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• Tennessee Republicans propose a new congressional map that includes a district stretching nearly 300 miles from Memphis to the Nashville suburbs. The 9th Congressional District, which historically covers Memphis, would be redrawn to stretch from the bottom of Shelby County to the edge of Nashville. This move is designed to split Shelby County into three districts and split Nashville to maximize Republican representation. The new districts cover a massive geographic area, spanning from the state’s poorest ZIP codes in Memphis to the wealthiest in Brentwood and Franklin, totaling a distance of nearly 300 miles. The proposal follows a special session called by Gov. Bill Lee aimed at redrawing the map following a Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act, allowing for the elimination of a district that is 61% Black. Tennessee, which is 1/3 Democratic, would have zero Democratic Congressmen.

• Voters across Scotland and Wales will elect members of their national parliaments, while residents in many parts of England will choose members of local councils. In place of Labour and its traditional opponent, the Conservatives, many voters are embracing other parties in what experts say represents the largest transformation in British politics in a generation. The two biggest beneficiaries are Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party led by Nigel Farage, a supporter of President Trump, and — on the other side of the political spectrum — the leftist, pro-environment Green Party. Polls suggest that the Conservative Party, known as the Tories, will continue to lose seats after cratering in local and national elections over the past two years. In some parts of Britain, the party once led by the “Iron Lady” of British politics, Margaret Thatcher, could come in fourth or fifth, with support in the single digits.

• You might not have asked for an AI model on your computer, but you might have gotten it anyway. Google Chrome has been installing a 4GB model onto devices without asking or notifying users. Google has been installing Gemini Nano — an AI model that runs on devices like smartphones and laptops instead of in the cloud — onto some people’s Chrome browsers, without their permission, according to Alexander Hanff, a Swedish computer scientist and lawyer known as That Privacy Guy. And Google doesn’t tell you that it’s on your device after it’s installed. Hanff said Gemini Nano will only be installed if the person’s device meets the hardware requirements. It’s unknown how many people have gotten the install.

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The Pulitzer Prizes, administered annually by Columbia University, are the most famous prizes awarded to American journalists, authors, playwrights and others in the world of letters. A win can elevate an obscure book to bestseller status, turn a play into a Broadway hit or save a reporter during a round of layoffs. So prestigious is this honor, getting shortlisted as one of a given year’s three finalists can be leveraged into bigger paychecks and gaining new clients.

Shortly after each year’s application deadline in late January, Columbia invites several jurors in each category—subjects like Photography, Nonfiction Book, Opinion Writing, etc.—to its Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan, where the panels—chosen for their expertise in their respective fields—sift through piles of entries. Generally speaking, each subject panel selects three finalists. Each trio goes to the main Pulitzer board, which picks one winner—leaving the remaining two as runners-up. (Usually. There are exceptions, but let’s not voyage too deep into the weeds.)

The Pulitzers have been the subject of scrutiny since their founding more than a century ago. The ongoing crisis in journalism, which has left 74 percent of the profession unemployed since 2008, has left the few rats remaining in the cage more rabidly competitive than ever. Resentments abound. Being snubbed in favor of work a writer feels is inferior to theirs, or not believing their entry was given a fair shake, or suspecting that personal or political bias impacted the results, risks contributing to a toxic loss of faith in a system that picks winners and losers. And let’s not forget: these are journalists. They’re wired to root out the slightest soupçon of impropriety.

At a time when Americans’ trust in the news media is at a record low—only 8% trust journalists to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly”—the last thing we need is corruption in the institution that anoints the best of the best of the news, and that declares the examples other journalists ought to emulate.

While I have my opinions about other categories, Illustrated Reporting and Commentary (as of 2022, the successor category to Editorial Cartoons) is the category I care about and know the most about as a syndicated editorial cartoonist and former cartoon syndication corporate executive.

Editorial cartooning is a tiny profession (soon to be extinct, thanks to those never-ending budget cuts); I either know or am one person removed from everyone in the field.

I instantly smelled a rat when I read this year’s Illustrated Reporting and Commentary finalists. Among them is Peter Kuper, whose cartoons the Pulitzer website says are syndicated by PoliticalCartoons.com. (Disclosure: I have socialized with Peter, and he was my colleague at MAD magazine. Nice guy, and this story is only peripherally about him. There is no evidence that he did anything wrong here. Told you it was a small employment sector.)

A syndicate is a company that sells features like comics and puzzles to newspapers and other media outlets; it’s why you’ll find “Beetle Bailey” in scores of newspapers across the country.

