Today's Liberal News

It Wasn’t a Hoax

If Donald Trump had been supported only by people who affirmatively liked him, his attack on American democracy would never have gotten as far as it did.Instead, at almost every turn, Trump was helped by people who had little liking for him as a human being or politician, but assessed that he could be useful for purposes of their own. The latest example: the suddenly red-hot media campaign to endorse Trump’s fantasy that he was the victim of a “Russia hoax.

Philip Yancey’s Message of Grace

On a Sunday in late February 2007, Philip Yancey was driving on a remote highway near Alamosa, Colorado. As he came around an icy curve, his Ford Explorer began to fishtail; the tire slipped off the asphalt and the Explorer tumbled down a hillside. The windows were blown out; skis, boots, luggage, and a laptop computer were strewn over the snow.Yancey suffered minor cuts and bruises on his face and limbs and a persistent nosebleed, but he also felt an intense pain in his neck.

What Slavery Looked Like in the West

Early travelers to the American West encountered unfree people nearly everywhere they went: on ranches and farmsteads, in mines and private homes, and even on the open market, bartered like any other tradable good. Unlike on southern plantations, these men, women, and children weren’t primarily African American; most were Native American. Tens of thousands of Indigenous people labored in bondage across the western United States in the mid-19th century.

Why Biden picked Powell

In the end, President Joe Biden did what many close to him expected: He took a longer-than-anticipated amount of time to arrive at a reasonable, moderate decision that thrilled few but carried limited risk.

News Roundup: Three guilty in Arbery murder; Jan. 6 planners had secret contact with Mark Meadows

In the news today: A jury found three men guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery. Rolling Stone is now reporting that the organizers of the Jan. 6 rally that resulted in violence inside the U.S. Capitol were in contact with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and with Eric and Lara Trump in the days immediately before the riot—and that organizers bought and used hard-to-trace “burner phones” in an attempt to hide the communications.

Trump’s latest toxic grudge is even dumber than usual

The most egregious story I’ve ever heard about Donald Trump—and, granted, there’s an embarrassment of riches to choose from—is the one about his stripping health coverage away from his gravely ill infant nephew … out of spite.

This story was fairly widely reported before the 2016 election, which seriously makes me wonder what people imagined about Hillary Clinton that could have possibly been worse than that.

Why is Joe Biden smiling? History is on his side

Presidents are kind of like NFL quarterbacks: They get too much credit when their team wins and too much blame when they lose. Rightly or wrongly, U.S. presidents tend to be the face of whatever’s happening in the country over a given snapshot of time.

It was a rough summer for Joe Biden, and his problems have persisted well into the fall.

The Washington Post’s opinion page hits rock bottom

News outlets under the First Amendment have a tremendous amount of leeway, and, of course, they should. They should be entitled to print diverse, conflicting, even vehemently oppositional views, and they shouldn’t be concerned about how many people might disagree with any given viewpoint they choose to print. Hell, that’s why we’re all here on Daily Kos.

So, I have a confession to make about cooking and Kamala Harris

I have a confession to make. It’s a big one, so bear with me. I like to cook, something I’ve already said in Connect, Unite, Act here on Daily Kos. I talk about it and think about it. Even when I’m with others, I tend to swap recipes. Recently, I’ve had a lot to think about in terms of how hunger has so often made a big impact on how I react—impulsively, I will grab food, decide to cook, or just make changes as I go because, well, I like doing it.

The System Only Worked Because It Was Pushed

The men who killed Ahmaud Arbery will not get away with it. Yet the most surprising aspect of the trial is not the verdict, but the fact that the trial happened at all.On Wednesday, a Georgia jury convicted Travis McMichael; his father, Gregory McMichael; and their friend William Bryan of felony offenses after the trio chased down and then shot Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, in February of last year.

The Loss at the Heart of Guy Fieri’s Entertainment Empire

In 2007, in one of the first episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Guy Fieri visited Patrick’s Roadhouse, a railway-station-turned-restaurant in Santa Monica, California. The diner’s chef, Silvio Moreira, walked Fieri through the preparation of one of Patrick’s most notable dishes, the Rockefeller—a burger topped with mushrooms, sour cream, jack cheese, and … caviar.

Thanksgiving? In This Economy?

Jayson Lusk’s Thanksgiving tradition, if you could call it that, is to talk with reporters about the prices of Americans’ holiday groceries. The media requests “seemed to start even earlier this year than usual,” Lusk, an agricultural economist at Purdue University, told me recently. “But it’s a more interesting story this year.”That’s because the ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner are significantly more expensive than they were 12 months ago.

“Furious and Disgusted”: Teen Survivor Speaks Out After Wealthy White Serial Rapist Gets Probation

The survivor of a serial rapist who received probation joins us to speak out after a New York judge sparked international outrage when he ruled it is inappropriate to jail the man who attacked her. Christopher Belter pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting her along with three other teenage girls age 15 and 16, but he will avoid serving time in prison, and instead receive 8 years of probation.