Today's Liberal News

A Fantasy-Football League Unafraid to Commit to the Bit

Each installment of The Friendship Files features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with five representatives of a 12-person fantasy-football league called Raccoon Nation. Their commitment to the league has led to an elaborate infrastructure of regulations and statistics, a trophy for the winners, punishments for the losers, and even merch.

The Books Briefing: How to Tell the Story of a Family

The poet Marianne Moore had a deeply close—perhaps too close—relationship with her mother, Mary. This idiosyncratic bond intrigued Moore’s contemporaries and her biographer Linda Leavell, who trains her eye on it in Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore.

A Horror Movie Where Wealth Is the Demon

In The Nest, a family moves into an English mansion in the countryside filled with opulent rooms, creaky staircases, and secret passages. The setup is familiar for a horror film: A happy couple buys a mysterious property and discovers, upon arrival, that something is terribly wrong with the house. The movie, directed by Sean Durkin, opens with appropriate portentousness, a discordant piano score clanging over the title card.

Four Days in Occupied Western Sahara — A Rare Look Inside Africa’s Last Colony as Ceasefire Ends

In this special rebroadcast of a Democracy Now! exclusive documentary, we break the media blockade and go to occupied Western Sahara in the northwest of Africa to document the decades-long Sahrawi struggle for freedom and Morocco’s violent crackdown. Morocco has occupied the territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. Thousands have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation.

As COVID Devastates Native Communities, Indigenous Voters Played Key Role in Defeating Trump

As COVID-19 rampages through the U.S., we look at how the rapid spread of the disease is affecting Native American communities, which have already faced disproportionate infection and death rates throughout the pandemic. We speak to Jodi Archambault, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and former special assistant to President Obama for Native American affairs. We also speak with Protect the Sacred founder Allie Young of the Navajo Nation.

Indigenous Groups Vow to Keep Resisting as Construction Is Approved for Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline

A massive fight is brewing in Minnesota against the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved a permit for the project this week. After years of resistance, pipeline construction is now set to begin by the end of the month despite the concerns of Indigenous communities, who say it would violate tribal sovereignty and contaminate the land and water.

Rich Trump allies want a new ‘Fox News’ competitor for only one reason: To bleed conservatives dry

The notion of Donald Trump “creating” a new “news network,” as his allies keep vaguely threatening, is a pipe dream. It’s not going to happen. It would require enormous amounts of money he doesn’t have, and it would require work. If the so-called Trump administration has taught us anything, it is that Donald Trump cannot stand doing work. He likes people praising him, and he likes golf.

Biden’s plans to return to nuclear deal with Tehran could be nixed by assassination of scientist

In an August interview, Jake Sullivan—deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and an aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden who is now Biden’s pick for his national security adviser—hinted that rejoining the Iran Nuclear Agreement would be a priority for the new administration’s first 100 days in office.

Scotland becomes first country to make period products free; U.S. taxes them like luxury items

Scotland just became the first country in the world to pass legislation making feminine menstrual hygiene products free to “anyone who needs them.” The BBC reports that the legislation—Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill—which was first introduced by Labor MSP Monica Lennon in April of 2019, passed unanimously in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday.

Lennon has been working on the movement to end “period poverty” for years now.

12 times Trump really did say that awful, racist thing you thought had to be fake news

President Donald Trump has truly been a president for racists and white supremacists, often sparking violent reactions and liberating this group of what is arguably the country’s most hateful people. Just this summer, more than 360 tracked counterprotests surfaced in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, with 40 of them, or almost 12%, ending in violence, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project nonprofit’s U.S. Crisis Monitor.

American Museums Are Going Through an Identity Crisis

The Philip Guston retrospective was supposed to be one of 2020’s blockbuster art shows. The exhibition would have been the first in 15 years to examine the celebrated artist’s catalog, bringing hundreds of provocative paintings to four prestigious stops: the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Tate Modern in London; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. It felt topical and exciting.