Today's Liberal News

Thursday Night Owls: Half-century-old OSHA is supposed to protect workers. In pandemic, it went AWOL

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

At The American Prospect, Bryce Covert writes—How OSHA Went AWOL During the Pandemic:

When workers at the Maid-Rite Specialty Foods meatpacking plant in Dunmore, Pennsylvania feared that a lack of safety precautions against COVID-19 put them in imminent danger, they turned to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for help, filing two separate complaints.

FBI disrupted violent ‘militia’ plot to overthrow the government and kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

The FBI made a shocking announcement on Thursday, saying they’d disrupted a violent plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. From The Detroit News:

“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.

Collins angry that voters don’t agree that she’s entitled to her seat just because it’s hers

Sen. Susan Collins is very peeved. She’s darned mad at the voters of Maine for actually questioning her God-given right to be their senator forever, never mind her promise in her first campaign that she would only serve two terms. But that was four terms ago. Ancient history. Now? Now the seat is hers, dammit. “I grew up in Caribou, I’ve lived in Bangor for 26 years.

The Atlantic Daily: The Week in Politics

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.GETTY / THE ATLANTICIn a week beset by unthinkable political drama, the vice-presidential debate offered a wormhole back to 2012—to a different moment in American politics. Specifically, one wherein Donald Trump did not sit center stage.

‘I’m Aware of Everything That I Need to Do to Remove This Evil’

When Lin-Manuel Miranda started writing a musical about an ambitious, irresistible Caribbean-born striver who takes the New York political world by storm, he didn’t have to look far for a real-life model of relentlessness. “That’s Luis Miranda as much as it is Alexander Hamilton,” he explains in Siempre, Luis, a new documentary about his father’s journey from a Puerto Rican hill town to the centers of Democratic Party leadership on the mainland.

Kamala Harris Claims Her Power

Before last night’s vice-presidential debate, the hype, at least among Democrats, was that Kamala Harris was going to knock Mike Pence out. You might have thought it was 1988 again, and the debate was that year’s most anticipated prizefight, with the senator from California playing the role of Mike Tyson and the sitting vice president cast as Michael Spinks.Tyson knocked out Spinks in 91 seconds.

Where Harris Succeeded and Pence Failed

Will this latest debate make a measurable difference in the outcome of the election? Probably not; vice-presidential debates rarely do. But something significant may have happened last night, and it involves what usually turns out to matter, if anything does, from televised debates. Namely, the parts of their personalities and identities each candidate purposefully or unintentionally conveyed.

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.

Rev. William Barber: Millions Are Struggling. So Why Do the Debates Ignore Poverty?

Rev. William Barber says the 2020 election debates have steadfastly ignored the subject of poverty, even though it affected almost half the United States population before the COVID-19 pandemic and millions more people are struggling since then. “We have to stop saying that things were well before COVID,” Barber says. “The reality is, Wall Street was well.” Barber is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach.

The Greatest Failure in Presidential History: Kamala Harris Slams Trump/Pence’s Handling of COVID-19

Separated by two plates of plexiglass, Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris met Wednesday in the only vice-presidential debate of the campaign season. Pence, who heads the White House Coronavirus Task Force, repeatedly defended the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 nears 212,000 and millions of people remain out of work.