Today's Liberal News

Starbucks executives rail against union effort in leaked call, this week in the war on workers

Top Starbucks executives are really butt-hurt about the so-far overwhelmingly successful union organizing drive in their stores. In a leaked video call with managers, CEO and founder Howard Schultz included the company’s own employees in a list of “obstacles and challenges” the company has “managed to overcome,” describing them as “a new outside force that’s trying desperately to disrupt our company.

Connect! Unite! Act! Cheers and jeers to 20 years!

The moment you walk into a liquor store anywhere near us and they see your birthdate begins with a “1” instead of a “2” they instantly know you’re eligible to drink. The lifespan of Daily Kos isn’t quite there yet, but knowing that the top song in 2002 was Nickelback’s “You Remind Me” is definitely an interesting way to see where we are in a good way, in a bad way, and in a cringeworthy way all at the exact same time.

Everything Everywhere All at Once Is Multiverse Storytelling at Its Best

What’s better than a Marvel Cinematic Universe? A Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. Once limited to theoretical physics and comic-book plot conveniences, the notion of a multiverse has been an essential tool for Hollywood. Whether it’s a role that’s been cast and recast, a franchise character that gets a spin-off when the larger story ends, or simply a reboot telling a new story without upending its origins, the answer to any big movie problem is often: multiverse.

The Cruel Twist of Russian Doll

This article contains spoilers through the second season of Russian Doll.In a much-discussed essay for The New Yorker late last year, the critic Parul Sehgal analyzed the recent ubiquity of the trauma plot; the reliance, in books and on television, on stories that define characters by their pain, their guilt, the weight of their suffering.

Why the Russian People Go Along With Putin’s War

In the early days of the war on Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russians protested an invasion launched in their name. This was encouraging. Americans could content themselves with the possibility that Russian citizens might take matters into their own hands, challenging and weakening their president, Vladimir Putin. In recent weeks, however, such protests have become rare.

‘If Macron Loses, Putin Wins.’

In a rematch of the 2017 election, France will decide tomorrow between the erstwhile centrist disrupter Emmanuel Macron and the far-right fixture Marine Le Pen. Although this contest once seemed inevitable, the emergence last fall of the wild-card extreme-right media personage Éric Zemmour—whose campaign outflanked Le Pen’s and threatened to cannibalize it—meant that Le Pen had to struggle just to remain this cycle’s challenger.

As Russia Intensifies Attack on Ukraine’s Donbas, Volunteers Try to Help Civilians in Leveled Cities

We get an update on the Donbas region of Ukraine, where Russian forces are now focused. Russia has backed a separatist movement in the Donbas since 2014 and used protecting the Russian-speaking population there as a justification for its invasion in February. We speak with Brian Milakovsky, who lived in the Donbas town of Severodonetsk before he evacuated to Croatia in January and is now fundraising for people trying to flee Russian attacks.

Matrix of War: Russian Elites Unlikely to Split from Putin Despite War Losses & Western Sanctions

Russians are weathering the fallout of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with no sign of a negotiated peace deal soon. Economic sanctions have driven up food prices, and there has been repression of political dissent within the country. We speak with author Tony Wood, a member of the New Left Review editorial board, who says the crushing Western sanctions are unlikely to end Putin’s rule and are only hardening attitudes.

Ukraine update: It’s groundhog day, as Russia learned no lessons from its Kyiv failures

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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy felt like Groundhog Day, answering the same questions “what do you need?” from world leaders time and time again. Writing about this war feels the same way. 

The first five weeks of the war, we didn’t just talk about Russia’s logistical struggles, but of Ukraine’s abilities to capitulate on those struggles for maximum chaos and destruction.

News Roundup: GOP and Trump host Who Is the Biggest Loser?

It’s Friday everybody! A lot of Jan. 6 insurrectionist news is coming down the pipe this week. We have Marjorie Taylor Greene and her fellow white supremacist-leaning Proud Boys. Did you know that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not simply a nightmare person, but a racist nightmare person? You did? Well, that’s still true! We have a messaging problem in the Democratic Party.

Ukrainian officials say satellite images show mass grave near Mariupol with up to 9,000 bodies

Ukrainian officials say satellite images show a 300-meter mass grave in a Russian-occupied village near Mariupol where up to 9,000 people may be buried. Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko, in a report by the Mariupol City Council on Telegram, likened the site of the mass grave in the village of Manhush—about 20 kilometers from Mariupol—to Babi Yar, the ravine in Kyiv where 33,000 Jews were killed by Nazi occupiers in 1941, Ukrainskaya Pravda said.

Ukraine update: Russia is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome

At Friday afternoon’s Pentagon briefing, Defense Department officials reported that Russia was:

Continuing to bring in additional forces to the Donbas region, including some of those who fought in the losing Battle of Kyiv.
Continuing the kind of probing attacks along the eastern defensive lines they’ve employed since the beginning of the invasion.