be dominant providers as women advance in a zero-sum workplace.

The post No Love for the Defeated appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims Iran tried to kill one of his sons, but gave no details about ​when the alleged plot took place, which son was targeted or how ‌close it came to being carried out. Netanyahu’s oldest son, Yair, lives in Miami.

• The Supreme Court cleared a roadblock for Trump’s push to restrict mail-in ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, but a separate nationwide injunction keeps the rule blocked for now. The administration’s proposed rule for mail-in ballots could scramble the 2026 midterms by forcing local and state officials to adopt an untested federal system on short notice and potentially undermine confidence in U.S. elections.

• British Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the U.K. will help Ukraine make its own long-range missiles by sharing classified technical information for British components. Burnham, who was in Kyiv for Ukraine’s Independence Day, said defense firm MBDA will release details on U.K.-made parts for the SCALP missile to Ukraine to help the country assemble the weapons.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Netanyahu: “Iran Tried to Kill My Son” | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

What if you were scrolling through job listings, and you found one that said “Assassin/Assassination Assistants”?

You’d think it was a sick joke.

“Organization with rich and powerful history, but deeply in debt and facing decline with few prospects of improvement, seeks paid assassin willing to unquestioningly injure, maim and/or kill anyone and everyone as directed, including men, women and children. Must be willing to live anywhere on earth (or outer space), perform any task indirectly or directly related to killing, for a minimum of 4-6 years (may be extended indefinitely by employer). You assume risk that some men, women and children may injure, maim or kill you (instead of you doing it to them). Base pay plus net benefits begins at approximately $50,000/year.”

Who would take a job like that?

There is a long-term trend toward lower propensity to serve—military jargon for willingness to enlist in a branch of the armed forces—from 16% of youth in 2003 to 10% in 2022. Nevertheless, 150,000 to 200,000 Americans enlist in the U.S. military annually.

They accept these crazy work conditions. Why?

Even when you consider the question from the perspective of coastal elites who conjure up an image of the typical recruit as poor, uneducated and desperate to escape the opioid-ravaged postindustrial hellscape of their hometowns in flyover land, it’s hard to see why so many people would trade away their freedom of movement, bodily autonomy and personal freedom for a relatively modest set of benefits—much less why they would sign a blank check over to any organization, much less one like the United States military.

Anyone who accepts a gig working for a private institution or a government entity other than the military knows that there’s always a risk that things might turn sour after they begin work. Salaries may freeze or stagnate, departments will merge, demotions happen in name or in fact, you might survive layoffs only to have your workload soar, benefits might vanish, an employer’s top management might make bad decisions that affect workers’ pay. A company may get acquired, or a new CEO could come on board; a good place to work could move to another state or transfer you to a less desirable office or otherwise deteriorate into 9-to-5 hell.

Whatever happens, though, you have an out. You can quit.

Military enlistment, on the other hand, is indentured servitude without the upfront loan or fixed expiration date. Once you’re under contract, you don’t freely determine if and when you can leave. After the initial term, you can reenlist or separate out, but the military controls the timing and conditions of your release. Then you’re in the reserves and can be called up for another four years. And there’s “stop loss,” which keeps you in whenever the president decides to declare an emergency.

If Apple hires you in Cupertino and transfers you to a data farm in Nevada, you have a choice. You can move or look for another job. Service members do not choose where they live. Your wife may have a job in Indiana; you wind up in Qatar. The military assigns duty stations based on what they deem to be their needs. You can request preferences, and some programs influence your location assignment, but it’s up to them.

If GM hires you for the C-suite and wants to move you to the assembly line, you can say no, and leave—hell, you can probably sue a private employer who messes with you for “constructive termination.” Recruits choose or are assigned a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) rating, or Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) based on aptitude tests, medical exams and available slots. You can apply for retraining, special programs or career progression, but the boss decides where you work and what you do. You say: “yes, sir.”

Especially if you’re willing to move to a major metropolitan area where starting salaries are higher, military pay scales don’t cut it. Either way, after all, you’ll have to move—but not necessarily to the Middle East. As occupational safety goes, the Army is as bad as it can get.

