for a photo shoot near the border, which he does, there's a southern border visit and still nothing has changed, sending in the least popular person. the us administration has to such a painful spot as vietnam is kind of sending mixed messages to those who still suffer. but either way, watch out america is back or, you know, i'm not sure the intricacies of what harris's supposed to accomplish there. but you know, one of the things you have to remember that a lot of people say that the united states is a lot. christy, you cannot absolutely cannot be a democracy and a global empire at the same time because the united states goes in to the 3rd world country and we destroyed their democracy so we can so we can exploit them. that's what we do. a capital bank with updates in half an hour

the ah, i use ah ah, ah, ah. hello and welcome the cross ah,

where all things are considered. i'm peter live, l not long ago humour was the domain of social critique and a means for us to laugh at ourselves. and the comic was the person who had the guts and skill to say what all of us might have been thinking. this is no longer the case, it would seem. now humour is just another political weapon and you know, it's not very funny. the cross, i can humorless humour. i'm joined by my guest at ro in new york. he is a syndicated political cartoonists and writer, as well as the author of the stringer in los angeles. we have wrongful cone. he is a comedian host of the youtube, sho, get your news on withdrawn. and in honolulu we go to graham elwood. he is a regular the jimmy door show as well as hosts of the political vigilante podcasts on youtube. right? gentlemen, cross so close in effect, that means you can jump in anytime you want. and i always appreciate it, graham,

i'm going to go to you 1st because you're speaking it is 4 o 3 am in the morning. ok. that is that's, that is a real heroic effort. we all appreciate it. graham, i have this observation. i want you to confirm it, agree, disagree with me. but why am i going to online comics to get the news? but when i watch news outlets, i get some kind of comedic propaganda about the news. have you noticed the trend here, graham? well, i'm kind of split on, you know, it's obviously giving folks like myself and rod and jimmy a job. but it is, you can say we're living insane times that comedians on youtube or like the source for trust. the news because the corporate media is like from lunch i that it's like a bizarre world where it's, it's kind of fun but also sort of been saying that there's like almost too much responsibility for like i would, i have a night club comedian like i've hosted game shows, you know, i,

why am i now the only person that can, you know, find facts. it's crazy for me to say the same question to you because when i'm, when i say comedic propaganda like when i watch cnn and m s n, b, c. it's so patently propagandistic, it makes me laugh. i mean, i, my critique of them is, can you be any more clever than that? is that just how clever you can be? that's what really irritates me because you can do it so easily to dismiss. if you actually have an interest of what's going on and you can see through the ideology and it's no wonder their numbers are going down, i guess because more and more people are seeing it. so, i mean, again, why are comedians, i mean, comedians were always to say the emperor has no clothes, court gesture, i get all of that. but the really good comedians that i like there a step above the court gesture these days. go ahead, ted. you know, there's probably nothing more inherently ridiculous than someone who is talking

down to you. and then while they're doing that, you realize that they think that they're smarter than you. but right, actually the other way around. that's kind of going, i think with a lot of corporate media outlets, you know, i could cite a 1000000 example, but i think that's exactly how it is. i mean, people sit at home and they realize that they're having that experience of being smarter than being the student who knows that he or she is smarter than their teacher. and that's not how things are supposed to be. you know, i, we all authority figures like walter cronkite or people like that. you're who we've seen to at least, if not smarter at least wiser or as wise as we are. you know, the problem is, this is really taking away a lot of space from those of us who are trying to exaggerate for a living in order to make a humorous point. because, you know they're pushing the needle to 11 and where are we supposed to go from there? exactly. you know, ron bitten johnny carson, you know,

when i was coming up johnny carson, he was genuinely funny. but he was a unifier. he. he kind of poked fun, it gently and everyone, he didn't take, make any preferences. but now humor is always had someone's expense, maybe at the expense of tens of millions of people. they used to have some kind of unifying thing and a critique of our culture. we laughed at ourselves, our strengths or weaknesses or oddities. i don't see any of that now. run. yeah. you know, it's kind of weird. like, what's permissible, especially in the corporate space. i mean, in particular, here in the united states, you see a lot of a lot of people in the mainstream that they just, they but they will not touch joe biden right. meanwhile, it's, he's the president, he's one of the most powerful people in the world. and he talks as if his brain is

