Today's Liberal News

‘They can row home’: Russian oligarch’s yacht is stranded because Norwegians refuse to refuel it

Vladimir Putin’s fatal error was assuming everyone in the United States was as weak, venal, oafish, and self-aggrandizing as Donald Trump, when in reality no more than half of us are. Of course, if you’d spent more time around Trump and Steven Seagal than with almost any other American, you’d probably think you could buy off the country for a G.I. Joe Cobra kimono and a jumbo tub of Cool Ranch-flavored Crisco.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame just issued a public statement in response to Dolly Parton’s rejection

Earlier this week, Daily Kos covered Dolly Parton’s endearing, humble statement in which she said she respectfully declined the opportunity to be considered for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Turns out it’s too late for Parton’s withdrawal. Thursday, the organization responded by telling the general public that about 1,200 ballots have already gone out to voters—and her name is on them, according to The Washington Post.

Nearly two years after the 2020 uprisings, the war on Black lives continues

by Cat Brooks

This article was originally published at Prism.

On March 13, 2020, 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was asleep with her partner Kenneth Walker when they were startled awake by three white Louisville, Kentucky, police officers breaking down their door during a no-knock warrant raid. The medical technician was killed, and her home was never searched. No one has been held accountable.

Schwarzenegger is immensely popular in Russia. Watch him address fans about the war in Ukraine

On Thursday, former California Governor and action-movie hero Arnold Schwarzenegger recorded a video and put it out “through various different channels,” in hopes of reaching some of the Russian citizens who are likely unable to get news outside of Putin-sanctioned war propaganda. Schwarzenegger, popular around the world as a real-life muscle-bound superhero, does have an appeal that’s hard to pin down.

I Have a Message for My Russian Friends

I have a message for my Russian friends, and for the Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine: There are things going on in the world that have been kept from you, terrible things that you should know about. But before I tell you about the harsh realities, let me tell you about the Russian who became my hero.In 1964, when I was 14 years old, I had the chance to attend the World Weightlifting Championships in Vienna.

Another COVID Wave Is Looming

About three weeks ago, COVID case rates in the United Kingdom made an abrupt about-face, spurred on by a more transmissible Omicron subvariant called BA.2. (So far, there is no reason to believe the new subvariant causes more severe disease.) Case rates are rising, too, in Switzerland and Greece and Monaco and Italy and France. Given that BA.

Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now

This article has been adapted from the introduction to The Folio Society’s new edition of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism.So much of what we imagine to be new is old; so many of the seemingly novel illnesses that afflict modern society are really just resurgent cancers, diagnosed and described long ago. Autocrats have risen before; they have used mass violence before; they have broken the laws of war before.

Only NATO Can Save Putin

Sign up for Tom’s newsletter, Peacefield, here.Russian President Vladimir Putin is in trouble. Despite his limited gains on the ground in Ukraine, he is facing strategic defeat in a war that no one (including me) would have expected him to lose. The vaunted Russian army has turned out to be a hollow force whose major skill sets seem to be bullying its own conscripts and killing foreign civilians.

U.S. Accuses Russia of Using Cluster Bombs in Ukraine as Both Refuse to Endorse International Ban

President Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal for the first time Wednesday for atrocities in Ukraine, as the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on whether Russian forces have been using cluster munitions in populated areas in Ukraine. Cluster bombs explode in midair and spew hundreds of smaller “bomblets.” The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said their use in Ukraine may amount to war crimes.

Syrian Activist Condemns Russia for Targeting Civilians & Hospitals from Aleppo to Mariupol

As the war in Ukraine enters its fourth week, Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have increasingly attacked civilian areas to pound Ukrainian cities into submission, a strategy Russia has employed to devastating effect in Syria, where the Russian Air Force has bombed many cities to rubble in an effort to support the government of Bashar al-Assad since entering the war in 2015.

“Shocking Act of Bloodletting”: Saudi Arabia Executes 81 as West Asks Kingdom to Increase Oil Output

The U.S. is refusing to directly condemn Saudi Arabia after the kingdom announced on Saturday it executed 81 people, including seven Yemeni men and one Syrian man. Rights groups say many of those executed were people arrested for participating in human rights demonstrations and that many of the defendants were denied access to a lawyer, held incommunicado and tortured. This comes as the U.S.

Ukraine update: Zelenskyy addresses Congress; Putin vows purge of disloyal Russians

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a virtual address to the United States Congress today, a key portion of which was video footage of the devastation caused by Russian attacks—and the many, many civilians now injured or dead. Zelenskyy again asked the United States to intervene directly in the war with the imposition of a military “no-fly” zone.

Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to fight for kids’ ‘right to choose’ chocolate milk at school. No, really

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik—the third-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives—has at last captured the national zeitgeist! Americans aren’t worried about Ukraine, the economy, creeping fascism here and abroad, COVID-19, or any of the other stories the lamestream media keep pushing. The brutal truth is that most people are concerned about the continued availability of calorie-dense refined sugar in schools!

Seriously.