Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Biden fed up with COVID-19’s willing allies; Justice takes on Texas abortion ban

In the news today: In an uncharacteristically blunt speech, President Joe Biden let loose on those still prolonging the pandemic by refusing vaccinations and other safety measures while announcing a broad program of mandatory vaccinations for government workers and large employers. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the Department of Justice would indeed be filing suit to block Texas Republicans’ new near-total abortion ban.

Former Trump press secretary who ‘knows where the bodies are buried’ is working on a tell-all book

The latest tell-all from a former Trump associate promises to be a real barnburner and/or barf-bagger, depending on your current tolerance for the perpetually eye-popping evidence of Donald Trump’s treachery and bottomless bad taste.

At this point in the game, it’s difficult to envision what sort of scandal, if any, could possibly change anyone’s mind about Trump.

Biden approval plummets—to ‘still better than anything Trump could attain in nearly 4 years’ levels

Afghanistan! Delta variant! Hurricanes! Wildfires! Chaos, chaos, chaos! Hie thee to thine lifeboats, fellow Americans! The good ship Biden is sinking!

The evidence? President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have now sunk to a roughly 45% average based on FiveThirtyEight’s latest aggregate of polls. As usual, the media is doing its news cycle tango, questioning Biden’s ability to push through his agenda in the face of these numbers.

We’re Asking the Impossible of Vaccines

In 1846, the Danish physician Peter Ludvig Panum traveled to the Faroe Islands in search of measles. The rocky archipelago, which sits some 200 miles north of Scotland, had been slammed with an outbreak, and Panum was dispatched by his government to investigate.

The Atlantic Hires Roye Segal to Lead Atlantic Re:think

The Atlantic has hired Roye Segal to lead Atlantic Re:think, Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer Hayley Romer announced today. Segal joins The Atlantic to head the award-winning creative studio, which is part of Atlantic Brand Partners, an interdisciplinary collective within The Atlantic that offers brands an integrated experience across platforms. Segal was most recently at NBCUniversal, where he was senior creative director.

How Long Will Twitter Cling to Its Dumbest Feature?

#NoPawsLeftBehind. Last Tuesday, I glanced at the “What’s happening” sidebar on Twitter and saw that nearly 32,000 people were tweeting about this topic; therefore, it was “trending.” A description of the trend, presented just beneath the hashtag, explained that it was  “commemorating the service dogs left behind following the withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan.”Clicking through the hashtag, I found a slightly more irritating story.

The California Recall Could Be a Road Map for Democrats

California Governor Gavin Newsom is confronting the toughest challenge Democrats may face in next year’s midterm election—and guiding his party toward a possible solution as the Republican-driven recall against him enters its final days.One key reason the president’s party historically fares so poorly in midterm elections is that its supporters turn out at lower rates than voters of the party not in the White House.

“Humane”: Yale Historian Samuel Moyn on “How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War”

In his new book, Yale historian Samuel Moyn explores whether the push to make U.S. wars more “humane” by banning torture and limiting civilian casualties has helped fuel more military interventions around the world. He looks in detail at the role of President Obama in expanding the use of drones even as he received the Nobel Peace Prize. “What happened after 2001 is that, in the midst of an extremely brutal war on terror, a new kind of war emerged.

“Turning Point”: Legacy of the U.S. Response to 9/11 Is Terror, Domestic Surveillance & Drones

As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., we look at a new five-part documentary series on Netflix about the attacks and the response from the United States, both at home and abroad. “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” features a wide range of interviews with survivors of the attacks, U.S.