Today's Liberal News

Nuts & Bolts—Inside a Democratic campaign: Updating the rules around training your canvass

Welcome to Nuts & Bolts, a guide to Democratic campaigns. I’ve helped write this series for years, using information from campaign managers, finance directors, field directors, trainers, and staff, responding to questions from Daily Kos Community and Staff members, and addressing issues that are sent to me via kosmail through Daily Kos.

A few years ago, I wrote a diary in this series about the absolute requirements I place around running a strong canvass.

SNL Needs to Log Off

Pop-culture gossip is like catnip for Saturday Night Live. Celebrity misbehavior has fueled many, many of the show’s sketches over the years—some of them quick-witted and clever, some of them bizarre duds. But not all celebrity news is created equal: There’s Will Smith’s Oscars slap, and then there’s the befuddling recent fallout of the YouTube stars the Try Guys.

Putin’s Regime Faces the Fate of His Kerch Strait Bridge

On Saturday, the Ukrainians hit the Kerch Strait Bridge, which leads from Russia to Crimea, with something—a missile, explosives planted by naval commandos, a truck laden with explosives. No one who knows is saying for sure. As is the way of military commentary in 2022, experts—real, fake, self-proclaimed—are studying the imagery floating around Twitter and insisting that they know just what happened.

Litany for Dictatorships

When “Litany for Dictatorships” was published in 1935, the world was gripped by cruelty. Adolf Hitler had established concentration camps and—the same month the poem appeared in print—passed the Nuremberg Laws stripping German Jews of citizenship. Joseph Stalin controlled the Soviet Union through secret police and Gulags, while encouraging neighbors to turn one another in for supposed disloyalty.

Trumpism Has Found Its Leading Lady

As election returns rolled in on the evening of November 3, 2020, a local news host in Phoenix was starring in an intensely awkward broadcast. The Fox 10 anchor Kari Lake was refusing to call Arizona for Joe Biden—even though her network had already done so. “If [voters] wake up tomorrow or two days later and it flips,” she insisted, her pendant earrings swinging, “there’s distrust in the system.” Lake’s co-anchor, John Hook, lost patience.

What Afghans Want the Rest of the World to Know

Hajera gave birth to her daughter, Sarah, in Kabul two weeks after the Taliban took over Afghanistan last summer. Hajera is 35 and worked as a government economist. She and her husband already had two sons and were happy to be welcoming a daughter. But they soon lost their jobs, and the Taliban erased the rights women had gained over the previous two decades.An Afghan women’s-rights activist had connected me with Hajera, who was too afraid to share her last name.

Decriminalize & Deschedule: Advocates Welcome Biden Pardons But Demand Deeper Reform of Cannabis Laws

President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he is pardoning everyone convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, and said the classification of the drug would undergo review. The move will remove many legal barriers for thousands of people to gain jobs, housing, college admission and federal benefits, and fulfills a campaign pledge made by Biden.

Ukraine update: Let the purges begin! Russian military leaders find themselves discarded

Russian sources on Telegram are reporting that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Army Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov have both been removed from their roles. According to the channel for the Wagner mercenary group, this is directly related to the explosion which heavily damaged the Kerch Bridge connecting the Crimea Oblast in Ukraine with Russia.

This may or may not be true.

Studies finds EPA lagging on power sector accountability rules, utilities falling short of goals

The climate advocacy group Evergreen Action wants the Environmental Protection Agency to take a good, hard look at the 10 crucial rules it must finalize in order to hold the power sector accountable. According to Evergreen Action’s latest report, six rules—including carbon standards for new and existing power plants, stronger standards for air toxins, and stronger national smog and soot standards—have been delayed.

Proud Boy pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy

The Justice Department will now have the cooperation of Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino in its case against the extremist group’s leader, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, and four other members currently facing charges of seditious conspiracy.

Bertino, a resident of North Carolina, entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. In addition to admitting that he conspired to forcibly stop the transfer of power on Jan.