Today's Liberal News

How to Not Fight With Your Family About Politics

My family includes a farmer and a fiber artist in rural Kentucky, who rarely miss a Sunday service at their local Baptist church; a retired Jewish banker on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; a theater director in Florida; a contractor in Louisville; a lawyer in Boston; and a gay Republican.
Talking about politics at our family gatherings can be like smoking a cigarette at a gas station—there’s a good chance it will make the whole place explode.

Kurds Under Threat in Syria as Turkey Launches Attacks and Kills Journalists After Assad Regime Falls

As foreign powers look to shape Syria’s political landscape after the toppling of the Assad regime, the country’s Kurdish population is in the spotlight. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to threaten the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey regards as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years.

Gaetz-Gate: House Ethics Report on Former Florida Rep. Details Statutory Rape, Drug Use, Corruption

The U.S. House Ethics Committee has released its damning report on former Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, whom Trump had picked to be his attorney general before the Florida politician was forced to withdraw from consideration. The bipartisan committee’s report found Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him” and possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on “multiple different occasions.

Joe Biden’s Moral Wisdom

This morning, the White House announced that President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 men on federal death row to life without parole. The historic move came shortly after a batch of pardons and commutations for hundreds of people convicted of nonviolent crimes, as well as Biden’s pardon of his own son.

American Politics Has an Age Problem

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A senior GOP representative from Texas vanished from Congress for five months. Kay Granger, who is 81 years old, stepped down as chair of the House Appropriations Committee this past spring, and she announced last year that she would not seek reelection.

The End of News

Americans have record-low trust in the media. They’re reading traditional news less. Platforms, too, have broken up with news organizations, making it harder for them to attract readers to their stories. Many 20th-century media companies are outmoded in a landscape where independent sites, influencers, and podcasters are finding large, passionate audiences, especially among adults under 30.

Not the Life Matt Gaetz Was Planning On

The normal rules of public disgrace may no longer apply to Donald Trump. But at least some expectation of good behavior remains, it seems, for a politician in Trump’s orbit.
After a multiyear investigation, the House Ethics Committee reported today that former Representative Matt Gaetz paid “tens of thousands of dollars” to various women, including one 17-year-old girl, “for sex and/or drugs” on at least 20 occasions.