Today's Liberal News

High Seas Update from Aid Ship Sailing to Gaza: Activists Vow to “Win Through Solidarity”

We get an update from the Madleen, the Freedom Flotilla ship sailing to Gaza with vital humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, one of 12 people on the ship, says “spirits are high” despite the constant presence of drones overhead and threats from the Israeli government. “Palestine is now the strategic place for all peoples to unite and fight against oppression, exploitation and the destruction of nature,” says Ávila.

“Completely Unwarranted”: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka Sues Trump Officials over His Arrest at ICE Jail

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a federal lawsuit, after he was arrested by masked federal agents outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail in Newark. “They arrested me without any evidence,” says Baraka of his decision to sue. “They humiliated me. They cuffed me. They dragged me in the car, took me to the cell. … It was completely unwarranted.

Musk vs. Trump? Quinn Slobodian on the Risks of Billionaire Rule

Is the Donald Trump-Elon Musk bromance finally over? President Trump is threatening to cut off billions of dollars in federal contracts with Musk after the two billionaires engaged in a dramatic online feud just days after Musk called Trump’s budget bill a “disgusting abomination.” Musk appeared to back the impeachment of Trump and claimed the president is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Trump Is Using the National Guard as Bait

President Donald Trump is about to launch yet another assault on democracy, the Constitution, and American traditions of civil-military relations, this time in Los Angeles. Under a dubious legal rationale, he is activating 2,000 members of the National Guard to confront protests against actions by ICE, the immigration police who have used thuggish tactics against citizens and foreigners alike in the United States.  
By militarizing the situation in L.A.

Averting a Worst-Case Scenario in Los Angeles

In Los Angeles, federal agents carrying out deportations on behalf of the Trump administration are clashing with protesters, some lawful, others unlawfully disruptive and even violent. The Trump administration has ordered in the National Guard and threatened to send in the Marines. Governor Gavin Newsom calls this willful escalation.

For Trump, This Is a Dress Rehearsal

Yesterday, President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard to quell disorderly protests against immigration-enforcement personnel in Los Angeles. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared his readiness to obey Trump by mobilizing the U.S. Marines as well. These threats look theatrical and pointless. The state, counties, and cities of California employ more than 75,000 uniformed law-enforcement personnel with arrest powers.

An Appeal to My Alma Mater

When Maggie Li Zhang enrolled in a college class where students were told to take notes and read on paper rather than on a screen, she felt anxious and alienated. Zhang and her peers had spent part of high school distance learning during the pandemic.

Under a Supermoon

Gazing at a supermoon when a portion of Earth’s shadow
      slides across the lunar surface,
I have no desire to twirl in space on an oxygenating cord;
      I have no desire to plunge
to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and observe snailfish.
      On the highway, someone
is driving to lab, to pueblo, to abandoned uranium mine
      and is always driving farther,
driving faster.

High Seas Update from Aid Ship Sailing to Gaza: Activists Vow to “Win Through Solidarity”

We get an update from the Madleen, the Freedom Flotilla ship sailing to Gaza with vital humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, one of 12 people on the ship, says “spirits are high” despite the constant presence of drones overhead and threats from the Israeli government. “Palestine is now the strategic place for all peoples to unite and fight against oppression, exploitation and the destruction of nature,” says Ávila.