Support Ted’s Work

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Ted Rall

New Cartoon Collections by FORs:

If you’re in the market for some interesting, hard-hitting political cartoons, please check out two new books by my friends Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood. Mikhaela was in “Attitude 2” and Masheka is up and coming. Both are self-published, so every dollar (well, most of them) goes to cartoonists at a critical time in their careers. Come on, support new talent, folks! Ordering information, etc. follows:

Mikhaela and Masheka’s Books:


Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela! Cartoons by Mikhaela Reid (Foreword by Ted Rall).

Bushies are bum-rushing Cheney’s secret bunker! Ex-gays are quaking in their closets! Abstinence educators are shivering in their shiny silver purity rings! Greedy CEOs are heading for the hills and Minutemen are bolting for the border! Cartoonist Mikhaela Reid is on the rampage—and no hypocrite is safe! Attack features 150 of Reid’s greatest cartoon hits, plus rarities, odds, ends and behind-the-scenes commentary! Available June 4 at Lulu.com!


Deep Doodle: Cartoons by Masheka Wood.

Masheka Wood takes you deep into the warped, candy-colored recesses of his brain as he tackles a variety of social, political and just plain grody targets. Here are Wood’s “Not Just Knee Deep” cartoons, assorted illustrations and a delicious dose of old-school comics. Prepare to lose your mind—or your lunch! Wood’s work has appeared on MTV, The New Standard and Jackson State University’s art exhibit, “Other Heroes: African American comics creators, characters, and archetypes.” He is a 2007 Glyph Comics Award nominee for ‘Rising Star.’ Available now at Lulu.com!

Mikhaela and Masheka’s Book Tour:

Click on any of these events for more details or view the calendar here.

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Ted Rall

A Compliment I Don’t Deserve, or, “Hi, Coppers!”

The New York Times reports that the New York Police Department monitored this very here “Search and Destroy” website during its manic run-up to the 2004 Republican National Convention, which was held in New York and became infamous as the site of “Little Gitmo”—a system of disused piers transformed into concentration camps where protesters and random passersby were held incommunicado for as long as four days, without being charged.

Here is the Times:

Some highlights from the police intelligence digests:

An Oct. 9, 2003 digest showing that the Police Department shared information with other law enforcement agencies about Bands Against Bush. “The mixing of music and political rhetoric indicates sophisticated organizing skills with a specific agenda,” one police officer wrote.
A Nov. 13, 2003 digest noting the Web site of the editorial cartoonist and activist Ted Rall. “Activists are talking, some with barely hidden glee, about the possibility of violence,” an officer wrote, describing postings on Mr. Rall’s site. [emphasis added]A March 5, 2004 digest citing Aron Kay, a k a “Yippie Pie Man,” who was planning to apply for camping permits so that activists could sleep in Tompkins Square Park during the convention. “The permit application will reportedly be submitted on behalf of an activist group ‘Rainbow Affinity Tribe,’” the officer noted.

The Times story also contains a link to the NYPD dossier on yours truly, the Dreaded “Activist”:

“Ted Rall is a Columbia University graduate who earns a living as a cartoonist/radio host and has been published in the Village voice.[sic]Ted Rall is a nationally known activist figure.”

No wonder our security state can’t find bin Laden: they can’t even get the basics right.

I’m no activist. I marched during the 2003 anti-Iraq War demo in New York, but before that it had been many years since I’d been active in any political organization. (The Dukakis campaign sort of ended my interest in conventional politicking.) Many of my friends are activists, and I admire them for it. Next to them, I’m a mere lump on a log who opines on current events from behind my computer and drafting table.

Also, it wasn’t just stuff posted on my “website,” as they say–it was my syndicated column, which also happens to appear at my website. Saying that this material is from a website is like saying the New York Times is a website, which it is–but it also misses the point.

Another reason they can’t find bin Laden: they’re so worried about the “traitors” in their midst that they’ve lost sight of America’s real enemies.

