Ted Rall’s Latest Books:

“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

DMZ America Podcast Ep 184: It’s Vigilante Time!

The DMZ America Podcast’s Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) discuss a pair of stories that reflect a disturbing trend: as the government turns more lawless and fails to enforce the law, Americans are taking the law into their own hands—and voters seem to approve. A Manhattan jury acquitted Daniel Penny, the subway rider who strangled a mentally-ill homeless man, Jordan Neely, using a choke hold that the NYPD is banned from using in the line of duty. And Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old man accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson to death in New York has become a folk hero to patients angry at the way they’re treated by health insurance companies. If the system fails, is it acceptable to roll “Death Wish” style? Ted and Scott debate the social and political ramifications.
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TMI Show Ep 34: “The Talibanization of Syria”

This feels like a movie you’ve seen before: a secular socialist government where women and ethnic minorities have rights that are respected is targeted by the United States and its allies in large part because it shows that left-wing politics can be successful. The Carter administration armed the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, setting the stage for Al Qaeda and 9/11. The Bush Administration overthrew Saddam Hussein in Iraq, creating a failed state that became a vassal of Iran and a home for ISIS. Obama killed Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, creating a failed state where slave markets have reappeared and radical Muslim fundamentalists hold sway. Now an officially designated terrorist organization has, with the help of the US and Israel, overthrown Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Will Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its reformist leader Ahmad al-Sharaa keep their promise to limit their ambitions to Syria? Will they impose radical Taliban-style sharia law on Syria? What are the implications for Russia, which accepted Assad…
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DMZ America Podcast Ep 183: The Censorship War Against Political Cartoonists

The DMZ America Podcast’s Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) are joined by Terry Anderson of the Cartoonist Rights Network International to discuss the state of political cartooning in the United States and around the world during a time of political transition and the ongoing seismic disruption in the print media ecosystem that supported the profession throughout the previous century.
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TMI Show Ep 33: “Deny, Defend, Depose”: Health insurance Horror Stories

The assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has shocked the nation, not because of the killing itself, but rather due to the widespread and gleeful public reaction to it. As the manhunt continues, social media and mainstream media comment sections are full of horror stories of desperately-ill people and their loved ones attempting to navigate a byzantine health insurance system designed to thwart easy access to medical care and payments to doctors. Co-host Manila Chan is out today, suffering from pneumonia as well as the vicissitudes of the healthcare system—she got worse because she couldn’t get easy access to antibiotics. Holding down the fort with co-host Ted Rall is TMI Show producer Robby West, who “enjoys” a front row seat amid the chaos and cruelty that is America’s healthcare system.
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Democrats Haven’t Really Won a Presidential Campaign Since 2012

           As Democrats survey their recent losses in the election, they should avoid drawing conclusions or floating prescriptions for fixing their party’s problems. First, they should absorb the biggest data point that is currently being ignored by both the progressive and the corporatist wings of the party: they haven’t really won a presidential election since 2012. No, 2020 doesn’t count. Not really. Read on. Democrats don’t yet recognize it, but they have effectively messed up three consecutive elections against Donald Trump. This points less to a divided country wobbling back-and-forth between two parties than to a systemic realignment in favor of the Republicans. For Democrats, this suggests a serious set of systemic problems unlikely to be fixable by nipping and tucking messaging and candidate presentation.             I am not an election denialist. Trump officially lost in 2020. But Biden, doddering even at the time as he campaigned from his basement, didn’t really win.             Covid shaped that race in two…
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