Today's Liberal News

We’re Learning the Wrong Lessons From the World’s Happiest Countries

Since 2012, most of the humans on Earth have been given a nearly annual reminder that there are entire nations of people who are measurably happier than they are. This uplifting yearly notification is known as the World Happiness Report.With the release of each report, which is published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the question is not which country will appear at the top of the rankings, but rather which Northern European country will.

The Real Threat to American Catholicism

Should Catholics who support legal abortion receive Communion, or have they separated themselves from the body of Christ by departing from what the Church teaches? The question took on new urgency, at least for some of the country’s Catholic bishops, when Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic who has promised to protect legal abortion, was elected president.

Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump

Donald Trump is a man consumed with grievance against people he believes have betrayed him, but few betrayals have enraged him more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by claiming that the election had been stolen.

The Atlantic Daily: Pride Is Expanding Exactly as It Should

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Lucy Jones
The first Pride marches were intended to be a radical reclaiming of personhood and power by a community that society had shunned.

No One Imagined Giant Lizard Nests Would Be This Weird

After many futile hours of shoveling dirt under the scorching Australian sun, Sean Doody began to think that he had made an embarrassing mistake and was—quite literally—digging himself into a hole.  Doody is a herpetologist from the University of South Florida who has spent years studying Australia’s yellow-spotted goanna—a predatory monitor lizard with long claws, a whiplike tail, and a sinuous, muscular body that can reach five feet in length.

Afghan President Ghani Visits White House as His Government Nears Collapse

The Taliban have continued seizing districts in Afghanistan ahead of the U.S. military pullout set for September 11, now holding twice as much territory as they did two months ago. According to a Wall Street Journal report, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the government of Afghanistan could collapse within six months of the U.S. withdrawal. The Biden administration is reportedly planning to keep 650 troops in Afghanistan after the September 11 deadline, and the U.S.

A Political Solution Is the Only Way: Crisis Escalates in Ethiopia Amid War, Famine & Elections

An Ethiopian military bombing of a marketplace in the Tigray region killed at least 64 people in one of the deadliest attacks since government forces invaded the region last November. The bombing came just a day after Ethiopians voted in national and regional elections, but polls could not open in some areas due to ongoing fighting. The country is still waiting for results that will determine if the ruling coalition, led by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, stays in power.

A bad law could do something good: Prosecute Jan. 6 speakers and insurgents using the Smith Act

There are laws whose purpose is an unalloyed good, such as the Civil Rights Act. There are others whose origins are definitively gray, and whose utilization has put them in support of both justice and injustice, and whose use is more a measure of the person wielding the law than the contents of the legislation. Consider the uses of the Insurrection Act.

Then there are laws that seem at best misguided, and at worse, simply bad—like the Smith Act.