Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Florida floodgaetz open; GOP war on LGBTQ kids, immigrant kids, yoga kids?

A lot of news comes down the pipe during a Friday, even in a post-incompetent administration. Much of this news is positive as our competent administration works to help hundreds of millions of Americans adversely affected by the previous administration. Some of this news is negative as the Republican Party’s lack of popular policy ideas means their entire identity is based on the belief that we should not be a democracy.

Citing fear of Hindu indoctrination, Alabama GOP block efforts to lift 28-year-old yoga ban

Did you know that for 28 years, Alabama has had a ban on teaching yoga in the Yellowhammer State? Well, it’s true. Since 1993, the Alabama board of education has blocked yoga, hypnosis, and meditation from public schools. According to Newsweek, the state’s guidelines explain it this way: “The State Board of Education specifically prohibits the use of hypnosis and dissociative mental states.

Officers pepper-sprayed ICE detainees who peacefully protested lack of PPE, DHS watchdog says

In the earliest weeks of the novel coronavirus pandemic last year, people jailed at a private immigration prison in Arizona held a peaceful protest over the lack of sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) provided to detainees. The facility responded to their pleas by violently deploying chemical agents at them, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General said in a new report released Thursday.

The Threat That COVID-19 Poses Now

After more than a year of pandemic, after months of an aggressive vaccination campaign, the United States should finally be better positioned to protect itself against the coronavirus. Nearly all of our long-term-care residents are vaccinated. Tens of millions of other people have been vaccinated, and tens of millions more have some level of immunity from previous infection.

Florida Man

Florida man, Florida man,
great head of hair, studio tan,
if I were hitching in the Everglades
and you pulled up, I’d be afraid.I wouldn’t climb into your minivan,
your swampmobile, O Florida man.
I’d wait for a ride with an honest trucker.
Anyone but you, you sleazy fucker.

Only Congress Could Give Us a Matt Gaetz

Last week, Representative Matt Gaetz tweeted that if he were ever engulfed in scandal, he wanted it to be called “Gaetzgate.” (The Floridian was replying to a groaner of an Elon Musk pun that he seemed to have missed; that lack of perceptiveness was an omen.)Gaetz got his wish quickly, and then some. First, there’s reportedly a federal criminal investigation into whether the 38-year-old Gaetz paid women for sex and whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.

The Atlantic releases two NFTs for auction

The Atlantic today is auctioning its first-ever NFTs (non-fungible tokens), two original pieces of artwork commemorating The Atlantic’s illustrations from a year of crisis. The two NFTs, “Illustrations From a Pandemic Year (#1)” and “Illustrations From a Pandemic Year (#2),” offer snapshots of how The Atlantic’s art and design team used illustration across the past year to help visualize the newsroom’s essential pandemic journalism.

Scale Was the God That Failed

On March 9, management at HuffPost notified 47 employees that they were being laid off as part of a cost-cutting effort following the digital journalism pioneer’s acquisition by BuzzFeed. The brass handled the layoffs in a particularly ham-fisted way, but no amount of finesse would have made so many pink slips any less brutal to the staffers.For years now, journalists have watched their industry produce a steady stream of mass layoffs and closing publications.

“Abhorrent”: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Trump’s Treatment of Portland Protesters vs. Insurrectionists

Protesters in Portland, Oregon, took to the streets for more than three straight months following the police killing of George Floyd. In July, former President Donald Trump threatened to jail protesters for 10 years for damaging federal buildings in Portland. But months later he praised right-wing insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s actions were “absolutely abhorrent,” says Oregon Governor Kate Brown.

Will Georgia’s Voting Law Be Repealed as Big Business Joins Critics Opposing “Jim Crow” Suppression?

Activists are demanding accountability from Georgia-based companies in opposing a law that heavily restricts voting rights in the state, which many are calling the worst voter suppression legislation since the Jim Crow era. While some companies, including Coca-Cola and Delta, have weighed in on the Republican-backed crackdown on voting rights, Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter, says voicing opposition is not enough.