Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Idaho GOP embraces antisemitism; ‘bogus’ academy highlights charter school mess

In the news today: The decay of the Republican Party into an anti-science, pro-hoax, violence-peddling, virus-promoting cult is a national issue, but that still doesn’t explain whatever’s been happening in Idaho. A man placed in solitary confinement for over a year is the first to use new law to sue over his treatment. And if you didn’t know the nation’s charter schools were a mess? The nation’s charter schools are a mess.

Introduction to fact-checking: What do you do when peer pressure challenges the truth?

Which of these lines of asterisks is longest?

Line One:  *********************************

Line Two:  ***************************************************

Line Three:  ******************
.

No one is watching you. No one has any idea which line you pick.

Knowing the answer under these circumstances is one thing.

Standing by your answer regardless of what others say is a completely different thing.

The Comfortable Crises of HBO’s Succession

As Season 3 of Succession begins, the mighty Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) is in the crosshairs. His son Kendall (Jeremy Strong) has exposed the family patriarch’s involvement in covering up a litany of scandals at their company, Waystar Royco, calling him “a malignant presence, a bully, and a liar.” The impulsive decision could be fatal for the media conglomerate, potentially attracting the attention of the government and affecting every employee.

Revelations about bogus academy prove charter schools need better oversight

A lot of people in the Donald Trump administration had qualifications so questionable that they had us wondering, “What are they doing there?” That question was especially loud when it came to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. In case you don’t recall, DeVos had no background whatsoever in education and no real concept of what her department was supposed to do.

GOP congressman seems unaware of how unemployment insurance works, so Ocasio-Cortez helps him out

Tim Burchett is an actual U.S. representative from the state of Tennessee, and he apparently has no idea how unemployment insurance (UI) works. As in, we don’t (very rarely, anyway) pay people who quit their jobs. The people who are quitting are frequently applying early for Social Security and/or living off whatever savings they managed to claw back from the hulking dragon hoard of our oh-so-magnanimous cabal of hardly working plutocrats.

Nuts & Bolts: Apathy is always at risk

Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about. With the help of other campaign workers and notes, we address how to improve and build better campaigns or explain how we can improve our party.

Every election cycle we sort through the pressing issues of the day. One issue that never changes is apathy.

The Loosest, Funniest SNL of the Season So Far

When a Saturday Night Live host really commits to the job, even a sketch with a simple premise can feel surprising. Consider last night’s “Mattress Store,” in which Rami Malek, the show’s latest celebrity guest, and cast member Aidy Bryant play a couple searching for the right mattress by enacting every over-the-top scenario they might encounter in bed.

I Learn to Shoot a Bow

Lisa Edi / Connected Archives
         It is no River Jordan that flows here
between the railroad tracks and the back porch.
It’s a canal. Not unlike my mother:
low as it want to be and fullest when
it rains. Existing for however long
without a name, and flowing
under a timber bridge that we built. We built that.
Isn’t that our story? To be denied
the beginning. I cross the bridge to shoot
a sapling bow my grandfather has carved.

Is Biden Doing Enough to Protect Democracy?

As a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer in the early 2000s, I once received a call from a couple of Republican campaign operatives who said they had something to show me. We met at their office in Washington, D.C., a few days later. They presented printouts of recent election records and pointed to a few cases of what they suspected were people voting illegally. One after another, their examples of voter fraud turned out to be nothing.

How Rage Can Battle Racism

When we think of love, we recognize its varieties. Philia, brotherly love. Eros, romantic love. Agape, universal love. Conditional and unconditional love, requited and unrequited love, love for virtue and love for vice. Our awareness of these different kinds of love not only allows us to perceive its varied forms; it also gives us adequate information to approve or disapprove of a particular type.

“Long March for Justice” Underway Across New Jersey to Demand Police Reform, Reparations

We get an update from New Jersey, where the People’s Organization for Progress is leading a 67-mile march to demand the state Legislature pass legislation to hold police accountable. The nine-day march wraps up Saturday, and activists are demanding passage of a state policy that would give police review boards subpoena power, ban and criminalize chokeholds, establish requirements for use of deadly force and end qualified immunity in New Jersey.

A Death Trap? As 12th Prisoner Dies at NYC’s Rikers Island, Calls Grow to Close World’s Largest Jail

We take an in-depth look at the growing humanitarian crisis at the world’s largest jail complex, Rikers Island in New York City. After touring the jail, New York City Public Advocate ​​Jumaane Williams describes it as “a disaster.” In response to mounting public pressure, most of the women and transgender people at Rikers are being transferred to two prisons, including a maximum-security facility, even as most are still awaiting trial.

“People vs. Fossil Fuels”: Over 530 Arrested in Historic Indigenous-Led Climate Protests in D.C.

This week over 530 climate activists were arrested during Indigenous-led civil disobedience actions in Washington, D.C., calling on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and stop approving fossil fuel projects. Indigenous leaders have issued a series of demands, including the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whose offices they occupied on Thursday for the first time since the 1970s. The protests come just weeks before the start of the critical U.N.

The Nation’s John Nichols: Trump’s Coup Nearly Succeeded. He Will Try Again in 2024

As the House committee probing the January 6 attack on the Capitol ramps up its investigation, new details continue to emerge about former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in the White House despite losing the 2020 election. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently revealed Trump directly asked the Justice Department nine times for help overturning the election.

Community Spotlight: This story doesn’t need a trigger warning but it will help you write one

There’s been a lot of talk, on Daily Kos and elsewhere, about content warnings. Also referred to as “trigger warnings,” they send a quick signal to prepare your readers for what’s to come. Trigger warnings are not performative activism games intended to coddle fragility, or a means of short-circuiting discussion of uncomfortable topics. Instead, think of them as a way to avoid provoking serious trouble, like labels identifying food allergens at a potluck dinner.