All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., is facing an IRS investigation for its politically themed sermons dating back to 2004. Here, Truthdig reproduces the defiant sermon that its rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, delivered this past Sunday, in which he voices strong opposition to the U.S. government’s perceived position that churches should stay silent in the face of the world’s injustices.
“One could reasonably ask why talking about Social Security is a scarier tactic than the White House campaign slogan, which amounts to ‘elect Democrats and die at the terrorists’ hands.’ But never mind.”
What does it say about our culture that African-American men living in the nation’s inner cities have a life expectancy roughly equal to that of people of similar age living in West Africa?
Check out these two new (unrelated) reports by men who embody the Truthdig mission of drilling beneath the headlines:
Daniel Ellsberg: “Time to Drive Out the Bush Regime”—The man who gave the world the Pentagon Papers delivers an impassioned plea to a new generation of activists to heed the lessons of Nixon and even Hitler when taking stock of the Bush administrations nuclear ambitions.
Sam Harris: “God’s Rottweiler Barks”—The bestselling author of The End of Faith gives a fiery response to Pope Benedict XVIs speech on the interplay between faith and reason.
The man who gave the world the Pentagon Papers delivers an impassioned plea to a new generation of activists to heed the lessons of Nixon and even Hitler when taking stock of the Bush administration’s nuclear ambitions.
The bestselling author of “The End of Faith” responds to Pope Benedict XVI’s speech on the interplay between faith and reason. Harris: “It is ironic that a man who has just disparaged Islam as ‘evil’ and ‘inhuman’ before 250,000 onlookers and the world press is now talking about a ‘genuine dialogue of cultures.’ ”
The satirist reveals that rocket scientists, according to a report by the American Association of Brain Surgeons, are less intelligent than you might imagine.
Truthdig salutes the MSNBC anchor, whose strident monologue at Ground Zero last week ripped to rhetorical shreds the assertion of Vice President Cheney that critics of the government “validate the strategy of the terrorists.” (Jump for video and a full transcription, along with other fiery clips)
The Texas-based columnist reminisces about the former Texas governor, who died Wednesday from cancer. “Anyone who ever heard her speak at an AA convention knows how close laughter and tears can be.”
British researchers reported that a totally unresponsive 23-year-old woman showed signs of awareness on a brain-imaging test. What we can’t know, however, is whether someone actually wants to keep living like that.
Hewlett-Packard used a digital snooping method known as “pretexting”—aka lying—to finger its directors who were leaking to the press. It just goes to show: When it comes to safeguarding the populace against such attacks, we’re still in the Wild, Wild West.
Former Nixon aide John Dean and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, who were foes during the early stages of the Nixon impeachment hearings in 1973, sound off in separate interviews on the prospects of impeaching President Bush. (Dean and Holtzman will debate the topic at UCLA on Sept. 13 at a Truthdig/The Nation Institute-sponsored event.)
John Dean, the man who famously blew the whistle on the Nixon White House during the Watergate hearings, gives a primer on the discussion he will conduct with former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman on Sept. 13 at UCLA, Bush and the Potential for Impeachment. Hint: Democrats shouldn’t go for impeachment unless they can convict Bush and remove him from office.
John Lennon historian Jon Wiener supplements his Truthdig article on John Lennon and the Politics of Deportation in this interview with Truthdig editor Robert Scheer.
Bush was correct in saying Monday night that “Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War.” Unfortunately, it’s Bush’s administration that is testing us—with its relentless incompetence, attacks on our civil liberties and inability to acknowledge the bankruptcy of its policies.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and his wife, Elizabeth, discuss their recent personal peace-building initiative in Lebanon, where the congressman was the first U.S. official to tour the area and meet with the countrys leaders in the wake of its war with Israel. Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer conducts the interview.
The documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which opens today, recounts President Richard Nixons campaign to deport the Beatle because of his antiwar activism. In this report, Jon Wiener, a Lennon historian who consulted on the film, writes that President Bush has gone much further than Nixon in using immigration law to get rid of noncitizens whom the White House doesnt like.
Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, co-author of The Impeachment of George W. Bush, will be discussing that topic at UCLA on Wednesday, Sept. 13. She speaks with Truthdig about the presidents use of signing statements and how it will feel to share a stage at UCLA with onetime Nixon aide John Dean.
The fledgling congressional movement to strip power from Rumsfeld and shift it to the U.S. generals in Iraq is nothing more than a ploy started by a politician afraid of losing his job.
To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, we have assembled a collection of the most memorable and compelling footage related to that day—some of it iconic and unforgettable, like the images of the planes crashing into the towers, some of it more below the radar, like Jon Stewart’s first show after the attacks.
The revelation that Richard Armitage first disclosed Valerie Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA operative doesn’t change the fact that it was Karl Rove and Scooter Libby who used that information in an attempt to punish Ms. Wilson for her husband’s criticism of the Bush administration.
After five years, we must ask: How did the path from Ground Zero somehow lead us to Abu Ghraib? Where did the elemental goodness that inspired us in those first days and weeks after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon go?
Afghanistan’s Sham Army
