Today's Liberal News

Vice President Harris breaks tie to confirm key labor appointee, this week in the war on workers

The National Labor Relations Board has a new general counsel after Vice President Kamala Harris broke a tie in the Senate to confirm Jennifer Abruzzo, 51-50. President Joe Biden fired Donald Trump’s NLRB general counsel, Peter Robb, on Inauguration Day after Robb refused to resign.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions also moved forward with two of Biden’s NLRB nominees this week.

Energy Roundup: Iron batteries vs. fossil fuels, nuclear vs. climate change, drought vs. life

Back when I was, unfortunately, working for the world’s largest coal company, employees were regularly made guinea pugs for the various propaganda pitches that the industry concocted to combat clear evidence that fossil fuels were generating enormous harm at all levels. One of those pitches what that coal-powered electricity was the only way to provide energy to Africa. The core of that pitch was simply this: Coal is cheap.

The Missing Pieces of Anthony Bourdain

Regardless of whether you loved Anthony Bourdain—and the striking thing is that so many people who had even a spotty acquaintance with him or his work felt like they did—the end of Roadrunner is devastating to watch. Morgan Neville’s new documentary about the chef and TV star runs through two decades of Bourdain’s life onscreen before concluding with present-day scenes of his friends still struggling to parse his death by suicide in 2018, at the age of 61.

The Limits of Sex Positivity

For more than half a century, the modern industry of sex therapists, educators, and experts has been eager to tell us whether we’re having enough sex, or the right kind of sex. But this industry is, like any other, shaped by the broader culture—it took for granted that the goal was to “get everybody to the point where they have a type of desire and quality of desire that fits within the cultural norms and values,” the sex therapist and researcher Michael Berry says.

What Those in Power Are Missing About the Opioid Epidemic

Trish Perry organizes weekly outreach for homeless populations in Newark, Ohio. (William Widmer / Redux)
On a street corner in Newark, Ohio, every Saturday, rain or shine, Trish Perry distributes harm-reduction supplies—syringes, Neosporin, saline, and the overdose-reversal drug naloxone—to people who use drugs. She also provides food, clothing, tents, and blankets to the more than 75 people who stop by each week.

“All We Can Save”: As Climate Disasters Wreck Our Planet, Women Leaders Are Key to Solving the Crisis

As the impacts of the climate emergency continue to be felt around the globe, white men overwhelmingly dominate the airwaves on climate coverage. We speak with co-editors of the new book “All We Can Save,” an anthology of essays by 60 women at the forefront of the climate justice movement. “We are simply not seeing very much climate coverage at all in the mainstream media,” says Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist and co-founder of the Urban Ocean Lab.

News roundup: Activists have messages to Biden administration; GOP still delaying on infrastructure

In the news today: The Biden-Harris administration faced pushback from activists on more than one front. COVID-19 continued to surge, and Republican politicians continued to say and do some of the worst things imaginable about it. Republicans also maintained their commitment to standing in the way of policy that would strengthen the economic recovery.

Here’s some of what you may have missed.

● Republicans say agreement on infrastructure is close.

Even some patients inside a hospital COVID-19 unit say they will not get vaccinated

The pandemic is far from over. Across the country, hospitals are filling up again, but not without a common trend. With more than 90% of COVID-19 related deaths amongst unvaccinated people, unvaccinated individuals are making up the majority of patients in hospitals. While some are begging for vaccines when it’s too late, others still refuse to despite getting COVID-19 and recovering.

When they say it’s a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ remember that means every child under 12

The new message on COVID-19, as the delta variant spreads, is that this is now “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Presumably this message—coming from the Biden administration (I’m definitely looking at you and your Twitter feed, White House chief of staff Ron Klain), the CDC, and the media—is intended to convince people to get vaccinated. Whether it works, I don’t know.