Today's Liberal News

Cartoon: the protest pundit

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A blueprint for an ultra-partisan, progressive Biden presidency that keeps the Democrats in charge

MIT’s emeritus professor Noam Chomsky once described the Republican Party as “the most dangerous organization in human history.” Saturday’s issue of The New York Times confirms it, as one story offers a glimpse of how dismal this moment in time is for millions of Americans whose lives are now hanging by a slender thread, thanks to the deliberate action (or in this case inaction) of Senate Republicans.

Black workers are hurt most as Congress doesn’t extend unemployment, this week in the war on workers

One mostly unintended—definitely on the Republican side—aspect of the $600 in added unemployment benefits is that it reduced racial disparities. But that means that one aspect of the $600 expiring is that those same racial disparities have come roaring back. Why? Because, for one thing “Black workers disproportionately live in states with the lowest benefit levels and the highest barriers to receiving them,” The New York Times reports.

What to Do About William Faulkner

William Faulkner and his wife, Estelle, stand outside their home, in Oxford, Mississippi, in the spring of 1955. (Bettmann / Getty)In June 2005, Oprah Winfrey announced a surprising choice as the 55th selection for her influential book club. The coming months would be, she proclaimed, a “Summer of Faulkner,” focused on three of his novels—As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, and Light in August, available in a special 1,100-page box set weighing in at two pounds.

Elena Ferrante’s Master Class on Deceit

Simone Noronha“To tolerate existence, we lie, and we lie above all to ourselves,” Elena Ferrante observed in a 2002 interview. “Falsehoods protect us, mitigate suffering, allow us to avoid the terrifying moment of serious reflection, they dilute the horrors of our time, they even save us from ourselves.

This Is Exactly What Susan Rice Feared

A few days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice held a press briefing in her office to talk about the threats she saw on the horizon as Barack Obama’s presidency drew to a close. “What keeps you up at night? one reporter asked toward the end of the meeting. Her answer: a pandemic that spirals out of control.

America’s Authoritarian Governor

America has botched its coronavirus response in so, so many ways since the pandemic began. Even in a country that stands apart from the world for its horrific failures, there have been as many leadership bungles as there are states: Some failed to heed early warnings. Others refused to learn the lessons of outbreaks that came before theirs. Still others played politics instead of following science. And then there’s Georgia.Georgia’s response to the pandemic has not been going well.

Cancel College

Despite the continued spread of the coronavirus, many colleges around the country plan to welcome students back to campus over the coming weeks.Colleges want to reopen for good, nontrivial reasons. Administrators believe that most students learn better when they are physically assembled in the same place. And they know that the American college experience, at any rate, has long been about more than the classroom.