something that has sense of freeze, the russian assets ring and alarm bells. and the us has, which is reputation of the us treasury is being the safest. as i think china is pondering on a long time. the thought i'd say sions strategies, given that the security is always one pop up, the agenda of the chinese leaders of the chinese stock piling gold because it is a booster, excess that carries no town to party. this at all, the fritz is getting the game, the guy, you're right, you. yeah, if you do it, you join the practice to see it. and they all understand that the us could pull the rocks, so to speak, see much of what they do to russia. if they are running the confidence they us, uh, you say china and russia you're facing, you think there may be in all faith in getting russia also straight and you say you a use the currency. so i think the, the move is already sought to and the institutions huge because they have

a huge population to get the, uh, the logic economy is and the next is not the independent economic and political policies on that. so we've got time for we'll be back at the top of the next hour with a fresh run done for you doesn't go anywhere though, is manenda. john is up next week. the amenities are on the hello. i'm going to a chan. you are tuned into modus operandi. it's that time of year again. okay, well, every 4 years that is not the elections. the olympics or the world will gather in the spirit of goodwill in competition or so we're told. what is that truly the case?

today will examine the upcoming paris summer olympics and whether sports is just, are you from, is a for politics and running shoes. all right, let's get into the m o, the a manual macro, and the president of france has spent billions of dollars in citywide upgrades in and around paris and preparation for the 2024 olympic games. while this is a lot of money, it's par for the course for any host city. but the city of light is coming under fire for leaving the world in the dark about the cities homeless population who are getting bust out far and away from paris. as officials expect 15000000 torres to descend on the french capital. meanwhile, as wars rage on and gaza and

a prolonged conflict anticipated in ukraine, the international olympic committee is wrong. i are from activists who say the i o . c is playing favorites with israel and being hypocrites with russia. joining us to discuss is a dear friend of mine who happens to be a dual french american citizen. this is ted raleigh's, the co host of sputnik radio's final countdown show. he's a syndicated cartoonist and author of several books including to afghanistan and back tad. always glad to speak with you. thanks. it's good to be here. so we 2024 pairs olympics. they're just around the corner. like any other host city to the games that, you know, they try to clean up a wretched up security. terrorism is always a threat at big events like this. but there are some reports that are merged around, you know, a 100 days or so ahead of the games that emanuel my crone had dozens and dozens of

homeless migrant families removed from the area near paris city hall. now i would compare this to when the california governor gavin newsome magic, we got rid of san francisco's homeless problem ahead of she didn't things visit for the a peck summit. what do you make of francis preparations for the olympics to? yes and my and my thought went to when new york we are truly ami. um was hosting the republican national convention or i, i'm sorry, that was mayor michael bloomberg and he also had the homeless people removed and exiled it to the bar. i was outside of manhattan in new york city as the same and this is something that happens whenever a city host to major event, whether it be a sporting a major sporting event like the olympics or political convention or whatever. no

one wants to see the riffraff a round, and i think, you know, this is, it's not unusual now. what a lot of people might not know about paris. it really has long had a major problem with homelessness. when i was a kid, the 1st time i went, it was an up to this one gave me, i'm 60 years old. i'm actually 73. i went with my mom and i was time. i remember seeing like these bombs is the big part. you could say basically sleeping on the wall, the retaining wall over the sand river. and they cut my mom said, oh no, there's in french. he said those are the crucial, which basically means, you know, homeless guys, they were all alcoholics and they would sleep up there. and i was always kind of amazed that they just didn't just roll over to their, to their dads and fall like 60 feet down to the pavement. or depending on the tied it into the water. but it must have happened. but you know, the, whatever this,

this is for people who know parents, this is that area of the sand where they have all the books stalls that are like locks up against the said river. i'm how much this is a long been an issue and there's a lot of poverty in paris. paris is a very expensive city, and so there's a housing prices are through the roof. and then there's also a culture of how housing authority in france. so what i mean, you would be amazed probably, i would say it's probably reasonable to assume that fully 40 percent of housing stock in paris is vacant at any given time. so what happens is when you inherit a house or an apartment in france, you don't sell it, like, you know, my mom died and i grew up in a house that i grew up in ohio. what's the 1st thing i did? i took the stuff that i wanted and, and put it on sale. that's the american way, right. not there in france, however, i inherited

