Columns Archives - Page 58 of 104

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Cops Gone Wild! Police Unions Are Killing Our Freedoms

November 6, 2015•

Police unions are out of control. Earlier this year, Baltimore cops murdered Freddie Gray by chaining him up and intentionally swerving and repeatedly slamming on the breaks. Rather than telling their members to behave professionally, however, the head of the city’s police union attacked people who protested Gray’s death, smearing them as — of all things! — “a lynch mob.” About a year ago, the leader of New York’s police union reacted to the assassination of two Brooklyn cops as they sat in their squad car by declaring that newly-elected mayor Bill de Blasio had “blood on his hands” — because he hadn’t been sufficiently pro-cop. (There is no evidence that the killer ever heard of Bill de Blasio.) Now the Fraternal Order of Police is threatening one of the United States’ most acclaimed film directors. FOP executive director Jim Pasco, threatened Quentin Tarantino, who helmed “Pulp Fiction” and numerous other major movies, in The Hollywood Reporter. “Something is in…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Politics Behind a Paywall: If CNBC Sponsors a Debate, Did It Really Happen?

October 29, 2015•

Ted Rall

There are two kinds of media censorship: direct and self-directed. In an authoritarian regime, nothing gets published or broadcast without state approval. I watched the inner workings of direct government control of the press during a visit to Turkmenistan. Every magazine and newspaper was run out of the same office. Many were edited by the same people, all wearing the same lapel pins, an image of the country’s then-dictator, Sapamurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov. This didn’t exactly make for a bunch of scintillating reads: the “our harvest rocks” stories were direct heirs of propaganda in the Soviet Union, of which the Turkmen SSR was a remote outpost. But it did offer clarity. The Turkmen people have never suffered from any illusions about the nature of their political system. They knew they weren’t free. Censorship exists everywhere. In the so-called “free world,” however, political and cultural gatekeepers work to try to fool citizens into thinking that it does not. This morning, on NPR,…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Where Are the Passionate Editors?

October 23, 2015•

Ted Rall

Stipulated: David Brooks isn’t that smart. As editor of The Weekly Standard — the neo-con rag that served as the warmongering Der Sturmer of the Bushies — he endorsed the unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq. He wrote a book, “Bobos in Paradise” (the “bobos” are “bourgeous bohemians”) that, aside from having the lamest title in the history of movable type attempted to coin a phrase to alongside “yuppies” and “hipsters” but never stood a chance. Every now and then, however, the New York Times op-ed writer whose take on things uncannily mimics whatever happens to be the 50.000-yard line of mainstream corporatist politics writes something worth reading. (This distinguishes him from fellow militant centrist Tom Friedman.) Brooks’ October 23rd column “Lady Gaga and the Life of Passion” is one of his more thought-provoking pieces, though probably not for a reason he might have hoped. Born of staring-down-a-deadline laziness, “Gaga” came out of that most bobo of activities, sitting on…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Carly Fiorina, Identity Politics and the Death of Feminism

September 29, 2015•

Ted Rall

If you doubt that the politics of identity have triumphed over the debate over ideas, read today’s New York Times story about how “Carly Fiorina Both Repels and Enthralls Liberal Feminists.” Identity politics is the marketing of and resulting support of candidates based upon their historically underprivileged status. Never mind what I believe or claim I’ll do if I win. Vote for me, gay males, because I am one of you! Vote for me, black women, because it’s time for a black woman! Also: vote for me, black men, because I’m black (and also a woman). Or: vote for me, white liberals, because I’ll heal the rifts of sexism and/or racism. Barack Obama is the patron saint of modern identity politics. Though not black in a typical American sense, which indicates slave ancestry, Obama swept to victory twice, and enjoyed remarkable deference from the media, because he was black enough to serve as a symbol of racial reconciliation. Identity…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Let VW Face the Same Penalties as Us — or Let Us Go Unpunished Too

September 24, 2015•

Ted Rall

If you did it once, you’d be fired. If you did it hundreds of times, you’d go to prison. Why should a corporation worth billions of dollars be treated more leniently than we individuals? “Volkswagen has admitted installing software in 11 million vehicles that was used to provide false results about emissions, though it was not clear if it was used in all countries where the cars were sold,” The New York Times reports. The United States, however, accounts for 20% to 25% of the automaker’s sales. “Those U.S. [diesel] vehicles would have spewed between 10,392 and 41,571 ton of toxic gas into the air each year, if they had covered the average annual US mileage. If they had complied with EPA standards, they would have emitted just 1,039 tons of NOx each year in total,” according to The Guardian. That’s “roughly the same as the UK’s combined emissions for all power stations, vehicles, industry and agriculture.” VW executives…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: There Is No “Flood” of Syrian Immigrants

