lavelle 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 see 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 sho, get your news on withdrawn and honolulu we go to graham elwood. he is a regular and the jimmy door show, as well as host of the political vigilante podcasts on youtube. right? gentlemen, cross talk roles and effect. that means you can jump in anytime you want. and i always appreciate, graham, i'm going to go to you 1st because as you're speaking it is 4 o 3 am in the morning. ok. that is that that's that, that is

a real heroic effort. we all appreciate it. graham, i have this observation. i want you to confirm it, agreed, 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 isn't that we're living and insane times that comedians on youtube or like the source for trust the news because the corporate media is like some, it's like a bizarre world where it's, it's kind of fun but also sort of insane 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 take the same question to you because when i'm, when i say comedic propaganda like when i watch cnn and miss m 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 know, who, who seemed 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? you know, ron bitten you know, 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 at gen, plea, everyone, he didn't take, make any preferences. but now humour is always at someone's expense, maybe at the expense of tens of millions of people. we used to have some kind of unifying thing and the 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 be in particular here in the united states, you see a lot of a lot of people in the mainstream that they just, they, 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 kind of how this works. she make jokes about the president. yeah, well graham, i mean,

you know that, that is so patently obvious. i mean, this is a very gas, a prone guy. i mean 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, graham. i mean, what? yeah, i like when i was a kid and i would watch saturday night live. i mean, chevy chase and the 1st season or do he would do basically make fun of gerald board because gerald ford was kind of a guy who would kind of fumble around and, and jerry, jason's hoping that he'd be fumbling and smashing stuff over and they made fun of every president on that show, they made fun of carter, they made part of board. they made sort 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 one of this. you can't make one of that. no, i make fun of the most powerful person in the world, especially when you know that 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 it right now. well, i mean, graham, you can say so thing 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 had 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 a, you know, i mean, my, many of my cartoonist calling are still drawing cartoons about president trump,

or i should say, 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 me. and but, you know, even you mentioned the cognitive declined look it 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. i mean,

calling out for mom is probably among the lesser gas 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 shock 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 a big comedy foe pot. you're not still baked jokes about the person who has died even in office anymore. i mean, unless you can like tie it into something else in some evergreen way. but yeah,

i mean a gram, i mean that's what i mean. that's what i asked ted. i mean they trump broke broke their brain here. because if you look at the stories that get ratings that go on and it's a b, c, it's trump story, 7 months after he left office, they still have that's the only way they can get people's attention here. ok. and and what i find is that it is intentionally division of they want to divide people . everything is a purity 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 he, they hope he runs again because 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 the indy, you know, comedian media people,

we were kept saying that there was a listen fat and no one else. i never thought i never saw it on late night tv. i never thought of that now, like nobody said it, they just let that pass. i was like, how does this happen? and there's still that i think they are addicted to having trumping office and they want him back because i hear john kerry just made some crazy stuff 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, right? like what else is they have control of the corporate media. ok. good. let me go to you, ted, 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'd 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,

and when he was saying that there's no difference in policy, 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 that, that higher of joe biden. so those of us who are doing that kind of have that at least in political cartooning all to ourselves. and he's actually fun to draw with is sort of weird receiving mallet and you know, he and he's a weird guy. and when you sort of get a handle 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. if you don't really know the english language, like, you know, you don't say ok. you say, hey patty, you know, i want to get a call from, you know, from the white consult on how to get better in. so yeah, i'm going to hold down, 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 our discussion on humorless humor thing with our

the ah ah, ah ah, ah ah, ah. having alternate realities, experience or even live in like they were all or does my via you know, especially during the and damage where you can go anywhere in the game world,

you know, everywhere. choose the game that you want. any open roll game to that, and you are now on a vacation in a place where you're like helicopters or you're, you're on beaches, you're, you're in a city drive, you know, what are the car you want your name as these? these are getaways. ah, with me ah ah, i use

the welcome act across stock where all things are considered peter le beltran, and you were discussing humorless humour, me okay, let's go back to ron and los los angeles, iran. you know, a 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 is 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. so 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 embodied in 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 stu, dc 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 cut out everything wrong with our system and body to, to people you had body of politics going odd. you had like d, c inside or wall street insider that's worth talking about. and a lot of people don't want to talk about that because on that on mass, 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 away, 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 opioid crisis. we have this forbearance,