You’ll be asked to hurt people who have done you no harm and bear you no ill will, victims who will be selected today by a president and a Pentagon team whose policies and priorities you may or may not approve of today. But what about tomorrow? Presidents change, politics change, and the wars that you might like now can easily be set aside in favor of conflicts that make no sense to you in the not-so-distant future. Are you willing to sign over a blank check, not just to today’s presidential administration, but those of the future?

Who knows what scoundrel/dirtbag/mental turnip may sit in the Oval Office?

Why die for someone who no one has yet heard of, yet may be elected Commander-in-Chief?

Young recruits, politicians tell us, are primarily motivated by a desire to protect their country. But it’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever be needed for that, given that the United States homeland has not been attacked by a nation-state in a military conflict since the War of 1812.

Others want to travel. But there are many ways to do that without killing people or working for a machine whose primary task is killing people: work exchange programs, the Peace Corps, applying to one of the many foreign colleges and universities that admit American students for very low tuition, backpacking while jumping from job to job.

Some young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, fall for the smooth-talking recruitment officer’s argument that they need the discipline and structure that only the military can provide. Here, too, there are alternatives: martial arts academies, engineering schools, trade apprenticeships, intentional communities.

Generations of soldiers and sailors have learned that military service is a sucker’s game. The Pentagon breaks beautiful young people and discards them like a filthy old snot rag when they are no longer of use to a system built for the benefit of the rich and powerful. From unpaid Revolutionary War veterans left with worthless scrip and doomed to poverty (officers got bounty land grants on soil stolen from Native Americans), to Civil War soldiers enduring years of pension delays, World War I “Bonus Army” marchers violently dispersed by federal troops in 1932 and Vietnam veterans long denied care for Agent Orange exposure and PTSD, American veterans have repeatedly faced neglect and abuse.

Antiwar activists want young men and women to reject the military on ethical grounds. While that would be best—no organization on the planet harms more people and degrades the national environment more than the United States military—we should also consider another tack. Strip away the patriotic propaganda surrounding military service, and what you have is just another job.

A lousy job.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

The post Wanted: Assassin. Pay: Mediocre. appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this weekend that his former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov was wrong to call for national elections and that holding a vote in the middle of war could divide Ukraine. “Elections right now would be a tsunami for the state that would split Ukraine apart,” he said. Without a cease-fire, which Russia would not agree to, holding elections carried “major risks,” Zelensky said.

• The Trump administration will announce what it is describing as its most comprehensive assault to date on Iran’s economy, unveiling a bigger “Operation Economic Fury” or “Economic D-Day” of measures that are intended to isolate Iran from the rest of the world.

• Ohio voters are furious. Could they turn purple again? A governor’s race, a Senate contest and enough congressional contests to swing control of the House are all in play, where voters of all stripes express a deep sense of anger and powerlessness.

• Democrats and other Trump critics reacted incredulously to a New York Times report that House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Jared Kushner, the president’s influential son-in-law, to discuss possible areas of collaboration.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Zelensky Angrily Refuses to Allow Elections | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

After World War II, most of the world and many Holocaust survivors looked at the genocide in Europe and declared that nothing like that should ever happen again. But the country with the most Holocaust survivors today is led by people who, at least in part, viewed genocide as something to emulate and perhaps even perfect.

The post Same Atrocity, Different Responses appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

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 ET.

Today we discuss:

• Nathan Cofnas, the U.S. professor who raised plagiarism concerns over ‌Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who then committed suicide, has been suspended by Belgium’s Ghent University and is under investigation for discrimination. Arday, Cambridge’s youngest Black professor, killed himself at age 41. Arday denied plagiarism but ​acknowledged mistakes.

• The Navy is discussing renaming an aircraft carrier after Trump. The ship, which is still under construction, was set to be named the USS Doris Miller in honor of an enlisted sailor who famously staffed an anti-aircraft gun during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Miller, a mess attendant, grabbed the gun shot down at least one Japanese plane and dragged wounded U.S. sailors to safety.

• Democrats are preparing an all-out oversight campaign targeting President Trump, his family and administration should they flip the House. Leading the effort are California Rep. Robert Garcia, who is poised to lead the Oversight Committee under a Democratic takeover, and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is in line to lead the Judiciary Committee. They are planning to investigate Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet and his family’s cryptocurrency investments. Democrats want to build an accountability message for 2028.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

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

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Professor Who Attacked Jason Arday Suspended | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.