A new short film by the group Alliance for Justice examines the role that lawyers played in authorizing and legitimizing torture under the Bush administration. It calls on the attorney general to investigate not just CIA operatives but the authors of torture memos in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.
The “Countdown” host, having just emerged from a personal encounter with the system, pulls out all the stops for a special hour-long comment on the need for health care reform.
Conservatives seek to preserve old-timey traditions and values when it comes to many social issues, but National Review columnist John Derbyshire apparently wants to set women back at least 100 years with his curious statement, teased out by progressive radio host Thom Hartmann, that women’s suffrage isn’t good for the country.
In the left corner, we have filmmaker Michael Moore, taking his anti-capitalism roadshow to ... Fox News. On the right, we have anchorman Sean Hannity, eager to repeatedly point out how much money Moore makes. But does Hannity believe in conspiracy theories? This does get lively.
Whatever happened to President Obama’s campaign pledge to revoke the pesky “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that keeps gay and lesbian military members in the closet as they serve their country? Well, it seems the president has a little “too much on his plate” to confront that particular issue at the moment, as Jon Stewart has duly noted.
The Dalai Lama ran with the theme of the day while accepting the Lantos Human Rights Prize in Washington on Tuesday, taking the opportunity to point out that “generally speaking, we are lacking” when it comes to “taking care of others’ well-being.” While he was at it, he also schooled his audience about America’s widening class divide.
When President Obama Chicago lost out to Rio for the 2016 Olympic Games, none were more pleased than the members of a conservative organization called—wait for it—Americans for Prosperity. Well, they didn’t specify whose prosperity they were rooting for, as Stephen Colbert points out in this clip.
Bill Maher couldn’t contain his glee on Friday night’s episode of “Real Time” while rattling off some alternative titles for Sarah Palin’s upcoming memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” had it been ghostwritten by several famous writers—even some long-dead ones.
Nevada Sen. John Ensign’s recent infidelity scandal lurks in the background of an ad for the public option running in parts of his home state this week, courtesy of the progressive coalition Health Care for America Now! The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder notes that the coalition has paid $100,000 to run the ad for a week to point out Ensign’s financial entanglements with the health care industry.
What’s wrong with the American economic system? That’s what “Capitalism: A Love Story” auteur Michael Moore wants to know, and Sen. Bernie Sanders is on hand to answer him in his latest installment of Brave New Films’ “Senator Sanders Unfiltered” series. (Hint: It has something to do with “an unfettered, cowboy-type capitalism” that stems largely from the Reagan era.)
That last bit in the headline isn’t just to get your attention—there are a few valid reasons for its inclusion among this week’s “LRC” topics (paging Roman Polanski ... or was that David Letterman?). However, more substantial fare precedes that part of the discussion, including talk of unemployment, Wall Street’s most wanted, and Obama’s growing Afghanistan problem.
Truthdig editors Robert Scheer, Peter Scheer and Kasia Anderson unchain themselves from their laptops long enough to weigh in about the week’s news, Michael Moore’s economic epic and a new phone made partly from corn. If that’s not eclectic, we don’t know what is.
Rep. Alan Grayson, the congressman who said the Republican health care plan is for Americans to die quicker, tells Wolf Blitzer and friends what’s up: “Democrats have to have guts. And now we have to have the guts to take the majority that the American people have given us and do something with it.”
A whopping 7.6 earthquake hit the coastal town of Pedang, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, full force on Wednesday, causing survivors to flee in fear of a possible tsunami in its aftermath and leaving thousands more trapped under collapsed buildings.
The folks at Fox News are outraged after seeing a clip of some New Jersey school kids singing President Obama’s praises and have handily spun the story into yet another sign of the Obama administration’s relentless indoctrination of unsuspecting Americans everywhere. Problem is, there’s similar footage to be found of schoolchildren doing the same for George W. Bush.
As this commentary from the vigilant videographers over at Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films outfit points out, Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform bill definitely would serve the interests of at least some interested parties—namely, the health insurance companies themselves.
Are America’s “culture wars” being backed by the NEA? Will President Obama marshal a shadow army of deft performance artists and elementary school teachers to brainwash Americans into a state of mass compliance as he enacts his Socialist Agenda™? The people at Fox News clearly haven’t seen a lot of bad performance art if they really believe their own racket.
Is the Iranian regime taking a page from North Korea with its recent, potentially provocative displays of missile-launching power? Or are those preplanned exercises (nothing to see here, move along, folks)? Or, as White House press wrangler Robert Gibbs suggests, a little bit of both?
Tony Blankley, the “Right” of “Left, Right & Center,” stuns the panel by declaring global warming a phony issue. The gang also chews over Iran’s nuclear program and debates what should be done about the banks.
Who’s that booming baritone talking about the environment? Al Gore stars in a promotional video developed by Google Earth that shows environment degradation via the popular mapping program, a sort of “climate change simulator” of ice-sheet melting and rising sea levels.
As “The Daily Show” recounts, some conservatives, at least the type who attended last weekend’s Values Voter Summit, officially have an issue with homosexuality (paging former Miss California Carrie Prejean). So Jon Stewart finds former GOP ringleader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay’s sassy cha-cha number on Monday’s “Dancing With the Stars” a bit puzzling.
Those poor, beleaguered health insurance honchos would be totally out to sea without the help of Hollywood’s best and brightest—Jon Hamm, Will Ferrell and Olivia Wilde among them—to launch a dinghy of hope their way in the form of this timely PSA. Down with the public option!
President Obama held forth about the need to move quickly and “together” on the problem of global warming in a speech Tuesday at the United Nations. “Our prosperity, our health and our safety are in jeopardy and the time we have to reverse this tide is running out—and yet we can reverse it,” he said.
Let the Debate Begin
