Today's Liberal News

Trump Is Crossing a Line That Dates Back to the Revolution

The black-and-white video President Donald Trump released yesterday was, in some respects, familiar. The grainy clip, only 30 seconds long and taken from a U.S. aircraft, shows a small boat skipping across the waves, bracketed by crosshairs. The crosshairs move in closer. Seconds later, a missile explodes, engulfing the boat in fire and destroying everything and everyone on board.

RFK Jr.’s Victory Lap

This spring, months before the recent dramatic departures from the CDC, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. battled with the agency’s scientists during the very first public-health crisis of his tenure as health secretary. As measles tore through a remote community in West Texas, Kennedy waffled on the vaccine and promoted alternative remedies, such as vitamin A. So the CDC pushed back.

Triumph of the Insurrectionists

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.
Because the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021, was caught on camera, what happened isn’t really in doubt.
Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was part of a crowd that stormed the U.S.

The Atlantic Festival Announces Interview with Mike Pence on Sept. 18

The Atlantic Festival includes Richard Ayoade, Ken Burns, Tom Hanks, Allison Janney, Arvind Krishna, David Letterman, Tekedra Mawakana, and Lt. General H.R. McMaster, plus screenings of The American Revolution, The Diplomat, The Lowdown, Dread Beat an Blood, and Love+War
The Atlantic is announcing new speakers for The Atlantic Festival, happening September 18–20 and located for the first time in New York City.

Goodbye, FEMA. Hello, Disaster Consultants.

Derrick Hiebert had planned to stick it out at FEMA. He was an assistant administrator working on hazard mitigation—he specialized in getting communities prepared for disasters—and like many emergency-management experts I’ve spoken with, he thinks that the American approach to administering disasters needed an overhaul, even a radical one. The systems had gotten “clunky over time,” he said. Something needed to change. So Hiebert was open to seeing how President Donald Trump might change it.

Army Vet Charged with “Conspiracy” for ICE Protest as Trump Expands War on Dissent

A 35-year-old former U.S. Army sergeant, Bajun “Baji” Mavalwalla II, faces up to six years in prison for protesting against ICE deportations in what legal experts are calling a test case for the Trump administration’s attempts to criminalize and punish dissent. Mavalwalla was arrested and charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers” after he was identified in a video taken at the protest and shared on Instagram.

“The Border Is Invading America”: Jean Guerrero on the Bipartisan Failures of Immigration Policy

We speak to journalist Jean Guerrero about the Trump administration’s ongoing anti-immigrant crackdown and the bipartisan roots of “anti-immigrant cruelty” in the United States. Guerrero’s latest opinion piece in The New York Times is titled “The Border Is Invading America” and traces the development of U.S. border policies since the Clinton administration.