in a microwave. you can go after the guy you can make jokes about the guy. that's kinda how this works. she make jokes about the president. yeah, well graham, i mean, you know, that is so patently obvious. i mean, this is a very gaff prone guy and in it's not like just now in the white house. his whole life is a gap. ok. it's politics or a gap as far as i'm concerned. it, but it's almost for bowden to pointed out. go ahead, gram. i mean, what? yeah, i like when i was a kid and i would watch center and i live, i mean, chevy chase and the 1st season or do he would do basically make fun of gerald ford because, you know, ford was kind of a guy who had kind of fumble around it, and jason hoping he'd be fumbling and smashing stuff over and they made fun of every president on that. so they made fun of carter. they made part of board. they made fun of reagan. i did matter the political party, you're supposed to do that and it's, it's, they now because, you know, you can't to make fun of this. you can't make fun of that. no, i make fun of the most powerful person in the world, especially when you know this particular president is showing he's got cognitive

decline and and it's kind of insane that like folks like rod and myself can just also prove corporate media. right. i've done that real time, i've just gone to a search engine and said, here's the actual facts and showed a clip from corporate media, how they're just not being honest with you. and i went and found the truth online. i'm like, so does the corporate mediate, do they not have internet, like what, what, what is the problem? it's kind of an insane world. we're living in right now. well, i mean, graham, you can say something about the pandemic and vaccines and be banned. but the corporate media can say exactly the same thing and they will, they're not touched. ok, i mean, that is the growing hypocrisy here. ted. i mean, presidents have been brought up here. i mean, did, did somehow donald trump to break all their brains? i think they missed donald trump as an object of contempt in the 2 minutes. you know, i mean, my,

many of my cartoonist calling are still drawing cartoons about president trump, or i should be warmer president trump, as i like to remind them, i mean, he's not president anymore. i mean, he may well be again, but he isn't. and at some point, you do kind of want to make fun of the guidance there now, and there's not a lot to make. and, but, you know, even you mentioned the cognitive declined look, it's as plain as day. but we're not allowed to talk about it much, let me quite a bit. you know, but this was never a guy with that sharp to begin with. and you know, he's just gotten worse and worse. there is something hilarious about the fact that the present state is trying to not all there, but we don't get to talk about. yeah, i mean ron, i don't know if you saw the clip it bite and was calling out for mom. mom. where's mom? okay. i mean, and that just water off the back of the duck. nobody noticed. ok. i mean when you see that clip and there and no one in the press corps reacts to it, then you're wondering what is really going on here?

it was i the only one that saw that go ahead ra. i mean calling out for mama is probably among the lesser gaps that he had. i mean, this is a guy. and so many people are still talking about donald trump, which i've never seen anything like that in my lifetime. i was no fan of donald trump, i'm no fan of joe biden either. and these people who are so shocked by donald trump, it's like, or you so shell shocked that you don't notice that joe biden's continuing. most of his policies do not see that happening. and even after bush, like it's not like people were still making bush jokes after he was out of the office. for some reason. they're still talking about donald trump, which is not only just bizarre because again, he's not president anymore. but in my entire lifetime, that was the big comedy. pho, paul, you're not still bated jokes about the person who has died even in office anymore.

i mean, unless you can like tie it into something else and some evergreen way. but yeah, i mean a gram, i mean that's what i, what i asked tell me, did they trump broke their brain here. because if you look at the stories that get ratings that go on and miss and b, c, it's trump story, 7 months after he left office, they still, that's the only way they can get people's attention here. ok. and and what i find is that it is intentionally divisible. they want to divide people. everything is a pure a t test. that's what the comics are supposed to do, not news outlets go ahead, gram. yeah, i mean it's, it's kind of not that they're, they probably wish they hope he runs again because i'm good for rating and he's good to keep everybody divided. and it's like the get like robert talking about the gaps of joe biden. i mean, during the campaign, joe biden said to a guy that was slightly heavy said, who is, who is challenging him at a town hall? he goes, listen fat. i mean,