a little plot of land in brittany from my grandparents. i kept that because that's the french way. so just sitting there empty. so all over france, people have like properties. many people have 34 homes that they never go to and they just sit empty. there, there are, you know, i know one of my relatives, you literally have the child at home that he grew up in, like frozen and ever since like a across the street from his house. it's kind of amazing if you want to know, like what the house looked like in the night, the sixty's in france, you just go into his house. you never know, is there ever? it's just there. it's a french right. so the point is that like home is, this is a massive problem there. they don't build any, they really don't build enough new housing. there's not enough public housing. so yeah, i mean, there, and they just, obviously you can see what my call would not want those people out there. and what about in the way of public safety against terrorism? do you think he's doing enough? well, i mean you front to have to be concerned about that because i don't know if you

remember this middle of a doctor in the 1980s. there was a space of terrorist attacks in paris, where the radical islamic groups were angry about french foreign policy in the middle east. and they were farming, usually trash cans and mailboxes. and in fact, the city of paris for a lot of top and got rid of all the trash cans. as a result of this, they put out these kind of crappy cardboard boxes so that there's not a bit barely enough room for a bomb. and i guess not enough room for the trash either, cuz the trash was just kinda like blow out of there. and it was, it was a fail policy. but yeah, so your person has suffered terrorist attacks. don't forget, as a cartoonist, i'm very cognizant of the charlie of the attack that claimed a dozen or so of my colleagues. and there's, you know, that was,

that was isis that did that. so it's, and so there's like a lot of, it's an issue parents that's a long history like love like, like england during under the i r 8 period. you know, but francis experience is more recent. it's been pretty safe, pretty safe. over the last 5020 years. but you know, my cross the t's young, but he's old enough to remember that. speaking of preparations for the olympics, remember back in 1936 when germany host of the games back then fewer adolf hitler was basically the grand marshal of the games. it was a major p r victory for hitler. seeing the the swastika and every paper around the world. berlin was draped in nazi flags. but this year there's one flag that is not going to be allowed to fly despite a number of athletes from this country qualifying to compete. and of course, that's russia. the russian flag will not be flown. the i o. c has ruled on it. the

athletes can compete, but not under the national flag. this all stems from the ongoing conflict and ukraine. what are your thoughts on this move by the i o. c m? it's specific to how it's treating russia and the russian athletes. it's yeah, well you know, i mean people look back at the 9036 example and they say that's an example of, you know, the world should not have rewarded a hitler and not in the nazis by holding the olympics there. and that's certainly a of you know, there's a, there's a valid argument to be made there. however, i would counter that, it actually encourage pretty relatively better behavior on the part of hitler and the nazis because at least during that period they weren't enforcing the nuremberg laws and they had to keep it down. you know, they wouldn't be to have jews on the streets of prelim while this was going on. if you look at the historical accounts from that period, you know, the whole lot of the attention of the world was on germany. and they had to like

play nice. i mean, you know, logically, if the world had been, if the world had been that engaged with germany longer, it might have, you know, kept down or maybe even forestalled the all the costs. so i think engagement is always the answer. if you're try, if you think that a country is a rogue state, i'm not saying that i think russia is a rogue state for having invaded ukraine. but it's like if you, if you in the west believe that the way that you're trying to improve behavior and make people a countries and in other countries like say north korea, we're china or a rock country, you know, rival states and tag a district states act more like you, the, the answer is more engagement, not less than gauge. man. it's, it's less and i don't think the olympic games should ever really be politicized. i mean, and when ever they do you end up with these very strange things, like for example, you know, what do you do about the kurds?

you know, do curtis athletes, you know, they have, they live in a defacto independent zone. what about people from the trans nice trio? what about people, you know, athletes from taiwan, they get to, they do get to the, the sort of how the tie with each national team, but i think they call it like today or something like that. right. and um, but it's like, it's so there's, it's really shouldn't be up to them to determine that. and it's an absurdity when you're talking about not only of a country like russia, but not only is a massive country, the biggest on her graphically, incredibly important culturally and politically. but i feel like we're just not gonna let rush up like a, let's just say that you totally think the invasion of ukraine is the worst thing in the world. well, it's certainly no worse than the us invasion of iraq. okay. and like the, and the point the us didn't get kicked out of the olympics. right. so it's like the russians being treated very, very poorly. and you're also talking about russia,

a major olympian olympic powerhouse for decades, because they've always what you're unlike here. you know, if you ever watch, i, tanya read about i talking about tanya hardy. but in russia, if you're like a professional athlete who covers middle sister to make sure you don't have to do anything else, but just concentrate on, on practice and becoming a great athletes here. it's like something you do on the side while you're working like friend leaves or something so. so it's like definitely, yeah, it's like so you know what? take russia out of the olympics. it's absurd. i mean, it makes me a little bit slip small. i don't think it hurts the rush of nearly as much as it hurts the olympics. yeah, good point on taiwan and you're absolutely right for all of america's war is the conflicts on funding and possibilities all around the world. the u. s. has never been banned from the games. our flag has always been flown at these games. yep. alright, so there's recent outcry from