The PoliticalCartoons.com syndicate is owned and run by cartoonist Daryl Cagle. (Disclosure: I have known Daryl for decades, and often been at odds with him about his business model. Like I said…) Daryl has a daughter, also a cartoonist but also an editor, Susie Cagle. (I know her too.) Susie was one of the five jurors on this year’s Illustrated Reporting and Commentary jury—the jury that selected Peter Kuper as a Pulitzer finalist.

Columbia is notoriously secretive about Pulitzer deliberations, and swears jurors to secrecy. Still, some rules are clear, especially those concerning conflicts of interest, which are widely known throughout journalism. If you or someone close to you might be favorably or unfavorably impacted by something you report—or a prize you judge—you must disclose that relationship, and probably bow out. What’s in your heart doesn’t matter. The mere appearance of conflict of interest is a conflict of interest.

“Throughout any part of the Pulitzer Prize process, if anyone reviewing material is involved with an organization or an immediate family member the group is examining, they must recuse themselves,” notes Poynter, the journalism research organization.

Did Susie Cagle recuse herself from this year’s judging? The question goes much deeper than Peter Kuper. Susie Cagle’s father Daryl syndicates dozens of cartoonists, many of whom submitted entries to this year’s Pulitzer Prizes. If any of them won or became a finalist—as did Kuper—Daryl Cagle could use that prize announcement to promote their work and potentially earn more money. Allowing a syndication boss’ nepo daughter to judge a Pulitzer category full of entries by syndicated cartoonists is like putting Ivanka Trump on the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. It’s a conflict of interest, and it’s best avoided by picking someone else as a juror.

Unfortunately, those involved refuse to answer.

I emailed Susie Cagle for comment for this piece. She did not reply. I emailed Ann Telnaes, a previous Pulitzer winner and fellow cartoonist who served as a juror this year alongside Susie. She did not reply. I emailed the Pulitzer Prize board at Columbia. Even though I’m a Columbia alum (GS, Class of ’91), they did not grant me the courtesy of a reply.

Refusal to answer a columnist colleague’s questions about the judging process is highly hypocritical. Institutions like Columbia J-School and cartoonists like Telnaes, who famously quit the Washington Post because she suspected anti-anti-Trump editorial bias, expect the President of the United States to hold press conferences and answer questions and be transparent, and rightly so. The same standards, however, do not seem to apply to them.

Between the prize administrators who announced their plans to discriminate against cis white men, and the broadening of my category to include vast numbers of graphic novelists, gag cartoonists and other artists, I don’t like the odds. So, as I have decided in other years recently, I didn’t apply this time.

I have been a finalist, in 1996. My syndication list expanded dramatically.

By Pulitzer perfidy standards, the possibility that a syndicate honcho’s daughter did her dad a favor by elevating a cartoonist on his list is not at the top of my list. That spot is reserved for my colleague who submitted his animated cartoons under a unique URL. When he checked, the number of views was zero. The Pulitzer jury didn’t even bother to open, much less look at, his work, before “rejecting” him. They did cash his $75 application fee, though.

There’s also the time the jury set aside all the edgier entries to look at later, but then forgot by the time the open bar became available. And the cartoonist who so drunk-bonded with an editor that, once on the jury, the editor made sure he won. Some winners have even proven to be plagiarists and fabulists.

Whatever the scale, this looks rotten. It necessarily makes me wonder: If the category I happen to know about has been corrupted, should we wonder about the other ones too?

Life is unfair and the Pulitzers are unfair. But life is only unfair because we don’t care enough to raise our voices. If you see something, you ought to say something, especially when it matters as much as journalism matters—or used to.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

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• Trump has used up his 60-day window to attack Iran without Congressional approval under the War Powers Act, so he’s resorting to a novel argument. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Operation Epic Fury is over, and the US has begun Operation Freedom instead—which is now on hold just 48 hours in. Will the US wage its unpopular wars in 60-day increments?

• Axios reports Iran and the US are close to agreement on a one-page MOU. The deal would end the current war and launch a 30-day negotiation period for a full deal. Iran would accept a 12-15 year moratorium on uranium enrichment (negotiating duration), commits to no nuclear weapons or weaponization, removes highly enriched uranium, allows enhanced/snap UN inspections, and avoids underground nuclear sites. US agrees to gradually lift sanctions and release billions in frozen funds. Both sides ease restrictions on Strait of Hormuz shipping.

• Elections in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan showed that Trump still dominates the Republican Party, and that Democrats seem to have the momentum ahead of November’s midterm elections. In Indiana, where he backed primary challenges against seven Republican state senators who rejected his redistricting plan, five of the president’s candidates won. In Michigan, a Democrat comfortably won a state Senate race in a bellwether district.

