Today's Liberal News

“We Created the Pandemicene”: Ed Yong on How the Climate Crisis Could Spark the Next Pandemic

Climate change is forcing animal migrations at an unprecedented scale, bringing many previously disconnected species into close contact and dramatically raising the likelihood of viruses leaping into new hosts and sparking future pandemics. That’s according to a new study in the journal Nature, which predicts that climate-driven disruptions to Earth’s ecosystems will create thousands of cross-species viral transmissions in the coming decades.

As Pentagon Chief Talks of “Weakening” Russia, Is U.S. Treating the Ukraine Conflict as a Proxy War?

The Biden administration has pledged billions in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week that the U.S. goal was “to see Russia weakened.” Author and analyst Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warns that unless there is a commitment to finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it could become a U.S.

Ukraine update: Pelosi visits Kyiv; Putin adds to his war crimes

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a small congressional delegation to Ukraine on Saturday, the details of which were not publicized until she had again left the country. Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff and others met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in yet another show of support towards Ukrainians currently fighting for their nation’s continued existence.

The situation on the ground remains as it was; few Russian gains, but continued Russian atrocities.

The ‘savage’ of ‘civilized’ nations

The debate over how some refugees are more deserving of aid and assistance than others isn’t new, especially in contrast with narratives of Latin and Caribbean American refugees and refugees from Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA); It demonstrates how humanity is not as advanced or progressed as far as it would like to believe itself to be—especially those of European descent.

Nuts & Bolts—Inside the Democratic party: The decreasing importance of experience

Welcome back! Every week here on Nuts & Bolts I take time to look at issues surrounding big and small campaigns, and with the help of campaign staff, candidates, and organizations nationally I try to come up with a picture of what goes into a successful campaign, what we learn from the most recent elections, and the trends we think are emerging in the way we communicate our message to voters.

This week, we get to cover a topic that should get a lot more attention.

The Downballot: Big, big May primary preview (transcript)

If you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Downballot on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Embedded Content

The 2022 election cycle really gets going next month with primaries in more than a dozen states, so we invited Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer to join us on this week’s episode of The Downballot to run us through all the key contests.

‘We Can Only Be Enemies’

When the Russian army first began shelling Lukashivka, a village in northern Ukraine, dozens of residents fled to the Horbonos family’s cellar. Children, pregnant women, bedridden pensioners, and the Horbonoses themselves headed down below the family’s peach orchard and vegetable patches, and waited. For 10 days, they listened as shells whistled and crashed above several times an hour.

Why I Left the Garden

After I lost my breast, I became a woman
sutured by a kind of knowledge.All day I moved as if walking was no different
from falling. I owned the potholes
and the riddled sky. I owned nothing at all.  Even from far away,
I could hear the record skipping.
Time was running out  
of hands. Of faces.  The first time a lover traced
my scar, fingered its river  
and kissed its groove, I woke early
the next morning and, quietly, I left.

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair Takes On the Horror of Internet Echo Chambers

Cinemas are pretty much always the best way to watch a movie. The darkened screening room is the ideal place to immerse yourself, distraction-free, in a film’s sound and visuals. That’d be a fine setting for Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, a tale of online alienation that debuted at 2021’s Sundance Film Festival and hit theaters and some streaming services this month.

And How Do These Books Make You Feel?

Janet Malcolm once wrote that psychoanalysis requires the analyst and the patient to wrestle with an arrangement whose “radical unlikeness to any other human relationship” is dizzying for both parties involved. They consent to meet alone at the same time and place every week.