Today's Liberal News

One ring to rule them all: How Steve Bannon’s daily podcast is running the entire GOP agenda

On Wednesday evening Rachel Maddow made an excellent point: While Democrats and the Biden administration focus on the mundane aspects of trying to do what’s best for the American people—passing infrastructure legislation, preserving and protecting the right to vote against GOP measures to suppress it, combating the causes and effects of climate change, and trying to ensure that women retain autonomy over their own bodies, for example—for Republicans, even addressing or

U.S. federal government opens civil rights investigation into Florida’s mask bans

On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a victory for bad public health when a three-judge panel in the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled that the governor could continue trying to punish school districts that enacted mask mandates for their schools. The decision overruled 2nd Judicial Circuit Court Judge John C. Cooper’s ruling that the governor’s ban on mask mandates was unconstitutional.

The Third Revolution in Warfare

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, against the backdrop of the rushed U.S.-allied Afghanistan withdrawal, the grisly reality of armed combat and the challenge posed by asymmetric suicide terror attacks grow harder to ignore.But weapons technology has changed substantially over the past two decades.

What Is Larry Elder Running For?

Larry Elder becoming governor of California would be a little like Bernie Sanders winning a Senate seat in Kansas, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez representing suburban Mississippi in the House, or Mike Pence ending his career as the mayor of Portland, Oregon. Yet in less than a week’s time, there’s some chance, albeit a diminishing one, that it might happen.

America Played Into Al-Qaeda’s Hands

Alex Majoli / Magnum
The United States today does not have so much as an embassy in Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, or Yemen. It demonstrably has little influence over nominal allies such as Pakistan, which has been aiding the Taliban for decades, and Saudi Arabia, which has prolonged the conflict in Yemen. In Iraq, where almost 5,000 U.S.

“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.

News Roundup: Biden administration goes on the offensive; lessons from the pandemic

It’s Friday! The Biden administration continues its work of trying to fix the last guy’s mess while moving us into a future where we don’t rely on rich benefactors to get women medical care and dead dinosaurs to power our cars. This week was also a reminder that Jeff Yang always was (and remains) most interested in helping Jeff Yang. In spooky news, another version of Scott Walker walks among us! 

Here is some of what you may have missed.