Today's Liberal News

After wanting to quit gymnastics a few years ago, Jordan Chiles makes it to the Olympics

Sisterhood and women supporting women is a thing and we’re all here for it. Simone Biles is headed back to the Olympics, her second one as the world’s most decorated gymnast but that’s not all: Biles will be joined by friend Jordan Chiles. This year’s 2021 Olympics will be Chiles’ first Olympics; Securing a spot on Team USA came as a proud moment not just for Chiles but Biles who supported the athlete as an older sister.

How Rumsfeld Deserves to Be Remembered

In 2006, soon after I returned from my fifth reporting trip to Iraq for The New Yorker, a pair of top aides in the George W. Bush White House invited me to lunch to discuss the war. This was a first; until then, no one close to the president would talk to me, probably because my writing had not been friendly and the administration listened only to what it wanted to hear.

The Atlantic Daily: Bill Cosby’s Release Is Not an Exoneration

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Matt Slocum / AP
Bill Cosby is a free man again. The disgraced comedian, accused of sexual assault by dozens of women, today saw his court verdict overturned on a technicality.Cosby’s case remains one of the most high-profile of the #MeToo movement.

The Senator Who Decided to Tell the Truth

VULCAN, Michigan—Right around the time Donald Trump was flexing his conspiratorial muscles on Saturday night, recycling old ruses and inventing new boogeymen in his first public speech since inciting a siege of the U.S. Capitol in January, a dairy farmer in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula sat down to supper. It had been a trying day.

Finally, a Film That Understands Social Media

When A’ziah King, a.k.a. Zola, a.k.a. @_zolarmoon, hit Send on the first of her 148 tweets about a trip to Florida gone wrong, Twitter was a different place. In 2015, users could publish only 140 characters at a time. A debate about the color of a dress could dominate the platform for a week.

Rep. Nikema Williams: I Experienced Capitol Attack on My 3rd Day in Congress. We Must Investigate.

House lawmakers are set to vote to create a select committee that will investigate the deadly January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, while Republican leaders still aren’t saying whether they will participate in the panel. Congressmember Nikema Williams of Georgia says it’s vital to properly investigate the January 6 insurrection. “I experienced this attack on the Capitol my third day of being a member of Congress, having just been sworn in,” Williams says.

How the “Abolition Amendment” Would End Constitutional Loophole That Allows Forced Labor in Prisons

After President Biden signed legislation this month to create a federal holiday commemorating June 19 as Juneteenth, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Georgia Congressmember Nikema Williams reintroduced what is being called the “Abolition Amendment” to amend the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which banned slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime” — a clause that has allowed the widespread use of forced prison labor.

Maya Schenwar’s Sister Died of an Overdose. She Says Defunding the Police Might Have Saved Her

As the U.S. marks 50 years since President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs on June 17, 1971, we speak with journalist Maya Schenwar, editor-in-chief of the news website Truthout, whose sister Keeley died of a drug overdose in February 2020 at the age of 29. Schenwar says her sister’s death came after “a long cycle of criminalization” that made her chances of recovery much harder.

The Internet Is Rotting

Sixty years ago the futurist Arthur C. Clarke observed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The internet—how we both communicate with one another and together preserve the intellectual products of human civilization—fits Clarke’s observation well. In Steve Jobs’s words, “it just works,” as readily as clicking, tapping, or speaking.