Today's Liberal News

Pentagon Clamps Down on Extremism & White Supremacy After Dozens of Jan. 6 Rioters Had Military Ties

The Pentagon has announced new rules to slow the spread of extremism in the military, one of which will discipline soldiers for liking or resharing white nationalist and other extremist content on social media. The Pentagon announcement comes just two weeks before the first anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, where more than 80 of the 700 individuals charged with the attack had ties to the U.S. military.

“It’s a Win for Us”: Striking Kellogg’s Workers Get Raises, Improved Benefits & Avoid Two-Tier System

In a major victory for labor rights, 1,400 unionized Kellogg’s workers have ended their nearly three-month strike across four states after approving a new contract that provides a wage increase and enhanced benefits for all. The prior agreement that Kellogg’s tried to bargain only offered wage increases and improved benefits to longtime workers, whereas the new agreement ensures newer workers have a guaranteed option to receive the same improvements.

Tea Party Redux: How the Koch Network Funds and Fuels the Anti-Lockdown Movement

A new report titled “How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On COVID” reveals how a right-wing network linked to billionaire Charles Koch has played a key role in fighting public health measures during the pandemic, including mask and vaccine mandates, contact tracing and lockdowns. The groups include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), Donors Trust, the Hoover Institution and Hillsdale College.

No One Is Safe Until Everyone Is Safe: Oxfam on Vaccine Equity & Taking On Moderna

Oxfam America has accused Moderna of misleading its investors about an ongoing dispute over whether it needs to share vaccine patent rights with the U.S. government. Oxfam filed a shareholders complaint against Moderna with the Securities and Exchange Commission over the company’s resistance to recognizing the role played by three scientists with the National Institutes of Health in developing the vaccine.

Settle down by the fire, and have yourself a merry little Christmas

It’s that time again: time to snuggle up in front of your virtual fire, listening to the crackle and pop or maybe your favorite holiday standards, and maybe sip on your favorite holiday libation (this one’s mine).

YouTube Video

If you want to know why watching a fire burn on an electric screen is a thing, here you go. And if you want to see the original, or a bunch of creative spinoffs, you can find them here.

Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, the last surviving captive Southern Resident orca, has a shot at returning home

First of two parts:

Her Lummi name is Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (pronounced SKA-li CHUKH-teNOT). It references the cove on Whidbey Island where she was captured as a calf in August 1970. She has other names, including Tokitae, taken from Chinook jargon, bestowed by Jesse White, the veterinarian who took charge of her that day when she was ripped away from her L Pod family.

Movies to watch over the holiday break if you want to see Black people thriving

The Black experience is so diverse culturally, socioeconomically, and ethnically that it’s difficult to summarize with one descriptive phrase. It is no one thing, but media culture can depict it as such. So it’s refreshing and much appreciated when films centering Black people show Blackness as something more than what it means to be Black to white people.

Cheers and Jeers: Xmas Eve Baked Beans and Conspiracy Theory Liveblogging

Maine Folklife Center:

Across New England, and certainly throughout Maine, a tradition of baked bean suppers takes place in community institutions such as churches, granges, and firehouses…

While Boston is known as bean-town, only in Maine can you ever really get to know beans. B&M (Burnham and Morrill) baked beans of Portland still bakes beans in huge iron pots in brick ovens before they can them for distribution around the country.

A Pandemic Guide To Anime: Non Non Biyori; Azumanga Daioh

Welcome back to our impromptu and sporadically scheduled pandemic guide to anime. If you’ve missed any of our earlier entries, you can find them all here; for our introductory post you can go here.

Having run through many of the most famous choices and most popular genres, it’s now time to switch things up.

‘I Am a Writer Because of bell hooks’

listen little sister
angels make their hope here
in these hills
follow me
I will guide you
(From Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place, by bell hooks)
For all the things that bell hooks was—one of the foremost Black intellectuals in the world, renowned feminist, author of more than 40 books, revolutionary cultural critic—and all the places she lived, she was still Gloria Jean Watkins from Hopkinsville, daughter of Rosa Bell and Veotis.

Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald & Chris Hedges on NSA Leaks, Assange & Protecting a Free Internet

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hedges discuss mass surveillance, government secrecy, internet freedom and U.S. attempts to extradite and prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. They spoke together on a panel moderated by Amy Goodman at the virtual War on Terror Film Festival after a screening of “Citizenfour” — the Oscar-winning documentary about Snowden by Laura Poitras.

The Beloved Filipino Tradition That Started as a Government Policy

My mother and I spent an afternoon unfurling my lola’s apartment a few days after she died, back in 2017. In her closet, my grandmother had stored a big cardboard box with an address in Manila written on the side in thick marker. Inside the box were neatly arranged cans of food, bags of rice, drugstore makeup, and clothes she had bought on sale.

The Surreal TV Show That Rewrote Emily Dickinson’s Story

In Dickinson’s third and final season, the titular poet (played by Hailee Steinfeld) travels forward in time and meets the author Sylvia Plath (Saturday Night Live’s Chloe Fineman). Sylvia, it turns out, has a deep knowledge of her predecessor’s legacy. Apparently, Emily Dickinson lived a “miserable life,” should be considered “the original sad girl,” and, Sylvia whispers scandalously, “was a lesbian.

Five of the Best Books of 2021

Much of 2021 has been filled with a dull sense of déjà vu as the coronavirus pandemic has continued to shrink social worlds and batter morale. Many of the books our writers and editors were drawn to investigated failure, grief, apocalypse—resonant themes at a time of constant rupture and regression. Others helped jolt readers out of routines, and stretched the imagination.

Insecure Was So Much More Than a TV Show

Sitting in a New York City hotel room with a plastic flute full of prosecco and strappy black Manolo Blahnik heels resting near her bare feet, Issa Rae looks like the kind of woman who would have petrified an earlier avatar of herself.

News roundup: Trump and two of his stooges are fighting the Jan. 6 committee, and more

In the news today: Jim Jordan isn’t keen on appearing before the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 to explain his role in coordinating a coup with Donald Trump. Fine, lock him up. Michael Flynn lost his latest attempt to keep his role in the insurrection under wraps. Lock him up, too. And completing the trifecta of assholery, Donald Trump wants the Supreme Court to block the release of documents related to Jan. 6 to the House committee. This one? Lock him up and throw away the key.

Leading anti-vaxxer vows to make citizen’s arrest of Louisiana governor for inoculating kids

For the past two years—and especially since we all got access to the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines—I’ve felt like Luke Wilson’s character in Idiocracy trying to explain to relatives and acquaintances why they should irrigate their plants with water instead of sports drinks. It’s hard to get through to them, though—without an actual cranial saw, that is.

I can only imagine how Dr. Anthony Fauci feels.

Ted Cruz still appears to think he’ll be president one day

Oh, hey, Ted Cruz still wants to be president! Of course he does. The “breaking” part of this news is that he still seems to think it’s possible. Though, to be fair, Ted did snag a lot of primary votes in 2016—and that was before the beard. Imagine the mojo he’s got workin’ now!

Of course, Ted is universally loathed among warm-blooded vertebrates, so he’s forced to run as a Republican.