Today's Liberal News

Hillary joins Rachel Maddow to discuss Ukraine and make us wish she’d been president

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened had Jim Comey kept his mouth shut prior to the 2016 election, and if Hillary Clinton were now in the second year of her second term. The House hearings on Mr. Potato Head would have been something, I’m sure. That said, it’s hard to believe we’d be in the position we’re in now, after four years of nearly unrestrained GOP Putin-enabling led by the li’l Russian marionette himself.

The Impossible Suddenly Became Possible

History has accelerated; the impossible has become possible. Shifts that no one imagined two weeks ago are unfolding with incredible speed.As it turns out, nations are not pieces in a game of Risk. They do not, as some academics have long imagined, have eternal interests or permanent geopolitical orientations, fixed motivations or predictable goals. Nor do human beings always react the way they are supposed to react.

Biden’s State of the Union Audience of One

Tonight, at his State of the Union address, Joe Biden plans to pivot to deficit reduction. The move seems designed to persuade just one guy—Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia—to sign on to parts of the president’s Build Back Better proposal.This new emphasis might give wonks and Hill staffers flashbacks.

Vladimir Putin United America

At some point during tonight’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden will likely denounce Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, voice support for the Ukrainian people, and tout the significant sanctions that he and U.S. allies in NATO have placed on Russia in response. When he finishes that sentence, most if not all members of the bitterly divided Congress will erupt in applause.

Journalist Andrew Cockburn & Historian Timothy Snyder on Ukraine, Russia, NATO Expansion & Sanctions

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, veteran journalist Andrew Cockburn and Yale historian Timothy Snyder discuss the history of the region and what role NATO’s expansion played in the current crisis. Cockburn says the United States and its allies broke promises made in the 1990s not to expand the military alliance into Eastern Europe, setting the stage for an eventual confrontation.

Ukrainian Pacifist in Kyiv: Reckless Militarization Led to This War. All Sides Must Recommit to Peace

Russia has escalated attacks against Ukraine, launching a missile strike hitting a government building and shelling civilian areas in Kharkiv, reportedly targeting civilians with cluster and thermobaric bombs, and killing more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers at a military base in Okhtyrka. Meanwhile, the U.S. rejected Ukrainian President Zelensky’s demand for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying it could lead to a war between the U.S. and Russia.

The Future of Ukraine

Listen and subscribe to Radio Atlantic: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher After years of threats, Russian forces invaded Ukraine—culminating in the largest attack against one European state by another since the Second World War. Global leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, widely condemned Russia’s actions and announced unprecedented sanctions aimed at a number of the country’s financial institutions and the Russian elite.

The Ukraine War Is Testing the Myth of Elon Musk

On Saturday, Ukraine’s vice prime minister made a plea for help directly to Elon Musk. “While you try to colonize Mars—Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space—Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people!” Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted. “We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations.

Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy: Announcing Summit From the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and The Atlantic

With democracies across the globe under assault, and as the world turns its attention to Russia’s war on Ukraine, the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and The Atlantic announced today that they will jointly host Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy, a three-day conference exploring the organized spread of disinformation and strategies to respond to it.

Putin Accidentally Revitalized the West’s Liberal Order

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a chorus of despair—beyond the cost in Ukrainian lives, the international order that the U.S. and its allies built after World War II is, we are told, crumbling. The writer Paul Kingsnorth has declared that the liberal order is already dead. The Indian journalist Rahul Shivshankar has argued that “in the ruins across Ukraine you will find the remains of Western arrogance.

Bill McKibben on Dire IPCC Climate Report & How Oil and Gas Are Fueling Putin’s Ukraine Invasion

We speak with climate author, journalist and movement leader Bill McKibben upon the release of the highly anticipated U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2022 report, which finds the impacts of the climate crisis are already worse than predicted, driving poverty, hunger, disease and species extinction. McKibben also speaks about how global dependency on oil and gas empowers autocrats like President Vladimir Putin and is helping fuel the Russian war in Ukraine.