Today's Liberal News

Becoming a Parent During the Pandemic Was the Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done

Image above: The photographer Rose Marie Cromwell documented her experience giving birth and her growing child during the pandemic, in a series called Eclipse.In early March last year, I was heading home from a work happy hour on the subway when I realized that a woman was staring at my belly. She looked at my waist, where my coat was belted, and then at the floor, and then at my waist again, and then she very tentatively offered me her seat. I was four months pregnant.

The Republican Party Isn’t Going Anywhere

After the 2002 midterm elections, in which Republicans defied history and added to their House majority, excited GOP figures began speaking of a “permanent majority,” or at least one that would last a generation. George W. Bush’s reelection victory two years later affirmed that Democrats were in disarray: The era of big government was over, Bill Clinton had left a vacuum behind, and Republicans were ascendant.

The Atlantic Daily: We’re Forgetting What Normal Was

Everything was normal, until it wasn’t. Last March, we scrambled home, used coffee mugs left on our desks, our worlds shrinking without time for a proper goodbye.In the days, weeks, and months that followed, our “new normal” became just that. Now, a year later, our brains are both grieving and forgetting the lives we once lived.
We are still grieving our Last Good Days. “For me, it’s the last time I swam in the ocean,” our senior editor Julie Beck writes.

Too Radical for Harvard? Cornel West on Failed Fight for Tenure, Biden’s First 50 Days & More

The prominent scholar and activist Cornel West has announced he is leaving Harvard Divinity School after he was denied consideration for tenure, and will rejoin the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he started his teaching career more than 40 years ago. West had left Harvard once before in 2002 and returned to a nontenured position at Harvard in 2017.

“The Mauritanian”: Film Tells Story of Innocent Man Held at Guantánamo for 14 Years Without Charge

A new feature film, “The Mauritanian,” tells the story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian man who was held without charge for 14 years at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo and repeatedly tortured. We speak with Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who says the film is not just about his struggle. “This is not my movie. This is the movie of so many people,” he says. “Some of the people who were kidnapped after 9/11 were tortured to death.

News Roundup: American Rescue Plan nears passage, FBI issues warnings, and Piers takes walk

As the American Rescue Plan inches towards becoming law (a final vote in the House is expected tomorrow), the Biden administration continues to undo Trump damage and federal investigators continue to warn of the dangers posed by the insurrectionist far-right. Meanwhile, the interminable world focus on Britain’s royalty has finally achieved at least something worthwhile: booting the still-insufferable Piers Morgan into self-exile.

Republicans, seriously, aren’t you getting tired of being abused by this guy?

My dearest Republicans, I know that somewhere, way back deep in the recesses of your memories,  when you ran for elected office—maybe not all, but at least some of you—had some sense that you might actually do something good for the country. That you had something—it may not have been much, but something, at least—to contribute to make this country just a little bit better.