Today's Liberal News

‘If you wouldn’t mind putting your pants back on’: Texas dad’s mask ‘protest’ draws laughter

States across the nation have handled the novel coronavirus pandemic very, very differently, thanks to irresponsible Republican governors. It’s no surprise, then, that when it comes to masks in public schools, districts are handling the matter with varying degrees of concern for public health and safety.

Again thanks to their Republican leaders, Texas and Florida are concerning both residents and the rest of the country with bans against mask mandates.

This Week in Statehouse Action: Doldrums edition

August is winding down, but statehouse action is … not.

And I’m not even talking about Virginia, which has gubernatorial and state House elections this fall!

(And if you’re fretting that I haven’t done a deep dive into that landscape yet, fear not, erudite reader—I will absolutely be talking about the Commonwealth at length in the near future.)

But for the moment, let us, despite the heat, return to Texas.

Newsmax host on Afghan refugees: Too racist for this headline

What happens after you crash and burn alongside the Trump administration? You head over to one of the many money-making right-wing propaganda outlets to sell your wares. Former Trump campaign adviser and insufferable douchebag Steve Cortes has done just that and found a home at Newsmax. Here’s a short biography of Steve Cortes: He’s the guy that said Donald Trump needed to be a “bit more of a fascist.

A Bungled Mess

For days, those defending President Joe Biden’s pullout from Afghanistan repeated the mantra that no U.S. citizens had been killed during the successful evacuation of tens of thousands of Americans and Afghans from the country.

Who Takes the Blame?

Who, exactly, is responsible for today’s calamity in Afghanistan? ISIS appears to be the author of this tragedy, but are American officials at fault as well? At least 12 U.S. soldiers and dozens of Afghan civilians are dead after attacks by a pair of suicide bombers just outside the Kabul airport. The number of casualties is sure to rise.

Hummingbirds Have an Easy Way to Fool Harassers

Jay Falk has some choice words for white-necked jacobins, the iridescent, blue-tinged hummingbirds he spent much of graduate school chasing through the Central American tropics. They’re “the show-off jerks of the hummingbird community,” he told me.Falk, a biologist at the University of Washington, is deeply fond of the birds, who are gorgeous and clever and sassy. Sometimes, they’re brave enough to flit right up to him and inspect what he’s holding in his hand.

Trumpism Has Entered Its Final Form

Something happened last Saturday that was significant because it was unprecedented: Donald Trump spoke at a rally in the heart of Trump country—Cullman, Alabama, which gave the incumbent president more than 88 percent of the vote in 2020—and he was booed. The jeers were scattered but noticeable, enough so that Trump responded to them.Trump had encouraged those in the audience to get vaccinated. “I believe totally in your freedoms. I do.

Sarah Chayes: Afghanistan Was an “Afterthought” for U.S. as Bush Was “Hellbent” on Invading Iraq

As the U.S. proceeds with evacuating people from Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover of the country, we speak with author and former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes, who covered the fall of the Taliban in 2001, then lived in Kandahar until 2009, where she ran a soap factory, and went on to become a special adviser to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mike Mullen in Kabul. She says it was apparent shortly after the U.S.

Grandson of Notorious Warlord: My Family Is Celebrating the Taliban, But I Fear for My Friends’ Lives

As the United States has begun the final phase of evacuations of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies from the Kabul airport, we speak with Obaidullah Baheer, an Afghan academic who has decided to stay in Kabul despite the risks. Baheer’s grandfather, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a former mujahideen fighter once nicknamed the “Butcher of Kabul,” now among the senior political figures in the country attempting to shape a post-U.S. government with the Taliban.

News Roundup: Supreme Court saves racist Trump policy; an Afghanistan stunt; schools ignore DeSantis

In the news today: The new Supreme Court finally broke its pattern of “shadow docket” decisions declaring that the Trump administration could do whatever it wanted. What broke it? A new president not wanting to do what Trump wanted. Two congressmen aren’t getting the rave reviews they expected after they snuck into Afghanistan to film the evacuation for themselves—a move that could have endangered themselves and others. And Florida’s Gov.