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Ted Rall

Jerry and Me

My contempt for Jerry Falwell pales compared to that I feel for his ideological contemporary Ronald Reagan, but I do have a couple of personal recollections–one professional, the other personal.

My very first major controversy over a cartoon took place in 1980, when the Vandalia (Ohio) Chronicle published my send-up of the then-nascent Moral Majority. (You only have to consider the group’s name to understand the level of arrogance and hatred–we’re the majority, so the rest of y’all sit down and shut up–that motivated its leader and followers.)

When the paper’s publisher, who belonged to the Moral Majority himself, saw the cartoon, he hit the roof and demanded that the editor publish an apology. Rather than capitulate, she quit. I was shocked, but she shrugged. “No editor would give into censorship,” she explained. How editors have changed!

Then, last year, I appeared in a split-screen broadcast with the Reverend (who was in Lynchburg, Virginia) during a political debate on Fox or MSNBC, I forget which. Anyway, I was unfailingly polite (I always am, until and unless the other party insults me), sticking only to the issues at hand. Falwell, on the other hand, launched straight into a personal, ad hominem, attack worthy of Mr. Attack Dog, Sean Hannity, himself.

I have to admit it: This oh-so-jaded pundit was surprised. The dude’s a preacher, for God’s sake. Doesn’t he at least have to pretend to act like a civilized human being? Evidently not.

As far as his political legacy goes, Falwell’s was obviously a poisonous one, channeling and giving voice to people who, frankly, aren’t kind or intelligent enough to deserve one. (The uniformed and/or stupid shouldn’t be taken seriously, or vote. You don’t see me talking about sports because, well, I don’t know enough about sports to have anything worth saying in public.)

Falwell was a mean, bitter, very small man, and the world is better off without him.

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Ted Rall

Three Troops Missing in Iraq

4,000 U.S. soldiers are searching for them. For three people.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped–some by gangs, others by insurgents, others by U.S. forces. But the U.S. occupation forces don’t lift a finger to find them.

It’s been said before, and I’ll say it again anyway: Until we start acting like other people’s lives count for as much as Americans, people overseas are going to hate our guts. Who can blame them, really?

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Ted Rall

Ted Rall Discusses the French Elections: Live in Washington DC

I’ll be joining Radio France Internationale correspondent Claude Porsella, TF1 correspondent Guillaume Debré, and fellow cartoonists Jeff Danzinger (New York Times Syndicate), Kal (The Economist, ex-Baltimore Sun) and Nick Galifianakis (Washington Post Writers Group) for a panel discussion about the French presidential elections tomorrow night in Washington.

When: Wednesday, April 25, at 6:30 pm

Where: Alliance Française, 2142 Wyoming Avenue NW | Washington, DC 20008 | Phone 202.234.7911

Cost: $8.00 for members of the Alliance Française, $12.00 for all others

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Ted Rall

Cartoonists wth Attitude in San Francisco

Today is day two and the final day of the Alternative Press Expo (APE) independent and small press comics creator confab at 620 7th Street (near Brannan) in San Francisco. Come out and buy artwork and books by yours truly, Mikhaela B. Reid, Masheka Wood, Ben Smith, Matt Bors, August Pollak, Stephanie McMillan and others. Look for the CWA booth! Yesterday was fun but soggy; today is looking to be sunny and dry. It’s today between 11 and 5; hope to meet you there.

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Ted Rall

Congrats, Censors!

Media Matters for America, founded by David Brock, is crowing from the sorta-left (can you really trust an ideological traitor?) about Imus’ firing. MM is even distributing a hit list of right-wing talk show hosts and others who they want to see fired for spewing what they deem to be offensive language.

