Today's Liberal News

The Torment of Odesa

A most predictable rocket attack hit Odesa today—announced shortly before it happened by an air-raid alert on my phone, but also a full day before, when Russia and Ukraine struck a tentative deal to let Ukraine ship grain from Odesa and two other ports. This morning, rockets landed at the port itself, which was soon in flames. Russia could not let a point of accord pass without spicing it up with discord. Let no agreement blossom into celebration.

The Era of Climate Change Has Created a New Emotion

From above, an open-cut coal mine looks like some geological aberration, a sort of man-made desert, a recent volcanic eruption, or a kind of terra forming. When the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht first gazed at a series of such mines while driving through his home region in southeast Australia, he stopped and got out of his car, overcome “at the desolation of this once beautiful place,” he wrote in his book, Earth Emotions.

“I Don’t Want to Say the Election Is Over”: Video Outtakes Show Trump Refused to Admit Loss on Jan. 7

The January 6 committee aired never-before-seen outtakes of President Trump’s speech on January 7, one day after the insurrection. He is seen initially reading a script that read “this election is now over. Congress has certified the results.” But Trump insisted on changing the script. “I don’t want to say the election is over,” Trump says in the video. “I just want to say Congress has certified the results, without saying the election is over.

Pence’s Secret Service Team Feared for Their Lives as Trump Egged On Mob to Target VP on Jan. 6

During their eighth and final hearing until the fall, the January 6 House select committee aired new testimony from an anonymous national security official detailing how Mike Pence’s Secret Service agents feared for their lives during the breach of the Capitol. “There were calls to say goodbye to family members,” said the anonymous official. Despite knowledge of the growing mob, Trump decided to publish a tweet at 2:24 p.m.

187 Minutes: Jan. 6 Hearing Examines Trump’s Refusal to Urge Mob to Stop Violent Attack on Capitol

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol held a primetime hearing on Thursday night focused on former President Donald Trump’s refusal to take action as his supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6. Lawmakers dissected the three-hour period on January 6 after Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.

“Morons”: George Monbiot Compares PM Race to Viral British TV News Clip Questioning Climate Science

Following the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss have advanced to a runoff to succeed Johnson as Conservative leader, which would also make them prime minister. Both candidates would be “utterly devastating” for the U.K., says Guardian columnist George Monbiot. “What these people have to do to become prime minister is really to appeal to the worst instincts of humanity.

News Roundup: Republican attacks on schools continue; sex trafficker Gaetz preens for fascists

In the news this weekend: Far-right extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene jumps farther right, yet again, while fellow stain on the Republican and unindicted sex trafficker Rep. Matt Gaetz vamps for a fascist convention. But Republican extremism is having very real effects, especially in under-attack school systems. Dallas Republicans again respond to a mass murder in their state with new rules not on guns, but on schoolchildren.

‘You’re a Black man in America’: Judge asked to resign over warning to stay away from cops

A Black judge with jurisdiction over Clark County, and notably its Las Vegas strip, is being targeted by a local police union for advising a Black suspect before her for a probation hearing to use caution with police.

“You’re a Black man in America,” 8th Judicial District Court Judge Erika Ballou told the defendant. “You know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are.

The Day I Saw the Emperor’s Clay Soldiers

Farmers were digging a well near Xi’an, China, in 1974 when they found fragments of clay that turned out to be terra-cotta soldiers. In the years since, excavators have turned up an army of 8,000, each with a unique, detailed face and a life-size body. Historians believe they were meant to accompany the nation’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, into the afterlife.

Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

Culture, too, is a casualty of war. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some Ukrainian writers called for a boycott of Russian music, films, and books. Others have all but accused Russian literature of complicity in the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers. The entire culture, they say, is imperialist, and this military aggression reveals the moral bankruptcy of Russia’s so-called civilization. The road to Bucha, they argue, runs through Russian literature.

A Court Without Precedent

Just a few years ago, a clear majority of Americans trusted the Supreme Court. Now, a month after Roe v. Wade was overturned, poll after poll shows that a clear majority of Americans do not.To which many of the Court’s closest observers would say, “What took so long?”For more than a decade, the Court has issued narrow rulings, decided by slim majorities, that align with Republican political goals. Five Justices unleashed dark money in politics.