Today's Liberal News

“The Work Continues”: Cornel West & Maria Hinojosa on the Promise & Dangers of the Biden Admin

We host a wide-ranging discussion of the historic inauguration of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — the first-ever woman, South Asian and Black vice president — how we got here, and what comes next, with award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa and author and Harvard professor Cornel West. Hinojosa says she had “mixed emotions” watching the inauguration, her sense of hope tempered by memories of the Obama administration.

“Democracy Has Prevailed”: Joe Biden Sworn In as President; Kamala Harris Becomes First Female VP

Joe Biden was sworn in as 46th president of the United States Wednesday, ending the Trump era with a call for national unity and urging Americans to come together during a period of turbulence. President Biden signed 17 executive orders in his first official act from the Oval Office, including on immigration, the pandemic and the climate crisis. Biden has promised more executive actions in the coming days.

30 Things Donald Trump Did as President You Might Have Missed

Trump’s presidency may be best remembered for its cataclysmic end. But his four years as president also changed real American policy in lasting ways, just more quietly. We asked POLITICO’s best-in-class policy reporters to recap some of the ways Trump changed the country while in office, for better or worse.

Joe Biden Has a Europe Problem

Joe Biden begins his first full day as the 46th president of the United States today with as daunting a list of foreign-policy challenges as almost any of his predecessors. After four years of Donald Trump, the new administration must overcome skepticism about America’s ability to deal with the great tests facing the world, including the rise of China as a 21st-century superpower, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the onslaught of man-made climate change.

Wednesday Night Owls: Biden calls for ‘unity,’ but healing will be tough in deeply divided nation

Night Owls is a themed open thread appearing at Daily Kos seven days a week.  

At Mother Jones, David Corn writes—Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address Was a Plea for “Unity.” But Healing the Nation’s “Soul” Won’t Be Easy. Can he both implement his policies and unify a bitterly divided country?

[…] Addressing the nation as president, Biden recognized that the fight for unity is largely a fight for truth.

The Bernie Sanders inauguration meme went viral, and it’s worth enjoying

I would like to preface this by saying I like Sen. Bernie Sanders. I voted for him in two primaries. This story is not about mocking Bernie Sanders but about enjoying how absolutely Bernie Sanders Bernie Sanders is. He is the most Bernie Sanders of anyone in the world. His political convictions are clear, and the package it comes in is also clear. I was born and raised on the east coast, and Sanders reminds me of many folks I knew growing up.

‘Don’t do it’: McCarthy explicitly warns that attacking other members is putting them in jeopardy

Congressional Republicans have kicked into high gear over the past week to minimize the fallout for the Republican Party caused by Donald Trump and the murderous mob he sicced on the lawmakers at the Capitol. On the one hand, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell finally directly blamed Trump for inciting the riot by feeding his cultists a steady diet of disinformation and baseless lies about the election.

‘Under no circumstances is this legal’: Cuccinelli’s attempt to delay Biden changes gets ridiculed

The Trump administration has signed agreements with Arizona, Louisiana, Indiana, and one lone sheriff’s office in North Carolina that state any future immigration changes made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first have to be run by the localities before the federal government can act, BuzzFeed News reports. If that sounds like a bunch of bull to you, you’re not wrong.

The Technicolor Normalcy of Biden’s Inauguration

Everyone knows that Joe Biden’s presidential aesthetic is purposefully boring: He’s promising a national nap time after Donald Trump’s violent four-year kegger. “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire,” the new president said during his inauguration address today, speaking where insurrectionists had recently carried Molotov cocktails.

The Sound of Silence

Donald Trump’s presidency concluded not with mutiny in state capitals or an attempted attack on his successor, but with a calm, conventional ceremony in an otherwise quiet city.Walking through Washington, D.C., today, the silence in the streets was the sound of a country not quite ready to exhale. It was a fitting end to the noisiest era of American politics that many Americans can remember.