Over on the probably-right are outfits like BeliefNet, that are using Imus’ firing as a staging ground for attacks on popular music. Tipper Gore, call the batcave! Here’s what BeliefNet’s latest email says:

Don Imus Controversy
With Imus Gone, Let’s Clean Up Rap
“Imus got what he deserved, but the root of the problem is our vulgar culture. As a black woman and a child of God, I ask, Why don’t Christians stand up to rap artists?”
Poll: Should Imus Have Been Fired? | Discuss
His Apology: Accept It | Not Enough
Talk Radio Is the Real Culprit
“It’s time to stop handling these rappers with kid gloves and letting them run free every time they cry “I’m innocent.” Young minds are at stake every time they turn on the television and see a man disrespecting a woman, sliding a credit card down the crack of her backside–thanks, Nelly–or just allowing women to exploit themselves in a music video for a crummy paycheck. (Yes, the women agree to be in these videos by their own free will, but when will they decide they don’t want them to sell themselves to the highest bidder anymore?) Young ears are being flooded with the poisonous lyrics of today’s rap music. Stop conveying the message that it could ever be appropriate to call a woman a “‘ho” or a “b*tch”–regardless of what you personally know about them. It’s not okay, ever–whether you’re an African American rapper or a white talk-radio shock jock. “

Charmers all around, I’m sure.

Well, congratulations. It took you 30 years to notice that he told tasteless (and often funny) jokes, many of which relied on racial and gender stereotypes, but he’s gone. Hurrah!

Meanwhile, the Rutgers women he offended have seen their lives improve not…one…bit. Their fathers and brothers still risk getting pulled over and searched and beaten and raped and murdered by police for no reason whatsoever. African-American team members whose parents live in inner cities spent their spring breaks in areas that have been abandoned by city and state governments that don’t care what happens to them. Their own job prospects are limited by their skin color. But hey, at least they got that loud-mouth talk show host fired. Yay for racial justice!

No one is crowing louder than the left. There’s just one, or maybe two problems: One, it’s not like Imus will be replaced by, say, me. (I’m keeping my phone open just in case CBS calls, though.) Two, he was one of the most progressive voices on talk radio.

Obviously, Imus’ “hos” joke was stupid. But an apology was more than sufficient. He didn’t deserve to be fired. Could it be that the P.C. soft-liberal “left” has played into the Republicans’ hands–again?

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Ted Rall

Keep Don Imus; Protect Transgressive Humor

Don Imus’ off-the-cuff remark calling the Rutgers University basketball team “nappy-haired hos” was a crime–a crime against humor. It was dumb and stupid.

The reason groups like Media Matters for America–the group founded by ex-right wing smearmeister David Brock that is using underhanded tactics while calling for Ann Coulter’s column to be censored–are calling for Don Imus’ head, however, is that the remark was also racist and sexist.

Well, of course it was.

I was a huge Imus fan throughout the 1980s, until WNBC news-talk radio became WFAN sports radio and he started spending too much time talking about sports to keep my interest. During that time Imus made clear that he was an equal-opportunity offender, trading in ethnic and racial and religious humor, against no one more than rednecks–in other words, himself. What he said about the Rutgers women was not a deviation from his decades of broadcasting.

Firing him for making (bad) racist and sexist jokes is like firing a mailman for delivering letters. It’s what he does.

As he said in his defense, context matters.

For example, I am sick and tired of saying that I called Pat Tillman an “idiot” and a “sap” in a cartoon. I didn’t call him those things. A character in one of my cartoons did. Parallel: Charles Schulz never pulled a football away from a little boy; his character did. Not the same thing.

Imus’ on-air shock-jock persona relies on just the kind of jokes that got him into hot water. Are we, as a society, going to say that all racial and ethnic humor is to be verboten? That idea makes me terribly uncomfortable, yet it’s the logical conclusion to the Imus controversy.

Needless to say, a nation that sits idly by while its soldiers torture and maim innocents in concentration camps ought to be concentrating on more serious matters than a radio host’s ill-considered humor. But while we’re at it, humor relies on transgression, on trashing sacred cows. The very fact that you’re not allowed to say “nappy-headed hos” prompts comedians to try saying it–just to see if the shock value makes it humorous. In this case, it doesn’t work. But comedians need to be able to try everything, to take risks. Imposing economic censorship–firing people for exercising their First Amendment free speech rights–stifles creativity and inhibits discussion. It makes life a little more boring, a little suckier.

