Today's Liberal News

Hurricane Laura Devastates Gulf Coast, Laying Bare Climate Crisis, Environmental Racism

Hurricane Laura has slammed ashore as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm, bringing sustained winds of 150 miles per hour to the Gulf Coast. The strongest storm to hit Louisiana in over a century, Laura made landfall near the border of Louisiana and Texas. At least six people have been killed. Residents near Lake Charles were told to stay indoors with windows and doors shut when a chemical fire broke out at a Biolab plant.

Historian Rick Perlstein on the RNC & Trump’s Dangerous Propaganda Driving People to Violence

President Donald Trump formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination on Thursday before a crowd of about 1,500 on the South Lawn of the White House. In defiance of social distancing guidelines, attendees sat shoulder-to-shoulder with few people wearing masks. Trump spoke as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus neared 180,000 — by far the highest total in the world — and repeatedly defended his administration’s handling of the pandemic.

Jacob Blake Shooting Shines New Light on Death of Michael Bell, Killed by Kenosha Cops in 2004

In light of the police shooting of unarmed African American father Jacob Blake, we look at the past misconduct of the Kenosha police department. In 2004, Kenosha police killed white 21-year-old Michael Bell in front of his mother and sister. The Kenosha Police Department conducted its own review of the incident, and within two days completely exonerated the officers. Bell’s father, Michael Bell Sr.

ACLU Demands Resignation of Top Cops in Kenosha for Racism & Brutal Response to Jacob Blake Protests

The ACLU of Wisconsin is calling for top Kenosha law enforcement officials to resign in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who was left paralyzed below the waist after a white officer shot him in the back seven times. The shooting has sparked mass protests in Kenosha and around the U.S., bringing renewed attention to racism and violence in the Kenosha police force.

Four radical sex educators you should know

The state of sexual health education is dire in the United States. Currently, only 28 states and the district of Washington, D.C., require sex education and HIV education, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Even more alarming, of these 28 states, only 17 require their sex education curriculum to be medically accurate and only one state requires instruction on consent.

Professional athletes stage a historic wildcat strike, this week in the war on workers

As strikes go, there weren’t a large number of workers involved in the most consequential work stoppages of the past week. And professional athletes are often framed as something other than real workers. But make no mistake, when the players on the Milwaukee Bucks said they weren’t playing their playoff game on Wednesday in protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, that was a wildcat strike, and it turned into a seriously successful one.

Cell phone data indicates that Sturgis rally attendees later visited 61% of U.S. counties

Just as many health officials feared, South Dakota’s annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is on its way to further the current health crisis. Cases of the novel coronavirus continue to grow nationwide and with bikers from across the country returning home from the event states are bound to see an increase in local cases. More than 100 COVID-19 cases have been linked to the event so far, the Associated Press reported.

I Know What Makes Conventions So Maddening

Having been to many political conventions over the years and watched many more slumped on the sofa bed in my home bunker, and now having watched two mostly remote events courtesy of Republicans and Democrats, I have finally isolated the element that has historically made these occasions so maddening and unpleasant: people.Specifically, I have in mind the people who go to political conventions.

‘America First’ Enters Its Most Combustible Moment

The months before and after a presidential election are particularly fragile for foreign policy. Each of the five presidents I served understood, as did his team, the weight of this time. Politics and legacy were always front of mind. They were all also conscious of the ways they could help pave an easier path for their successors. They all ultimately put country over party. That won’t be the case with Donald Trump.