Today's Liberal News

U.S. Led 2020 Nuclear Weapons Spending; Now Biden Going “Full Steam Ahead” on Trump’s Nuclear Plans

As President Biden prepares for the G7 and NATO summits and a meeting with Vladimir Putin, we look at how the United States, Russia and other nuclear-armed nations continue to spend billions on nuclear weapons during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite President Biden’s criticisms of the Trump administration’s nuclear policies during his candidacy, his administration is continuing initiatives to expand the U.S.

Socialist Teacher Takes Lead in Peruvian Election as Nation Reels from Pandemic & Political Crisis

We get an update from Peru, where socialist candidate Pedro Castillo has pulled ahead of his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori in the country’s presidential election on Sunday. Castillo is the son of peasant farmers, and a union leader who led a nationwide teachers’ strike in 2017. Fujimori is the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori, who is in prison for human rights abuses and corruption.

Democracy Needs India

When the G7 group of rich democracies assemble this weekend in southwest England, they will discuss issues including COVID-19, taxes, and climate change. One item overhanging the formal agenda, however, will be the global deterioration of democracy itself, and the nation on which this question may hinge won’t be any of the hosts, but a guest invited to this year’s confab: India. Democracy’s fate there may determine its fate throughout the world.

News Roundup: Two government reports dodge accountability for Trump era violence

In the news today: The Keystone XL pipeline project is dead, for now. As the Senate releases a report on the Jan. 6 insurrection so focused on avoiding Republican ire as to be useless, a Trump-appointed inspector general announces that a violent push to clear Lafayette Park in the very moments before Trump announced he’d be taking a walk there was actually just a huuuuuuuuge coincidence.

Dubious educational agency backed by Trump and DeVos is stripped of its powers

Reagan National University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is no longer an accredited university. To anyone with half an education, this is no surprise. The only reason the school had received accreditation in the first place was because under previous Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the dubious Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges & Schools (ACICS) was resurrected to give it the distinction.

Meet the children who Joe Manchin is sacrificing on his altar of bipartisanship

It’s easy for Democrats to become frustrated at the “look at me” antics of Joe Manchin, prima donna senator from West Virginia, as he forces the Biden administration to indulge in a pointless exercise of jumping through hoops for Senate Republicans in hopes of achieving some imaginary bipartisan agreement on the president’s infrastructure bill.

Antisemitism in the U.S. is on the rise again and everyone has a role to play in combating it

On the streets of American cities, Jews are being attacked simply for being Jewish. In my hometown of New York City—home to over 1 million Jews—a man named Joseph Borgen was set upon by a group who “punched, kicked and pepper-sprayed him while shouting antisemitic slurs.” One man was arrested and faces charges for having committed second-degree assault as a hate crime, along with first-degree gang assault.

Detained immigrants file civil rights complaint over unsafe conditions amid pandemic

A leading immigrant rights advocacy group has filed a complaint on behalf of two women alleging unsafe, dangerous conditions while in custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at an Indiana facility. They cite crowded conditions amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, guards who won’t wear masks, and insufficient soap to keep themselves safe. One of the women was tested for the virus while detained, but said that officials wouldn’t give her the result.

Jeff Bezos Has Reached His Final Form

Jeff Bezos founded his spaceflight company two decades ago, at the turn of the millennium. You may not have known that, because Blue Origin spent years developing its rocket technology in secret. But by now you’ve probably heard, because Bezos wants everyone to know: Blue Origin is sending passengers to space, and he’s going on the inaugural trip himself.