“Clearly, Bush cannot comprehend the damage he is doing to American dignity, credibility and prestige…. His public negotiations with the dissident senators over torture techniques have created one of the worst spectacles in modern political history.”
The sad drama of a 19-year-old whose parents allegedly attempted to force her to have an abortion refocuses the question of what, exactly, constitutes “choice.”
The Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition told Sen. John McCain that he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote if he doesn’t support Bush’s torture bill. I’d like to see an evangelical vote on that one.
During his recent press conference, President Bush continued to use the oldest tactic of a verbal bully: saying the same thing louder, as though that makes it true.
A day before Bush paid lip service to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in his U.N. address, a Canadian government commission accused the U.S. of “rendering” a Canadian to Syria for almost a year of torture.
The authors of the new book “Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIAs Rendition Flights” tell Truthdig guest interviewer Onnesha Roychoudhuri how they pieced together the first comprehensive look at the largest covert CIA operation since the Cold War—a program run not only by shadowy government contractors in the darkest corners of Afghanistan, but also by unassuming America family lawyers in places like Dedham, Mass.
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.
Gorbachev’s Sermon on the Mount
