Today's Liberal News

“The Second”: Carol Anderson on the Racist Roots of the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms

Do African Americans have Second Amendment rights? That’s the question Emory University professor Carol Anderson set out to answer in her new book, “The Second,” which looks at the constitutional right to bear arms and its uneven application throughout U.S. history. She says she was prompted to write the book after the 2016 police killing of Philando Castile, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop after he told the officer he had a legal firearm.

News Roundup: Manchin, and Pence, and DeSantis, oh my, along with continued attacks on Fauci

In the news today: Sen. Joe Manchin, the slowest learner in the Senate, seems to think Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has learned his lesson and there should be another vote on the Jan. 6 commission. Because unicorns. Former Vice President Mike Pence agrees that he and Donald Trump will never “see eye to eye” on that whole insurrectionist mob that wanted to hang him thing.

The right-wing indoctrination machine sets its sights on kindergarteners

Republicans are currently obsessed with young kids. I don’t mean in the Matt Gaetz way, I mean as far as attacking kids’ toys, books, and programs. The GOP recently and publicly lost it over Dr. Seuss books and Mr. Potato Head. Tucker Carlson claimed that the Sesame Street character Elmo teaches kids to hate America, and he’s not the only one who hates Big Bird.

Biden administration teams with six humanitarian groups to admit up to 250 asylum-seekers a day

As calls for immigration reform continue, the Biden administration has teamed up with six humanitarian groups to admit up to 250 asylum-seekers a day until July 31. According to NBC News, the groups have been tasked with recommending which migrants should be allowed to stay in the country, as opposed to being rapidly removed under the federal pandemic-related orders that blocked individuals from seeking asylum.

In fast-diversifying Texas city, Republicans are laying off ‘cancel culture’ to win mayor’s race

Tarrant County Democratic party Chair Deborah Peoples will face Mattie Parker, a former chief of staff to outgoing Mayor Betsy Price, in a runoff election on Saturday to be the next mayor of Texas’ fifth largest city. Peoples led Parker 34-31 in the first round of voting on May 1.

The race has attracted attention from some of the biggest names in Texas politics, as Peoples has picked up support from Democratic Reps.

Facebook Won’t Talk About the Insurrection

Facebook has responded to last month’s much-hyped decision regarding the platform’s removal of Donald Trump. The former president will not be allowed to return, the company said, until January 7, 2023—two years from the date of his original suspension. This is arguably a very long time, as well as arguably no time at all. It feels more like the latter if you consider when the 2024 presidential hopefuls are likely to be announcing their candidacies.

The 2001 Album That Captured Modern Dread

Whenever someone disses agnosticism as pointless, bleak, or weak, Radiohead’s 2001 song “I Might Be Wrong” starts playing in my head. A guitar riff conveys all the tension of a bar that’s about to erupt into a brawl. Thom Yorke sings, in his meekest mumble, “I used to think there was no future left at all.

The Books Briefing: Works That Chart New Queer Narratives

In A Little Life, a novel by the author Hanya Yanagihara, the tone is exaggerated, almost melodramatic. But the book brings nuance to a key realm—its portrayal of queerness—as its four protagonists each arrive at complex understandings of their sexuality.Indeed the best works of queer literature create space for this complexity. For example, the critic Andrea Long Chu questions simplistic narratives about trans identity in Females, which itself resists genre characterization.

“Disaster Patriarchy”: V (Eve Ensler) on How the Pandemic Has Unleashed a War on Women

The pandemic has led to a sharp rise in gender-based violence, job losses in female-dominated industries, greater parenting duties for mothers, and other pressures that primarily fall on women around the world. These effects amount to a kind of “disaster patriarchy” in which “men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance and rapidly erase the hard-earned rights of women,” says V, the artist and activist formerly known as Eve Ensler.

U.S. Finally Offers to Send Vaccines Abroad, But Lack of Global Plan Leaves Poorer Nations in Crisis

The Biden administration on Thursday announced that the U.S. will donate 25 million surplus doses of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries, pledging to donate a total of 80 million doses by July. Economist Jeffrey Sachs says rich countries have enough production capacity to speed up vaccine distribution and immunize the whole world within the next year. “There’s massive supply, but there’s no plan for allocation,” he says.

Where Gender-Neutral Pronouns Come From

On a frigid January day, Ella Flagg Young—the first woman to serve as superintendent of the Chicago public-school system—took the stage in front of a room of school principals and announced that she had come up with a new solution to an old problem. “I have simply solved a need that has been long impending,” she said.

The App That Monetized Doing Nothing

Photographs by Sarah JohnsonAcathedral-like mountain towers above me; a lake laps at my feet; sunshine distilled through pine needles warms my skin. Close your eyes, a voice intones. Let your shoulders fall naturally and keep your chest open. Take a few full, deep breaths to settle into this moment, inhaling deeply and slowly releasing your breath, allowing any tension you may be holding to soften. Fifteen minutes later, the voice asks me to bring my attention back to the room.