Trump Calls Gun Control Efforts ‘Grotesque’ At NRA Convention
The former president appeared at the gun lobbying group’s convention just days after the deadly school shooting in Texas.
Today's Liberal News
78 Minutes
We were told today, in the latest version of events offered by authorities in Texas, that police left children locked in a classroom with a gunman for 78 minutes as they repeatedly called 911 begging for help, not knowing that their would-be rescuers were standing idly by.
The Atlantic Daily: The Only Sure Outcome of Depp v. Heard
Tomorrow, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s six-week defamation trial comes to a close. Depp is suing Heard, his ex-wife, for $50 million, accusing her of defaming him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she refers to herself—without naming him—as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” Heard, in turn, filed a $100 million defamation counterclaim against Depp.The jury will likely issue a verdict next week.
When Stranger Things Finally Gave Its Villain a Voice
This article contains spoilers for the first seven episodes of Stranger Things Season 4.Only on Netflix’s sci-fi horror drama Stranger Things have teenagers gotten used to fighting interdimensional demons. Early in Season 4, Robin (played by Maya Hawke) offers an explanation for her and her friends’ nonchalance in dealing with threats from the Upside Down, the desolate alternate realm that regularly sets monsters loose.
The Ludicrous Beauty of Top Gun: Maverick
In the original Top Gun, the enemy is intentionally obscure: anonymous pilots flying MiGs from a hostile but unnamed country who have to be chased away and shot down by the heroic Maverick (played by Tom Cruise) and his fellow graduates of the Top Gun naval flight school. Who exactly the enemy is does not matter. What matters is that the hero is America. Tony Scott’s film was a highly successful, undeniably compelling advertisement for brash 1980s jingoism.
Report from the Donbas: Shelling Intensifies in Severodonetsk as Russia Moves to Capture Key City
Heavy fighting is continuing in eastern Ukraine as Russia attempts to seize the entire Donbas region, where fighting began in 2014. We speak to independent journalist Billy Nessen, who just left the city of Severodonetsk, where Russian shelling has exponentially increased. He says a possible Russian capture of Severodonetsk would be a “big propaganda victory for Russia,” but predicts that Ukrainians are not yet at the point where they are willing to concede.
“Doubling Down”: How Minneapolis Elites Worked to Stop Police Reform After George Floyd’s Murder
Wednesday marked two years since George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, setting off worldwide protests against police violence. But has anything in Minneapolis changed? We spoke with longtime local activist Robin Wonsley Worlobah, who is also now Minneapolis’s first Black democratic socialist city councilmember.
“Trigger Points”: Author Mark Follman on How to Stop Mass Shootings Through Community Prevention
Shortly before the massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, we spoke with author and journalist Mark Follman about the epidemic of mass shootings in the United States. Follman is the author of the new book “Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America,” in which he closely examines how a community-based prevention method called “behavior threat assessment” can help prevent mass shootings.
Demand for monkeypox vaccine grows in U.S., European countries as virus cases climb
Governments warn against panicking, but they are planning for the worst outcome.
Pfizer, BioNTech report 80 percent efficacy of Covid-19 vaccine for youngest children
The companies plan to finish submitting data to the Food and Drug Administration this week.
State Democrats, abortion-rights activists ‘incredibly frustrated’ with federal inaction
Democratic inaction at the federal level could complicate the party’s efforts to run this fall as champions of reproductive rights.
Health official on monkeypox: ‘I feel like this is a virus we understand’
Ashish Jha said he doesn’t expect monkeypox will become a particularly big threat.
China’s fragility feeds the doom-mongers in Davos
Fêted at the World Economic Forum in 2017, Xi Jinping is now accused of torpedoing the global economy with his disastrous Zero Covid strategy.
RIP Davos Man, long live globalization
Open markets aren’t what they used to be. A more complicated, more regional economic system is reshaping the global order.
U.S. economy is in a ‘period of transition,’ White House economic adviser says
Despite high inflation, the U.S. is “moving from the strongest economic recovery in modern history to what can be a period of more stable and resilient growth,” Brian Deese said.
U.S. inflation hit 8.3% last month but slows from 40-year high
On a month-to-month basis, prices rose 0.3% from March to April, a still-elevated rate but the smallest increase in eight months.
