Today's Liberal News

The Shooting Is Not a Reason to Speedrun Trump’s Ballroom

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Within hours after an attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, President Trump declared that the incident showed the need to build a ballroom at the White House without delay. “We need the ballroom,” he told reporters in a press conference.

Even Hollywood’s Funniest People Have to Compromise

The best way to sneak a comedy into theaters these days, it seems, is to make it a crime drama. Over Your Dead Body is billed as the latest effort from the director Jorma Taccone—a surprising name to be attached, considering his filmography. His previous features are Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and MacGruber, two of the better comedies released in the 2010s (back when such things still regularly appeared in cinemas).

What the Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting Means for the World Cup, America’s 250th, and Other Major Events

On Saturday night, a heavily armed shooter was able to easily access areas close to the ballroom where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was being held, leading to a rushed evacuation of the president and senior officials and a hectic, scary evening for attendees. Why wasn’t the event safe from this kind of a situation? It’s a fair question, but perhaps the wrong one. The more realistic inquiry is whether this kind of event can be made safer.

Death by Firing Squad: Sister Helen Prejean on Trump’s Moves to Ramp Up Executions

The Justice Department is bringing back the use of firing squads and lethal injection using pentobarbital as it seeks to expedite and expand federal death penalty convictions and executions. No federal executions have been carried out since 2020, when the first Trump administration broke with over a decade of precedent and executed 13 people on death row. The second Trump administration is now pursuing the death penalty in dozens more cases across the country.

“Slow Civil War” Author Jeff Sharlet on the Growing Normalization of Violence at Home & Abroad

Writer Jeff Sharlet responds to the shooting event at White House correspondents’ dinner this weekend. We discuss the motivations of Cole Allen, the man accused of breaching security in an attempt to assassinate members of the Trump administration, as well as gun access in the United States and the growing violence across the political spectrum of what Sharlet calls a “slow civil war.

Rep. Ro Khanna on White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooting, Political Violence, Epstein Files & More

We speak to Congressmember Ro Khanna about the apparent assassination attempt against President Donald Trump and members of his administration at the White House correspondents’ dinner. “Political violence strikes at the very heart of democracy. We cannot have a democracy if people are saying we’re going to kill you if we disagree with your viewpoint. And that has to be condemned in the most strong, unequivocal terms,” says Khanna.

“Muskism”: Author Quinn Slobodian on How Apartheid South Africa Inspired Elon Musk’s Worldview & More

In the new book, Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, authors Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff look at the worldview that shaped Elon Musk and the ideology that has coalesced around him. They call Muskism “an operating system for the 21st century.”
Musk runs rocket company SpaceX, AI startup xAI, electric car maker Tesla and the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Lebanese Journalist Amal Khalil Killed in Israeli Strike, Medics Blocked from Saving Her Under Rubble

Israeli forces killed the prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday despite a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Khalil and her colleague, photographer Zeinab Faraj, were reporting from southern Lebanon when an Israeli drone struck a car near them, killing two civilians. Khalil and Faraj sought shelter in a nearby building, but then Israel struck that building, as well.

A Lesson for Guarding the Presidential Line of Succession

In the chaotic swirl of events after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, doctors feared that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson had suffered a heart attack upon arrival at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. The signs were ominous: Johnson’s face was ashen, and he was clutching his chest. “There was the real possibility that the No. 3 in the line of succession would become president,” the historian Michael Beschloss told me.

The Most Frightening Shooters Are the Smart Ones

The line “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done” could probably have been written in an email to friends by any number of the attendees at last night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. But the line was apparently written by a man who showed up with a shotgun and pistol and was ready to kill “most everyone” there to get to Donald Trump and assassinate him and his Cabinet.

We Cannot Harden the World Against Every Attacker

Except for what appears—thank God—to be only a minor injury to a Secret Service officer who was shot near a security checkpoint, no one was hurt at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last night. News reports are reassembling the mosaic of the attacker’s movements; he apparently took a train and transported some weapons with him, checked into the hotel, and then made his run at the event.