September 14, 2015•

Ted Rall

Of all the stupid things people say while talking about politics, the one whose stupidity never ceases to astound me is that we’re all out of room for new immigrants. Haven’t the nativists ever flown cross-country? Grab a window seat! If America has anything, it’s space. The no-room-at-the-inn argument, used most recently in opposition to immigration from Mexico, has been with us throughout America’s first two centuries. Yet, despite a 320% population increase from 76 million in 1900 to nearly 320 million today, the U.S. has somehow managed to muddle through. Now we’re hearing the same lock-the-borders build-a-beautiful-wall argument in response to refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. Europe has borne the brunt of the migration out of the Middle East — and they’ve freaked out the most. European Union countries that ought to know better (Germany) and others choosing to ignore their treaty obligations (Hungary) have even restored the passport checkpoints whose elimination was the primary purpose of…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Hillary Is So Sorry She Wasn’t Sorry Sooner

September 11, 2015•

Ted Rall

Poor Hillary. First they beat her up for refusing to apologize over the stupid/wrong/probably illegal way she mismanaged her emails as secretary of state. Now they’re beating her up for apologizing. (About this “they”: I’m one of them.) This is what happens when you get stuck between two competing public-relations imperatives. On the one hand, as Clinton wrote in her memoir: “In our political culture, saying you made a mistake is often taken as weakness.” She’s right. On the other, it’s better to lance a boil than to let it fester. If everyone knows you messed up, admit it. The sooner you apologize, the sooner it becomes old news. Get out in front of bad news — if it’s going to get out no matter what, people would rather hear it from you than about you. (Classic case study: Johnson & Johnson was transparent and proactive in its response to the Tylenol tampering attacks.) It’s hard to think of how…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: What’s With News Media Who Don’t Want to Publish News?

September 3, 2015•

Ted Rall

If it’s news, it goes in. No matter what.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Americans Are Stupid

August 26, 2015•

Ted Rall

Americans are dumb. That’s what people say. Especially foreigner non-American people. But lots of Americans think that Americans are stupid. Not them, of course. They think other Americans are stupid. It will not, even if you’re an idiot, come as a shock when I admit here that one of the Americans who think Americans are intellectually challenged is me. Moronitude exists everywhere, of course. What makes stupidity in America stand out is that most Americans — the dumb ones — don’t think it’s bad to be dumb. Far from being ashamed, they’re dumb and proud. To the contrary — the dumb ones make fun of the small-and-constantly-shrinking population of intelligent ones: the “nerds.” Want to study astrophysics? You’re a geek. No prom date for you! I haven’t been everywhere, but I’ve traveled a lot, and what historians have documented as the tradition of anti-intellectualism in America seems to be pretty unique. Even Australia, land of our cultural Anglo-Saxon brethren, where…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Hillary Doesn’t Care That Much About Abortion Rights

August 13, 2015•

Ted Rall

Hillary Clinton’s recent attack on fellow presidential hopeful Marco Rubio (R-FL) over abortion (“offensive,” “outrageous” and “troubling,” she said) reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to wonder aloud for some time: Why doesn’t the Democratic Party call for a federal law legalizing abortion? Thanks to the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, abortion is legal. Given the 5-4 balance of the Supreme Court barely in favor of that 1973 decision, however, federal abortion rights could vanish following the next vacancy on the high bench, especially if it happens under a Republican president. (Abortion would remain legal in liberal states.) Four decades of legal limbo is enough. If Hillary, Bernie Sanders and Congressional Democrats really believe in a woman’s right to control her own body — for the record, I think they do — they should jointly endorse a bill legalizing abortion throughout the land. It is true, of course, that full-throated support for reproductive freedom carries political risks. With only…

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Cops Gone Wild! Police Unions Are Killing Our Freedoms

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Politics Behind a Paywall: If CNBC Sponsors a Debate, Did It Really Happen?

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Where Are the Passionate Editors?

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Carly Fiorina, Identity Politics and the Death of Feminism

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Let VW Face the Same Penalties as Us — or Let Us Go Unpunished Too

SYNDICATED COLUMN: There Is No “Flood” of Syrian Immigrants

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Hillary Is So Sorry She Wasn’t Sorry Sooner

SYNDICATED COLUMN: What’s With News Media Who Don’t Want to Publish News?

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Americans Are Stupid

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Hillary Doesn’t Care That Much About Abortion Rights

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