Today's Liberal News

NLRB official moves to ban captive audience meetings, this week in the war on workers

Captive audience meetings are one of the major tools of corporate union-busting efforts, in which management intimidates workers in person, on the clock, with the knowledge that their responses are being watched. Now, Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, is asking the board to classify most captive audience meetings as an unfair labor practice based on coercion in violation of workers’ rights.

The Shadow That Queerbaiting Casts on Gay Romance

This story contains spoilers for Our Flag Means Death.When a man and a woman on TV share an umbrella, and the man asks the woman if she’s happy in her relationship, the romantic implications are usually clear. When that happens on ABC’s Abbott Elementary, the teachers Janine and Gregory have obvious chemistry.

Michael Bay Has Done It Again

Ambulance is an action movie with a simple hook, the kind of “high concept” story pitch that one can just imagine a Hollywood executive’s eyes lighting up at. Two bank robbers, the adoptive brothers Danny (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) and Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), hijack an ambulance after a heist gone wrong, using it to sneak by the cops.

The Democrats America Is Leaving Behind

In 1997, I was living in Cambodia, working for the U.S. government to help solidify the country’s fragile democracy. The air was hopeful: Civic groups were preparing to monitor upcoming elections, political parties were selecting candidates and drafting platforms, and newspapers had popped up to feverishly report on it all.At his Fourth of July party, however, the U.S. ambassador to Phnom Penh warned of storm clouds ahead.

News Roundup: A moment of true history worth being alive for

Hello, Friday folks! It was a week that continued to stress us out, but also one filled with the kinds of moments that remind us all of how far we have come toward achieving a greater union. It is a reminder of what can be achieved in our country, and why we must all continue to be dedicated to the unfinished work.

Will Donald Trump ever go away? Probably not as soon as most of us would like, which would have been about seven decades ago.

Rep. Ronny Jackson, the ex-White House doc who praised Trump’s ‘good genes,’ is under investigation

The GOP’s crack team of doctors (sorry, “quack” team—damn you, autocorrect!) includes such luminaries as Mehmet Oz, Ben Carson, Scott Atlas, and Ronny Jackson, the dude who turned a slovenly heap of fly-pocked Crisco into a Greek Adonis through the magic of barmy bullsh*t.

Now Jackson, who leveraged his unique proximity to Donald Trump’s eminently unkissable bum into a congressional seat, is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

‘Surely we are better than this’: Famed civil rights activist Ruby Bridges speaks out on book bans

Famed civil rights activist and author Ruby Bridges testified before Congress in a hearing Thursday titled “Free Speech Under Attack: Book Bans and Academic Censorship.”

The panel included Bridges along with three high school students, a parent, a teacher, a librarian, and vice president of academic affairs at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Dr. Jonathan W. Pidluzny.

Pop Music’s Nostalgia Obsession

The Grammys have always been more than a bit old-fashioned. The ceremony typically consists of exciting new artists covering the songs of yesteryear, interspersed with awards going to established acts over those same exciting new artists. But though reforms at the Recording Academy, which hands out the awards, have led to better representation in recent years, this past week’s Grammys renewed debate about whether they’re still too stuck in the past.

Is It Time to Start Masking Again?

Well, here we are again. After our fleeting brush with normalcy during Omicron’s retreat, another very transmissible new version of the coronavirus is on the rise—and with it, a fresh wave of vacillation between mask-donning and mask-doffing.The Omicron offshoot BA.2 is now the dominant variant around the world and in the United States. Case counts are rising in a number of states. It’s too early to tell whether BA.

The Friendship Researchers Who Are Also Friends

Each installment of “The Friendship Files” features a conversation between The Atlantic’s Julie Beck and two or more friends, exploring the history and significance of their relationship.This week she talks with two friends who also happen to study friendship. They met at a conference back when very few relationship scholars were focusing on the topic, and became both friends and professional collaborators.