Today's Liberal News

Voting Activist Desmond Meade on Re-enfranchising People & Why “Ex-Felon” Is a Dehumanizing Label

In Florida, tens of thousands of newly eligible voters who were previously disenfranchised due to their criminal records turned out to the polls for the 2020 election. Amendment 4, a measure that in 2018 overturned a Jim Crow-era law aimed at keeping African Americans from voting, restored voting rights to people with nonviolent felonies who have completed their sentences and was hailed as the biggest win for voting rights in decades.

“More of an Exorcism Than an Election”: Priya Gopal on What Biden Win Means for Britain & Ireland

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been one of President Trump’s closest international allies. How will he adapt to working with a Biden administration? Cambridge professor Priya Gopal says Johnson was clearly betting on a Trump reelection, especially amid Britain’s exit from the European Union. “I think they were certainly hoping that there would be a Trump victory,” says Gopal. “Brexit and Trump, as Trump quite correctly recognized, are very deeply in sync.

Trump Loss Decreases Chance of Iran War, But Many Iraqis Fear U.S. Policy Under Biden, Too

We look at how Joe Biden’s presidency will affect the U.S. footprint in the Middle East with Guardian correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who says Biden’s win is being viewed with “anxiety” by many Iraqis who are eager to avoid war between the U.S. and Iran. “Any conflict will take place on Iraqi soil,” says Abdul-Ahad. “There is not much optimism. There is anxiety towards Biden and his team in the way they deal with Iraq.

We need to win the Senate races in Georgia to stop Mitch McConnell from destroying the economy

It’s been 181 days since the House passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act, and 42 days since the House passed a compromise $2.2 trillion bill, both of which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to take up for a vote. The White House has gone AWOL, with the squatter in the Oval Office refusing to do anything beyond tweeting conspiracy theories about a rigged election, while his staff tries to figure out how to cover their asses and find new jobs.

‘Million MAGA March’ draws thousands of extremists to D.C. claiming Trump won the election

As promised, thousands of hardcore Donald Trump supporters flooded downtown Washington, D.C., Saturday, for a “Million MAGA March,” falsely claiming he and not Joe Biden had won the presidential vote and demanding election officials “Stop the Steal.” Also as promised, Trump himself swung by to acknowledge what organizers had billed as “the largest Trump rally in U.S. history”—albeit briefly, from inside a slow-moving limousine.

Who will Biden choose as his labor secretary?

Speculation is flying and some aspirants are campaigning hard for the position of labor secretary. Names being mentioned frequently include Boston Mayor Mary Walsh, Rep. Andy Levin, AFL-CIO economist Bill Spriggs, and Julie Su, secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency.

The Many Lives of Adrienne Rich

Illustration by Celina Pereira; photographs by Bettmann; Richard Lautens / Toronto Star / GettyIn 1952, in her native Baltimore, Adrienne Rich delivered her first public lecture, “Some Influences of Poetry Upon the Course of History.” She was 23. Over the next 59 years, Rich (1929–2012) would herself alter both poetry and history. As an author, a teacher, and an editor, she helped define American feminism.

The Letters That Outgoing Presidents Wrote to Their Successors

One of the most crucial aspects of a functioning democracy is the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. Each of the following five letters, handwritten by an outgoing president and left in the Oval Office for the incoming president to find, reminds us of the sanctity of that fundamental practice. Reagan wrote to Bush. Bush wrote to Clinton. Clinton to Bush. Bush to Obama. And Obama to Trump. Regardless of party. Regardless of personal beliefs.

It’s Time to Hunker Down

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. The end may be near for the pestilence that has haunted the world this year. Good news is arriving on almost every front: treatments, vaccines, and our understanding of this coronavirus.Pfizer and BioNTech have announced a stunning success rate in their early Phase 3 vaccine trials—if it holds up, it will be a game changer. Treatments have gotten better too.

The Role-Playing Game That Predicted the Future

Lauren TamakiAbout 30 years ago, in Santa Cruz, California, a man named Mike Pondsmith laid out a prophecy for the then-distant future—the year 2020.It was a future teeming with tech. He envisioned the dizzying data-winds of cyberspace, gigantic holographic video screens, bioengineered wheat-powered metro cars, and, everywhere you looked, the gleam of polychrome cyberoptic eyes.