Today's Liberal News

Iran Stops Pretending

Tipping points in the fortunes of opaque, authoritarian regimes are often predicted but never predictable. The rigged “election” of Ebrahim Raisi, an uncharismatic, 60-year-old hard-line cleric, as Iran’s next president has the potential to be such a moment, although its significance will be fully understood only in hindsight.

Author Q&A with Myriam Gurba: Bisexual stereotypes, #MeToo movement, and writing about trauma

Myriam Gurba, a Mexican American, bisexual writer and advocate, is first and foremost an expert in her own experiences—as a queer woman of color, as a survivor of abuse, as a survivor of gender-based violence, Gurba knows her story in a way that no one else quite does. As Gurba explained to Daily Kos when she joined us for a phone interview, this type of “expertise” is precisely what people should focus on when it comes to supporting survivors and movements like #MeToo.

Citizenship for undocumented immigrants would boost economy and increase wages for all, report shows

Putting the nation’s undocumented immigrants on a pathway to citizenship would provide a massive boost to the nation’s economy, increasing the gross domestic product by up to $1.7 trillion over the next decade and creating over 430,000 jobs, the Center for American Progress and the University of California, Davis’ Global Migration Center said in new findings released this week.

Daily Kos is dedicated to building Community writing, but we need your input

As siab recently pointed out, Community engagement and participation is down. There are myriad reasons for that, and nobody here has pinned it down to just one issue. As the person who leads the Community Contributors team, there’s one way I think we could help. If I’m right, it could have twofold benefit for the Daily Kos Community.

My entire job is to help Community writers create more, better content, and help increase that content’s visibility.

Janet Malcolm the Magician

There are two kinds of magicians: Those who purport to be doing something truly supernatural, drawing on the paranormal, and those who are honest with their audiences about fooling them.Janet Malcolm, who died last week at 86, was of the second type. Her journalism was filled with instances in which she alerted readers that she would be playing with their minds; she then did so effortlessly. Knowing you were being messed with was no protection.

Blue Animals Are Different from All the Rest

Peacocks, panther chameleons, scarlet macaws, clown fish, toucans, blue-ringed octopuses, and so many more: The animal kingdom has countless denizens with extraordinarily colorful beauty. But in many cases, scientists know much more about how the animals use their colors than about how they make them.

TV Can’t Stop Thinking About the Female Gaze

The creators of Kevin Can F**k Himself have yet to go on the record about this, but they’re clearly tired of lopsided sitcom marriages. The series, with its pointed title, seems to be a roast of shows starring the comedian Kevin James over the years, such as The King of Queens; notably, his characters’ spouses didn’t have lives of their own outside of doting on him. (One even got unceremoniously written out off-screen between the first and second seasons.

The Vaccine Donations Aren’t Enough

Developing countries now account for more of the COVID-19s daily global death toll, at 85 percent and climbing, than high-income countries. Thanks to high vaccination rates, deaths in these rich countries have fallen from 59 to 15 percent of the global share, an all-time low, according to the Brookings Institution. The signs of this switch are jarring.

Expect the Unexpected From the Delta Variant

This much is clear: The coronavirus is becoming more transmissible. Ever since the virus emerged in China, it has been gaining mutations that help it spread more easily among humans. The Alpha variant, first detected in the United Kingdom last year, is 50 percent more transmissible than the original version, and now the Delta variant, first detected in India, is at least 40 percent more transmissible than Alpha.

The Books Briefing: Finding Place as a Black American

As this year’s Juneteenth celebrations begin—commemorating when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were told that the Civil War had ended and they were now technically free—thinking about place can be illuminating. America has a long history of denying and violating the basic rights of Black people, leading many of these citizens to carve out spaces that celebrate and recognize their full humanity.