• Senate Republicans proposed $1 billion to pay for new White House security measures, with lawmakers and White House officials disagreeing over whether the legislation would cover Trump’s planned ballroom.

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Nearly every day brings another example of Trump or one of his lieutenants making a brazenly outlandish and illogical argument to justify doing what they want to do despite the law and Constitution.

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India wants to deploy crocodiles and venomous snakes along its Bangladesh border where fencing proves impossible. Human rights activists and wildlife experts condemn the proposal as cruel, dehumanizing, and ecologically reckless, warning that released predators cannot distinguish between migrants and locals while risking ecosystem disruption and community safety through flooding.

Plus:

In Wisconsin, county officials implement an oddly specific speed limit at the Recycling and Solid Waste center to heighten alertness and improve safety amid heavy mixed traffic. The unconventional number forces drivers to pause and focus, reducing hazards in tight quarters.

A Southwest flight from Oakland to San Diego faces over an hour’s delay when a 4-foot robot named Bebop boards as a ticketed passenger. Crews relocate the robot and confiscate its oversized lithium battery before allowing departure, with the inert robot later continuing to its event.

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• Iran issued warnings after two U.S. destroyers, closely followed by two merchant vessels, came under attack during successful transits of the Strait of Hormuz. The UAE reported an Iranian assault on an energy hub that caused a fire. Oman’s state media reported an attack in the country but did not identify a perpetrator. Iran fired cruise missiles and drones at the U.S. naval and commercial vessels. Iran also sent six fast boats after the commercial ships, but U.S. forces fired on and destroyed the vessels. This is not what a ceasefire looks like.

• A federal magistrate judge, Judge Zia Faruqui, tore into officials from the DC jail for mistreatment of the man who allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Cole Allen’s placement in severe lockdown — including being fully restrained by a five-point shackling system and a temporary suicide watch that required 24-hour-a-day placement in a padded, lighted cell without access to phone calls, books, religious material or recreational time — appeared to be unfairly punitive and not based on any known medical assessment.

• A car driven by Cornell’s President Michael Kotlikoff bumps into students after a confrontation over Gaza. After a debate over the war, students say the university president hit them with his vehicle. He says he was the victim.

• Trump declares that the US will withdraw 5,000 – and probably many more – troops stationed in Germany, after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticized the US handling of the Iran conflict, saying Tehran had humiliated Washington.

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The president nearly met his Maker again. With the possibility of death comes consideration of what might await one in the hereafter. With little doubt that Christian tradition would have Donald Trump downward-bound, the question remains: what exactly will his eternity look like?

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• Trump approval reaches new low, a Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds. Democrats now hold a 5% advantage in support for Congress, up from 2% in February. Americans disapprove of him on Iran by 66% to 33%. He is down 7% on the economy, to 34%. He has fallen 5% in that time to 27% and his lowest rating comes on perceptions of his handling of the cost of living, with 23% approving vs. 76% disapproving.

• Oil traders doubted the effectiveness of a plan by Trump for the US to guide neutral ships out through the Strait of Hormuz. The US move was meant to enable vessels that have been stranded by the war with Iran to pass through the waterway. A tanker reported being hit by projectiles 78 nautical miles north of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said.

• Rudy Giuliani is in critical condition.

• Spirit Airlines shuts down, stranding travelers. Republicans blame Biden.

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• A suicide note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan jail has been kept secret for nearly seven years, locked up in a New York courthouse. A cellmate said he discovered the note in July 2019, after Epstein was found unresponsive with a strip of cloth around his neck. Epstein survived but weeks later was found dead.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tells Congress that Trump does not have to comply with the War Powers Act requiring presidents to seek congressional authorization to continue a war beyond 60 days because the cease-fire agreement reached with Iran has paused the clock.

• Trump issued an executive order that expands access to retirement accounts for workers who don’t get 401(k)s. 54 million Americans lack access to an employer-based retirement plan.

• Labor unions, Democratic organizations and community groups march to commemorate May Day, International Workers Day. May Day Strong organizers are calling for “no school, no work, no shopping”, in protest of government policies that put billionaires’ needs above those of workers.

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Why is the stock market hitting record highs? Why are oil futures not even higher? Even if the Strait of Hormuz were reopened immediately—which it will not be—it will take six months or more to restore oil supplies to an Asia that is already running short. The IMF says the odds of a recession are way up. Why aren’t traders paying attention to the slow-motion disaster heading our way due to the Iran War?