nobody in the corporate media brought that up. he just called the guy that were just like with amongst us in the, you know, comedian media people, we were kept saying that we listen fat and no one else i never sought. i never saw on late night tv. i never thought of that now, like nobody said it, they just let that pass. i was like, how does that happen? and there's still that i think they are addicted to having trumping office and they want him back. i hear john kerry just made some crazy. steven, like donald trump made it hard for america to fix its climate policy. it's like you got, the democrats have control of everything, the senate, the congress, and you're still blaming trump. what else is they have control of the corporate media? ok, good. let me go to your head before we go to the break here. i mean, you said something earlier that i think is very, very interesting is that, you know, as a political cartoonist, you exaggerate the imagery here. how do you compete with these news outlets right

now? because they are gross exaggeration of just about everything. and ron is absolutely right and, and as when he was saying that there's no difference in policy at the end, it's all about style. ok, how do you compete? go ahead. well, actually there is a vacuum and we've just been talking about it, which is the vacuum of a good criticism of joe biden. so those of us are doing that, at least in political cartoons all to ourselves. and he's actually fun to draw with is sort of weird receiving bullet and you know, he and he's a weird guy and which is sort of get an angle on him. you know, it's not just the fact that he's sort of a little bit cognitively declining and therefore a little mean like calling the guy that if you don't really know the english language, like, you know, you don't say, hey, you know, i want to like get a call from you know, from the white out, consult on how to give that are in. so yeah,

we're going to hold on. we're going to jump in. i'm going to jump in here. we're going to go to heartbreak and after that hard break, we'll continue discussion on humorless humor. thing with our the ah ah, is your media a reflection of reality? the in the world transformed what will make you feel safer? tyson lation, whole community. you going the right way? or are you being that somewhere? direct? what is true? what is faith in the world corrupted. you need to defend

the join us in the depths. will remain in the shallows. ah ah, the welcome across talk where all things are considered. i'm peter le beltran, and you were discussing humorless humour, me. okay, let's go back to ron and last, los angeles. iran. you know, lot of the stuff that you do, jimmy does. and you graham, also, when what i like about and everybody knows i'm a conservative and these guys are a progressive. okay. and it will make a very good fit. i think sometimes and talking about these issues. but what you guys do, and what i appreciate, if you do a systemic critique, you don't really like to go. i mean, it's all, it's all fun to make fun of trump. it's really easy to do. it's fun to make fun of

bite and that's really easy to do. but you guys do things that are edgy and in many cases per bowden. you critique a system. ok. and that's what makes you guys interesting. and you're actually funny in the process, and that's the, that that's the extra, extra points that you get to score with your audience here. but would you disagree with me, but that, that's really kind of the secret of, of, of a discussing politics. now when we have such a close, been narrowing media space go ahead wrong. absolutely. i mean, you really need to talk about the system. i mean, especially during the trump years as a free since so many people, you know, it's just trump, this trump that, well, you know, which way more interesting and important. well, what's the system that gave us trump? what's the system that made? what's in front of us right now? possible. i think it's so many ways. the 2020 election was just a snapshot of everything that's wrong with our politics and body than 2 people. on

one end, you just had this plutocrat guy. you just bought his way and the things on the other end, you had this blank suit, d. c. insider. and because he's just always so around the beltway people handle him with kid gloves and have for his entire career. it's not even just the media that cotton joe biden, it's his colleagues, it's, it's comedy, least in the mainstream. so you could add everything wrong with our system in body to 2 people. you add buddy of politics going on. you had like guy d, c inside or wall street insider and baths worth talking about. and a lot of people don't want to talk about that because on that on math, the usa. yeah. graham, as long as you focus it on those 2 personalities, which i every one in the public space. it's fair game as far as i'm concerned. but you know, there's so much focus on them just to kind of echo with ron had to say here, you're not really talking about what grieves people,

the hopelessness and helplessness of so many people. i mean, look what's going on with the o. p, o, a crisis, we have this forbearance with renters and all what up the asco, and nobody takes any responsibility for what the student loans. all these other things are, these are, these are real life things affecting people. tens of millions of people, every waking moment of their lives. and they're still saying, well, it's their bottom line is, well, at least trump isn't president. well, that just isn't good enough. go ahead, graham. yeah, it's kinda crazy and you know, you brought something up peter, about how we talk about like the systemic problem. and you know, there's another comedian li campers on this network does redacted. and he's like, has this late night, a comedy taco and he's the only one that's allowed to call out the whole system. and you know, it's kind of crazy because, and lee and i do a show called government secrets where we go into the history of all the awful

