Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Biden administration goes on the offensive; lessons from the pandemic

It’s Friday! The Biden administration continues its work of trying to fix the last guy’s mess while moving us into a future where we don’t rely on rich benefactors to get women medical care and dead dinosaurs to power our cars. This week was also a reminder that Jeff Yang always was (and remains) most interested in helping Jeff Yang. In spooky news, another version of Scott Walker walks among us! 

Here is some of what you may have missed.

GOP’s open assault on election workers is having the intended effect

If we lose our democracy, the biggest crime will be the fact that we could see exactly what was happening and did absolutely nothing to stop it. While I’m thrilled Democrats are doing the bare minimum of governance that they should have done last year, such as COVID-19 legislation and infrastructure spending, our leadership seems to be woefully underestimating the open assault on our democracy happening in a number of Republican-controlled states.

Sean Spicer freaks out over removal from military advisory board, vows to sue

From where I stand, Sean Spicer appears qualified for nothing. He’s best known, of course, for serving as the first of four White House press secretaries under Donald Trump, for whom he brazenly lied in one of his first official acts on the job. If he’s known for anything else, it would be having Melissa McCarthy channel his demented Chucky Doll soul in an Emmy-winning guest turn on Saturday Night Live.

NY deputy mayor arrested after raid turns up ‘arsenal’ of weapons and fake IDs

The 47-year-old deputy mayor of Airmont, NY, is facing 30 state and federal criminal charges. Last week, Brian Downey was arrested on weapons charges after law enforcement found illegal weapons and fake IDs in his home. NPR reports that a raid of Downey’s home turned up “16 assault weapons and 13 silencers,” as well as “a stash of fake federal IDs, including FBI credentials.

Missouri teacher resigns after school district ordered him to remove Pride flag from classroom

There are countless valid reasons to be concerned about students, teachers, and other staff returning to in-person classrooms here in the United States. Mask mandates are all over the place, children under the age of 12 aren’t yet eligible for the vaccine, and both students and staff may be immunocompromised or live with folks who are particularly vulnerable to the virus.

Don’t Believe the Salad Millionaire

Jonathan Neman really seemed to think he was onto something. Last week, in a lengthy, now-deleted post on LinkedIn, the CEO and co-founder of the upscale salad chain Sweetgreen expounded on a topic that might seem a little far afield for a restaurant executive: how to end the pandemic. “No vaccine nor mask will save us,” he wrote. (The vaccines, it should be noted, have so far proved to be near-miraculously effective at saving those who get them.

How 9/11 Changed What Americans Laugh At

A now-familiar joke that started circulating within the first year or two after September 11, 2001, goes like this:
“Knock-knock!”
“Who’s there?
“9/11.”
“9/11 who?”
“You promised you’d never forget.”
The punch line, of course, refers to the refrain that became ubiquitous in the United States following the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and shattered the country.

What’s the Most Crucial Part of the Clinton Affair?

If you’re in the mood for ’90s nostalgia, the first episode of Impeachment: American Crime Story is a scrunchie-wearing, SlimFast-drinking, Jane magazine–reading coast down memory lane. It has shopping malls and step-aerobics classes and pagers and the Gap, where Monica Lewinsky bought a sapphire-blue collared dress that would become one of that decade’s most defining emblems.

A Strategy of Confusion

On the verge of a landmark victory by judicial fiat, the Republican Party is being strangely quiet.As my colleague David Graham has written, Republican Party leaders and conservative intellectuals haven’t been trumpeting the Supreme Court’s decision to allow a Texas ban on abortions to go forward, which for women in the state has all but nullified the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed the right to an abortion.

The Books Briefing: The Uneasy Place of Politics in Fiction

In Sally Rooney’s novels, idealistic college students espouse Marxism despite never having read any of the ideology’s foundational texts; they advocate for radicalism while keeping up their grades and wrestling with deeply traditional romantic desires. They are startlingly realistic—but their role as political actors is much fuzzier. Indeed Rooney has long been criticized as insufficiently political.

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.