Today's Liberal News

Big Business Is Bankrolling an Effort to Kill the Democratic Climate Bill

Four years ago, when President Donald Trump announced that he would take the United States out of the Paris Agreement, the world’s largest companies leapt into action.Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, personally beseeched Trump to remain in the pact. Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, resigned from a White House advisory council in protest. Goldman Sachs’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, sent his first-ever tweet just to denounce the exit. Within days, hundreds of U.S.

Did Pfizer Peak Too Soon?

The Delta variant’s arrival this summer delivered a blow to the nation’s entire coronavirus arsenal, but its impact on the champion of last year’s vaccine race—Pfizer—has been particularly humbling. Compared with Moderna’s competing shot, Pfizer’s vaccine seems to induce half the amount of virus-fighting antibodies, and is associated with nearly twice as many breakthrough infections, according to two recent studies.

Colleagues of Michael Ratner Blast Samuel Moyn’s Claim That He Helped Sanitize the “War on Terror”

Friends and relatives of the late radical attorney Michael Ratner respond to the recent controversy over Yale University professor Samuel Moyn’s claim that Ratner “prioritized making the war on terror humane” by using the courts to challenge the military’s holding of prisoners at Guantánamo. Ratner’s longtime colleagues blast Moyn for failing to recognize how the late attorney had dedicated his life to fighting war and U.S. imperialism.

Don’t Pursue War, Pursue War Crimes: Michael Ratner’s Decades-Long Battle to Close Guantánamo

We look at the life and legacy of the late Michael Ratner, the trailblazing human rights lawyer and former president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, with three people who knew him well: Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Vince Warren, the organization’s executive director; and ​​Lizzy Ratner, Ratner’s niece and a senior editor at The Nation magazine.

The Democratic Agenda Isn’t Dead Yet

The Democrats, you may have heard, are in disarray. President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have sunk to new lows, and his expansive economic agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill. Opposition from progressives forced House leaders to scrap a planned vote Thursday on the president’s lone bipartisan success in the Senate, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. That failure, and the ensuing finger-pointing, threatens to drive the party’s warring wings even further apart.

News Roundup: Manchin still Manchining; new Jan. 6 subpoenas; Alabama chooses prisons over pandemic

In the news today: A federal shutdown was avoided as Congress agreed to keep the government funded until December, but the debt ceiling fight still looms. Meanwhile, it’s Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema versus Democrats (and global weather patterns), yet again. The House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection blasted out nearly a dozen new subpoenas focused on how Trump’s mob of violent deplorables assembled.

Daily Kos mobilizes Arizonans to call Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: “You work for us. Not corporations.”

Congress is close to passing the historic and popular Build Back Better Act, but two Senate Democrats are standing in the way: Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema  and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin. 

Manchin has at least been specific about some of his concerns, and represents a deep-red state where the politics are more difficult. But Sinema has been infuriatingly vague, and represents a state that voted for Joe Biden and is trending blue. She really has no excuse.

Maskless audience scolds masked dad after he’s attacked by unmasked man right in front of them

At this point in facing the novel coronavirus pandemic, it sometimes feels like nothing enrages parents like mask-wearing requirements for students. Given that classrooms are generally inside, most students are too young to get vaccinated, and teachers may be immunocompromised or otherwise unable to get vaccinated themselves, it makes perfect sense that if you want your child or teenager to attend in-person school, they need to mask up.

Biden admin announces program providing legal aid to asylum-seeking kids in number of cities

The Biden administration has announced a new policy that is set to provide government-funded legal help to vulnerable asylum-seeking children in a number of U.S. cities, BuzzFeed News reports. This is a significant initiative: Unlike in criminal court, people in immigration court aren’t guaranteed an attorney. This includes most unaccompanied children, who have had to appear in court alone.

‘Step it up’: Chicago teachers demand mayor stop ignoring West Side after two COVID-19 parent deaths

Two mothers with children at the same Chicago Public Schools site have died of COVID-19 after 11 of 17 of the classrooms at Jensen Elementary School were in quarantine due to reported cases of the virus, according to the Chicago Teachers Union.

“Both mothers had children sent home from quarantined Jensen classrooms,” the union wrote on its website Tuesday. “One mother complained bitterly on social media that she was never contacted by a contact tracer.

Rubio: ‘There Is Something Called Personal Responsibility in This Country’

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our coverage of The Atlantic Festival. Learn more and watch festival sessions here. Despite the whirlwind in Washington this week, Marco Rubio isn’t worried—at least for his own party. As of now, Democrats have reached a deal to stave off a government shutdown until December, but they still need to prevent another crisis: a first-ever default on the national debt.

Hillary Clinton: ‘We Are in the Middle of a Constitutional Crisis’

Editor’s Note: This article is part of our coverage of The Atlantic Festival. Learn more and watch festival sessions here.Hillary Clinton can draw a straight line from her duels with conservative media and Republican politicians in the 1990s to the January 6 insurrection—and she fears worse is coming. “There’s always been a kind of paranoid streak in American politics,” the former secretary of state told Atlantic staff writer Jennifer Senior.

Missing White Woman Syndrome: Media Obsess Over Some Cases as Black, Brown & Indigenous Women Ignored

Wall-to-wall coverage of the case of Gabby Petito — a 22-year-old white woman and blogger who went missing while traveling with her fiancé Brian Laundrie and whose remains were found in a national park in Wyoming — has renewed attention on what some call “missing white woman syndrome,” the media’s inordinate focus on white female victims and the disparity in coverage for women of color.