stuff the harrigan empire has done. and we do it to just keep ourselves from going crazy because we have to kind of joke about it to see it. so not so absurd and all the things that america has done and is doing. and like you say, now there's all these opioid epidemics and people are facing evictions and, and yet we're not allowed to call that out. we got to just still be mad and make fun of trumps air or whatever. nonsense was made fun of the it's with so crazy and i think people really need to dig deep and as a comedian lee and ron and jimmy myself and a couple others we all know we have when we make part of the whole system, then we can have an audience that's willing to listen because if you just make one of one side or side will yeah, i mean, kid, i don't know if you've seen greg. god failed new program on fox and it's, it's not particularly funny. i don't, i don't find any one late night funny. okay. because i don't think it's intellectually challenging. no one is intellectually challenging,

whatsoever. and it's always making, i mean, it's just getting grading people you don't like and i don't find that humorous. i mean, every once in a while, if you know, get kind of an oddity, you know, you know, kinda catch it to your blind side, but constantly, constantly doing it. and it's just mimicking the left here. and i just think it just, you know, i don't think it's anything to be proud of, but i don't even think it's particularly watchable either. it is just the reflection of the left. go ahead, ted. well, i haven't seen, i haven't tried and failed that humor showed in the past, and i can kind of imagine what they're doing here. you are being assigned to that. it's funny, it, them right. humour relies on unpredictability, and, and novelty and strangeness. and sometimes putting something into a cartoon or, or a skit that's there for no particular reason. and just because it's random and that's inherently funny,

that's often what's missing. and he can't with any kind of corporate attempt comedy . and i think that even go even for sort of the better practitioners of mainstream, common, like comedy like bill mar, i mean, i think, you know, if you think of the issue like a alien land on the earth and take over the country. you know, you can probably imagine what some of them are, probably going to think about that. and that's a little unfortunate. you know, you, you, i think unpredictability is really key. and that's what's missing in general from corporate media. when they attempt comedy and when they're just playing it straight . you know, ron if, if aliens did land on earth and declared themselves and the mainstream media would ask you would ask them what their position on trump was. yeah, they'd ask them about tron. they'd ask them, you know, that they'd ask them if there's any resources we can exploit on their planet. and jeff bezos would ask when he can get a trip to where they're at it just be,

it would be an interesting corresponded gram. i think they'd be us yet. why would they think i would stay stay, stay clear. ok. you know, you, graham, you know, one of the things that, you know, there's all this talk about gain of function and all of this with the, with the, with the facts, with the coven. but, you know, you know, these phrases sometimes i think you can take advantage of because, you know, when i watch mainstream media it's, it's called gain of stupidity. this is what they're doing. it's gain of stupidity night after night after night. ok. and it is, i find it really, really exhausting. and i have to really temper myself. i have to watch just little bits a bit of time because it really can drive you insane. dana gave peyton, if you want to use it, take it dana stupidity. what do you think, graham? yes, it is gave divinity. peter, and it's really, i mean i, i've had a joke in my act about how the media is about, you know, they're designed to keep us divided, distracted, afraid. i mean, that's all,

they'll do some, you know, story. it's, everything's fear based. you know, everything is i, is isis and your kids, chocolate milk or whatever just to keep us fighting with each other. because if everybody got together, the $99.00 cent got together. they realized that it was the, the oligarchy, the one percent that are really, really the problem here. and instead we got to watch the media. like for all over jeff bezos, you know, phallic rocket, and then you get some of that ridiculous cowboy hat like what? no one's making fun of that guy. well, hey, gramma, hey, graham, you bet. you know you should, you know, you should take your words back a little bit there. you could get $100000000.00 like ban jones. i mean, that could be a pay day. you know for, for a tongue bath, you know, there could be a payday for you one day so you keep that in mind. here. me go to ted here in new york. one of the things that we have this, this word diversity is always mentioned. you know, but you know, when i look at the corporate median, i look at corporate comedy. it has nothing to do with diversity at all. it's all

