Ted Rall’s cartoons, published for years in the Los Angeles Times, ticked off high-profile people on all portions of the political spectrum — a sure sign, for a political cartoonist, that you are doing your job correctly. When one of Rall’s cartoons ticked off the Los Angeles Police Department, however, Rall soon found himself out of a job. After publishing a cartoon admonishing the LAPD for enforcing jaywalking ordinances, the LAPD, whose pension fund had purchased a major interest in the Times’ parent company, retaliated. Under pressure from the LAPD, the L.A. Times refused to publish any more of Rall’s work. The paper claimed that Rall had lied in a blog post about a prior jaywalking arrest. Rall filed a wrongful termination and libel suit, which was denied at the circuit court and state appeals court levels. The case now heads to the California Supreme Court. Ted Rall joined the Monday Buzz on July 15, 2o19.
