Today's Liberal News

“The American Revolution Was Hardly an Anti-Colonial Movement”: UCLA Historian Robin D. G. Kelley

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we speak with the acclaimed scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, who examines how Black radicals have interpreted the document throughout U.S. history in a new essay for Hammer & Hope. Although the declaration famously asserts that “all men are created equal,” Kelley says that clearly did not extend to Indigenous or enslaved Black people.

“Rule of Law vs. Rule of Billionaires”: Supreme Court Says Trump Can Fire Regulators, Except at Fed

In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump’s efforts to fire her.

Hell Arrives in Washington

On the eve of the United States’ 250th birthday, in the nation’s capital, people were sweating through their shirts, and tourists were pressing electric fans directly to their foreheads. The record-breaking heat wave that roasted the Midwest earlier this week has turned Washington, D.C., into hell. Temperatures peaked at 102 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of 117. The sky was cloudless, and the humidity was encouraging me to lie down and cry. It was difficult to believe that D.C.

How Elon Musk Became More Powerful Than Ever

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Elon Musk isn’t just the world’s richest man—he’s one of the most influential people alive. His companies have transformed industries, his wealth has shattered records, and his politics now shape governments and public debate.

It Wasn’t Just the Founders

Who is responsible for American independence? The most common answer invokes a short list of familiar names: Washington, Jefferson, Adams. Despite their mistakes and biases, these men deserve the credit they’re typically given. But by focusing so much on the Founders, the conventional telling of America’s origin story leaves out perhaps its greatest heroes.

The ‘Have It Both Ways’ Theory of Great Books

This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
This week in The Atlantic, Michael O’Donnell took aim at a film critic who is himself notorious for takedowns. Point by point, O’Donnell debunks the arguments in A Sudden Flicker of Light, David Thomson’s new book about how cinema has harmed society.

All Men Are Created Equal, but What Does Equal Mean?

“Heaven created all persons in the same rut.” This is how one early Japanese translation of the Declaration of Independence rendered the self-evident truth mentioned in its most celebrated sentence. To many Americans, this may sound like an eccentric misunderstanding of “all men are created equal.” After all, the egalitarian arithmetic of the Declaration’s claim seems clear enough: Every person carries the same weight.

Journalist Karen Hao on Sam Altman, OpenAI & the “Quasi-Religious” Push for Artificial Intelligence

As part of our July Fourth special broadcast, we continue our extended interview with Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The book documents the rise of OpenAI and how the AI industry is leading to a new form of colonialism. “One of the things that you really have to understand about AI development today is that there are what I call quasi-religious movements that have developed within Silicon Valley,” says Hao.

“Empire of AI”: Karen Hao on How AI Is Threatening Democracy & Creating a New Colonial World

In our July Fourth special broadcast, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of artificial intelligence companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment.

“What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?”: James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.