Ear to the Ground

More Outrageous Opinions From Our Next Justice

Staff / Truthdig Dec 23, 2005 Why is Samuel Alito expected to sail through Senate confirmation when his views are so outrageous? The Associated Press reports that he defended domestic wiretap protections when he worked for the Reagan Justice Department. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

America’s Best Reviewer Lauds Controversial Film

Staff / Truthdig Dec 23, 2005 The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan says "Munich" is a movie that demands to be seen as much for its place in the world as for whether it succeeds He calls it " the most questioning, provocative film [Spielberg's] ever made" . Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Senate Dems Block Arctic Refuge Drilling

Staff / Truthdig Dec 21, 2005 The threat of a filibuster holds up as Republicans fail to get enough votes to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling Sen Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) tried to force the measure through Congress as part of a must-have defense spending bill See our coverage to find out what was at stake: Rep Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) filed a report after the House passed the measure earlier this week See the related story by Robert Collier and the photo essay by Deddeda Stemler to learn more. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Iran’s Victory in Iraq

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 21, 2005 For the Bush White House, the good news from Iraq just never stops. But the joy that President Bush has expressed over the country's latest election, though more restrained than his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, will similarly come back to haunt him. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Intelligent Ruling on Intelligent Design

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 21, 2005 It's good to know that some of our judges are standing up to the fundamentalists A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled today that a public school district can't require the inclusion of "intelligent design" in biology classes as an alternative to evolution See story. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

The Wonderful World of Outsourced Torture

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 14, 2005 The more we learn of the Bush administration's pervasive outsourcing of torture, the more sensible it seems as a policy. Evidently, our intelligence people, tainted as they are by the squeamish morality of Western civilization, are just not fully up to the task of getting prisoners to tell us what the administration wants us to hear. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Propaganda? What Propaganda?

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 13, 2005 "There is no U.S. footprint" is the proud boast of one of the Pentagon's propaganda contractors, and it prompts the questions: Why not? What are they ashamed of? One thing is that most of us in this democracy did not know we were paying for this vast official propaganda operation until we read it in Jeff Gerth's excellent investigative piece in The New York Times. A truly free press is our most valuable export, and its reputation should not be undermined by the Bushies' addiction to government propaganda. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

An Agnostic for President — and a Woman at That

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 12, 2005 How refreshing that there is one democratic nation — Chile — where a leading candidate has the courage to suggest that the impact of the clergy has not always added to enlightenment, particularly as to the place of women in society. Jefferson lives. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

U.N. Agency That Found No WMD Gets Peace Prize

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 10, 2005 How telling that the Nobel Peace Prize has been granted to the United Nations agency that Bush kicked out of Iraq after it failed to find weapons of mass destruction that he just knew were there See BBC story Meanwhile, there are some Democrats who have some explaining to do. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Tonto’s Revenge

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 7, 2005 The outrageous rip-off of Native American tribes by a top Republican lobbyist is leading inexorably to a reckoning for the allegedly morally superior religious and political right. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Texas Roundup

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 6, 2005 No get-out-of-jail-free card for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay A Texas court upheld a felony indictment for DeLay on charges of money laundering in connection with a 2002 Texas election A separate indictment for criminal conspiracy was dismissed . Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Torture

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Dec 4, 2005 Condi Rice is so tired of Old Europe and its human rights complaints. Big deal, so the CIA is using Soviet era torture camps in Eastern Europe to stash "war on terror" prisoners. Don't those fusspots in the EU understand that our use of torture is fundamentally different because we are the good guys and that Eastern Europe has been liberated? That outmoded European slogan of "friends don't let friends use torture" is so over. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )