In America’s two-party system, voters who are unhappy with the incumbent Republicans have only one electoral alternative: vote for the Democrats they know will do the same thing.
Ted Rall’s Latest Books:
Trump World
For the president and, presumably, his supporters, there is an alternative reality in which everything is going as well as possible. The polls show that most voters do not believe that, yet the strategy of speaking demonstrable falsehoods persists.
Scramble for the Government You Deserve
From curbs on mail-in voting and the purging of voter rolls to widespread confusion about the validity of elections, the Trump Administration—dreading losses—is scuttling Americans’ opportunities to cast lawful ballots in the 2026 midterm elections.
Good to the Last Drop
After the CIA overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader, U.S. policymakers helped themselves to Iranian oil at discounted prices and smugly congratulated themselves. But the blowback was a bitch. Their puppet ruler, the Shah, was soon overthrown by revolutionaries who despised and resented the United States. Sanctions intended to soften the Islamic Republic had the opposite effect, hardening its resolve and prompting it to wage proxy wars against the U.S. and Israel throughout the Middle East. Fifty years later, the Middle East is a hot mess, Iran is its dominant regional power, and the United States has lost. So why is the U.S. pursuing similar policies against oil-rich, socialist-majority Venezuela?
Move Fast and Break Laws
The Supreme Court’s de facto approval of Trump’s illegal ballroom construction and destruction of the East Wing is the latest example of a White House determined to outrun the slow-moving court system in order to remain unaccountable.
Brad Throws Down
These days, many of the things you feel you might have to do in order to get ahead are things that make you completely hated and reviled.
No Judgement
Why would the same government that doesn’t allow a 17-year-old kid—or even an 18-year-old—to rent a car or order a beer at a bar allow them to enlist in the United States military and carry a gun into combat, where they can kill and be killed? Shockingly, there’s no contradiction at all.
The Arguments Are Timeless
Pro-Israel “hasbara” internet warriors frequently regurgitate the same arguments to defend that country’s actions against the people of Gaza and the West Bank: there was never such a country as Palestine—not that Palestinians ever claimed that there was. Israel is merely defending itself. And so on. Chillingly, these are all arguments that have close analogies to those used by Nazi Germany during World War II to justify the Holocaust against the Jews.
Objectively Speaking, the Wealth Tax Sucks
Multibillionaire Mark Cuban is one of the many incredibly wealthy men who have warned that ideas like the wealth tax currently on the ballot in the state of California would be a disastrous idea. Talk about self-interested!
No Love for the Defeated
Many professional women complain that they can’t find “quality men,” which means those who are financially and professionally successful. Seventy years into feminism, however, female advancement has largely come at the expense of men, who cannot reasonably be expected to continue to be dominant providers as women advance in a zero-sum workplace.
“The Stringer”
graphic novel
by Ted Rall & Pablo G. Callejo
“Political Suicide: The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party”
by Ted Rall
“Bernie (Revised 2020 Edition)”
by Ted Rall
Democracy So Good Even the Dead Can Vote | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas
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LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime: Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss: • A big win for the gerontocracy as half-dead octogenarian Mitch McConnell returns to the US Senate. • The Supreme Court refuses to let Trump’s U.S. Postal Service tighten the use of mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections. Homeland Security may have broken state laws as part of an expansive effort to find noncitizens on the nation’s voter rolls, according to a federal whistle-blower. The effort has relied on questionable data, and has likely improperly flagged U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote. • The now-closed state-run Alligator Alcatraz ICE gulag in the Florida Everglades failed to comply with a host of federal detention standards, creating cramped conditions and “calming” migrants in tiny metal cages. Immigrants seeking documents from the government to prove that they are in the country…
Read MoreTrump, the Irish Nationalist | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas
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Live at 9 AM Eastern & Streaming 24-7 Thereafter: Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM Eastern time. Today we discuss: • Trump stands by his support for a united Ireland. Trump said in Dublin, sitting beside Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Saturday, that he’d “love to see” Ireland unified and that it is “going to happen eventually,” so it “may as well happen now.” He described uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland as “fantastic,” adding: “The U.K. would have something to say about it obviously, but I think it would be a great thing, I mean, how can it be bad?” Trump later said Irish reunification would be a “very cool thing” while noting that “no matter what you say or how you say it, there’s no good answer.” Trump told reporters: “It just seems to me that you have Northern Ireland and you have…
Read More9/11: Did We Have It Coming? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas
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LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime: Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss: • 25 years ago, 19 Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked 4 passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing more than 3,000 people. Hasan Piker has taken heat for saying America deserved it. (He has since retracted that.) Shortly before 9/11, Central Asian jihadis told Ted the war was about to come home for America. Given the aggressive nature of U.S. foreign policy, it’s a question we need to engage with: did the U.S. deserve 9/11? • Facing dwindling weeks until the midterms, deepening unpopularity and darkening political prospects for his party, Trump is tossing out a new idea: a $5,000 check for every American adult if Republicans keep control of Congress in November. • The Census Bureau suggests adding a citizenship question to the decennial…
Read MoreEPA and NYC Lied About 9/11 Air Quality | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas
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LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime: Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET. Today we discuss: • In the harrowing months that followed the attacks on the World Trade Center, New Yorkers were repeatedly assured that the air around the fallen towers was safe to breathe. But 10 months later, health officials were still finding evidence of asbestos as much as a half mile away according to documents released by Mayor Zohran Mamdani after decades of cover-ups. • The Trump administration did not oppose a UK-led initiative to impose new sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The White House’s decision not to push back on the UK effort is a signal of its frustration with the Netanyahu government’s policy in the West Bank. Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden joined. • Israeli opposition politicians said that Prime…
Read MoreGrand Theft A.I.
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Last week there occurred a watershed moment in the history of American political cartooning. A major American newspaper, the Baltimore Sun, published an editorial cartoon created not by a cartoonist or graphic artist, but by unidentified staffers using artificial intelligence. One year ago, the Sun fired its Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher. (Disclosure: KAL and I are friends.) Which AI model was used was not disclosed, but more likely than not it was ChatGPT by OpenAI. Why do I think so? I asked various AI models. I’m not a Luddite! As a cartoonist, my reaction was similar to that of most of my colleagues. I checked out the cartoon. It sucked. What the Sun published as a cartoon sucked worse than any cartoon ever drawn by any professional cartoonist could or ever has sucked, which is to say, a lot. This lickspittle slop sucked up to the mayor—no good political cartoon ever supports a politician, only criticizes them—and it…
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