Today's Liberal News

“The Encampments”: New Film on Mahmoud Khalil & Columbia Students Who Sparked Gaza Campus Protests

The new documentary The Encampments, produced by Watermelon Pictures and BreakThrough News, is an insider’s look at the student protest movement to demand divestment from the U.S. and Israeli weapons industry and an end to the genocide in Gaza. The film focuses on last year’s student encampment at Columbia University and features student leaders including Mahmoud Khalil, who was chosen by the university as a liaison between the administration and students. Khalil, a U.S.

Musk Is Still Paying for Political Influence

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.
Elon Musk is averse to understatement. Last night, at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the world’s richest man bounded onstage in a cheesehead and handed out a pair of oversize checks worth $1 million apiece.

A Knapsack’s Worth of Courage

It is a blessing for this troubled country that the semiquincentennial of its struggle for independence is upon it. Indeed, some notable anniversaries have already slipped by: In September 1774, delegates from Suffolk County, Massachusetts, approved a set of resolves rejecting Parliament’s authority, which were then endorsed by the first Continental Congress. In November of that year, the provincial Congress of Massachusetts authorized the enlistment of 12,000 troops.

The Great Tesla Sell-Off

In Los Angeles, where I live, you don’t expect to be heckled while driving an electric car to the grocery store. But on a recent afternoon, a couple of men on bikes saw the Tesla logo on the front of my car and shouted, “Fuck you, Tesla guy” as I rolled by with the windows down.
I bought my Tesla Model 3 in 2019, after my wife and I moved from New York to L.A. and needed a car. Not willing to burn gasoline, we got the most practical EV we could afford.

Why Trump Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About a Third Term

Donald Trump’s interest in seeking an unconstitutional third term as president, like many of his most dangerous or illegal ideas, began as a joke. Trump would muse on the stump that he deserved an extra term because he was robbed of his first (by Robert Mueller’s investigation) or his second (by imagined vote fraud in 2020) without quite clarifying his intent.

Remembering Robert McChesney, Prescient Critic of Media Consolidation & Big Tech

We remember media scholar Robert McChesney, the co-founder of the advocacy group Free Press, who died on March 25 at age 72. McChesney was a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a prolific author, with nearly three dozen books on media, democracy and digital rights. He warned decades ago that corporate consolidation of the press was putting too much power in the hands of wealthy interests, and was an early critic of Big Tech’s control over online communications.

“Taking Down Everything Black”: Fired Kennedy Center VP Marc Bamuthi Joseph on Trump’s Takeover

President Donald Trump’s efforts to take over cultural institutions and attack diversity, equity and inclusion programs has centered on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the venerable arts institution in Washington, D.C. The Kennedy Center was established by Congress and has been run by a bipartisan board since it opened in 1971, but Trump upended that in February when he moved to install his loyalists in key positions and make himself chair.