a number of athletes international organizations and the like from around the world about is really athletes competing in this year's games because of the ongoing onslaught in gaza. israel's flags though will fly in paris, and if athletes will represent their country officially. so 2 things here is this have progress. they are bias from the i o c and it's treatment of israel as compared to russia. and given that the is really asked, we can represent their country, but the russian athletes, cat, can you really separate the athlete from their home countries? or is this all just semantics? i mean, absolutely, it's hypocrisy and it's favoritism, right? i mean, if you don't look, what is the allocation here? you're both. uh, so russia is engaged in a military occupation operation,

a ukraine, that many countries, and many people around the world of pose. israel is engaged in a military operation in gaza. that many people around the world pose, it's a very similar thing and, but they're being treated radically differently. if you look on in the interest of d, i o, c might be inconsistent, bond consistent. i think russia should be able to participate, but we don't know what the personal opinions are of russian athletes for all we know. they're all against the special military occupation. you crate. these are all for it. they what is certain that none of them had any decision making power into this at all, right? they're not in the russian parliament. they're not, they don't work in the kremlin throughout please. and same thing with israel, the least really athletes. we don't know how they personally feel about the, about the operation going on and again, some austin gaza. probably, you know,

they might all be totally militantly opposed to it. and i don't care if therefore it, that's okay too. because again, they're not the ones dropping bombs on the people of kaiser. it's like no, after you should not be held personally responsible for the actions of their government anymore. then mila you are traveling overseas. now, as tourists should be held accountable for the actions of the united states government, the government does their thing and we citizens do our thing. and it's, it's absurd to hold individuals responsible for the actions of a government, but they're not a part of coming up next. and i conic author once called the olympics war minus the guns. but with the increased politicize ation of sports will be olympics fate in the history. we'll discuss it when we return with political cartoonist ted rall. so tight m o will be right back

the the show. they just don't have to safe house because the engagement equals the trail. when so many find themselves will support. we choose to look for common ground, the the, the,

the welcome back to the ammo. i'm in. know a chan, my buddy ted rall, political cartoons as an officer is back with us. so 10 more broadly across the world of sports. over the decades, it seems we're increasingly seeing this sort of overlap of sports and politics. i mean, take the 1968 mexico games, black american runners, you know, raising their fist and a show of solidarity for equal rights after winning gold and bronze metals

respectively. or nowadays, and the games we see black lives matter plan to painted on the, on the courts and nfl star call and cabinet famously taking a need are in the national anthem. and now the olympics for building one countries representation due to war, but not another country, which i think we could put squarely in the camp of politics or should there be a separation of powers here, so to speak. i mean like a, a separation of sports being sports made the best athlete when and you know, just leave politics at the door or should the olympics be used as a stage to promote a cause or send a message? i don't know that like within the individuals who, you know, for example, the example of the neck of the black athletes and mexico city and 1968. i don't know if that is wrong or right or wrong was right or wrong. but certainly it's

going to happen when people feel are passionate about an issue. some of them are going to want to use their public form in order to express it. and it's just going to happen. uh, you know, i know, call and copying it. kind of was for, you know, what he for taking the knee, which i thought was a very young, minor and very respectful and polite gesture. i thought it was extremely tempered, and i was surprised that step sports fans were conservative in particular, were so angry about it. but i do think that, you know, when you talking about the broader issue of the nation state being that's participating in a, let's say, an unpopular war or a war that's unpopular in certain quarters. should they all be omitted? i mean, look right now, sedan and south sudan are engaged in a military conflict. i haven't seen any discussion about band a one or both from participating at all. i mean,

there are border skirmishes all the time, all around the world. those are more and, you know, if we're going to start saying that like everyone, every country that's involved in like, you know, military tensions, or, or war is not going to be allowed to attend the olympic games. but pretty soon there's not going to be any one there except like fun to watch. you. well, what happens if some athletes refused to play against israel in solidarity with gaza? oh, i think it's wrong. um, i think uh what the thing is that the spirit of international competition is about bringing people together from different countries and different cultures. and, you know, the, the athletes have a lot more in common because they all do, they all have the same love. and this and they all practice the same sports. they compete together. they have a lot more in common than they have just separate. and, you know, let me, i think bleeding politics interfere is really wrong. i would like to see a palestinian team, me and hang out with there is really counterparts. that would be really nice to see

