Trump made good on his threat to slap tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada over the weekend. All imports from China now face a 10% duty. It’s 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada. Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity, will be taxed 10%. Trump’s order includes a mechanism to escalate the rates charged by the U.S. against retaliation by the other countries, raising the specter of an even more severe economic disruption. Trump demanded that the three nations to stop the manufacture and export of fentanyl and that Canada and Mexico reduce illegal immigration into the U.S.

The tariffs could cause inflation to worsen. They are likely to cause turmoil in supply chains and have an impact on financial markets, though not immediately.

On today’s “The TMI Show,” Manila Chan and Ted Rall discuss Trump’s tariffs and their impacts on your life.

Video games have long been considered a waste of time and even a pernicious influence by many educators and political leaders in the establishment. In 2019, Gaming Disorder was even listed in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. Gaming Disorder is “characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities.”

Not everyone was buying it. During the pandemic, new studies found that owning a game console and increased gameplay reduced psychological distress and improved life satisfaction among participants. The study found that spending just one extra hour each day playing video games was associated with an increase in mental health and life satisfaction.

On today’s “The TMI Show,” Manila Chan and Ted Rall ask gaming developer V.K. Samhith whether gaming ought to become part of psychological self-care.

Guantánamo Bay concentration camp, the American human-rights disaster made infamous by the Bush Administration when it sent Muslim detainees to be tortured there out of reach from the law, is about to radically expand. Donald Trump has ordered the camp to prepare for the arrival of 30,000 migrants, many of whom have never been charged with a crime.

On “The TMI Show,” co-hosts Manila Chan and Ted Rall discuss the morality, practicality and political implications of Trump's latest move in his war against illegal immigrants.

Keywords: Guantánamo Bay, torture, Muslims, migrants, immigrants, Donald Trump, immigration, concentration camp, human rights, habeas corpus, extrajudicial, foreign policy

Bearing the same subject line as a downsizing memo sent to Twitter employees by Elon Musk, an ominous mass email was fired out by the Trump Administration to millions of federal employees offering them a buyout if they voluntarily agree to resign within a week. There is a fist inside the velvet glove: most federal agencies will probably be slashed and a substantial number of employees will be furloughed or reclassified to “at-will status,” making them easier to fire. Most remote workers will have to go back to the office. And many will have their offices moved elsewhere.

On “The TMI Show,” co-host Manila Chan is out sick. Filling in for Manila is Robby West, alongside co-host Ted Rall. Robby and Ted will discuss whether Trump has the power to pay buyouts, the possibility of court battles, the pros and cons of remote work and whether this disrespectful treatment of government workers is fair.

With the Democratic Party in disarray and the Left unable to organize itself into a coherent political movement, it’s a good time for Americans who oppose capitalism to get back to the basics of anti-capitalist politics: communism.

Communism is an economic and political system under which everyone lives equally and has equal access to goods, services and power. Socialism is a system that precedes communism, in which the value added by labor is transferred over time from the ruling-class elites who control it under capitalism to the working class that produces it.

40% of American voters consistently tell pollsters they have a favorable view of socialism. We appear to be in a classic Marxist final crisis of late capitalism, overproduction, yet the media and education systems do not permit serious discussion of alternatives to capitalism.

On “The TMI Show,” co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan ask: What is communism exactly? Is it desirable? Is it attainable? Can revolution be achieved non-violently? Guest is 21st Century Socialism advocate Caleb Maupin.

Trump’s foreign policy is only a week old and all over the place. Over the weekend America’s new president waged and won a short-lived trade war with Colombia, a staunch US ally in Latin America, over deportation flights. We saw mixed messages in Gaza, where Trump urged Arab neighbors to take in displaced Gazans which would appear to set the stage for Israeli ethnic cleansing while simultaneously ordering Israel to extend its ceasefire with Hamas by at least 30 extra days. He threatened Russia even as he said he wants to denuclearize and negotiate with Putin over Ukraine. And who knows what he’s on about when it comes to China, which reversed its previous refusal to accept its own undocumented migrants after the scrap with Colombia?

Ever since FDR, we’ve watched a new president’s First 100 Days. Never will Donald Trump have as much political capital as he does now, so he’s jamming through as many executive orders as he can. Will he also be able to get his entire slate of top nominees through the Senate? What should we expect legislatively? From foreign policy?

On “The TMI Show,” co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan, are joined by Richmond, Virginia-based talk show host John Reid for an inside look at the immediate impact of Trump’s second term.

Keywords: John Reid, Donald Trump, first 100 days, first hundred days, legislation, executive orders, domestic policy, foreign policy, cabinet appointments, confirmation battles,

America rock 'n' rolled all night long and partied every day. Then Boomers started dying, Gen X started having babies, Millennials fell in love with their phones and the pandemic kept us locked up. Only 4.1 percent (https://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a2-2023.pdf) of Americans attended or hosted a social event on an average weekend or holiday in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics--a 35% decline since 2004. Party City announced (https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/20/business/party-city-shut-down/index.html) that it would close after years of flagging sales. Teens are engaging in markedly fewer risky behaviors (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622009224) than they used to a major cause is that teenagers are having fewer parties.