Today's Liberal News

America could learn a lot from the state hit hardest by COVID-19, if only Republicans would listen

The pandemic has created an almost infinite number of questions. One of the biggest faced by our country, our states, and our localities is how to start “reopening.” Most states mandated widespread closures of businesses and other public institutions in order to mitigate the damage caused by COVID-19, but even with those measures, and social distancing, we’ve already lost over 100,000 Americans—disproportionately Americans of color.

Listen: Would Defunding the Police Make Us Safer?

City and state balance sheets are in serious trouble after the pandemic-induced economic slowdown. As local governments are making decisions about budget cuts, some protesters have a suggestion: defund the police.The sociologist Alex Vitale, the author of The End of Policing, joins Atlantic staff writer James Hamblin and executive producer Katherine Wells to explain the research and nuance behind the idea, on the podcast Social Distance.

China Has Dominated the West Before

As China comes into greater conflict with the West, and the United States in particular, now is a good time to consider the long arc of this relationship. In the West, Chinese history is commonly framed as having begun with the first Opium War, giving the impression that European powers always had the upper hand. But from the first direct contact between East and West—the arrival of the Portuguese in south China in the early 16th century—the Chinese were dominant.

The Trump Regime Is Beginning to Topple

Updated at 12:04 p.m. on June 6, 2020Over the course of his presidency, Donald Trump has indulged his authoritarian instincts—and now he’s meeting the common fate of autocrats whose people turn against them.

At the End of a Hellish Week, Trump Is a Happy Man

This week began with angry Trump, but, don’t worry, it ended with the president as a happy man.There he was Monday evening, jaw set in the familiar simian rictus, marching from the White House across Lafayette Square, with a cloud of flunkies and Secret Service agents trailing him. His path had just been cleared of inconvenient citizens by phalanxes of cops using tear gas in hopes of making the president’s walk in the park as pleasant and uneventful as a walk in the park.

Why K-pop Fans Are No Longer Posting About K-pop

On early Sunday morning, when the Dallas Police Department tweeted asking people to submit videos of “illegal activity” at protests to its iWatch Dallas app, K-pop fans were ready.“I wanted to do something to stop or slow [the police] down,” a 16-year-old Houston girl who goes by @YGSHIT on Twitter told me.

Trump Threatens Protests with Troops, But Police Have Already Been Militarized — With Deadly Results

The American Civil Liberties Union and Black Lives Matter announced Thursday they are suing President Trump and Attorney General William Barr for authorizing an “unprovoked and frankly criminal attack” on protesters at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., where the National Guard and officers dressed in riot gear fired tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs to disperse peaceful protesters on Monday so Trump could have a photo op with a Bible in front of St.

Watch: Police Pepper-Spray Black Filmmaker in Face at Peaceful Protest & Medics Help Him Survive

As the nationwide uprising in defense of Black lives continues, demonstrators are recording videos of police brutality on the streets. We speak with Chris Frierson, an African American documentary filmmaker and cameraman who was filming a Black Lives Matter protest on Saturday in Brooklyn, New York, when police moved in on demonstrators. As Frierson filmed, police pepper-sprayed him directly in the face. Chris kept on filming as he struggled to the sidewalk crying in agony from the pain.

The 13 Best Movies About Why You Shouldn’t Trust the Government

America continues to battle the coronavirus, demonstrators fill the streets to decry police brutality and racism, and former members of President Donald Trump’s own Cabinet are denouncing his leadership. There’s undeniable surrealism to the moment at hand, with police killings captured on camera running parallel to the bizarre image of the president strolling to a church to hold up a Bible, after the police used violent force to clear his path of peaceful protesters.

‘It’s Been Setting in on Me That This Is Like a Cycle’

Roger Williams Jr. was 10 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. It was 1968, and the assassination prompted chaos, uprisings, and fires across the country, including in his own Chicago neighborhood. “At the time, as a kid, you didn’t understand it,” Williams, now 62, told me.

Friday Night Owls: U.N. chief, Friday for Future activists call for bolder global climate action

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

Jessica Corbett at Common Dreams writes—World Environment Day Provokes Warnings That ‘To Care for Humanity, We Must Care for Nature’:

As a pandemic that’s killed over 393,000 people rages on and demonstrations demanding racial justice continue across the globe, the international community on Friday marked World Environment Day with scientifically supported warning

Watch white venture capitalist play security when Black entrepreneurs have audacity to use same gym

An entitled white venture capitalist is now out of a space to lease for his business after viral video shows him practically accusing a group of Black entrepreneurs Tuesday in Minneapolis of trespassing for attempting to work out in a gym their office rental granted them use of. Tom Austin owns the company F2 Group and rents office space in the Mozaic East building in question, Business Insider reported.

Video shows Oregon police warning armed counterprotesters before police action

The Reopen America movement—made up of a conservative, mostly white, and frequently heavily armed set of protests—was a sad affair. In some cases the protests were dangerous affairs as armed white guys screamed in the faces of law enforcement and threatened to take over government buildings. While obviously small, these anti-government “control” theatrical events always seemed to come up against very restrained and sober law enforcement.

‘I don’t want to go back to work and die.’ That’s the choice Congress, states have given workers

The Senate is dragging its heels over extending enhanced unemployment benefits, saying that people are choosing to stay on unemployment rather than go back to work. Well, some of them are. They’re doing so because they’re worried their bosses won’t protect them from coronavirus.

Like Jake Lyon and five of his coworkers in Colorado, who were ordered back to work at the tea shop where they were employed, but wanted to make sure that coming back was safe.