Today's Liberal News

Biden administration, allies contemplate next actions as Russia masses troops on Ukraine border

If you are unsure about what is happening along the Ukraine-Russia border, congratulations: You have something in common with countless foreign policy experts watching what’s happening along the Ukraine-Russia border. Russian tanks and troops are massing on the border in numbers not seen since the 2014 Russian seizure and occupation of Crimea, but the true intent of the buildup is not clear.

Remembering LaDonna Brave Bull Allard: Standing Rock Elder Helped Lead 2016 Anti-DAPL Uprising

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian, has died of cancer at the age of 64, and we look back on her work, through interviews on her land and in the Democracy Now! studio. Allard co-founded the Sacred Stone Camp on Standing Rock Sioux land in April 2016 to resist the Dakota Access pipeline, to which people from around the world traveled, making it one of the largest gatherings of Indigenous peoples in a century. “We say mni wiconi, water of life.

Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General Turned Fierce Critic of U.S. Militarism, Dies at Age 93

Former U.S. attorney general and longtime human rights lawyer Ramsey Clark has died at the age of 93, and we look back on his life. Clark was credited as being a key architect of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. He served as attorney general from 1967 to 1969, during which time he ordered a moratorium on federal executions and opposed J. Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“We Need to Give the Workers a Fair Shot”: Jane McAlevey on What Went Wrong in Amazon Union Vote

Labor organizer and scholar Jane McAlevey says there were many warning signs that the historic Amazon union drive in Bessemer, Alabama, would fail. Workers at the Amazon warehouse voted overwhelmingly against forming a union after a months-long vote by mail, with Amazon using widespread intimidation and misinformation to undermine the effort. But McAlevey says organizers made a number of missteps in their campaign and didn’t do enough to engage workers in the warehouse.

Amazon “Broke the Law”: Union Seeks New Election After Alabama Warehouse Organizing Drive Fails

The largest union drive in the history of Amazon has ended with the company on top. After a months-long battle, 738 workers at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse voted to unionize, and 1,798 voted no. Ballots from another 505 workers were challenged, mostly by Amazon. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union that led the drive says Amazon illegally interfered in the vote, and it plans to file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

How to Stop the Minority-Rule Doom Loop

President Joe Biden came into office facing four “converging crises”: COVID-19, climate change, racial justice, and the economy. But after a few weeks of fast action on a pandemic relief plan, a fifth crisis will determine the fate of the rest of his administration, and perhaps that of American democracy itself: the minority-rule doom loop, by which predominantly white conservatives gain more and more power, even as they represent fewer Americans.

America Needs More Luxury Housing, Not Less

Sandy Carson / GalleryStock
If you were intentionally designing a development to spark a NIMBY backlash, you might come up with something that looks a lot like 10 Clay. A brand new building located in Seattle’s formerly industrial Belltown neighborhood, it adheres to a modern aesthetic of poured concrete, muted tones, and floor-to-ceiling windows. True to form, the website for 10 Clay celebrates amenities such as granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.

“Return the National Parks to the Tribes” —May issue makes a forceful moral case that the jewels of America’s landscape should belong to America’s original peoples.

“The idea of a virgin American wilderness—an Eden untouched by humans and devoid of sin—is an illusion. The national parks are sometimes called ‘America’s best idea,’ and there is much to recommend them. They are indeed awesome places, worthy of reverence and preservation, as Native Americans like me would be the first to tell you.

Nancy Reagan’s Real Role in the AIDS Crisis

Updated at 2:24 p.m. ET on April 12, 2021.In mid-1981 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control noticed a set of medical curiosities: an alert from Los Angeles that five previously healthy young men had come down with a rare, fatal lung infection; almost simultaneously, a dermatologist in New York saying that he had seen a cluster of unusually aggressive cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma, an obscure skin cancer. These seemingly unconnected occurrences had two things in common.