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• RFK Jr. is haunted by 2024 arguments about “reparenting” American children, especially Blacks, on wellness farms, which he proposed building in rural communities across the US. “Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence,” Kennedy has said. “Those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get reparented and live in a community,” he said.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the biggest adversary the US faces is not Iran, but the “feckless and defeatist words” of Democrats and some Republican lawmakers. He repeatedly stressed that the war was necessary because Iran posed an “existential threat” to the United States. “I know the American people support that mission, despite your loose talk and words like ‘quagmire.’”

• A historic drop in representation by Black members of Congress may be on the way after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.

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Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Social media profiles attributed to Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old Californian charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump over the weekend, are not radical. He’s centrist, moderate liberal. The same could be said of Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering the CEO of United Healthcare. Are we becoming radicalized—or are average people resorting to radicalized tactics?

• FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is reconsidering the broadcasting licenses of Disney’s 8 TV stations for “early renewal” years ahead of their due dates — suggesting the action was spurred by Disney’s DEI policies. The announcement comes one day after Trump and first lady Melania demanded that Disney-owned ABC fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke about them.

• The world is threatened by a “suicidal” model of capitalism that is leading to war and the potential extinction of humanity, Colombian President Gustavo Petro says, as he convened 57 governments to address the climate crisis. “There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy – fossil fuels – that lead to death. Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and [other] life,” he said. “The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.” The former economist said the world was in a perilous position: “We are heading towards barbarism. And barbarism is the prelude to, or the very essence of, fascism.”

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Trump is spending at least $2 billion a day to attack Iran, which doesn’t include the economic cost of the disruption to oil supplies. Now he’s offering $500 million to the oil-rich UAE for no discernible reason. Everyone is getting in on the grift of taxpayer money except the American taxpayers who are suffering in a crappy job market and rising prices.

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Thirty years and thirty pounds ago, Workman published “Revenge of the Latchkey Kids,” my bestselling entry in the Gen X manifesto genre. I argued in snotty prose and spiky scratchboard cartoons that Americans born in the 1960s and early 1970s faced a set of challenges that made us the first generation of the 20th century doomed to face downward mobility—to be worse off economically, and by extension politically and culturally, than our parents.

As the word “revenge” implies, it wouldn’t be all bad. We’d be ignored by the Powers That Be—and we’d never become full-fledged members thereof—but we’d also be left alone; we would find our way.

Still, we were born under a dark star. Ours was the first postwar generation to enter a crappy job market hobbled by student loan debt and globalization. Lost, alienated and broke, we married later and had fewer kids and bought our first homes late or not at all. Whatever age we were at a given time was a bad time to be that age. Downsizing targeted us mercilessly in our 50s and now, as we wade into our 60s, they want to take away our Social Security.

As tough as it’s been for my cohort, though, the hand dealt to Generation Z—people born in the 2000s and early 2010s, who are entering the job market as young adults, is many factors worse.

Gen X arrived at the party after the Boomers gobbled all the food and guzzled all the booze. But we were scrappy. We scavenged leftovers and half-finished drinks, bullied the DJ into playing some rad post-punk, and chatted up the stragglers as we collected the coolest stories no one from another generation would ever want to hear.

Gen Z won’t even get to see that there was a party.

We took 17 years to pay off our “ten year” student loans, but it’s hard to see how a Gen Zer with $160,000 in debt, at much higher interest rates than we paid, will ever earn enough to shake off their yoke. Politicians saddled us with $1 trillion in federal debt; Gen Z has $40 trillion. We could place hope in the 1990s economic expansion, the birth of the Web, the end of the Cold War, and relatively truthful print media. Gen Z came of age during the bizarro America of the Covid pandemic, has AI slop, fake bot ads for jobs on LinkedIn, Donald Trump, a dead Democrat Party, and a deep-fake world where nothing is what it seems.

Gen X was subjected to stressors Baby Boomers couldn’t begin to comprehend. Boomers ducked-and-covered throughout the Cold War and fretted about Vietnam draft numbers, but their home lives felt about as safe as one could in the nuclear family. Gen X watched their families disintegrate from divorce and dysfunction, forced to understand from an early age that they were on their own—neither their families nor their government could ever be counted upon to help.

Life has been tough on Gen X—and Z already has it worse. Gen Zers report much higher levels of anxiety, depression and other mental health afflictions. They are also far likelier to self-medicate with illegal drugs. Their Internet-native childhoods have driven them insane.

