Today's Liberal News

Buffalo Starbucks workers win historic union vote, this week in the war on workers

Starbucks workers in Buffalo made history this week by becoming the first in the U.S. to unionize at a corporate-operated store. Union representation elections were held at three Buffalo-area Starbucks stores, with three different results. Workers at the Elmwood Avenue store voted yes, 19 to eight. Workers at another store voted no by a 12 to eight margin, but the union is contesting that outcome, saying that some votes may not have been counted.

Market-Speak Is the Love Language on Succession

This article contains spoilers through the eighth episode of Succession Season 3.Last month, as fears about inflation filled the American news, Elon Musk sent out a tweet. “Due to inflation,” his brief missive went, “420 has gone up by 69.”Musk being Musk, the note caused a flurry of speculation.

Why the January 6 Investigation Is Weirdly Static

It was almost a year ago that rioters forced their way into the United States Capitol, smashing windows, threatening the lives of Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress, and aiming to overturn the results of a democratic election in order to keep Donald Trump in power. In the intervening months, the Justice Department has filed charges against more than 680 people out of the “approximately 2000” whom the FBI estimates were involved in the attack.

What Mark Meadows Is Learning the Hard Way

One of the emblematic phenomena of Donald Trump’s presidency was the weeks (or sometimes fortnights) of chaos, when it seemed like the administration was struck by a new crisis every day, like watching a Wile E. Coyote supercut, except occasionally with real ordnance.Trump is out of the White House, and those weeks of utter turmoil left when he did, but former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is having one of those stretches all on his own.

Now Is No Time to Raise Interest Rates

With year-to-year inflation now at 40-year highs, part of the debate is settled: Inflation is higher and longer-lasting than the Federal Reserve or the Biden administration expected. That they and so many other economists failed to anticipate the inflation we are seeing creates a worrying air of mystery.

Why Biden picked Powell

In the end, President Joe Biden did what many close to him expected: He took a longer-than-anticipated amount of time to arrive at a reasonable, moderate decision that thrilled few but carried limited risk.

How Europe’s “Shadow Immigration System” Pays Libyan Militias to Jail Migrants in Brutal Conditions

An explosive new investigation details how the European Union has created a shadow immigration system that captures migrants arriving from Africa before they reach Europe and sends them to brutal militia-run detention centers in Libya. “This is a climate migration story,” says Ian Urbina, investigative journalist and director of The Outlaw Ocean Project, who authored the report for The New Yorker magazine.

Conservatives want to ban abortion, while Build Back Better addresses the reasons people have them

Democrats are not necessarily pro-abortion: they are pro-choice and believe that abortion should be safe and legal. President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill supports that by including provisions that could help reduce unwanted pregnancies by expanding health care coverage for poor women and demand for abortions by expanding the social safety net to lower the cost of raising children.

Reddit and TikTok users clog job postings after Kellogg readies to replace striking union workers

Kellogg workers began striking outside of production plants in four cities (Battle Creek, Michigan.; Omaha, Nebraska; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee) back in early October. About 1,400 employees initially walked out of work after Kellogg and the union that represents them—The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM)—didn’t reach an agreement regarding a new work contract.

The Court Invites an Era of Constitutional Chaos

After weeks of waiting, the Supreme Court this morning finally allowed abortion providers’ challenge against Texas’s functional ban on abortion, S.B. 8, to go forward. But the win for abortion providers is not the sweeping victory that seemed likely when the Court heard oral argument on S.B. 8 in November—and even if legal abortions resume in Texas, any reprieve probably won’t last for long, because of another major abortion case, Dobbs v.

There Are More Than Two Sides to the Abortion Debate

Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.Earlier this week I curated some nuanced commentary on abortion and solicited your thoughts on the same subject. What follows includes perspectives from several different sides of the debate. I hope each one informs your thinking, even if only about how some other people think.We begin with a personal reflection.Cheryl was 16 when New York State passed a statute legalizing abortion and 19 when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

Diplomacy Alone Can’t Save Democracy

As Joe Biden convened his virtual Summit for Democracy this week, he warned that democratic erosion represents “the defining challenge of our time.” He isn’t wrong. Democracy is under siege, and this year has been marked by contested elections, coups, and autocratic brazenness. This was the fifth consecutive year in which the number of countries moving in the direction of authoritarianism outpaced those moving toward democracy.