I hear a lot of lefties crowing over Imus’ firing by MSNBC TV. How will they feel when right-wingers retaliate with their own censorship campaigns the next time the political winds change? It wasn’t so long, after all–2004–that MSNBC.com fired me for expressing my own, then-controversial opinions.

Anyone who wants Imus to be fired hates America and the First Amendment. I hope these pro-censorship assholes are all registered Republicans, because they sure as hell aren’t liberal or progressive.

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Ted Rall

Call to Action: Write Your Congressperson and Senator!

Many in the media are gearing up for the 2008 presidential campaign, relegating the illegitimate, corrupt, murderous liars of the Bush Administration–with their 28 percent approval rating–to the status of yesterday’s news. But there’s still plenty of time for Bush and his monstrous cronies to do plenty of damage. For the next two years, if given the chance, they will kill hundreds of thousands more Iraqis and Afghans, thousands more American soldiers and waste billions of our taxdollars…and that’s if they don’t start another war, against Iran.

There’s only one way to prevent even more carnage, and that’s impeachment. And there’s only one way impeachment is going to happen, even with a Democratic Congress: a smoking gun so ugly, so undeniable that even Republicans will be forced to call for the entire wretched crew’s heads.

We now have the opportunity to unmask such a smoking gun. And you can help.

The New York Times has published an editorial calling for a Congressional investigation of the Defense Department, which repeatedly claimed that Corporal and former NFL football player Pat Tillman had died while leading a charge against the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan when it knew that, in fact, he had died in a “friendly fire” accident. Tillman’s service had been used by the Army as a recruiting tool for the illegal wars against Afghanistan and Iraq–and his death was used as a noble example young people were supposed to emulate.

From the NYT Editorial: The Pentagon’s investigation of the “friendly fire” death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger who became an administration icon for its war on terror, has left the corporal’s family doubtful that the truth has really come out. Even as the Army reaffirmed its belief that Corporal Tillman deserved a Silver Star for valor, the family denounced the award as “part of a cynical design to conceal the real events from the family and the public, while exploiting the death of our beloved Pat as a recruitment poster.”
The circumstances of this byzantine case cry out for Congressional hearings to get an independent evaluation of just who pulled the strings to sugar-coat a terrible battlefield accident as an instance of heroism under hostile fire.

The Pentagon’s internal investigation has tagged nine officers, including four generals, for wrongdoing in the cover-up. Naive observers may be satisfied, but anyone who has watched the Bushist gangsters operate since seizing power in 2000 can’t help being cynical. If four generals are the fall guys, how far up must this go?

Here, I’ll say it: All the way to the top. To then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. I wouldn’t be surprised if the White House–Rove, Cheney and/or Bush themselves–were personally briefed or more directly involved in this massive cover-up. If that’s true–and if it isn’t, why have the Bushies been stonewalling a Congressional investigation?–it would justify impeachment (for obstruction of justice and lying, among other “high crimes and misdemeanors” that brought down Nixon).

Only a full-fledged Congressional investigation, replete with full subpoena powers to get the complete record that despite a series of phony self-investigations the Tillman family has repeatedly been denied by the Pentagon, will reveal the full truth and bring these bastards down.

Write to your Congressperson and both of your United States Senators right now–send your letter by snail mail AND fax since those are counted with greater weight than emails–and demand a full investigation of the Tillman cover-up. Make a little history.

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Ted Rall

Follow-Up Interview Re: Coulter Censorship

The excellent New England-based LGBT newspaper Bay Windows has a follow-up interview with me about the campaign by some gay organizations to get Ann Coulter’s column cancelled by newspapers. I oppose censoring Coulter because opposing censorship is always the right thing to do, even–especially–when the person being considered is unappealing. Sadly, the First Amendment is the least popular part of the Constitution–everyone is in favor of speech they agree with.

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