Today's Liberal News

Columbia Prof. Marianne Hirsch: Mahmoud Khalil Arrest Reminds Me of Growing Up Under Authoritarianism

Columbia University professor Marianne Hirsch’s new article in The Forward is titled “I grew up under a terrifying authoritarian regime. Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is right out of their playbook.” She tells Democracy Now! that seeing footage of the ICE arrests of Khalil and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk “brought back these feelings of terror that I had as a child.

From “Liberation Day” to Chaos: Trump Pauses Most Tariffs While Escalating Trade War with China

President Trump has announced a 90-day pause on new tariffs for most countries and a steep increase to tariffs on China. The 125% tariff rate on China comes after China retaliated in an escalating trade war between the two largest economies in the world. For most other countries, a 10% tariff remains in place, but higher tariffs were paused just hours after they went into effect, causing global stock markets to shoot back up after a historic plunge.

“Black Americans Are Not Surprised”: Christina Greer on Trump’s Attacks on Students, DEI & History

“There has been a systemic erasure of Black history.” Professor Christina Greer discusses the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech and efforts to whitewash American history. The erasure of the history of racism and resistance is not only intellectually dishonest, says Greer, but will also cause the U.S. economic and social harm. “We can’t move forward as a nation collectively … if we don’t understand our collective past,” she says.

“Detained Without Evidence”: Maryland Father Remains in El Salvador Prison After SCOTUS Ruling

The Supreme Court has paused a lower court order that instructed the Trump administration to immediately bring back a U.S. legal resident who was “mistakenly” sent to El Salvador, giving the court more time to deliberate on the case. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was expelled from the U.S. on March 15 despite holding protected status, will continue to languish under dangerous conditions in a Salvadoran maximum-security prison.

The Art of the Retreat

Ask President Donald Trump’s aides and allies, and they’ll tell you that the proclamation that jolted the stock market this afternoon was all part of the president’s grand plan to reset America’s trade imbalance. An aggressive push on tariffs had prompted dozens of countries to come begging Trump for mercy. Once they did, he offered them a 90-day reprieve while escalating the pressure on China. The decision sent the markets into a celebratory frenzy.

The Supreme Court Doesn’t Need Facts

Updated at 8:44 p.m. ET on April 9, 2025
Over the course of one afternoon and evening last month, the Department of Homeland Security loaded three planes with migrants, most of them Venezuelan men whom the Trump administration had determined, on the basis of little to no evidence, to be members of the gang Tren de Aragua. The planes departed Texas and flew across the Gulf of Mexico toward Central America, even as a judge in Washington, D.C., was holding a hearing on whether the U.S.

The Cost of Chaos

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Step one: Start a pointless, globe-encompassing trade war, rationalized solely by your own boneheaded innumeracy. Step two: Tank the markets. Step three: Pare the war back to a hot conflict with one of the United States’ most important trading partners and a warm conflict with every other country on Earth. Step four: Watch the market rebound and declare victory.

Trump Blinked

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For the past few days, investors, foreign leaders, and members of Congress have gradually gotten more and more frantic about the Trump administration’s huge tariffs. The White House, meanwhile, projected equanimity. “They feel like everything is going according to plan,” an adviser told Politico.

Why Trump Paused the Tariffs

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Only yesterday, President Donald Trump was mocking Republicans nervous about his global trade war as “Panicans.” In a defiant speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee, he insisted, “This time I’m doing what I want to do with respect to the tariffs,” and that only he had the courage to defy “the globalists.