Today's Liberal News

The IRS Should Stop Using Facial Recognition

With tax season upon us, the IRS is pushing individuals to submit to facial recognition in exchange for being able to complete a range of basic tax-related activities online. The IRS has retained a private firm—ID.me (formerly known as TroopSwap)—that claims to provide “secure identity proofing, authentication, and group affiliation verification for government and businesses across sectors.” The IRS is not the only government agency working with ID.me.

16 Indie Films to Get Excited About This Year

For the second year in a row, the Sundance Film Festival had to go completely virtual, but that didn’t stop the annual celebration from giving a robust preview of the most exciting emerging artists in Hollywood. Much of this year’s slate defied the pandemic’s limitations: Twisty horror films didn’t need Park City’s frigid climate to deliver chills.

Delta’s Not Dead Yet

Pour one out for Delta, the SARS-CoV-2 variant that Season 3 of the pandemic seems intent on killing off. After holding star billing through the summer and fall of 2021, Delta’s spent the past several weeks getting absolutely walloped by its feistier cousin Omicron—a virus that’s adept at both blitzing in and out of airways and dodging the antibodies that vaccines and other variants raise.

An American Age of Greed Should Have Been Perfect TV Fodder

The Gilded Age made its debut on HBO on January 24, which is also the writer Edith Wharton’s birthday—a detail that’s hard to ascribe to coincidence. Not only does the drama borrow Wharton’s milieu of 1880s New York City, but the show’s creator is also a self-proclaimed Whartonite.

“The Lords of Easy Money”: How the Federal Reserve Enriched Wall Street & Broke the U.S. Economy

As the Federal Reserve signals it will raise interest rates in March, we talk to Christopher Leonard, author of the new book “The Lords of Easy Money,” about how the Federal Reserve broke the American economy. He details the issues with quantitative easing, a radical intervention instituted by the federal government in 2010 to encourage banks and investors to lend more risky debt to combat the recession.

Despite U.S. Embargo, Cuba Aims to Share Homegrown Vaccine with Global South

A 60-year U.S. embargo that prevents U.S.-made products from being exported to Cuba has forced the small island nation to develop its own COVID-19 vaccines and rely on open source designs for life-saving medical equipment such as ventilators. We speak to leading Cuban scientist Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa about how massive mobilization helped produce three original vaccines that have proven highly effective against the coronavirus.

Stephen Breyer to Retire, Giving Biden Chance to Nominate First Black Woman Supreme Court Justice

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring after nearly three decades on the bench, giving President Biden a chance to fulfill a campaign promise to nominate the first Black woman in history to serve on the high court. Those worried that identity politics will hinder the most qualified candidate should consider that 108 of 115 justices since the nation’s founding have been white men, says Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation.

Thich Nhat Hanh After 9/11: Ignorance, Discrimination, Fear & Violence Are Real Enemies of Humanity

In memory of Thich Nhat Hanh, the world-renowned Buddhist monk, antiwar activist, poet and teacher who died Saturday, we reair a speech Hanh gave at Riverside Church in New York in 2001. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, Hanh urged the audience to embrace peace in the face of anger, citing his experience of witnessing suffering on both sides during the war in his native Vietnam. “The real enemy of man is not man,” says Hanh.

The Battle for the Future of the West

Vladimir Putin likes to say that playing chess with the United States is like playing against a pigeon: It struts around the board, knocks over the pieces, shits everywhere, and then declares victory. Playing chess with Europe, in contrast, must be like playing with a child who has forgotten the rules of the game, claims to have invented new ones, and then sulks when no one wants to play.For so long, many people in Europe, including the U.K.

News Roundup: Breyer to retire; Tucker pushes neo-Nazi conspiracy on behalf of authoritarian leader

In the news today: Supreme Court Stephen Breyer has reportedly made the decision to retire at the end of the court’s current term; the decision would allow President Joe Biden to name a replacement while Democrats are in control of the Senate, foiling potential Republican plans to deny yet another court seat to a Democratic president. Another key insurrection figure loses the fight to hide his records from investigators.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire at end of court term

NBC News has confirmed that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this term, paving the way for President Joe Biden to name his successor.

Breyer, 83, is the court’s oldest member. He has served for 27 years on the court, and had given few indications that he was seriously considering stepping down.

We need to replace Justice Breyer with the Court’s first Black woman, and the shortlist is fierce!

NBC News has confirmed that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this term, paving the way for President Joe Biden to name his successor. Breyer, 83, is one of the three remaining liberal justices, and for several months progressives and activists have encouraged him to step down while Democrats still hold both the House and the Senate—something that could likely change after the 2022 midterms.

Florida Dems walk out on Gov. DeSantis’ surgeon general after he can’t answer simple COVID questions

On Wednesday, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo—Gov. Ron DeSantis’ choice to continue being Florida’s surgeon general—advanced on to the next state Senate committee. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Democratic state Sen. Lauren Book informed the panel that the four Democrats on the panel would not vote on Ladapo’s confirmation, and walked out in protest. “We don’t feel that we’re getting any answers.