Today's Liberal News

Shared Grief After 9/11: Sister of WTC Victim Meets Afghan Who Lost 19 Family Members in U.S. Attack

On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we revisit a conversation we hosted in January of 2002 between Masuda Sultan, an Afghan American woman who lost 19 members of her family in a U.S. air raid, and Rita Lasar, a New Yorker who lost her brother in the World Trade Center attack. Lasar would become an active member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Masuda later wrote the memoir, “My War at Home.

Rep. Barbara Lee, Who Cast Sole Vote After 9/11 Against “Forever Wars,” on Need for Afghan War Inquiry

Twenty years ago, Rep. Barbara Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against war in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 9/11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people. “Let us not become the evil that we deplore,” she urged her colleagues in a dramatic address on the House floor. The final vote in the House was 420-1. This week, as the U.S. marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Rep.

“Humane”: Yale Historian Samuel Moyn on “How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War”

In his new book, Yale historian Samuel Moyn explores whether the push to make U.S. wars more “humane” by banning torture and limiting civilian casualties has helped fuel more military interventions around the world. He looks in detail at the role of President Obama in expanding the use of drones even as he received the Nobel Peace Prize. “What happened after 2001 is that, in the midst of an extremely brutal war on terror, a new kind of war emerged.

“Turning Point”: Legacy of the U.S. Response to 9/11 Is Terror, Domestic Surveillance & Drones

As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., we look at a new five-part documentary series on Netflix about the attacks and the response from the United States, both at home and abroad. “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” features a wide range of interviews with survivors of the attacks, U.S.

News Roundup: California recall election nears; Rudy does a Rudy again

In the news today: The Republican effort to recall California’s Democratic governor because reasons is upon us, with in-person voting on Tuesday. It began as a clown show and seems determined to end as one. Elsewhere, the now-fascist Rudy Giuliani took time away from pushing new anti-democratic conspiracy theories to polish his own tarnished legacy with a 9/11 themed(?) speech that he may or may not have given while completely sloshed.

‘He looks better than our president’: Yes, Fox News complimented dictator Kim Jong Un

It seems like tabloids and magazines aren’t the only ones concerned with just appearances. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has become the talk of the town after making an appearance at a military parade this week, looking a lot slimmer. 

Of course, one of the first outlets to report on his new look and focus solely on that rather than his numerous human rights violations is Fox News.

California set to spend billions on curing homelessness and caring for ‘whole body’ politic

By Angela Hart, for Kaiser Health News

Living unmedicated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Eugenia Hunter has a hard time recalling how long she’s been staying in the tent she calls home at the bustling intersection of San Pablo Ave. and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Oakland’s hip Uptown neighborhood. Craft coffee shops and weed dispensaries are plentiful here and one-bedroom apartments push $3,000 per month.

Nuts & Bolts—Inside a Democratic campaign: What If …?

Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about. With the help of other campaign workers and notes, we address how to improve and build better campaigns or explain issues that impact our party.

A few weeks ago, I was part of a series of conference calls involving campaign finance directors, discussing what they needed to make campaigns function correctly.

10 ways the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom could change California

Here are the biggest problems the next governor will face.

By Tim Redmond, for Capital and Main

There are 46 people who think they should replace Gavin Newsom as governor of California.

Most of them have no idea what they would be getting into.

Sure, a couple of candidates—like former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer—actually have some experience in government.

Tongue Posture Is a Big Business With Little Evidence

When Kimberly Sheldon was 47, she says made the biggest mistake of her life. That was in 2018, when she says that a dentist explained to her that cutting the tissue under her tongue would help her jaw pain, gum recession, and occasional headaches. Her issues, he said, could be due to the fact that the back of her tongue couldn’t reach the roof of her mouth.

The Prophet of Nothingness

In Joy Williams’s 1988 novel, Breaking and Entering, a drifter named Willie finds himself, inexplicably and as if against his will, saving people. A young man is struck by lightning and Willie gives him CPR. An elderly couple drives off a boat ramp and Willie pulls the door open. Willie isn’t actively looking to help anyone; he just kind of falls into it. As Williams writes, “He had never had a penchant for the saving.

The Bends

When the doctor sliced open the body,
soft still to the touch, apprenticed
to expression, when the fleshwas pulled back between index and thumb
revealing the armor of breastbone,
imagine he who saw the heart froth,the heart bubble over like soda water.
Then think of grief leaving the body,
flitting like salt to the nearby sink,and joy like atoms joining in air
toward another living promise.

A Film That Draws You Into a Frightening—And Compelling—Psyche

In The Card Counter, William Tell (played by Oscar Isaac) keeps his emotions under strict control. He’s a poker player, and the slightest facial expression could give away his hand. William’s life is equally circumscribed: He travels around the country from casino to casino, subsisting on low-stakes games and doing nothing to draw attention to himself.

The Pentagon’s Army of Nerds

The Pentagon is not the most inviting place for first-time visitors, and it was no different for Chris Lynch. When he rode the escalator out of the Pentagon metro station, Lynch was greeted by guard dogs and security personnel wearing body armor and toting machine guns. He lost cell service upon entering the building and was forced to run through more than a half mile of hallways to make his meeting in the office of the secretary of defense.