Support Ted’s Work

Trump Is Testing Us by Militarizing Cities. We’re Failing.

•
Ted Rall
The first time I encountered a police checkpoint was in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. My first reaction was excitement. I’d read about this facet of autocracy; here it was! It quickly gave way to fear. The men posted on the Almaty street intersection were armed. They had the power of the state. They could do anything they pleased. What if they arrested me? What if they beat me? Shot me? What if what if what if? They robbed me. Relative to people in other countries, we in the United States have long enjoyed great freedom of movement and freedom from government tracking. Unlike the French, who are required by law to carry a national ID card or similar government-issued document when they leave their homes and present it upon request to police, Americans may leave their wallets at home unless they’re driving a car. Most nations force citizens to provide their identities before being permitted to vote. Until…
Read More

In Defense of October 7th

•
Ted Rall
Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Commandos on land vehicles and paragliders  killed 1,137 Israelis, injured about 5,400 and seized about 250 hostages. A few hours later, Israel launched its genocide of the Gazan people. The IDF has since killed at least 200,000 Palestinians, injured countless more and seized thousands of hostages, and left almost every building flattened. Whether Israel responded in self-defense or took October 7th as an excuse to fulfill its longstanding goal of ethnically cleansing and annexing Gaza into a Greater Israel is subject to debate. What is objectively true is that Israel’s atrocities so outweigh and outnumber Hamas’ atrocities that most of the world—the U.N., international courts, most nations—are focused on the Israeli side of the bloodshed equation. That’s fair. Yet I wonder. Might the monstrosity and thoroughness of Israel’s one-sided assault wash away our chance to carefully consider the morality and ethics of the October 7th incursion? For supporters of Israel, October 7th is…
Read More

The Case for Political Performance Ratings

•
Ted Rall
Political opinions are like posteriors; with a few exceptions, everyone has one. And, like rear ends, what comes out frequently looks and smells terrible, the more so after the passage of time. Political opinions are the most dangerous kind of opinions, more so than almost any other kind of subjective thought. Political opinions can lead to discrimination, wars and genocide. A poorly-considered movie or restaurant review wastes a few hours of your life and may, at worst, cause food poisoning. While a doctor whose opinions are wrong may kill some patients, one quack’s death count amounts to a drop in the bucket compared to those of the pundits and politicians who falsely opined, say, that Iraq has WMDs and had to be invaded lest Saddam nuke us. That opinion killed over a million people. Given the high stakes, it’s surprising how little accountability there is for having and expressing—loudly expressing—a political opinion that turns out to have been deadly wrong.…
Read More

Israel No Longer Has a Right to Exist

•
Ted Rall
In certain traditional societies, troublesome individuals who were perceived as threats to communal harmony were labeled as “witches.” To restore calm, accused witches were sometimes reintegrated into society via a ceremony of ritual cleansing. Other problematic people, particularly those whose socially unacceptable behavior persisted, were banished or killed. As a political entity, Israel is a witch. Its conduct is incompatible with 21st century civilization. To whatever extent it ever had one, Israel no longer has a right to exist. The Netanyahu government’s cynical exploitation of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 raid is the last straw. With gleeful bloodlust that appears to have no limits, Israel has intentionally slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinians. It has reduced a bustling territory filled with high-rises and seaside resorts to rubble. It has cruelly imposed a blockade of fuel, water and food that has resulted in outbreaks of long-vanquished diseases like polio and meningitis. It has created a man-made famine a few miles away…
Read More

Make Funny, Make Money

•
Ted Rall
In media, does satire generate profits? Or do profits permit satire? Causation is elusive. But there is a correlation between how much money a media organization generates and how much funny it publishes or puts on air. When print newspapers were dominant and highly profitable, satire was a significant part of their content. Based at The Washington Post through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Art Buchwald’s syndicated column appeared in more than 500 newspapers worldwide. His droll takes on Beltway politics and everyday absurdities reached millions of Americans and was extremely influential. Mike Royko of The Chicago Daily News and Sun-Times blended populist snark about institutional corruption and sarcastic ethnic humor in hundreds of newspapers, inspiring a generation of journalists. Other influential widely-syndicated columnists included those who blended gossip, news and jokes like Herb “Baghdad by the Bay” Caen of The San Francisco Chronicle, satirist of suburban life Erma Bombeck of The Dayton Journal Herald (which I delivered to my…
Read More

