Today's Liberal News

Friday Night Owls: U.N. chief, Friday for Future activists call for bolder global climate action

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

Jessica Corbett at Common Dreams writes—World Environment Day Provokes Warnings That ‘To Care for Humanity, We Must Care for Nature’:

As a pandemic that’s killed over 393,000 people rages on and demonstrations demanding racial justice continue across the globe, the international community on Friday marked World Environment Day with scientifically supported warning

Watch white venture capitalist play security when Black entrepreneurs have audacity to use same gym

An entitled white venture capitalist is now out of a space to lease for his business after viral video shows him practically accusing a group of Black entrepreneurs Tuesday in Minneapolis of trespassing for attempting to work out in a gym their office rental granted them use of. Tom Austin owns the company F2 Group and rents office space in the Mozaic East building in question, Business Insider reported.

Video shows Oregon police warning armed counterprotesters before police action

The Reopen America movement—made up of a conservative, mostly white, and frequently heavily armed set of protests—was a sad affair. In some cases the protests were dangerous affairs as armed white guys screamed in the faces of law enforcement and threatened to take over government buildings. While obviously small, these anti-government “control” theatrical events always seemed to come up against very restrained and sober law enforcement.

‘I don’t want to go back to work and die.’ That’s the choice Congress, states have given workers

The Senate is dragging its heels over extending enhanced unemployment benefits, saying that people are choosing to stay on unemployment rather than go back to work. Well, some of them are. They’re doing so because they’re worried their bosses won’t protect them from coronavirus.

Like Jake Lyon and five of his coworkers in Colorado, who were ordered back to work at the tea shop where they were employed, but wanted to make sure that coming back was safe.

After 2 days in jail, peaceful protester released after videos show what really happened

On June 1, 2020, a collection of peaceful protesters gathered on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in downtown Philadelphia. As curfew approached, the mostly young crowd began to be corralled by bike police officers. An escalation of events took place and 21-year-old Temple University engineering student named Evan Gorski was arrested. According to Philadelphia police, Gorski allegedly “assaulted a police officer by pushing him off a bike, causing him to break a hand.

Bad Apples in Buffalo

After an elderly protester in Buffalo, New York, was pushed to the ground by police officers and left to lie there as blood pooled beneath his head, the head of the local police union, John Evans, said his colleagues were disgusted.Disgusted, that is, that two of the officers seen in the video were suspended without pay.

Trump Threatens Protests with Troops, But Police Have Already Been Militarized — With Deadly Results

The American Civil Liberties Union and Black Lives Matter announced Thursday they are suing President Trump and Attorney General William Barr for authorizing an “unprovoked and frankly criminal attack” on protesters at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., where the National Guard and officers dressed in riot gear fired tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs to disperse peaceful protesters on Monday so Trump could have a photo op with a Bible in front of St.

Watch: Police Pepper-Spray Black Filmmaker in Face at Peaceful Protest & Medics Help Him Survive

As the nationwide uprising in defense of Black lives continues, demonstrators are recording videos of police brutality on the streets. We speak with Chris Frierson, an African American documentary filmmaker and cameraman who was filming a Black Lives Matter protest on Saturday in Brooklyn, New York, when police moved in on demonstrators. As Frierson filmed, police pepper-sprayed him directly in the face. Chris kept on filming as he struggled to the sidewalk crying in agony from the pain.

The 13 Best Movies About Why You Shouldn’t Trust the Government

America continues to battle the coronavirus, demonstrators fill the streets to decry police brutality and racism, and former members of President Donald Trump’s own Cabinet are denouncing his leadership. There’s undeniable surrealism to the moment at hand, with police killings captured on camera running parallel to the bizarre image of the president strolling to a church to hold up a Bible, after the police used violent force to clear his path of peaceful protesters.

‘It’s Been Setting in on Me That This Is Like a Cycle’

Roger Williams Jr. was 10 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. It was 1968, and the assassination prompted chaos, uprisings, and fires across the country, including in his own Chicago neighborhood. “At the time, as a kid, you didn’t understand it,” Williams, now 62, told me.

I Went to a Drive-In Theater to Feel Normal. The Opposite Happened.

I arrive at the Paramount Drive-In Theater two and a half hours before its first screening, but it appears I’m already late: Ahead of me, a line of cars has formed, ranging from sedans like mine to pickup trucks loaded with blankets and pillows in the back, all inching toward the entrance.

The Books Briefing: A Struggle to Breathe

Many remarkable narratives explore the affliction of racially oppressed people in granular detail. Saidiya Hartman’s written history of black women arriving in urban American cityscapes at the turn of the 20th century encapsulates marginalized people’s struggle to live. In her book, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, she centralizes the stories of that population of black drifters, marking all of the obstacles of their journeys, while underscoring the marvel of their existence.