Today's Liberal News

Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Why Turkey’s Intervention Could Turn It into a “Proxy War”

The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are in Moscow for talks following two weeks of fighting over the disputed territory Nagorno-Karabakh. At least 300 people have already died in what could turn into a wider regional conflagration, with Turkey openly supporting Azerbaijan and Russia backing Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians.

U.N. World Food Programme Wins Nobel Peace Prize for Tackling Hunger Amid War, Pandemic & Climate Crisis

As the World Food Programme wins the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger around the world, we speak with Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, who says the United Nations body is doing vital work around the world. “I couldn’t be happier that the World Food Programme won the Nobel Prize for peace, because this hunger pandemic is paralyzing perhaps 2.7 billion people,” he says.

FBI Foils Right-Wing Plot to Kidnap Michigan Gov. Months After Trump Urged “Liberation” of State

Just months after President Trump tweeted for his supporters to ”LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” the FBI has foiled an alleged plot to kidnap and take hostage Democratic Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer. Authorities arrested six men Thursday involved in the kidnapping plot, and seven others who were said to be planning to storm the state Capitol in Lansing with the intent of starting a civil war.

Rev. William Barber on Voter Suppression: Republicans Know They Can’t Win If Everyone Casts a Ballot

During Wednesday’s debate, Vice President Mike Pence refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power if Biden wins the election. Instead, he referenced the Trump administration’s legal efforts to restrict mail-in voting. Rev. William Barber says the Republican Party’s voter suppression efforts ahead of the November election, aimed primarily at Black and Brown voters, amount to “surgical racism with surgical precision.

Saturday Night Owls: Raskin wants new structures to deal with presidential fitness. Pelosi agrees

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

John Nichols at The Nation writes—It’s Time to Put Some Muscle Behind the 25th Amendment:

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee member Jamie Raskin appeared before reporters Friday and proposed a plan to evaluate the mental fitness of presidents, they were peppered with predictable questions about Donald Trump.

This may not be the stupidest argument against taxing the rich, but it’s trying hard

Joe Biden is promising to raise taxes only on families making $400,000 or more each year—the top 1.8% of taxpayers. Here to explain why that will really hit middle-class families is CNBC with the latest contribution to the “why rich people are really barely making it” genre. No, really. Experts say!

“Based on the expenses, a $400,000 household income provides for a relatively middle-class lifestyle,” one personal finance website guy claimed.

Protecting the Affordable Care Act goes beyond preexisting conditions

 As the president continues his treatment for COVID-19 with the benefit of the best medicines and care that taxpayer funding can buy, he has called for “his representatives” to focus solely on confirming his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, shelving discussions of additional COVID-19 relief.

This Biden-Harris ad featuring a bunch of Black mayors is exactly what you need today

The campaign to eject Donald Trump from the White House and replace him with Joe Biden dropped an ad beautifully targeted at Black voters Saturday. “Mayors” features duly elected city leaders from across the country, and has one simple message: Vote. 

The ad was released on a day where Candace Owens and Trump hosted multiple superspreader events, including one that definitely was the latter’s latest Hatch Act violation.

Reading Thomas Jefferson’s Bible

Illustration by Katie Martin; images from Kean Collection / Getty; National Museum of American HistoryWas Thomas Jefferson an atheist? Plenty of people thought so. Jefferson never identified himself as such, of course.

The Many Beginnings of Louise Glück

One of the most striking qualities about the poetry of Louise Glück, who on Thursday won the Nobel Prize in Literature, is the way it returns again and again to the start of things—a story, a myth, a day, a marriage, a childhood. The question How do we begin anew? runs throughout the American poet’s work, from Firstborn (1968) to her most recent collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014).

The Constitution Is On Pause in America’s Courtrooms

In normal times, when a serious crime occurs and a person is charged, that person is soon presented before a judge. He or she is then advised of the charges, appointed a lawyer if he or she does not already have one, and bail is determined. From there, the machinery of justice proceeds apace: Grand juries hear testimony; prosecutors obtain an indictment; a trial date is set.

What Joe Can Learn From Ike

Many Americans remember the 1950s as a banal time of sock hops and drive-ins, but the decade began badly, with a nasty war in Korea, constant friction with China and Russia, and bitter sniping between Republicans and Democrats, who were no longer interested in the consensus that had led America to victory in World War II. In the final two years of Harry Truman’s presidency, the nation’s capital turned angry and dysfunctional.

Trump’s Very Ordinary Indifference to the Common Good

President Donald Trump is supposedly a billionaire, but the $750 that he paid in income taxes in the first year of his term doesn’t begin to cover his fair share of society’s expenses—much less the cost of government lawyers defending his personal and political interests or the health-care bills from the coronavirus outbreak within his own White House.