The Past Year Has Been a Small Nightmare of Recurring Charges
It’s time to see if you can cancel your gym membership
Today's Liberal News
In Mississippi and New York City, leaders fight to overcome vaccine obstacles
“We need to educate folks,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said.
My Greatest Sexual Fantasy Is Finally Within My Grasp—but, Uh, There’s a Problem
Please tell me what to put where.
Help! My Husband Is Trying to Blackmail Me Into an Open Marriage.
Advice about marriage, polyamory, and more.
Biden’s spending plans collide with a resurgent U.S. economy
The numbers signal the U.S. is well on its way toward a revival, one that’s widely expected to reach record levels of growth later this year.
‘Crazy things happen’: Biden’s next spending spree fuels a fight over risks
The president’s team is preparing a $3 trillion spending proposal to power through Congress. They’re betting markets and the economy will cooperate long enough to pass it.
Black workers, hammered by pandemic, now being left behind in recovery
Structural inequities in the U.S. labor market that have affected Black and Hispanic workers’ ability to advance out of low-paying jobs, as well as discrimination in hiring practices, are also likely having an effect.
Fed sees U.S. economic growth surging to 6.5 percent this year
Central bank officials now expect the unemployment rate to drop to 4.5 percent by the end of 2021.
Treasury secretary minimizes risk of inflation caused by Covid relief package
Janet Yellen said the greater risk was not strengthening the economy as it recovers from the impact of the pandemic.
Brazil Diplomat Celso Amorim on Bolsonaro, Lula & Why Biden’s Foreign Policy Is So “Disappointing”
As the number of COVID-19 cases surges in Brazil, the country is also facing a major crisis on the political front. The heads of Brazil’s Army, Navy and Air Force all quit in an unprecedented move, a day after far-right President Jair Bolsonaro ousted his defense minister as part of a broader Cabinet shake-up.
News Roundup: Republicans vow to block Biden (again); corporate backlash; Capitol denialism
In today’s policy and politics news, a Democratic president has proposed a thing and Republicans are vowing to oppose that thing. Georgia Republicans are still reeling over the corporate backlash to their newest voter suppression law. A new poll shows that over half of Republican voters believe Republican false claims that the election was “stolen” from Trump, and almost that many falsely believe the attempted insurrection at the U.S.
Here’s what happens when a developed nation lets in ‘too many’ immigrants
The acclaimed science fiction writer and author of the Dune series of novels, Frank Herbert, memorably wrote that “Fear is the mind-killer.” Since the 1950s the Republican Party in this country has operated under a similar assumption, with the politics of fear as its modus operandi to achieving and consolidating political power.
Senate Democrats Gain Filibuster Workaround After Parliamentarian Ruling
Democrats will likely have an extra chance to pass a spending bill with a simple majority of votes this year.
Deadpan Jen Psaki Mows Down Newsmax Reporter Over ‘Secret Memo’ Question
Another victim of the stealthy “Psaki bomb,” noted a Twitter fan.
Progressives look to maintain long-held grip on Wisconsin’s top education post in Tuesday election
Voters in the Badger State will select their next chief education official on Tuesday in an open-seat contest that pits Pecatonica School District Superintendent Jill Underly against former Brown Deer School District Superintendent Deborah Kerr.
The post is open because the current incumbent, Carolyn Stanford Taylor, decided not to run for election; Stanford Taylor was appointed to the position in 2019 by Democratic Gov.
Military voters have had enough of the GOP
While the Republican Party continues to devolve into the party of white supremacists, authoritarian fascists, and conspiracy theorists, they are losing their grip on many of the voting blocs they have always counted on to keep them in power. Several demographic groups are moving away from the Republicans, such as with older voters and suburbanites. Other blocs, like Asian Americans, have been slowly moving away for two decades.
Texas lawmakers look to dodge blackout responsibility with attacks on state solar and wind plants
It’s been a month and change since massive Texas blackouts caused by cold weather caused chaos, widespread property damage, and deaths, which has been enough time for Texas Republicans to move on from incoherent claims about it all being caused by windmills to incoherent legislative proposals aimed at deflecting attention from the state’s own screw-ups while once again sticking it to any energy company not chained to the state’s all-powerful fossil fuel industry.
Former USAID chief tapped to lead vaccine diplomacy efforts
Gayle Smith, who led the agency under former President Barack Obama, will serve as coordinator of global Covid response and health security.
Jill Biden’s Outfit Prompts Deluge Of Sexist Jokes On Twitter
People on Twitter quickly defended the first lady’s fishnet-like stockings after misogynistic and ageist cracks were hurled her way.
Joe Manchin Demands Changes To Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Plan
The West Virginia senator maintains that the corporate tax rate should go up to 25%, rather than 28%, to pay for infrastructure improvements.
‘I Fed Him To The People’: Trump Fan Indicted For Dragging Cop Into Capitol Mob By The Neck
Jack Wade Whitton, known to online Capitol attack sleuths as “Scallops,” helped set off the “Sedition Hunters” community. The feds want him held until trial.
Arkansas governor vetoes ban on youth transgender care
The Republican warned the measure amounted to government overreach, but Republican lawmakers are likely to override his veto.
April Blooms: Spring Is on the Way
Spring started about two weeks ago, and the Northern Hemisphere has begun to warm, with flowers and trees in bloom. Gathered here today, a small collection of images from the past few weeks from North America, Asia, and Europe, of tulips, sunshine, and cherry blossoms—surely signs of warmer days to come.
The Urgency of Vaccinating Kids
Kim Hagood hates needles. But as a middle-aged adult with chronic conditions, she got vaccinated against COVID-19 without delay. “I never thought I’d be so excited to get a shot,” she told me, giddily, hours before her appointment. A single mother in Trussville, Alabama, Hagood is less certain about vaccinating her 10-year-old son when the time comes.
The Biggest Party of 2021 Is About to Start
A lot can change in 17 years. The last time the cicadas were here, the virus behind the SARS outbreak had finally retreated. George W. Bush was campaigning for his second presidential term, and Myspace had commenced its meteoric rise. Tobey Maguire was still the reigning Spider-Man.
Dear Care and Feeding: My Kid Is Terrified of Being Caught in a Mass Shooting
Parenting advice on shooting anxiety, flaky Zooms, and sperm donor worries.
MLK Opposed “Poverty, Racism & Militarism” in Speech One Year Before His Assassination 53 Years Ago
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 53 years ago, on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 39. While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor, organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice, and was a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy and the Vietnam War.
Ethiopia Accused of Using Rape as a Weapon of War in Tigray as New Evidence Emerges of Massacres
We get an update on how the Ethiopian government has announced Eritrean forces are withdrawing from the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, where harrowing witness accounts have emerged of Eritrean soldiers killing Tigrayan men and boys and rape being used as weapon of war by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. Eritrea entered the Tigray region to support Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s military offensive in November targeting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.