Today's Liberal News

Democratic economic policies are popular. Biden should act like it, this week in the war on workers

The fight is on to bring President-elect Joe Biden into office with a Democratic Senate majority to add to the Democratic House majority. But if Mitch McConnell controls the Senate and can continue to block legislation at will, no matter how popular it may be … Biden shouldn’t give up. He should keep pushing, and he should make sure voters know about it.

That’s Bryce Covert’s message in The New York Times.

Hollywood Is Preparing to Sacrifice Movie Theaters

This week, a seismic shift hit the cinema industry. WarnerMedia, one of the world’s biggest movie studios, announced that all of its 2021 films, including blockbusters such as Dune and The Matrix 4, would debut on HBO Max and in theaters at the same time. Each movie would stream for one month before leaving the platform, an unusual arrangement seemingly geared toward giving subscribers a stream of new films, while also allowing movies to play in theaters.

How a Georgia Republican Hit His Breaking Point With Trump

In Donald Trump’s America, anyone who crosses him will be famous for 15 minutes. A lifelong Republican and self-proclaimed “functionary” reached his breaking point this week. That’s Gabe Sterling, who holds the impressively bureaucratic title of Georgia’s voting-system implementation manager.

The Easy Way for Joe Biden to Save Lives

There’s an on-the-shelf policy the Biden administration could enact unilaterally that would save millions of American lives, without costing the government a single cent on net.That policy, one pushed for but never implemented by the Trump administration, is eliminating most nicotine from tobacco products. It would not render cigarettes illegal; they would still be available to adults, and the smoking experience would remain much the same. But the product would no longer be so addictive.

The Crown’s Majestic Untruths

The Crown is not a documentary. The presence of actors is a strong clue; the members of the Royal Family wish they were this good-looking. Do viewers need to be warned about this? One British politician thinks so. “It’s a beautifully produced work of fiction, so as with other TV productions, Netflix should be very clear at the beginning it is just that,” the Conservative culture minister, Oliver Dowden, said this week.

Indian Farmers Lead Historic Strike & Protests Against Narendra Modi, Neoliberalism & Inequality

As COVID rages through India, which has the second-highest number of reported cases worldwide, hundreds of thousands of farmers are converging on the capital New Delhi to demand the government repeal new laws that deregulate agricultural markets, saying the reforms give major corporations power to set crop prices far below current rates and devastate the livelihoods of farmers. Agriculture is the leading source of income for more than half of India’s 1.3 billion people.

Ethnic Cleansing Feared as Ethiopia Wages War on Tigray Region Amid Communication Blackout

The United Nations has reached a deal with Ethiopia’s government to allow humanitarian access to the northern Tigray region and start providing aid. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched military action against regional forces one month ago, setting off a bloody conflict and adding to the already alarming number of displaced people and refugees in the country and neighboring nations.

Friday Night Owls: How did the U.S. become so caught up in a cycle of endless wars?

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

Daniel Immerwahr at The Nation writes—Fort Everywhere. How did the United States become entangled in a cycle of endless war?

Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic struck the United States, a reporter asked Donald Trump if he now considered himself a wartime president. “I do. I actually do,” he replied. Swelling with purpose, he opened a press briefing by talking about it.

Compared with the need, job gains were meager in November. At this rate recovery will take years

In yet another indication that the recovery from the Pandemic Recession has dramatically slowed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that nonfarm employment rose by a mere 245,000 jobs in November. There were 344,000 gained in the private sector, but in all levels of the public sector 99,000 jobs were lost. The headline unemployment rate fell to 6.7%, but that was mostly a product of 400,000 people leaving the labor force.

No longer ‘standing by,’ Proud Boys bring politics of intimidation to streets in defense of Trump

It’s become apparent that, even as Donald Trump tries to deny reality and continue claiming he won the election, the hate group that he ordered, on national television, to “stand back and stand by” now considers (per leadership’s statements that “standby order has been rescinded,” as well as other threatening statements on social media) those orders null and void: The Proud Boys are now playing the role of Trump’s goon-squad defenders in the streets&m

Democrats targeted a Little Rock House seat, but in the end, Republicans won easily

Our project to calculate the 2020 presidential results for all 435 congressional districts nationwide ventures to Arkansas, a former Democratic stronghold that has become one of the most heavily Republican states over the last decade. You can find our complete data set here, which we’re updating continuously as the precinct-level election returns we need for our calculations become available.