I don’t think Gen Z will have their “revenge” in the sense I had in mind in the mid-1990s. They’re facing a set of challenges that look about as close to insurmountable as anyone could have imagined: the climate crisis and the probability that it will cause the collapse of human civilization by 2040 or 2050, late-stage capitalism, a moribund two-party electoral political system, an obsolete constitution incapable of being amended, rising unemployment and poverty in a jobs market being revolutionized by artificial intelligence. But Gen Z has something neither Silent Gens nor Boomers nor Xers nor Millennials have: they’re clearheaded.

An April 24th letter to the editor by Charles Huschle to the New York Times addressed the absence of younger voters at the anti-Trump “No Kings” marches we see every few months. “These protests are a huge waste of time. Their utility date is way past due. My generation knows more than you think. We know, for example, that if folks want to unseat the administration, then they need to march on weekdays, in Midtown Manhattan (not on family-friendly Saturdays) or encircle the White House and start camping out there.

Every civil resistance movement goes through stages to be effective. The tactics of staging large demonstrations are worn out. People of my generation know it’s time for the next stage. That’s why we aren’t out on the streets with our esteemed elders.”

If the first step toward tackling a difficult future is acknowledging that there are problems, Gen Z is past that. The second step—refusing to engage with or waste time and energy on solutions that have been proven ineffective—is underway. For Gen Z, survival will be the best revenge.

For what it’s worth, Gen X will be cheering you on.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

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• Low-cost airlines are asking the Trump administration for $2.5 billion to offset some of the cost of fuel, which has surged because of the war with Iran. Spirit Airlines is negotiating a loan of up to $500 million from the government; the government would have the right to purchase ownership stakes in the airline through financial instruments known as warrants. The government could end up owning as much as 90% of the Spirit, in its second bankruptcy in two years.

• A joint offensive by Tuareg separatists of the Azawad Liberation Front and JNIM militants linked to Al Qaeda represented a major setback for Mali’s military junta and its Russian paramilitary partners. Defense minister Lt. Gen. Sadio Camara, a key liaison between the Malian Army and Russian paramilitary forces, was killed in the coordinated attacks.

• Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of former Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, went on trial in absentia in Switzerland in connection with alleged bribery and money laundering involving assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She is in a “prison colony” in Uzbekistan. Swiss prosecutors say Karimova developed and ran a crime ring known as “The Office” that involved several dozen people and multiple companies. She is accused of depositing funds “of criminal origin” in Switzerland and abroad, and arranging for safe deposit boxes for the deposit of cash, jewelry and other valuables.

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Today we discuss:

• Cole T. Allen, 31, is accused of trying to assassinate President Trump and other officials at the White House Correspondents Dinner. A CalTech graduate and a teacher with a close-knit family, Allen allegedly issued a manifesto that indicates a highly intelligent articulate would-be assassin with specific political grievances about Trump’s genocide in Gaza, murders of Venezuelan fishermen, etc. Is America breeding a new kind of presidential assassin?

• The U.K.’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s state visit to the U.S. comes at a time of heightened domestic and geopolitical tension.

• The centrist leader of Israel’s opposition, Yair Lapid, and a right-wing former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, will combine forces in elections later this year. The merger is an apparent bid to reconstitute a partnership that temporarily unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu five years ago.

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The post Aw, Shoot! | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

When an American pilot was shot down behind enemy lines during the US War against Iran, the military and conservative politicians crowed that we have a culture of “no man left behind” in such situations. If and when the same man suffers from PTSD and winds up homeless on the streets of America’s cities, as have so many veterans, however, there will be little to no help on offer.

The post Many Men Left Behind appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Germany plans to become the strongest “conventional army in Europe” by 2039—the 100th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland that began World War II. Titled “Verantwortung für Europa,” or “Responsibility for Europe,” the military strategy identifies Russia as the primary threat and sets out scenarios for possible attacks on NATO territory. Former Axis partner Japan has also begun remilitarization.

• A leaked Pentagon internal email proposes that the US should reassess its support for Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands because the UK did not do enough to help the US/Israeli war against Iran. It argues that the US could review a policy of endorsing European claims to longstanding “imperial possessions.” It also argued that Spain should be suspended from NATO for refusing to allow US war planes to be based in or fly over.

• Since agreeing last week to a ceasefire with Hezbollah, the Israeli army has been leveling neighborhoods in towns and villages near the Lebanese-Israeli border. The military says it destroys buildings that were used as outposts by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

MERCH STORE: https://www.deprogram.live

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/2kdFlw2w8sSPhKI8NRx8Zu

APPLE MUSIC: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-jamarl-thomas/id1825379504

The post German Militarization: What Could Go Wrong? | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

What does it say about the American political system and the American people that we can’t do anything about the fact that the president of the United States is obviously insane?

The post Crazy President/Crazier Us appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.