Today's Liberal News

Why Won’t the Pentagon Own Up to Trump’s Latest Move?

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.
Donald Trump is focused this week on cracking down on the people he calls “insurrectionists”—but not so much on the ones who fought an actual armed rebellion against the U.S. government in the 1860s.
On Tuesday, Trump traveled to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.

What Trump Missed at the Kennedy Center

Les Misérables is that rarest of things: a global phenomenon that gets political. The show—not just a musical but a megamusical; not just a drama but a melodrama—is an impassioned argument in the guise of an epic story. Like the Victor Hugo novel that inspired it, the musical rails against autocrats and the systems that elevate them. It resents injustice, inequality, and inhumanity. It does so loudly and extravagantly, and has no use for subtlety. Its gaudiest villain is a greedy innkeeper.

The U.S. Accepts “Fruits of Migrant Labor” But Not Immigrants’ Humanity: Day Laborer Organizer in L.A.

We go to Los Angeles, where immigrant workers and families are feeling the impact of ICE raids on worksites like Home Depot. While hundreds have been detained, countless others are left to wonder whether they can safely go to work or school, fearing for their families. “The life of an immigrant in Los Angeles and across this country … is full of uncertainties,” says Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

“The Beginning of Fascism”: Rep. Delia Ramirez Says Trump’s Immigrant Crackdown Is Crushing Democracy

As immigrant rights protests spread to Chicago, we speak with Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who is the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants and married to a DACA recipient and recently called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. She responds to President Trump’s threat to deploy troops in more major cities to quell protests. “What you are seeing is the beginning of fascism,” says Ramirez, who represents parts of Chicago. “For fascists, they select a public enemy.

Block the Bombs: Rep. Delia Ramirez Pushes Bill to Halt U.S. Weapons Sales to Israel over Gaza

Nearly two dozen congressmembers are backing legislation, the Block the Bombs Act, that would withhold offensive weapons from Israel that violate international law and humanitarian norms. “What Bibi Netanyahu wants is to continue to escalate this ground invasion and starvation of Palestinians, to absolutely take over Gaza and destroy Palestinian life,” says Congressmember Delia Ramirez, one of the co-sponsors.

Ex-U.S. Diplomat Joins March to Gaza, Says Biden Official Matthew Miller Has “Blood on His Hands”

Activists from around the world are arriving in Egypt ahead of the Global March to Gaza, set to launch June 15, when thousands plan to march to the Rafah border to call for an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and its blockade of the territory. Dozens who flew to Cairo for the march have reportedly been detained, interrogated and deported by Egyptian security forces, but organizers say the event will proceed as planned. Former U.S.

“A Show of Human Solidarity”: Ex-U.S. Diplomat to Join Global March to Gaza to Break Israel’s Siege

Activists from around the world are planning a Global March to Gaza on June 15 in support of Palestinians enduring the Israeli blockade. The first Biden State Department diplomat to publicly resign over Gaza policy, Hala Rharrit, plans to attend the march along with thousands of others who will walk from Cairo to the Rafah border. “Silence does not ensure that we will be OK,” says Rharrit. “It’s quite the opposite. Silence ensures the injustice spreads.

Stephen Miller Triggers Los Angeles

Photographs by Robert LeBlanc
During a lull in the chanting outside the federal building targeted by protesters in downtown Los Angeles this week, I walked up behind a hooded young man wearing a mask and carrying a can of spray paint. He began to deface the marble facade in big black letters. WHEN TYRANNY BECOMES LAW, REBELLION BECOMES DUTY—THOMAS JEFFERSON, he wrote, adding his tag, SMO, in smaller font.

Dispatches From the Death Chamber

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.
In the death chambers of the Mississippi Delta, on a rainy night in an Indiana penitentiary, and in the early hours at an Alabama prison, Elizabeth Bruenig has seen three men die. She watched them thrash, draw labored breaths, close their eyes.