Today's Liberal News

A Marching Band’s ‘Mountaintop’

Photographs by Dina LitovskyThe Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps, one of the first queer marching bands in the United States, was founded in 1979 in New York City, a decade after the Stonewall uprising. This year, the Big Apple Corps reached what Marita Begley, the group’s director, called “the mountaintop”: Tomorrow, it will become the first openly LGBTQ group to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

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.

Feminism Not Militarism: Medea Benjamin on the Movement to Oppose Michèle Flournoy as Pentagon Chief

President-elect Joe Biden has introduced key members of his national security team this week, including his picks for secretary of state, national intelligence director, national security adviser, homeland security chief and ambassador to the United Nations. Biden has yet to announce his defense secretary, but progressives are already raising alarm over reports that he intends to nominate Michèle Flournoy, a hawkish Pentagon veteran with close ties to the defense industry.

Michigan science professor on administrative leave following bizarre COVID-19 remarks

A science professor in Michigan is on administrative leave. Why is this newsworthy? Well, the student newspaper, The Torch, did a pretty deep dive and covered comments made on a Twitter account under his full name about the novel coronavirus pandemic, as well as a number of slurs that allegedly appeared on the same account. According to screenshots, Professor Thomas Brennan allegedly tweeted that COVID-19 was a “stunt” to form “a leftist new world order.

New York Democrats win supermajorities, but Cuomo remains a powerful obstacle to progressive reform

Democrats in New York’s Senate appeared to lock down their 42nd seat on Tuesday, giving them a two-thirds supermajority for at least the next two years that could have a major impact on how the state is governed, including how district lines are drawn for the next decade.

Democrats went into the election needing to net two seats in the Senate to achieve supermajority status, which they’ve long enjoyed in the Assembly.