Fed set to launch fresh assault on inflation in new era for economy
Rates this year could reach their highest levels since before the 2008 Wall Street crash if surging prices continue.
Abbott Drops In-Person Appearance At NRA Convention, Will Still Speak Via Video
The governor will hold a press conference in Uvalde, Texas on Friday instead of visiting the gun group’s national conference.
Ukraine Update: Severodonetsk is exposed, isolated, under assault. Why doesn’t Ukraine retreat?
The United States’s decision on whether to send MLRS/HIMARS rocket artillery to Ukraine has been painfully long and torturous, but they’re reportedly on the verge of making it happen. According to CNN’s sources, the problem is fear “Ukraine could use the systems to carry out offensive attacks inside Russia … The MLRS and its lighter-weight version, the HIMARS, can launch as far as 300km, or 186 miles.
News Roundup: Uvalde reveals hollowness of ‘hardening’ schools in a state that prioritizes guns
The horror of what happened in Uvalde continues to get worse with each new detail, but what is clear is that the fictions Texans relied on to “harden” their schools while still allowing guns to flow freely were just that: fictions.
Jimmy Kimmel delivers powerful monologue about do-nothing politicians, Dallas station cuts away
Jimmy Kimmel has used his late-night platform to call out the hypocrisies and grotesqueness of the right-wing media machine. He has openly challenged the fascist lies of people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. He has attempted to speak to the MAGA crowd and tried to use humor in pointing out the … inconsistencies between Trump’s promises and his actions.
Happy 20th anniversary, Daily Kos! And the 2022 Koscars go to …
A 20-year-old person can’t even drink legally in the U.S., but many a glass will be raised today in honor of the Daily Kos 20th anniversary. Whether you have wine, beer, sparkling water, Ardbeg, or oat milk in your glass, it doesn’t matter: Propose your own toast to 20 years of reading, ranting, laughing, crying, and changing the world together.
Trump is looking just vulnerable enough to challenge in 2024, and he knows it
Donald Trump is still the most dominant Republican in the country, but his very mixed primary record has left his air of invincibility in tatters.
As The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake notes, Trump has a 30% problem. While several of his endorsees won their races convincingly, most of them either won or lost with a less-than-middling 30-some percent of the GOP vote. They include:
Rep.
Thousands Of Students Walk Out Nationwide To Protest Lawmakers’ Inaction On Guns
From California to Virginia, students chanted “Enough is enough” and held signs reading “Thoughts and prayers are not enough” and “How many more kids.
The NRA Convention Begins Today. You Can’t Bring Your Gun.
And it’s not just because the Secret Service says so.
Where Were the Police?
My advice, if you are in an active-shooter situation, is the same no matter your age. Listen for the source of the shooting. Give yourself at most two seconds for this task. Those are not firecrackers. Then run as fast as you can in the other direction, and do not stop running until the only thing you hear is the sound of birds chirping, wind in the trees or grass, and the beating of your own heart.
Former ESPN Journalist’s Excuse For Uvalde Police Inaction Shocks Twitter Users
Jason Whitlock suggested that police held back because “when your culture makes George Floyd a hero, real heroes stand down.
Joe And Jill Biden To Visit Texas In Aftermath Of Elementary School Shooting
The White House said the president and first lady will visit the site of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 29.
The Review: Top Gun
Top Gun: Maverick is out soon! But can any movie with fast planes, Tom Cruise, and beach volleyball truly compare to the classic fighter-pilot movie about, as writer Shirley Li puts it, “cute boys calling each other cute names”? And do audiences have an appetite anymore for what Megan Garber called an “infomercial for America”? Find out with Shirley, Megan, and David Sims, and explore the moral (but fictional) simplicity of an earlier era: the Cold War ’80s.
The Amber Heard–Johnny Depp Trial Is Not a Joke
The first time it happened, she said, she thought it was a joke. On the stand in her defamation trial a few weeks ago, the actor Amber Heard shared her account of the first time her now-ex-husband, Johnny Depp, allegedly hit her. She’d asked him about one of his tattoos: the one on his bicep (the one he’d famously had edited) that to her looked like a muddle of black ink. The tattoo spelled out wino, she said he told her.