Today's Liberal News

The Global Climate Wall: Wealthy Nations Prioritize Militarizing Borders Over Climate Action

The world’s richest countries have responded by militarizing their borders and treating the humanitarian crisis as a security issue. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg attended this year’s U.N. climate summit, marking the first time a top alliance leader came to the climate talks since they began. On Tuesday, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at COP26 raised the issue of security during a press conference.

This Will Set Africa on Fire: Nnimmo Bassey of Nigeria Blasts Progress of Talks at U.N. Climate Summit

Today a draft agreement at COP26 was released, calling on nations to accelerate the phasing out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies and make pledges to cut emissions by the end of 2022. The draft also urges wealthy nations to “urgently scale-up” financial support for developing countries to help them adapt to the climate crisis. This comes as a new report by the group Climate Action Tracker estimates world temperatures are on track to rise by 2.

The One Thanksgiving Necessity America Forgot to Stock

A couple weeks ago at my local CVS, I spied them in the wild for the very first time—Abbott BinaxNOWs, currently America’s most sought-after rapid, at-home coronavirus test, piled neatly behind the counter.With the fall and winter holidays on the way, I figured it was a good opportunity to stock up. But after I asked for a few tests to cover my multi-person household, the pharmacist plucked just a single box off the stack.

Hollywood Has Forgotten What a Good Action Movie Looks Like

If you assembled a focus group of frequent moviegoers and asked them to describe the elements of a good action film, they’d probably come up with something along the lines of Red Notice. The star-laden blockbuster, which is dropping on Netflix this week, features three A-list names, all in familiar roles: Dwayne Johnson as a tough FBI agent, Ryan Reynolds as a motormouthed art thief, and Gal Gadot as a mysterious criminal who forces the two men to team up against her.

The Right’s Total Loss of Proportion

You can tell a lot about a group of people by what makes them angry.Consider the furious way many conservatives are reacting to the passage last week of a $1 trillion infrastructure bill backed by President Joe Biden—and then compare it with their reaction to the January 6 insurrection.[Peter Wehner: Republicans own this insurrection]After some House progressives refused to vote for the package, Speaker Nancy Pelosi relied on 13 Republicans to help eke the plan through.

News Roundup: House Republican promotes clip showing him ‘killing’ a Democrat

In the news today: No matter how grotesque the behavior of House Republicans has gotten—or how dangerous—they continue to have the apparent full support of their party leaders. Ever-odious Rep. Paul Gosar was nearly giddy in promoting a new animated clip depicting him attacking and killing a fellow member of Congress; that sort of thing would get you fired and quite possibly arrested in any other workplace in America.

Rocker Van Morrison is the latest celebrity to land in hot water over irresponsible COVID-19 claims

It can be tough to separate the art from the artist, particularly when the artist has separated his own brain stem from his cerebral cortex. Such is the case with Irish rock legend Van Morrison, who’s embraced the COVID-19 death cult with the kind of vigor Donald Trump might embrace a big slab of rotisserie gyro meat in the bathroom stall of a Coney Island Greek restaurant at 3 AM on a random Tuesday.

I love the smell of Republican recriminations in the morning

In the final vote count for the so-called “bipartisan” infrastructure bill now sailing towards President Joe Biden’s desk to become the law of the land, there were six Democratic “no” votes—all from a subset of House Democrats who Fox News considers equally interchangeable whenever it’s time to demonize the Democratic Party. They were Reps.

Mitch McConnell’s daughter tweeted about the need to pass the Voting Rights Act

The Washington Post has published a quasi-profile of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It is a halfhearted attempt at pretending that the man who led the Republican Party to do nothing except deregulate and lower taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations while fostering the rabid bigotry of a disenfranchisement-fearing white voter base (which led to electing Donald Trump) is somehow in a weird place now.

The Senate has to act soon to fix the FTC’s zombie problem

As chair of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee, Sen. Maria Cantwell has a lot of work to do on nominations and not much time to do it. There are several weeks of purely concentrated hell before the Senate, starting when they return next week (they’re taking this week off) and then resuming again after they take the Thanksgiving week off.

Parental Leave Is American Exceptionalism at Its Bleakest

American exceptionalism can sometimes be quite bleak: The United States is the only wealthy country in the world without a national program for paid parental leave.The U.S.’s best chance yet of giving up this dismal distinction might be slipping away. The $1.

The Republicans’ Dangerous New Tactic

Updated at 9:34 p.m. ET on November 9, 2021.About six hours after the polls closed on Election Day, the Associated Press made a call in the close race for Virginia governor: Democrat Terry McAuliffe had lost. McAuliffe conceded Wednesday morning, when it became clear he had no realistic path to victory.The same has not happened in New Jersey, where the Democratic incumbent, Phil Murphy, defeated the Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman.

Julian Assange’s Fiancée: U.K. Blocking Our Attempt to Marry While He Is Tortured in Belmarsh Prison

Stella Moris, partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, says British authorities have so far blocked attempts for her and Assange to marry while he is being held in Belmarsh prison. Supporters have also raised concerns Assange has become suicidal. “They are killing him. If he dies, it is because they are killing him,” Moris says. “They are torturing him to death.