with renters and all what up the asco, and nobody takes any responsibility for it. what to a student loan to 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 leak camp who's 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 leon, i do a show called government secrets where we go into the history of all the office 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 still be mad and make fun of trumps air or whatever nonsense was made fun of it's. it's so crazy and i think people really need to dig deep and as a comedian, you know, lee and ron and jimmy and myself and a couple others we all know we have when we make fun 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 snoo program on fox and it's, it's not particularly funny. i don't, i don't find anyone 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 catches you, you're blind side, but constantly constantly doing it. and it's just mimicking the left here. and i just think it's just, you know, i don't think it's anything to be proud of. and i don't even think it's a particularly watchable either. it is just a reflection of the left. go ahead, ted. well, i haven't seen, i haven't talked to show, tried and failed it. humor showed in the past. and i can kind of imagine what they're doing here with you or, you know, find out that it's funny. right? you know, humor 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 goes 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 someone like the mars, 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 trump. they'd ask them, you know, 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 day? why would 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 and with the coban. 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 its little bits a bit of time because it really can drive you insane. dana gave peyton, if you want to use it, take it danish stupidity. what do you think, graham? yes, it is. gave the pretty peter, and it's really, i mean i've, i've had a joe, get my act about how the media is about, you know, they're designed to keep us divided, distracted, afraid. i mean, so 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, found like rocket and then you get some of that's 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, could take your words back a little bit there. you could get a $100000000.00 like ban jones. i mean, it could be a pay day. you know, for, for a tongue bath, you know, there could be a pay day for you one day. so you keep that in mind. here. me go to tad, 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 media and 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. yeah. and the, and the boundaries are very strict. ted, well,

what's missing, and i think trump took advantage of that and actually to get elected president. but what's missing is class and cultural diversity beyond the other, more familiar horizon, you know, people who are coming from under privileged backgrounds, people who come from a perspective that outside of the deeds versus the are people who have unorthodox political views. you know, those people that doesn't equate to you and the perspective that are missing and comedy that's acceptable in a very and, and commentary the acceptable exist, you know, very narrow bandwidth in the united states. i mean, i always like to point out, no one who endorsed bernie sanders 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 and i'd 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 mean 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 right a. make sure purty 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'll end on 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 get to 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, who do secret? the private military companies have been playing a role in arm conflicts worldwide. u. s. government doesn't track the number of contractors that uses in places iraq or afghanistan united states army and the

military in general is so reliance on a private sector. i would call the dependency, but we don't know who's the on the ground presence of these companies overseas. we just don't know the western private military companies can in their turn, use so called sub contractors from countries with trouble past the kansas quest good. that they had also been soldiers. i think i was my job professional job is work when the full moon would be fine with long limb and maloney returning to be merciless killing machines. now they fight and die in other people's was people carol lot one or a dead soldier or dead? marine shows up in this country and we started asking ourselves, why did they die?

why do, what were they fighting for? nobody bothers down to the contractors the in the the pacific leg around the world, expedition by 1000 miles round the clock and give it to the dead calm. as every country close by with the crew. gavin's food and water harbor. fortune to go to chat for a little. i know i got everybody locked down or almost no

food only give them up. so somebody stuck a fish in the cove in your living like the the men of home. but in the 21st century, i have often said transparency for the powerful receipt for the last bit cares about privacy. what people care about is power. tony and sons is become a symbol of the battles of brevity. information is power. that's what's going on. a huge struggle with the government's corporations. want to keep information secret and others who democratic rights should be pushed forward and people have a right to know when we do watch houses help shift the conversation around transparency. see what that battle has done to him. i feel like julian life might

be coming to an end. we are in a conflict situation with the largest and most powerful employer in such a situation. it's remarkable to survive. the president joe biden gets a whole style reception from his own citizens. i made public frustration over his handling of the afghanistan, as well as the 20th anniversary of 911 approaches r t explores the legacy of america's war on terror. series of special reports. today we'll be hearing from families who saw a loved ones killed in a recent us drone strike in couple.