. you know, it's just like to show that some people, even if the prime minister of israel can't be mature and that's like an adult. maybe honestly it's kit. so, you know, it's, it's, it's, i don't even that. i mean, you know, that's how we live in a world where i don't know, like, for example, the united nations, when it becomes, you know, there's favoritism there. they say, okay, well, you know, we like this. we don't like that. if you, you know, the whole point is we need 4 more 4 where people can get together and work things out. and it's just, it's an, it's not a free fire zone. it's a peaceful place where people can talk and get to know each other. i mean, kind of like the, you know, i hate the fact that like the international space station that's gotten politicized . that's dell and everybody. and if you talk to either cosmonaut or

after not, they will all say that, like they really value their time working with their russian and or american counterparts. and they've got to, they consider them to be lifelong friends. so, you know, they're all scientists, they all work together. i mean, it's, that's, that's the way it should be. the people are people you know, and the people have the same everywhere. we just need to like, you know, i get to know each other. i mean, honestly, you know, right now things are, it's such a fever pitch, where the israelis are terrified of the policy and they, they talk to, you want to kill them, all know they don't, they just, they, they, they, and it's like, and you will be able to live side by side one day in a democratic state, just as and you know how i know that because i knew white south africans before an archive was over. and they were terrified that when it was that when apartheid went away, the blacks were going to come and killed them all. and that didn't happen. they all live together in peace side by side. i've heard one scholar on this topic called sports a secular religion. now that said the olympic games in particular,

definitely while up nationalism and national pride, george orwell famously said this about the games quote. at the international level, sports is frankly mimic warfare. but the significant thing is not the behavior of the players, but the attitude of the spectators and behind the spectators of the nations who work themselves in the furies over these absurd contest. and seriously believe at any rate for short periods that running, jumping and kicking a ball ar, test of national virtue, it is a war minus the shooting. a final thoughts on that had given all the atrocities going on right now will be olympics, serve as a unifier or further divide the world? well with all due respect to george orwell, which is a considerable amount of respect. and i'm saying this is someone who,

even as we speak is working on reissuing my parity or wells 941130. i think you know, we can stand more wars minus the shooting. i think it's a, it's not a bad thing at all. i'm reminded of something i read about ancient history, the syrians and the good types in the middle east. what it, what in, what is today modern day, syria and lebanon. they kind of got tired of kicking each other's box in battle. so they finally got to a point where they kind of agreed to sort of game out though. so whenever they had any kind of conflict where they were going to have a war, the 2 armies would meet in a, in a, in the site of battle. but then instead of fighting, they would have analysts count up all the weapons and all the men, and then they say, all right, we have types would have won this battle, alright. accordingly, this city will be seated, will be seated to the head types from the, from the experience. shake hands,

everyone goes, how? so they so they that way you sell it. and it's without any budget you had typed in the syrians were much higher than we are. a ted rall, political cartoonist, author, and radio show host. thank you so much for your insight buddy. it was my pleasure. thank you so much, man. oh, sorry. before we go, this time a little news to share. this is the final episode of modus operandi. the show is some setting after a 100 episodes of talking about unique off the beaten path topics that most would probably rather not discuss. i've had the incredible privilege of being invited into your homes and lives every week in these to multiple us times and i could not be more grateful. we have put out a 100 episodes that in preparation for i have learned so much and i hope you've learned a bunch from each of them to. while this show is coming to a close,

it means new opportunities for me to explore in the coming months and to operate in a new capacity in the world of international news within the r t family. but you can always find me on twitter or x, whatever you want to call it, ask me, know a chance, and you can subscribe to my pod cast on rumble at manila chan reports. so that is going to do it for modus operandi. there show that dig deep into foreign policy and current affairs. i'm your host middle of chan. thank you for tuning in and never stop trying to figure out the m o the

a when i was wrong. just don't you have to shave house to come after kids and engagement because the trail when so many find themselves will support. we choose to look so common ground the the

hello and welcome to the cross stuff full force here. we discussed some real in

the focus on time. cool to overturn the conviction to state treason against iran. calm, but the former prime minister remain jailed for marrying his wife too soon off the hood divorce over 3 in the hall from thousands palestinian children northwest immune and day to solve ation. but trying to report that has gotten the senior us a decreases in a talked full test is now being forced to resign. the debate intends to buy the whether the decision by the us, canada, and 11 european countries to commit ukraine into sports into russia. risk flickering nuclear.