Today's Liberal News

Trump’s Predatory Version of ‘America First’

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Ronald Reagan, invoking the 17th-century Puritan John Winthrop, once compared America to “a shining city on a hill.” This image of visibility and power, my colleague David Frum writes in a new essay, “imposed extra moral responsibility on the city dwellers.

The Sound of Fear on Air

Updated at 8 p.m. ET on December 4, 2024.
This morning, I had an unsettling experience.
I was invited onto MSNBC’s Morning Joe to talk from a studio in Washington, D.C., about an article I’d written on Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense—specifically about an NBC News report that his heavy drinking worried colleagues at Fox News and at the veterans organizations he’d headed.

The American People Deserve DOGE

No federal agency is as hated as the IRS, and perhaps no federal agency deserves so much hate.
The average American spends 13 hours a year completing the agency’s ugly, indecipherable forms. The process is so onerous that Americans fork over $10 billion annually to tax preparers, who nevertheless screw up an estimated 60 percent of their clients’ returns. The IRS audits low-income working families more often than it audits all but the very richest families.

Any Parent Would Have Done the Same

Hunter Biden has lived a troubled life, and faced years in prison—until Sunday, when his father rescued him, issuing a full executive pardon clearing him of all charges. Show me a parent who wouldn’t have done the same. If saving Hunter was politically improper or reputationally risky, it was also done in accordance with the higher and fiercer laws of familial love.

Day 4 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar

NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Simon, M. H. Wong, J. DePasquale
Day 4 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: A prominent string of alternating storms is visible across the low northern latitudes of Jupiter, forming a “vortex street,” as some planetary astronomers call it. Hubble recently observed this wave pattern of nested cyclones and anticyclones, locked together like alternating gears.

A Spy in Your Pocket? Ronan Farrow Exposes Secrets of High-Tech Spyware in New Film “Surveilled”

We look at the world of high-tech surveillance with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow and filmmaker Matthew O’Neill. Their new HBO documentary Surveilled is now available for streaming. Farrow says he became interested in the topic after he was tracked by the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube during his reporting on Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse.

Mass Protests Force South Korean President to Revoke Shocking Martial Law Declaration After 6 Hours

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol faces impeachment after opposition parties in the country’s National Assembly introduced a motion to force him from office for his shocking declaration of martial law. The conservative Yoon made his announcement in a televised briefing Tuesday evening, accusing the liberal opposition of undermining the state and possibly colluding with North Korea.

Behind the Brain Rot

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.
The image is black-and-white, lending it an air of “historical artifact”: A modern-day Donald Trump standing next to Elvis Presley. The president-elect posted the picture on Truth Social last night. Presley is strumming a guitar; Trump is idling in the frame.