Today's Liberal News

Tuesday Night Owls: Media coverage of Deb Haaland’s ascent has flattened Native complexities

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.

At The New Republic, Nick Martin (a citizen of the Sappony Tribe) writes—Deb Haaland’s Ascent and the Complicated Legacy of Native Representation. The congresswoman from New Mexico could make history if confirmed as head of the Department of the Interior. But there’s more to the story than that.

Deb Haaland could be the next secretary of the interior.

CPAC’s 2021 ‘America Uncanceled’ convention cancels speaker over anti-Semitism

Every year, the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a who’s who of corrupt officials, big-money donors, crummy human beings, morals-free religious zealots, and self-styled whining—lots and lots of whining. Last year’s CPAC made it clear that the whining would happen inside of the convention hall as only VIPs were tipped off to very real COVID-19 hazards.

House Democrats urge Biden admin to end ICE policy criticized as ‘legal racial profiling’

For several election cycles now, voters across the country have ousted sheriffs who’ve collaborated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through the flawed and racist 287(g) program, which allows local law enforcement to act as mass deportation agents. In just one example last month, South Carolina Sheriff Kristin Graziano terminated the agreement on her first day in office, calling it “legal racial profiling.

A Simple Rule of Thumb for Knowing When the Pandemic Is Over

Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. In the middle of January, the deadliest month of the pandemic, one day after inauguration, the Biden administration put out a comprehensive national strategy for “beating COVID-19.

The Weekly Planet: The Great Climate Bill of 2021 Is Being Shaped Now

Every Tuesday, our lead climate reporter brings you the big ideas, expert analysis, and vital guidance that will help you flourish on a changing planet. Sign up to get The Weekly Planet, our guide to living through climate change, in your inbox.President Joe Biden’s legislative climate agenda has kind of fallen out of the news. Lawmakers are focused on what the Biden administration calls the “economic-rescue bill,” the one with the $1,400 checks.

No One Has Seen a Mars Landing Quite Like This

The descent of a little rover from the top of the Martian atmosphere to the surface is one of the most notoriously stressful occasions in space exploration. When NASA’s newest rover, Perseverance, took the plunge last week, the engineers at mission control braced themselves. They knew just how much had to go right—and how much could go terribly wrong—in the next seven minutes.The spacecraft came barreling into the atmosphere at thousands of miles an hour.

The Awful Intimacy of Allen v. Farrow

Watching Allen v. Farrow, HBO’s new four-part miniseries about the 29-year-old allegations of child molestation against the director Woody Allen, I kept having a feeling that I couldn’t entirely identify. Since revelations about Harvey Weinstein emerged in late 2017—broken, in part, by Allen’s son, Ronan Farrow—harrowing stories about abusive men in the workplace have been reported one after another.

adrienne maree brown: Octavia Butler’s Visions of the Future Have Transformed Generation of Readers

The visionary Black science-fiction writer Octavia Butler died 15 years ago on February 24, 2006, but her influence and readership has only continued to grow since then. In September, Butler’s novel “Parable of the Sower” became her first to reach the New York Times best-seller list. We speak with adrienne maree brown, a writer and Octavia Butler scholar, who says Butler had a remarkable talent for universalizing Black stories.

Remembering Octavia Butler: Black Sci-Fi Writer Shares Cautionary Tales in Unearthed 2005 Interview

As Democracy Now! marks 25 years on the air, we are revisiting some of the best and most impactful moments from the program’s history, including one of the last television interviews given by the visionary Black science-fiction writer Octavia Butler. She spoke to Democracy Now! in November 2005, just three months before she died on February 24, 2006, at age 58.

U.S. COVID Death Toll Hits 500,000 as Rich Nations Hoard Vaccines, Leaving Poorer Nations Without Any

The United States has passed 500,000 COVID-19 deaths, by far the highest toll in the world. The morbid milestone comes as new COVID-19 cases continue to fall across the country amid an accelerating vaccine rollout, but the head of the World Health Organization is calling on rich countries not to undermine efforts to get vaccines to poorer nations by buying up billions of doses — in some cases ordering enough to vaccinate their populations more than once.