Today's Liberal News

“A Pivotal Change”: Economist Darrick Hamilton on What the Build Back Better Act Could Accomplish

Democrats in Washington remain divided over two key bills at the center of President Biden’s domestic agenda: a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $1.85 trillion Build Back Better plan, which has been cut down from $3.5 trillion. Even though Biden’s latest framework is almost half the size of the original proposal, conservative Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are still refusing to commit to its passage.

Trump can be prosecuted for inaction during Jan. 6 insurrection, says legal scholar

For most of us, it’s an article of faith that Donald Trump is responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection, regardless of Republican sentators’ refusal to vote for a conviction in his second impeachment. But a prominent legal scholar believes there’s another way to hold Trump to account for that day’s horror. He believes that Trump can be prosecuted not for what he did that day, but for what he didn’t do.

Qualified immunity remains intact, but legal activists keep trying to chip away at it

by Aria Velasquez

This story was originally published at Prism.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled again in favor of law enforcement officers invoking qualified immunity in cases of excessive use of force. Based on a pair of 2016 cases from Oklahoma and California, the decisions were handed down without the court hearing oral arguments or any sign of dissent from the justices.

If Silence Is the Cost of Great Ramen, So Be It

NAGOYA, Japan—Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables. I am sitting in a cardboard cubicle at a counter inside a ramen shop, rehearsing my order in my head over and over again. My sister is in the next cubicle over—all I can see is the top of her head—and later I will learn that she is doing the exact same thing.

Nobody Can See Into Facebook

The overarching takeaway from the Facebook Papers is that Facebook knows. The company monitors just about everything, as the whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed by providing 17 news organizations with documents about the social-media company’s internal research and discussions. Facebook and its tech-industry peers employ armies of exceptional research scientists who evaluate how the platform shapes social behavior.