Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: Mississippi governor pushes state into pandemic disaster; pro-insurrection rally flops

In the news today: Mississippi’s Republican government has managed a milestone with a pandemic death rate that ranks it among the world’s very worst; in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Gov. Tate Reeves gave the world a good long look at the sort of governor who could pull off such a feat. Saturday’s pro-insurrection protest at the U.S. Capitol turned out to be a bust, but that doesn’t mean fascism’s supporters were quiet this weekend.

Challenges don’t end for Afghan refugees after they enter the U.S.

This story was originally published at Prism. 

By Jennifer Chowdhury

On Sept. 1, Hamed Ahmadi tweeted a picture of a few slices of stale chicken breast and melon in a styrofoam container with the caption, “Not complaining but this is what I got last night for dinner and the next meal is 12 hours later. Refugee life might be safe but never easy & favorable.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Ahmadi had worked on the ground in Afghanistan for several years.

No papers, No care: Disabled migrants seek help through lawsuit, activism

By Heidi de Marco, for Kaiser Health News

Desperation led José Luis Hernández to ride atop a speeding train through northern Mexico with hopes of reaching the United States 13 years ago. But he didn’t make it. Slipping off a step above a train coupling, he slid under the steel wheels. In the aftermath, he lost his right arm and leg, and all but one finger on his left hand.

He had left his home village in Honduras for the U.S.

Lately, I’ve Taken To

What is the role of poetry in the world? Writers have been wrestling with that question for centuries. In 1821, Percy Bysshe Shelley said that poetry helps us strengthen the muscles of our morals, and that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Fast-forward to Joe Biden’s inauguration in January: Amanda Gorman recited her poem “The Hill We Climb,” a call not just for unity but for justice.

The Liberal Attack on Government

“Let the public service be a proud and lively career,” President John F. Kennedy proclaimed in his January 1961 message to Congress. “Let every man and woman who works in any area of our national government,” he continued, “say with pride and with honor in future years: ‘I served the United States government in that hour of our nation’s need.

The Danger of Treating Everything as an Emergency

COVID-19, one of the most formidable viral foes that the world has faced in a century, has caused more than 4.5 million deaths. The United States and nearly every other country besides were correct to declare it a public-health emergency. But now federal, state, and local officials are grappling with when to end the temporary emergencies declared in early 2020, in many cases with the expectation that they’d last just weeks. The U.S.

Why Biden Bet It All on Mandates

When President Joe Biden rolled out his plan requiring vaccinations on a mass scale, he sounded a bit like a gambler at a point of desperation. Biden’s presidency, and much of his legacy, hinges on defeating the prolonged pandemic. During a dismal summer of rising infections and deaths due to vaccine holdouts and the Delta variant, the pandemic seemed to have defeated him. Under the new rules, Biden hopes to pressure about 80 million more Americans to get their shots.