Today's Liberal News

The Shameless Boris Johnson

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Boris Johnson, like so many other populist charlatans, is a symbol of how much has changed in modern politics—for the worse.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The most pathetic men in America
The great veterinary shortage
Take away the president’s immunity.

How to Hold a Charismatic Charlatan to Account

The head of government is caught in a series of scandals. The scandals are not necessarily so important in themselves. Many of them involve purely personal misconduct. But if exposed, they would shock public opinion and threaten the leader’s hold on power. So he lies and lies and lies again. He mobilizes his cabinet and staff to lie for him. And when the truth does finally catch up with him, he tries to brazen things out. The people voted for him. He has a mandate.

Coming Undone in the Age of Mass Shootings

You develop certain psychological reflexes to get you through the initial shock of the first push alert: Some number dead, others wounded in a mass shooting someplace in America. At this point we all know that the earliest reports are typically flawed, so you can suspend belief a degree or two, just for the time being. It’s summer; school’s out, which means they—the murdered, whoever they were—likely weren’t children, which means you can exhale a little, uneasily.

The Minions Are Good. I’m Serious.

Minions! You know them, even if you don’t want to. The banana-yellow, denim-clad, booger-shaped thingamabobs are so popular that they’ve overtaken the film franchise in which they originated. They’ve had their images stitched onto every piece of merchandise possible—sanctioned or not—and probably make up the bulk of those memes your one relative won’t stop posting on Facebook.

“Left Internationalism in the Heart of Empire”: Aziz Rana & Darryl Li on Building a New Foreign Policy

We host a conversation about “Left Internationalism in the Heart of Empire,” which is the focus of an essay by Cornell University law professor Aziz Rana in Dissent magazine. Rana argues for the creation of a “transnational infrastructure of left forces across the world” and says movements of the left need “clear alternatives to the hardest questions” of foreign policy crises, such as the Russian war in Ukraine.

Global South Is Facing a “Complete Energy Crisis” from Oil to Natural Gas Amid Ukraine War & Pandemic

Protests over fuel shortages are unfolding around the world — in Sri Lanka, Ghana, Peru, Ecuador and elsewhere — over high gas prices. We look at the impact of rising fuel costs on countries in the Global South with Antoine Halff, former chief oil analyst at the International Energy Agency, now at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

Sri Lanka Is “Grinding to a Halt” Amid Fuel Shortage, Inflation & Austerity, Prompting Mass Protests

Fuel shortages in Sri Lanka have triggered a wave of protests calling for the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. This comes as Sri Lanka’s government has forced the closure of all schools and announced plans to cut electricity by up to three hours a day, as well as stop printing currency to quell inflation. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is also facing a dire shortage of food and medicine, and doctors say the country’s entire health system could collapse.

“The Inevitable Has Happened”: Boris Johnson to Resign as PM After Mounting Scandals, Resignations

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation as leader of the Conservative Party on Thursday following a wave of departures from his government, including senior Cabinet members. The party will choose a new leader and the country’s next prime minister in the coming days. In the past week, 59 members of Parliament have resigned from the government, and on Wednesday night, a group of Cabinet members went to 10 Downing Street to urge Johnson to step down.

As Uvalde Reels from School Massacre, a Look Back at Historic 1970 Chicano Walkout at Robb Elementary

Uvalde, Texas, school district police chief Pete Arredondo has resigned from his new position on Uvalde’s City Council after facing widespread criticism over his handling of the May 24 school massacre when an 18-year-old gunman shot dead 19 fourth graders and two teachers. State authorities say Arredondo was the incident commander who ordered officers to wait in the school’s hallway for over an hour instead of confronting the gunman.

This neighborhood fireworks display went bad in a hurry

July Fourth is a holiday filled with cookouts, alcohol, BBQs, family, friends, and fireworks. Lots of fireworks. But fireworks are by nature explosives and parties get out of hand and explosives are … explosive. Every year, more and more Americans are injured or killed in firework-related mishaps. That number has increased over the years as more and cheaper fireworks become available to the public.

Tucker Carlson blames women and weed—but not guns—for mass shootings perpetrated by angry white men

The United States had more mass shootings over the holiday weekend—11, to be exact—making us the Joey Chestnut of mayhem, in that no one can even hope to challenge us. Republicans insist the reason we have so many more gun killings than any other country can’t possibly be the guns—because too many Fox News viewers enjoy doing white-knuckle drive-by hits on mule deer from their Rascal scooters.

Is Russian state TV souring on Trump? ‘We’ll have to think whether to reinstall him again’

The redoubtable, indefatigable, and gnarly rad Russian media monitor Julia Davis is back with another dispatch from the land of make-believe—otherwise known as Russian state TV. It’s a transcendently weird place where Vladimir Putin is doggedly de-Nazifying his Jewish-led neighbor and NATO somehow has reason to fear a Russian attack—even though Russia hasn’t been able to defeat its much-smaller non-NATO neighbor in four-plus months.

Bill O’Reilly throws racist fit over ‘minority gangs’ after white shooter kills 7 in Highland Park

A day following the mass shooting during a July 4th parade in Highland Park, Illinois, disgraced Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly went on an asinine and (even for him) deeply racist rant on his No Spin News and Analysis podcast in response to a recent press conference by Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker.

“There are no words for the kind of evil that turns a community celebration into a tragedy,” Pritzker said.

Are the Last Rational Republicans in Denial?

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.I wonder if the remaining sensible Republicans have accepted the irretrievable loss of the GOP they once knew.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Let’s use Chicago rules to beat Russia.
Hybrid work is doomed.
Uber Pool is a zombie.

Stranger Things Isn’t TV. It’s Something Else.

This article contains light spoilers through the fourth season of Stranger Things.Somehow, even thousands of viewing minutes in, my synapses numbed by a cinematic universe so squelchy that it induces visceral anxiety, I still don’t really know how to feel about Stranger Things. It’s hard to even say exactly what it is. TV watchers today are accustomed to streaming works that coalesce, murkily, somewhere between film and television.