Yes, he's a funny guy, and granted, he's a celebrity and thus already commands an absurd amount of attention and bandwidth, but we're quite serious about our pick of Stephen Colbert as this week's Truthdigger.
This week on Truthdig Radio: The hidden scandal lurking in Mitt Romney's tax returns; shining sunlight on super PACs, and Doug Henwood deflates China's real estate bubble.
By Bill Boyarsky —With financial and political interests ranging from Las Vegas to Israel to China, Sheldon Adelson, who is bankrolling the super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, is a powerful illustration of the dangers of unlimited campaign contributions.
Up for consideration on this week’s “Left, Right & Center” are such considerable topics as President Obama’s State of the Union address and the state of play in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. On board for the discussion are regulars Matt Miller and Robert Scheer, as well as guest panelists David Frum and Chrystia Freeland. You know you want to listen.
This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: David Cay Johnston reveals the hidden scandal lurking in Romney’s tax returns; Robert Scheer and Kathy Kiely shine sunlight on super PACs, and Doug Henwood deflates China’s real estate bubble.
Here’s a brief but affecting glimpse of “The Invisible War,” a new documentary, currently making its film festival debut at Sundance, exposing the insidious epidemic of sexual assault in the U.S. armed forces, or Military Sexual Trauma (MST), and what isn’t being done about it.
Bargain hipster clothing store H&M apologizes “if anyone should think we have copied” Georgia artist Tori LaConsay, whose feel-good graffiti somehow found its way (without permission) onto a bunch of knickknacks. The brand now says it is following up with the artist, but not before taking its lumps on the Internet.
“Himmler was the complete opposite of a faceless functionary,” Peter Longerich writes in “Heinrich Himmler.” “The position he built up over the years can instead be described as an extreme example of the almost total personalization of political power.”
Many would consider being knighted or otherwise honored by England’s royals a dream come true. But more than 200 rebellious Brits have declined or returned the honor, refusing to hand their names and legacies over to rulers seeking to bolster their own dubious reputations. John Lennon and authors Roald Dahl and C.S. Lewis are on that list.
With financial and political interests ranging from Las Vegas to Israel to China, Sheldon Adelson, who is bankrolling the super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, is a powerful illustration of the dangers of unlimited campaign contributions.
Yes, he’s a funny guy, and granted, he’s a celebrity and thus already commands an absurd amount of attention and bandwidth, but we’re quite serious about our pick of Stephen Colbert as this week’s Truthdigger.
If you heard a loud “gulp” Tuesday night after President Obama’s State of the Union address, it probably came from Republican political strategists as they realized their party’s odds of capturing the White House this fall are getting longer.
“Makin’ Thunderbirds” is about auto workers back in 1955 who were “young and proud” to be making Ford cars. But in the early 1980s, Bob Seger sings, “the plants have changed and you’re lucky if you work.” Now America’s plants make the deadliest of weapons.
Why the Republicans chose Mitch Daniels to deliver a rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union address is puzzling. Isn’t he the former Bush budget director who said the Iraq War would cost $50 billion when it ended up costing $3 trillion?
As the crisis in Syria reached new levels of urgency Friday, the United Nations Security Council met to work up a resolution pressuring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. The U.N. group faced a formidable challenge, however, from a prominent and permanent member, according to the BBC.
As Newt Gingrich chugs along on his improbable political comeback track, many have tried to slow his roll, but here comes The New York Times’ Timothy Egan with a scathing Op-Ed, calling the relentless GOP contender a demagogue par excellence while allowing that Gingrich has practiced his uniquely unctuous brand of politics to greasy perfection.
Sorry, Ice-T, but while Hillary Clinton may in some circles be considered a “G,” she may not be up for the task of staying on the “high wire of American politics” much longer—at least not in her current position.
Deadly conditions, long hours, cramped quarters and little pay. Reports of Apple suppliers’ derelict manufacturing practices and their devastating effects on Chinese factory workers have been appearing in the press for a while now. After an explosion that killed a supervisor in charge of iPad construction in Chengdu, The New York Times adds a new exhibit to the case.
Thanks to the deplorable treatment of journalists during OWS, the U.S. drops in the Press Freedom Index; turns out, it’s more environmentally friendly to reuse an old building than to build a new one in its place; and a peaceful Occupy L.A. protester is charged with lynching. These discoveries and more after the jump.
University of Tokyo scientist Yoshihiro Kawaoka is making the case for unfettered access to studies in which researchers made a lethal bird flu virus even deadlier by taking it airborne. To those determined to find it, the recipe is already available, he warns, and the mutation could occur outside the laboratory at any moment. All hands to the urgent task of developing a vaccine, then.