Sen. Tom Harkin openly expresses his regrets about Obamacare; Israel seems headed toward early elections in which Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman may become a “major kingpin”; meanwhile, writer Max Blumenthal explains why he was censored when talking about Israel in Germany. These discoveries and more below.

ObamaCare Author: Health Law Is ‘Really Complicated’ Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.

30 Rock Called Out Bill Cosby Five Years Ago. We Just Missed It In the whirlwind of outrage around Bill Cosby, many people have asked why, given how long ago the first rape allegations against him became public, no one called him out sooner. But 30 Rock appears to have done just that—it just took most of us five years to get the joke.

So Many People Watched ‘Gangnam Style’ That YouTube Had to Upgrade Its View Counter In November 2012, when “Gangnam Style” overtook Justin Beiber’s “Baby” as the most popular video on YouTube, Psy’s hit had about 800 million views. Looking back, that seems like chump change: The video now has 2.15 billion views.

Liberman Outlines His Regional Peace Plan The way things looked on the morning of Dec. 2, Israel was headed toward early elections.

Murder and a Moment for Change in Mexico The late-September disappearance, and likely massacre, of forty-three students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has stripped bare the symbiosis between Mexico’s political establishment and its criminal underworld.

How Millionaires Buy Up Farmland and Hoard All Our Water I grew up in southern California, in a part of the country hit by the nation’s worst dust storms, deadly storms full of heavy metals that blow from dry Owens Lake. Studies have shown that I will not live as long as others because of this.

What Actually Happened With Rosa Parks Is Not What I Learned In School We all learned about Rosa Parks in grade school. But do you know the full story?

Noam Chomsky: A Genuine Movement for Social Change “To some extent, we can create the future rather than merely observing the flow of events,” says Noam Chomsky.

Why Do We Let Bill Gates Get Away With This Stuff? Some beautiful questions from Myra Blackmon about the influence of Bill Gates on education, comparing it to the careful and time-consuming process we require drug companies to go through before they can bring a new drug to market.

Why I Was Censored from Talking About Israel In Germany I arrived in Germany formally invited by members of a political party to speak about my reporting during the Gaza war.

WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...

This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.

At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.

Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.

Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.

Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.

Donate now.

SUPPORT TRUTHDIG