Today's Liberal News

“Democratic Public Health”: Big Pharma Relies on Developing World While Limiting Access to Treatment

We look at the history of clinical vaccine trials and exploitation of vulnerable people in the U.S. and India, which recently surpassed Brazil as the country with the second most infections worldwide. Kaushik Sunder Rajan, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, says there is a documented history of “ethical lapses” and lack of accountability in vaccine studies in India.

Friday Night Owls: Progressive groups push House Dems to help Biden resurrect Iran nuclear agreement

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

At Responsible Statecraft, Matthew Petti writes—Progressives urge House Dems to help Biden save the Iran nuclear deal that Donald Trump has done everything he can to destroy:

Sixteen progressive groups have signed a letter urging the next House Foreign Affairs Committee chair to help a “potential Biden administration” save the nuclear deal with Iran.

Journalist reveals Trump official Katie Waldman tried to force her to retract factual border report

Further revelations from the whistleblower complaint alleging a top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official wanted to downplay white supremacy terror threats confirm there was also an active effort to lie about the number of known or suspected terrorists encountered at the southern border in order to back support for impeached president Donald Trump’s wall.

Meet one of the workers caring for children during the pandemic

It has been almost eight months since the first COVID-19 cases hit the United States and there has been a national shift in how essential workers are viewed. Once heroic headlines—uplifting the workers who kept the country running and fed—are now bleak. Essential workers are being treated as “sacrificial lambs,” New York Magazine recently reported, and thrust “into positions they were never meant to fill.

Revisiting Trump’s lies and Hurricane Maria’s death toll in Puerto Rico

As the number of deaths due to COVID-19 continue to grow on Donald Trump’s watch, and outrage over his culpability escalates, let us not forget that he showed us who he is back in 2017 when he attempted to ignore and minimize the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria’s devastation of the island. Remember that in 2018, Trump claimed Democrats made up death toll numbers to make him look bad. He even gave himself a “10,” for his response.

The Atlantic Daily: 6 Suggestions for the Weekend

Every weekday evening, our editors guide you through the biggest stories of the day, help you discover new ideas, and surprise you with moments of delight. Subscribe to get this delivered to your inbox.Miki LoweRemember. Today marks the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “Never in the past 19 years has America needed a reminder of collective resolve more,” Garrett Graff writes.Revisit a poem from yesteryear.

The Books Briefing: Stories From America’s Prisons

Amid the recent protests against police violence, Black Lives Matter activists have called for the urgent transformation of the criminal-justice system. The United States currently has the highest prison population in the world, and the growth of the carceral state has disproportionately affected Black and Latino populations.

Poisoned by 9/11, Killed by the Coronavirus

For 17 years, Victoria Burton and Mike Hankins spent September 11 the same way: just the two of them, at home, with no set schedule. Maybe they’d watch the reading of the names of the dead for a bit. Occasionally, flipping through the channels, they’d linger on a program that was replaying news coverage from the attacks. But mostly they’d just be with each other.The anniversary was always a weird day to process.

End the Nobel Peace Prize

Trolls are a Scandinavian invention, straight from the frigid sagas of Norse mythology, but Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a Norwegian parliamentarian, swears that he is not one. Observers of his antics this week could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. On Wednesday, he announced that he had nominated Donald J. Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. “Can you name a person who has done more for peace than President Trump?” Tybring-Gjedde asked me, insisting that the question was a serious one.

Costs of War: After 9/11 Attacks, U.S. Wars Displaced at Least 37 Million People Around the World

As the United States marks 19 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a new report finds at least 37 million people in eight countries have been displaced since the start of the so-called global war on terrorism since 2001. The Costs of War Project at Brown University also found more than 800,000 people have been killed since U.S. forces began fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, at a cost of $6.4 trillion to U.S. taxpayers.