Today's Liberal News

Teachers Know Schools Aren’t Safe to Reopen

We are high-school teachers in Brooklyn, and we love what we do. We want nothing more than to go back into the classroom and teach our students. However, we have little confidence in New York City’s strategy for reopening during the pandemic. Officials have given families and teachers vague assurances and clichéd promises, but few concrete plans and steps. Schools are not yet safe enough for us—or the students—to return.

Trump Shows How Little He Cares for His Most Fervent Defenders

When I worked as a rural mail carrier in the hills of southeastern Kentucky in the early 2000s, my route snaked along the most mountainous parts of the county. I forded creeks and climbed steep dirt roads. Sometimes I’d have to drive for five miles to get to the next house. I delivered everything, including cages full of baby chickens and new sets of tires. I saw the joy that a parcel of books, clothing, or music brought to people.

The Pandemic Isn’t a Death Knell for Populism

In many ways, the coronavirus has been irrefutably bad for populists. It has bolstered the popularity of establishment darlings such as Germany’s Angela Merkel, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, and Italy’s Giuseppe Conte. It has brought once-anonymous health experts, including the United States’ Anthony Fauci and Britain’s Chris Whitty, to the fore. It has cast some of populists’ favored wedge issues, among them immigration and the European Union, to the wayside.

Two hurricanes could hit the Gulf Coast next week within a 24-hour window

Earlier this month, the National Weather Service made it clear that this was going to be an “extremely active” hurricane season, with a projected 19-25 hurricanes. The average season only brings a dozen, meaning that 2020 could easily be—on top of everything else—among the biggest hurricane seasons on record.

But even for an extremely active season, the possible event that could hit the north Gulf Coast next week seems extraordinary.

Georgia officer on desk duty after family films violent arrest of woman on her own porch

A video posted to TikTok on Wednesday shows Gwinnett County, Georgia, police officer Michael Oxford in a verbal and physical altercation with a Black woman on what is reportedly her front porch. The video, recorded on Tuesday, shows 22-year-old Kyndesia Smith and Oxford arguing: Smith says she doesn’t have to go anywhere, and that Oxford is on her property, noting that that “we didn’t call you.

Teachers could be forced to stay in the classroom after COVID-19 exposure

What do you do if you really want schools open in person but it’s going to be impossible to keep staffing them if teachers have to quarantine every time they’re exposed to COVID-19? If you’re Donald Trump, you certainly don’t reassess the push to have schools open in person. No, you declare that teachers shouldn’t quarantine after COVID-19 exposure.

Congress still stymied over COVID-19 relief as McConnell refuses to spend what the country needs

The House will break its recess and convene Saturday to pass H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act to inject the U.S. Postal Service with $25 billion emergency funds and restore the service’s operations to pre-coronavirus and pre-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s dismantling of it. So far, that’s it. That’s all the plan Congress has to do anything this month, while they remain on recess.

With Obamacare’s fate in Supreme Court’s hands, electing Biden is a no-brainer

The Supreme Court announced this week when it will hear the consolidated cases on the Affordable Care Act. California v. Texas basically challenges whether the plaintiffs in Texas v. California have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the law, as well as the actual constitutionality of the law. The ‘when’ is interesting: Nov. 10, exactly one week after the election.