AltWeeklies Wire
As Both Parties Celebrate Victories, We Still Hate Them
Neither party gets it. They both think they won. And they sort of did. But we still hate them.
Face It, Pro-Choice Women—Obama Isn't That Into You
If you can overlook Obama's crimes and misdemeanors—if abortion rights are all you care about—there still isn't much reason to vote for Obama.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
10-30-2012 |
The War on Women
Factchecking the Factcheckers
Whether people are deciding which of the two corporate major-party candidates to vote for, or they're looking outside the system to a third party, voter boycott or revolution to overthrow the entire system, they can't make an intelligent decision without knowing the pertinent facts.
If You Vote, You Can't Complain
Here we go again. Like Charlie Brown considering Lucy's offer to hold the football so he can kick it--and Lucy's promises not to pull it away at the last second, as she's done every time in the past--lefties are being urged to set aside their disgust over the last four years and vote Democratic.
Big Bird is a 1%er
If you accept public money, you're in public service and should get paid accordingly. Which is to say, fairly--and at the lowest fair cost to taxpayers.
Tags: Big Bird
If Romney Loses, Blame Paul Ryan
This election is/was Romney's to lose—and apparently he has. The cause can be summed up in two words: Paul Ryan.
Is America's Decline Inevitable?
Though depressing, Obama's pessimism is dwarfed by Mitt Romney's.
The Rebranding of the President, 2012
If he wants to win, Obama must articulate a new vision, relaunching and rebranding himself into something completely different—in other words, running as though the last three four years had never happened. Like this was his first term.
Tags: Barack Obama
Fear of a Right Planet
If all Democratic strategists have to do to attract progressive voters is to frighten them with greater-evil Republicans, when will people who care about the working class, who oppose wars of choice, and whose critique of government is that it isn't in our lives enough ever see their dreams become party platform planks with some chance of being incorporated into legislation?
Bringing a Pen to a Gunfight
Either you're serious about eliminating gun violence, or you're not. "Soul-searching" isn't going to block the next bullet fired by a madman—but the law, coupled with rigorous enforcement, can.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
08-13-2012 |
Crime & Justice
Tags: gun control
Iran - Because Two Wars Aren't Enough
Year after year, on one foreign crisis after another, American presidents repeatedly state some variation on the theme that war is always an option, that the military option is always on the table. You've heard that line so often that you take it for granted. But did you know that "keeping the military option on the table" is a serious violation of international law?
Gun Control Talk Is Cheap. A Sane Mental Health System Is Not.
Setting aside the caveat that we still don't know why it happened, the big guns/crazy young white guy dynamic leads to two obvious policy prescriptions: gun control and improving access to mental health care. Post-Aurora, we're seeing a lot of the former, including calls for numerical limits on ammo sales—but relatively few of the latter.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
07-27-2012 |
Policy Issues
Tags: Gun Control
Why We're Apathetic: Obama and Romney Ignore #1 Campaign Issue
Ignoring the elephant in the room, neither Obama nor Romney have put forth credible plans for getting the unemployed back to work or getting raises for those who still have jobs—and forget about underemployment.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
07-19-2012 |
Commentary
Customer Service Is A Right
It may not be as important as habeas corpus, but good access to customer service reps is a right—especially when a company is extracting billions from the economy, i.e. us.
What Next for Occupy?
It's less important to guess whether Occupy has a future than to examine how a movement with widespread public support from left and right alike devolved from nearly 2000 public encampments to its current situation: marginalization and cooption.
