In the news today: Top labor leader and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka has died at age 72. The Florida pandemic surge continues to hold national headlines. Conspiracy crank Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to make violence-stoking statements, this time with a suggestion that southerners use their “Second Amendment rights” against anyone “showing up” at their homes to promote vaccinations.
“We’re going to push back on the phony narrative that there was an insurrection,” Matt Braynard told former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
I get that writing for a living can be hard sometimes. It can be difficult to find a voice. Or a platform. Or any reason at all to remain an ink-stained wretch instead of, say, trying one’s hand at perpetual lighthouse-sitting.
Unless you’re Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, the pay is frequently low, the laurels few and far between, and the indignities often serial.
Don’t look now, but … August is fully upon us.
Normally, this month (August of an off-off year) would be chill as heck, but because Republicans are so desperate to cling to political power, statehouse action persists.
You Can’t Count On Me: Let’s be real—I just can’t responsibly write this missive without catching up on the GOP’s so-called election “audit” in Arizona’s Maricopa County.
Families forcibly separated at the southern border by the previous administration have already experienced trauma on top of trauma. Being ripped apart without so much as a chance to say goodbye. The months—often years—of separation. The danger that caused them to flee their homes in the first place.
Back in 2019, Illinois became first in the nation to ban private immigration detention facilities. Now, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law further legislation that effectively ends immigration detention in the state. The Illinois Way Forward Act mandates local jails end their contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by next year, and prohibits the renewal of any existing agreements.
Salesforce.com later denounced the violent attack on the Capitol. But it’s once again helping Trump raise money as he ramps up his lies about a “stolen” election.
Now that a Democrat is in the White House, the GOP is raising alarms about deficits after years of looking the other way under Trump.
The Atlantic Festival returns this September 22–24 and 27–30 for an expanded seven days of must-attend experiences and conversations––with virtual events happening live from Washington, D.C., and streamed to subscribers and audiences around the world. For the second year, The Atlantic is making all festival events free to access, and offering special benefits for subscribers. Ticketing is now open. Press should RSVP to press@theatlantic.com.
In an email to state Department of Justice workers, Attorney General Jeff Landry advised how to invoke the Bible to object to face masks in schools.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced an investigation into whether the Arizona city and its police department have violated civil rights laws.
As a skateboarder, I found the lead-up to this summer’s Olympics exhausting.
To squeeze as many of their priorities as possible in the budget resolution, lawmakers are discussing making some of the new health spending temporary.
It feels like every company and organization I’ve ever transacted with sends me email every week. Some every day, even. Some multiple times a day. My mortgage broker emails on my birthday and holidays. So does my dentist. Certain retailers email much more often. The home-furnishings company Room & Board is one of them, hoping I’ll upgrade to a lounge-worthy sectional or entreating me to meet artisanal glassblowers from Minnesota.
One year after the Beirut port explosion, a new Human Rights Watch report implicates senior Lebanese officials in the disaster that killed 218 people, wounded 7,000 others and destroyed vast swaths of the city. The blast on August 4, 2020, was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, whose district includes Minneapolis, says she supports a ballot initiative to abolish the city’s police department and replace it with a new “Department of Public Safety.” Local activists have already gathered tens of thousands of signatures for the move.
We speak with Minnesota Congressmember Ilhan Omar about her memoir “This Is What America Looks Like,” the Biden administration’s recent airstrikes in her birth country of Somalia and why the U.S. must remain a country of refuge for people fleeing war and poverty like she did. Omar adds that the Biden administration must stop enforcing Trump-era immigration rules that allow for expedited deportations of asylum seekers. “These policy choices have consequences.
Minnesota Congressmember Ilhan Omar was among the progressive Democrats who camped outside the U.S. Capitol to pressure the Biden administration into passing a new eviction moratorium after the previous moratorium lapsed July 31. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new two-month moratorium earlier in the week that covers areas of the country where there is “substantial” or “high” spread of the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, the National Fraternal Order of Police decided to “clear up confusion” about its position on the January 6 assault on the Capitol by enraged Donald Trump supporters. “Those who participated in the assaults, looting, and trespassing must be arrested and held to account,” it said in a statement.
I’m afraid she’s going to emasculate him, looking like this.
Is it too late to help my son facilitate friendships?
The Shiba Inu memes are howling—and it turns out they also have teeth.
How did Democrats overcome Republican intransigence in order to to take on one of their highest priorities?
Gov. Bill Lee, who grew up on his family’s ranch and refers to himself as a cattle farmer in his Twitter profile, has been far less enthusiastic about incentivizing herd immunity among humans.
Alligators have nothing on me.
“We’re not trying to hide this,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s executive director said.
Some economists have already begun to ease back on forecasts for the rest of this year.
The growth is another sign that the nation has achieved a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession.
A new wave of cases followed by the looming expiration of enhanced jobless benefits, a ban on evictions and other rescue programs is sparking concern among lawmakers and economists.
