Today's Liberal News

Will Gottsegen

The Meme Shutdown

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Last week, on the first day of the still-ongoing federal-government shutdown, a curious meme appeared on New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s press-office X account.

The AI Money Vortex

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During prime-time football last Sunday, OpenAI debuted its biggest ad campaign yet, emphasizing three possible uses for ChatGPT: making dinner recipes, creating workout routines, and planning road trips.

A Terrible Attack in Manchester

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This morning, while Jews around the world settled in to observe Yom Kippur, two people were killed and three were wounded in a vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack at a synagogue in Manchester, England.

RFK Jr.’s Obsession With the Past

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The ascent of MAHA—the Trump administration’s movement to “Make America Healthy Again”—is part of a broader health revolution in the United States, one that venerates the past in order to carve out a purportedly healthier future.

Is This ‘America First’?

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Standing on the United Nations General Assembly dais yesterday, President Donald Trump had a message for the global leaders and representatives in attendance: “Your countries are going to hell.”
What for? The “failed experiment of open borders,” according to the president.

Trump Offers a Golden Ticket

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One thing we know about President Donald Trump: He loves gold. His hotels, his golf clubs, his private living quarters, his proprietary high-top sneakers and coffee grounds—all of it is to some extent coated in the same opulent shade.

The Fed Rate Cut Won’t Be Enough to Appease Trump

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The Federal Reserve finally cut interest rates today—but that’s not likely to stop the president’s pressure campaign against the central bank anytime soon.

Why Tesla Thinks Elon Needs More Money

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For a few precarious hours last week, Elon Musk reportedly lost his title as the world’s richest man.

The Awful Ubiquity of Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Video

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Yesterday afternoon, after hearing that the conservative activist and influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot, I turned, as I often do when news breaks, to social media.

Trump’s Crypto Dealings Now Have the Perfect Cover

The Trumps have never been known for their subtlety: They like to do things fast, big, and loud. This is especially so in the context of cryptocurrency, a noisy and chaotic industry by nature. Remember our president’s collection of NFTs? Among the depictions on these digital trading cards is a portrait of Donald Trump in an Iron Man–inspired suit, accompanied by the caption “SUPERTRUMP.

The Art of the Crypto Deal

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Right at the beginning of the second chapter of The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump declares that his “style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward.” Crucially, this was long before the invention of cryptocurrency.

The Real Trump Family Business Is Crypto

Early Monday morning, the leader of the free world had a message to convey. Not about the economic turmoil from tariffs, any one of the skirmishes playing out abroad, or a surprise shake-up in his White House staff. Instead, President Donald Trump turned to Truth Social to post about something called the “$TRUMP GALA DINNER,” with a link to gettrumpmemes.com.

The Crypto World Is Already Mad at Trump

Donald Trump never misses a good brand opportunity. You can buy collectible Trump trading cards, limited-edition autographed Trump guitars, $499 “Trump Won” low-top sneakers, and Trump-endorsed Bibles. Long before he got into politics, Trump peddled liquor (Trump Vodka), education (Trump University), and meat (Trump Steaks). But Trump’s latest enterprise—a new cryptocurrency token named $TRUMP—might be his most brazen yet.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Dream Came True

If there’s a single image that defines the crypto frenzy of 2021 and 2022, it’s that of the actor Matt Damon, calm and muscled, delivering the immortal proverb “Fortune favors the brave.” It was part of an ad for Crypto.com, yet it somehow captured the absurdity of what the crypto industry promised at the time: not just a digital asset, but a ludicrously magnified vision of the future.
Sam Bankman-Fried was the opposite of all that.

Even When Ticketmaster Works, It Doesn’t

There was a time, not so long ago, when you actually had to show up at a concert to get ripped off. Scalping, the process of buying tickets for cheap and reselling them to desperate fans, usually on the day of a show, used to be limited to crowded stadium entranceways and sidewalk waiting areas.These days it all happens on Ticketmaster.

Sam Bankman-Fried Got What He Wanted

In the hours before Sam Bankman-Fried surrendered to police at his home on the Bahamian island of New Providence, he was still engaged in something like a last-ditch press tour: a final, desperate attempt to make amends after his $32 billion crypto empire unraveled last month. Asked during a Monday-afternoon roundtable on Twitter Spaces whether he thought the prospect of returning to the U.S. might result in his arrest, Bankman-Fried responded with a resounding no.

Sam Bankman-Fried Is Going Down Posting

After losing more than $1 billion of his customers’ money, the disgraced crypto titan Sam Bankman-Fried had just one thing to say.“1) What.”That inscrutable message, posted on Twitter last weekend, followed a cataclysmic week for the 30-year-old. FTX, the cryptocurrency-trading site he’d founded and turned into a global behemoth, went insolvent. Bankman-Fried’s personal wealth plummeted from $15 billion to $0 in just one day, and the company filed for bankruptcy.

You Can Forget About Crypto Now

When I spoke with Sam Bankman-Fried three weeks ago, he was crypto’s golden boy. Worth about $15 billion, this quirky 30-year-old led one of the industry’s largest empires. Over the past few years, he’s palled around with Bill Clinton, graced the cover of Fortune magazine, and turned himself into a three-letter initialism: SBF. Toward the end of our rambling, 90-minute interview, Bankman-Fried dropped a casual hint at the state of his finances.

Crypto’s Political Megadonor Has Shut His Wallet

Sam Bankman-Fried, a 30-year-old co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is a $15 billion enigma. As one of the richest and most powerful men in crypto, “SBF” is already a political megadonor in the vein of Peter Thiel and George Soros: He spent millions in support of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, and was one of the biggest Democratic donors in the country in the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections.

Have the Crypto Bosses Learned Anything At All?

Last Monday marked one of the biggest TV events of June—Game 5 of the NBA finals. So naturally the crypto exchange Coinbase used the opportunity to air an ad poking fun at crypto’s more enthusiastic doomsayers. A series of tweets declaring “Crypto is dead”—some new, others nearly a decade old—fades in and out over a rendition of Chopin’s funeral march. Then a new slogan rises up in a harsh blue font: “Long live crypto.