about uniformity. that's all it, it's uniformity. and the, and the boundaries are very strict. ted, well, what's missing? and i think trump took advantage of that and actually get elected president. but what's missing? it is class and cultural diversity beyond the other, more familiar horizon, you know, people who are coming from under privileged background, people who come from a point perspective, that outside of the deeds versus the are people who have unorthodox political views . you know, there's those people that this is the point to you and the perspective that are missing and comedy that's acceptable. this isn't a very and, and commentary. the picked up the ball exist, you know, very narrow bandwidth in the united states. i mean, i always like to point out, no one who endorsed bernie sanders had was employed on the op ed pages of any of the 1200 newspapers in the united states. no newspaper in the united states ever

endorse for any standard during any context whatsoever. yet over 30 percent of the american public loves him to death. so what does that say about the about how the media is representing its readership and it's yours? yeah. well ron, you know, because anything that i have to be honest with you, bernie's been turning into more and more of a disappointment. but if we look at 2016 even 2020 in the primary kids. absolutely right. you know, which, let's ignore what 30 percent of the population actually thinks. okay. and if you don't report it, then it doesn't exist. isn't amazing how that works. go ahead. wrong. oh, absolutely. and then in both cases in 20162020. you know, and by the way, just i agree with you. bertie has been letting us out a lot of recent. but you know, putting that aside, i've read 20162020 m b c would show trump's empty podium instead of showing bernie

sanders talking to arenas full of people added 2020 you add pretty much every candidate just to make sure purdy sanders didn't get the nomination and of course they never ever talked about that. i mean, our overton window in the united states is show skewed and corporate friendly and far to the right. they needed to get a special camera to zoom in far enough. it's absolutely ridiculous. in most other democratic experiments, the democrats would be the most right wing party available. meanwhile, here in the united states they're, they're supposed to be the alternative to that. so you have this incredibly small overton window of like the d's in ours, where wall street owns both of them. meanwhile, i would argue that most americans to an extent fall outside of that. i mean, over 2 thirds of the country are completely dissatisfied with both parties. and one

a viable alternative, so you have this huge portion of the country that you know, they don't agree on everything. we have our differences. we have our different perspectives in our different angles. but they're still outside of this very, very tiny bubble that is permitted on cooperative weed. gentlemen, who have run out of time. but i went down this here, you know, there are a lot of differences out there. but what the commonality is that there is, i would say a real majority of people that are politically homeless and the leads like it that way as all the time we have gentlemen many, thanks them i guess the new york, los angeles and in honolulu and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at our to see you next time. remember cross top ah ah, as me were saying, shipping all of our jobs and factories in china was a bad idea. but the american people were okay with it. because although their way,

cuz we're going down the stuff they were getting from china, the wal mart was cheaper than ever. now the chickens have come home to roost. now, the china labor sink is finished. inflation is kicking in for real, and wages are going up. but not as fast as inflation the me a new gold rush is underway and gunner thousands of ill equipped workers are flocking to the goldfields, hoping to strike it. rich children are torn between gold and education. my family was very poor. i thought i was doing my best

to get back to school, which still will have the strongest appeal. anybody resistance is a real problem because we can go back to what they call the pre antibody theora, reactively become post antibody any, you know, a lot of countries, particularly countries like india, china developing countries on low income countries that have particularly poor water supply. the resistance level, there are astronomical, you know, the common bacteria like a lot of technical purposes. untreatable when i would show the wrong when all just don't the rules. yes. to see out, the thing becomes the after an engagement equal trail. when so many find themselves well the party,

we choose to look for common ground in the until retaliation. that's how the wife of monkeys sells is described news. the imprisoned us cyber activist has been denied access to his. she says, because he's trying to expose miss treatment and the person there. they're pregnant to block. the timing works out which when the last article in our teeth exposing what she's doing, what's going on hanging balls in front of the constitutional court rules. a new law requiring the public to hold a whole pass to get into restaurants. catholic and even the hospital is legal attentions rise, enough gown is done with the taliban claims. it's a provincial capital in the country.