Retrain American Workers

•
Ted Rall
More than anything else, American voters worry about the economy. Specifically, they struggle to pay their bills. Those with jobs are scared they will get fired through no fault of their own, perhaps because globalization ships all or part of their sector overseas or artificial intelligence replaces humans. The unemployed and underemployed are angry and terrified that they will never be able to re-enter the workforce. Their fear is well-founded. The average American has three months of savings or less—a number that keeps falling. The average length of unemployment is more than five months—a number that keeps rising. The average worker will be “between jobs” about six times throughout their work life. It happens more to “unskilled” workers. Workers live in a constant state of terror. Trump won reelection in large part because he recognized these fears. He focused on inflation and high prices at a time of raging economic anxiety more than Harris, whose message centered on democracy. As…
Read More

How to Third Party

•
Ted Rall
Elon Musk says he is going to start a new third party. Assuming he’s serious, he’ll soon learn that the Democratic-Republican duopoly has made it insanely hard to break into their—emphasis intentional—system. As The New York Times observes, “Launching a new national political party in the United States may be more difficult than sending a man to Mars.” If the world’s richest man is willing to spend enough money over a sustained period of time—to stay smart and focused—it is possible. Ballot access is the most daunting obstacle to expanding American democracy beyond the two major parties. California, the nation’s most populous state, requires a new party to collect 75,000 valid signatures from residents willing to switch parties or register for the first time. A new party’s candidate needs 219,000 signatures collected over a three-month period. In North Carolina, a political party is only recognized after its most recent gubernatorial candidate gets at least 2% of the vote in the…
Read More

What’s Wrong with the Democrats? They Need More Democracy

•
Ted Rall
What’s wrong with the Democrats and how can the party be fixed? When an insurgent outsider candidate from the party’s progressive left defeats a moderate endorsed by the establishment, Democratic leaders reject the results and deny the will of their voters. They refuse the infusion of new ideas and tactics every organization needs to evolve. They anger their voter base. They lose elections they should have won. It’s time for Democrats to democratize their party. Democrats’ top-down leadership style is currently being deployed against Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist winner of New York City’s mayoral primary who defeated corporate favorite Andrew Cuomo. The primary results came in over a week ago, yet none of the party’s big guns—Obama, Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, Buttigieg, Newsom, Harris, DNC chair Ken Martin—has endorsed Mamdani. Ever the happy warrior, Mamdani says he’s grateful for the kind words he has received from his ideological fellow travelers Bernie, AOC and other members of The Squad. But the…
Read More

We Support Ukraine. Shouldn’t We Be Supporting Iran?

•
Ted Rall
In 1984, one of Orwell’s characters explains that “doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” There’s a less elegant, yet equally absurd, way to describe the behavior of a politician who expresses two contradictory beliefs at once. People do what they want, and retrofit their ideological justification after the fact. Israel’s war against Iran provides an unambiguous example of political doublethink. The United States is supporting Israel militarily, Trump called Israel’s attack “excellent,” and members of Congress from both major political parties have issued statements backing the Jewish state. Yet the same U.S. and political leaders support Ukraine. No two wars are identical, yet the circumstances of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Israel-Iran conflict are remarkably analogous. Israel is to Iran as Russia is to Ukraine. Russia claimed that the Ukrainian government’s ideological extremism and increasing ties to anti-Russian regional allies, particularly its professed desire to join NATO, presented…
Read More

TMI Show Ep 141: “Biden’s Cancer, Democrats’ Reckoning”

•
Ted Rall
LIVE 10 AM Eastern time, Streaming Anytime: This week on The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan confront the stunning news of President Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis, a bombshell that escalates calls for the Democratic Party to answer for its handling of his health. The revelation intensifies scrutiny over the party’s cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline, which ushered in Trump’s sweeping victory. Ted and Manila dissect the political wreckage, probing how the Democrats’ reluctance to address Biden’s senility shattered public confidence and altered the nation’s course. Why did party leaders prioritize lies over victory? How does Biden’s cancer diagnosis deepen doubts about transparency in governance? With their fearless, incisive approach, the hosts unravel the consequences for the Democratic Party’s credibility and the evolving political arena. This is The TMI Show at its most gripping—delivering unflinching analysis of leadership, health, and accountability. Plus: Joined by guest Todd “Bubba” Horwitz, the show examines the U.S. economy’s current trajectory, marked by…
Read More
keyboard_arrow_up
css.php