Today's Liberal News

SNL Really Wants to Say Something About TikTok

Each month, the average TikTok user watches about 24 hours of video. Considering that videos now top out at 10 minutes, that’s a bewildering amount of content and reach. TikTok hit 3 billion downloads in July 2021, becoming the first non-Facebook app to do so. As a global vehicle for a wellspring of DIY creators, it has saturated the cultural moment. Saturday Night Live knows this, and it keeps wanting to say something about the platform. But it doesn’t quite know what.

First Poem After Parting

This is what I wanted, isn’t it? This house, quiet
as sunlight, grass on the other side of these windowsfading from gold to green like a woman taking
off her makeup. I have waited and waited to hold  my grief. Tied her up in garbage bags under clothes
I intend to donate, slipped her in the side pockets  of suitcases and empty slots between cigarettes
in packs I carry always in multiples. I trained her  to stand behind doors, to exit as laughter from my
throat.

How to Seek Justice for Rape in the War on Ukraine

On March 13, a Russian soldier broke into a school in Malaya Rohan, a village near the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which had been relentlessly attacked by Vladimir Putin’s forces for weeks. Locals had congregated in the school’s basement for shelter from the violence. What followed, according to an account from a survivor published by Human Rights Watch, is horrifying but bears detailing.

A Stanford Psychologist Says He’s Cracked the Code of One-Hit Wonders

Sign up for Derek’s newsletter here.In September 1992, the band Blind Melon released their self-titled debut album. The record was mostly ignored until a music video for the song “No Rain,” featuring a girl in glasses dressed as a bumblebee, went berserk on MTV. The song rocketed up the Billboard Hot 100 charts. But that was the last time the band ever struck gold. Two decades later, Rolling Stone named “No Rain” one of the biggest one-hit wonders of all time.

Dianne Feinstein Is the Future of the Senate

Look, it’s right there in the name: Senate, borrowed from the Romans and meaning a “council of elders.” More than ever, the label fits. This is the oldest Senate, by average age, in American history, at 64 years. Jim Inhofe and Richard Shelby, both 87, have announced plans to retire. Chuck Grassley, 88, is running for reelection this fall. But even he is a shade younger than Dianne Feinstein, also 88.

Keeping a Diary at the End of the World

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the writer and photographer Yevgenia Belorusets began to journal about her experience living in Kyiv. The resulting account, which she published online in real time, provides insight into the conflict that more straightforward news coverage has failed to capture. It is, as she put it in an interview with my colleague Gal Beckerman, “a very complex picture of reality at a moment when war has turned everything incredibly awful.

“Trigger Points”: Author Mark Follman on How the U.S. Can Prevent More Mass Shootings

As the United States reels from an epidemic of mass shootings in schools, trains and other public places, we speak with Mark Follman, national affairs editor at Mother Jones, where he covers gun violence. Follman says mass shootings are typically planned over a period of time and follow a “robust trail of behavioral warning signs” that offer opportunities in community-based violence prevention to stop the crime before it happens.

Vijay Prashad on the War in Ukraine & the West’s “Open, Rank Hypocrisy” in Condemning War Crimes

As the Russian invasion in Ukraine enters its 50th day, we look at the war’s impact around the world with Vijay Prashad, author and director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. “When food prices go up, the political crisis is almost immediate,” says Prashad, who calls the U.S. pressure on Global South countries to cut off essential imports from Russia after a 30-year globalization campaign a double standard. He says if the U.S.

Russia Warns U.S. About Arms Sales to Ukraine as Weapon Makers Reap “Bonanza” from War

This week the Pentagon met with leading U.S. weapons manufacturers as Russia warned the Biden administration to stop arming Ukraine, claiming it was “adding fuel” to the conflict. This comes as a Russian warship sank in the Black Sea hours after Ukraine claimed to have attacked it with cruise missiles, and as Sweden and Finland say they may join NATO, which would require more weapons spending.

Ukraine Update: It’s time to appreciate the massive logistical effort to support Ukraine

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On March 7, the United States announced that it would send 400 troops to Lithuania to compliment 600 already there. On April 7, we saw American artillery passing through Poland.

A train of military equipment straining towards the border with Ukraine was seen at the railway station Gniezno (Poland) The following equipment can be seen on the platforms: ▪️American tracked command and staff machine M577 ▪️American self-propelled artillery 155mm pic.

Ukraine update: Goodbye to Moscow

No matter what “tankie” Twitter has to say, the U.S. Department of Defense has now confirmed that the Russian missile cruiser Moskva (“Moscow”) sank after being struck by Neptune missiles fired by Ukrainian coastal defense. Honestly, the U.S.

Wages rise for many, but not for Californians most hit by inflation

By Mark Kreidler for Capital & Main

A state secret comes into the open: how inflation targets the poor.

When I met Amparo Ramirez in March of 2020, our conversation was very much of the moment. The pandemic was in its early days and the fear factor was high, but Ramirez, who works in food service at the Los Angeles International Airport, was explaining that even if she felt ill, she would most likely report for her shift—and so would her colleagues.

How worker cooperatives shift power to workers

by Sydney Pereira

This article was originally published at Prism.

Five years ago, the only full-service grocery store in the Walnut Hills neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, closed.

It was a blow to the neighborhood, which was home mostly to Black residents. Community activists, including Mona Jenkins, asked grocery chains to bring a new store to their area, but she says they weren’t interested.