Today's Liberal News

The Deeper Problem With Google’s Racially Diverse Nazis

Is there a right way for Google’s generative AI to create fake images of Nazis? Apparently so, according to the company. Gemini, Google’s answer to ChatGPT, was shown last week to generate an absurd range of racially and gender-diverse German soldiers styled in Wehrmacht garb. It was, understandably, ridiculed for not generating any images of Nazis who were actually white. Prodded further, it seemed to actively resist generating images of white people altogether.

What Shane Gillis Proved on SNL

The comedian Shane Gillis is fond of joking about all of the things he knows he looks like: a high-school football coach; a possible parking-lot rapist; a police-brutality skeptic, someone who asks to “see the rest of the body-cam footage before we jump to any conclusions.” He’ll pose as a recognizable genre of buffoon or creep, before subverting those expectations.

Is Kara Swisher Tearing Down Tech Billionaires—Or Burnishing Their Legends?

Few journalists and their sources have fallen out as completely as Kara Swisher and Elon Musk. The reporter met the future billionaire in the late 1990s, when she was a tech correspondent for The Wall Street Journal  and he was just another Silicon Valley boy wonder. Over more than two decades, they developed a spiky but mutually useful relationship, conducted through informal emails and texts as well as public interviews.

The Right Has Fallen Into Its Own Steele-Dossier-Like Trap

The parallel was striking—but perhaps no one wanted to see it.
Last week, corruption allegations that underpinned the House GOP’s push to impeach President Joe Biden collapsed after federal prosecutors charged Alexander Smirnov, the informant who’d brought them forward, with lying to the FBI.
The Biden impeachment was never about the substance of the allegations against him; it was revenge for what former President Donald Trump’s allies view as witch hunts against him.

U.S. Anti-Terrorism Laws Are “Anti-Palestinian at the Core,” Chill First Amendment

As Israel continues to massacre Palestinians in Gaza with U.S. military and political support, Palestinians in the United States are increasingly being targeted by anti-terrorism laws in an attempt to silence their pro-Palestine activism. “Anti-Palestinian animus is one of the most enduring areas of bipartisan appeal in Washington,” says Darryl Li, an anthropologist and lawyer teaching at the University of Chicago. Li shares the history of U.S.

Haitian Asylum Seekers Take Biden Admin to Court for Racial Discrimination, Rights Violations

A federal court in Washington, D.C., heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of racial discrimination and rights violations of Haitian asylum seekers. The suit was brought on behalf of 11 Haitian asylum seekers who were abused by U.S. border agents as more than 15,000 people, mostly from Haiti, were forced to stay in a makeshift border encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande near the Acuña-Del Rio International Bridge in Texas.

“Governments Are Trying to Frighten Journalists”: Fmr. Guardian Head Alan Rusbridger on Assange Case

As Julian Assange awaits a decision from a British court on his possible extradition to the United States, Democracy Now! speaks with Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian, who worked with Assange to publish hundreds of thousands of classified records from the U.S. acquired by WikiLeaks that document war crimes in the Middle East. “What the governments are now trying to do is to frighten journalists off,” says Rusbridger.

Press Freedom on Trial: Julian Assange’s Lawyer on Extradition Case & Criminalizing Journalism

At a critical hearing this week in London, lawyers for imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asked the British High Court of Justice to grant him a new appeal in what is likely his last chance to avoid extradition to the United States, where he faces a 175-year prison sentence for publishing classified documents that exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Malcolm X Assassination: Former Security Guards Reveal New Details Pointing to FBI, NYPD Conspiracy

On the 59th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, two former security guards are speaking out for the first time about how they were falsely arrested by the New York Police Department as part of a conspiracy to remove his protection before he was killed. We hear from Khaleel Sayyed, 81, who says he was detained on trumped-up charges just days before Malcolm X was fatally shot, and we speak with Ben Crump and Flint Taylor, two civil rights attorneys who are working with the family.

One Simple Trick to Stop Trump (Some Exceptions Apply)

For almost a decade, the country has been just one simple trick away from relegating Donald Trump to obscurity.
Most recently, Trump-skeptical Republicans wrung their hands that a too-large field of challengers in the 2024 presidential primary was preventing GOP voters from coalescing around a good alternative candidate. If a consensus anti-Trump candidate emerged, the hope went, the party could finally buck him.
So much for that.

Shark Teeth Aren’t Just ‘Triangular Pointy Things’

This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine.
When a real-estate development threatened the remains of a 13th-century coastal fishing site on southern Brazil’s Santa Catarina Island in 1996, archaeologists rushed to excavate. They rapidly collected what they could from the Rio do Meio site—pottery, tools, animal remains. The historical site now sits under a popular beachfront property.

An Insightful and Truly Fun Cooking Show

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.
Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained.

The Myth of Codependency

According to the internet, it’s very possible that I am “codependent.” Do I try to fix the problems of my loved ones? Sometimes, yes. Am I sacrificing “who I am” in my relationships with my husband, children, and parents? If you put it in those terms, probably. Could the level of responsibility I feel for others be classified as “exaggerated”? Oof—maybe.

[36. Violence: Patri-confessional]

This poem has been excerpted from Nam Le’s new book, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem.
I buried my father in the great light,
the corroded pink, burning the eye to see,
launched him into dream commons, particularity,
a new matter of time, him & his apologies.
I buried our father under the great terebinth where
we ploughed up the moss shine one last time &
mother’s face was made newly easy, sloughed
of all last trace of girlhood.
And the earth reseeds.