The TMI Show Ep 26: “Ted and Manila Say: Ask Us Anything”

It’s Friday or, as Manila calls it, Fri-Yay! Which means it’s time for something different and something fun: we’re answering questions from you, our listeners and viewers! In terms of topic, anything goes, just as it does on the show. Whether you want our takes on ethics, politics, personal finance, romance, you name it, Record your question as a short audio or video clip and Email it as a File Attachment to: TMIShowQuestion@yahoo.com.

It’s our answer to Open Mic Friday.

Today we’ll dig into the first two to hit the virtual mailbag. Join the party and send in yours and we’ll answer it on the air next week!

Donald Trump's election victory caused most people to think that the war between Russia and Ukraine would soon come to an end as the United States pulled back on its financial and military support for Ukraine, something the former president promised repeatedly. However, what was expected to be a quiet transition in America's proxy war heated up dramatically after President Joe Biden reversed himself in order to allow Ukraine to fire US-made and US-operated ATACMS missiles up to 200 miles inside the Russian Federation. As Russian president Vladimir Putin had threatened to do, Russia quickly responded by updating its nuclear doctrine to authorize Russian military leaders to launch a nuclear strike against any nuclear-armed country that attacks Russia whether it uses nuclear or conventional weapons.

A smear, the dictionary says, is a word or statement applied to a person in order to degrade, blacken, or make unjust or unfounded accusations. The lead in today’s New York Times, a story titled “How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media,” is a textbook example of a smear. Relying on guilt by association, reading into similarities between her opinions and those of U.S. adversaries, assuming the worst of her while taking her enemies’ statements at face value, and twisting reality into a pretzel to normalize insanity and marginalize the facts, the Times piece shows you how state-sponsored media propaganda works in the real world, in this case as part of a concerted effort to sabotage President-Elect Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence. Missing, by the paper’s own account no doubt in order to avoid another costly libel lawsuit, is any evidence that Gabbard is a “Russian asset” or has done anything wrong at all. Times editors obviously assume that few readers will read beyond the headline or, if they do, will read with the skeptical eye of a veteran journalist.

On today’s The TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan dissect the smear campaign against Gabbard in order to showcase how “mainstream” corporate media outlets undermine reputations and lives.

The TMI Show Ep 22: “Mass Deportations: Facts and Fantasies”

On The TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan investigate what's true and what's not about the second Trump Administration's plans for border policy and the millions of asylum applicant and illegal immigrants who migrated into the United States over the last few years.

Trump has appointed former acting Director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Tom Homan to be his border czar. Homan has promised “shock and awe” on Day One—but the message is confusing. Contrary to what Trump said on the campaign trail, the US military will probably not be involved anytime soon in deportations. That job will fall to ICE, which will focus on people here illegally who are suspected of having committed serious crimes, as well as gang members—which is the same priority currently in effect under Joe Biden. They don't plan to break down doors at anyone's homes. Homan does, however, suggest that raids on workplaces, a tactic Biden discontinued, could return. There is also a mixed messaging on whether families might be separated because some members have legal status and others don't.

Meanwhile, immigrant advocates and activists will be availing themselves of remedies in the legal system to slow down expulsions. What tools do they have? How effective are they?

Our expert guest is immigration attorney Susan Pai. After attending the University of Southern California, University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Louisville and Nagoya University in Japan, Susan began her career as Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for the State of Washington. Susan is a nationally recognized speaker and writer. She is a front page featured Huffington Post writer on immigration issues (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-pai/5-million-reasons-for-rec_b_5056302.html) and has submitted Congressional Testimony on humanitarian immigration issues. She has worked with the Senate Judiciary Committee on business immigration and has testified as an expert on immigration compliance. Susan has spoken at national anti-fraud conventions, immigration law conferences and law schools.

Join us as we answer the question: what's the truth about mass deportations under another Trump Administration?

On The TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan investigate Pete Hegseth, the obscure Fox News weekend host nominated to become Trump’s Secretary of Defense. Why was he chosen? Is he qualified? Will the Senate confirm him?

The Pentagon is a vast bureaucracy that controls an annual budget of nearly $1 trillion a year and employees nearly 3,000,000 people around the world stationed at over 1000 overseas military installations and hundreds in the United States. It is the second largest employer on planet earth, and if you include subsidiary contracting firms, it is by far the biggest. In addition, it controls the military academies as well as four separate intelligence agencies. Considering all that, is Hegseth, a veteran with no relevant experience, out of his depth?

Ted and Manila pose that big question to Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense with almost 30 years of federal service in the U.S. Defense Department and as a specialized trainer for border guards and Special Forces in select countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

On the TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan dive into one of the most vexing problems in the Western Hemisphere: a failed state in the Caribbean less than 600 miles away from the United States. Exploited and ravaged by French and American colonialism and decades of brutal dictators, Haiti has been destroyed by earthquakes and hurricanes and is now in the hands of brutal gangs.

Recent headlines paint a gruesome picture. Haitian police attacked a Doctors Without Borders ambulance and murdered patients it was transporting. The capital of Port-au-Prince is completely controlled by violent gangs. Starvation is everywhere. The FAA has banned American flights to the country after a Spirit Airlines jet was struck by small arms fire.

At least 5000 people have been killed in the last year. As the country’s security crisis continues, 5.4 million Haitians struggle daily to find enough to eat and gang activity has displaced over 700,000 people. On the human development front, Haiti has tens of thousands of confirmed cases of cholera. Over one-fifth of children are at risk of cognitive and physical limitations, and only 78 percent of 15-year-olds will survive to age 60.

The effects of this misery, of course, come to America in the form of Haitian migrants and illegal immigrants. What needs to be done to restore calm, law and order and maybe even prosperity to this benighted nation? Who is up to the job? Or should Haiti be left alone for the Haitian people to work things out?

Joining Ted and Manila is independent journalist and filmmaker Dan Cohen, the founder of Uncaptured Media. His latest documentary is “Haiti: Intervention Versus Revolution.”

As the Russo-Ukraine conflict prepares to enter its third year of grinding warfare that has claimed untold lives and wreaked havoc on people and infrastructure, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency has sparked speculation that a reduction of U.S. proxy support for the Zelensky government might force the Ukrainians to sit down for serious peace talks with Putin.

Russia has gained a clear military advantage in the war. On the TMI Show, co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan dare to ask: Will Trump, as he has promised, end the Ukraine War? If so, how? What role will be played by likely incoming secretary of state Marco Rubio, and European allies? Will the broad contours of a peace deal result in a rump Ukraine and an agreement not to join NATO? Are we looking at a full-fledged armistice, a ceasefire or just continued fighting?

Joining Ted and Manila is Mark Sleboda (http://facebook.com/Gramsci), an International Relations and Security analyst.

“I’m On Fire” by the Garden State’s favorite son Bruce Springsteen could be the soundtrack to a bizarre wildfire season—wild because it’s happening in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York, states that rarely if ever have suffered the extreme drought conditions and sustained unseasonable high temperatures afflicting the Eastern United States and much of the nation. Late last week, New York City was covered with smoke from a brush fire in, wait for it, Brooklyn.