Today's Liberal News

America Is Having MacBook Sticker Shock

There are many things you can buy for $10,000: A nose job. With luck, a used car. A middling ticket to the World Cup final. Or you could purchase a MacBook Pro. That’s how much the highest-end, fully loaded version of Apple’s laptop now costs—$3,000 more than it did last week.
Maybe you don’t need the most powerful MacBook Pro. But last Thursday, Apple announced price hikes on most of its products. Apple’s cheapest laptop, the MacBook Neo, debuted for $600 just a few months ago.

Movies Are Good, Actually

Are movies bad for us? Do they waste our time, dumb down the culture, even harm society? On-screen, stars depict unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty. More subtly, movies make bad choices look appealing; viewers might watch The Godfather and think not merely I want Michael Corleone’s suit, but I want to smoke like he smokes—and maybe run my business like him too.

“The American Revolution Was Hardly an Anti-Colonial Movement”: UCLA Historian Robin D. G. Kelley

Ahead of the July Fourth holiday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we speak with the acclaimed scholar Robin D. G. Kelley, who examines how Black radicals have interpreted the document throughout U.S. history in a new essay for Hammer & Hope. Although the declaration famously asserts that “all men are created equal,” Kelley says that clearly did not extend to Indigenous or enslaved Black people.

“Rule of Law vs. Rule of Billionaires”: Supreme Court Says Trump Can Fire Regulators, Except at Fed

In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump’s efforts to fire her.

A Supreme Court Decision That Might Improve Politics

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No sooner had the Supreme Court issued its opinion in a big campaign-finance case yesterday than my inbox began filling up with nongovernmental organizations and Democratic leaders decrying the ruling.
In the case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v.

So Long to America’s Favorite Everymensch

Yesterday, Freddy woke up in a hotel room in downtown Boston that had been paid for by the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. Draped over one chair was an autographed chef’s coat and a personal note from the Hell’s Kitchen star: “Dear Freddy, Welcome to Boston!” For the past month, the German man who went by @FreddyLA7 on X was on the ride of his life.

I Went to the Great American State Fair and I May Never Sleep Again

It’s MAHA Monday at the Great American State Fair, and I am drinking a Phorm Energy Screamin’ Freedom (16 ounces for $6). The fair also offered normal drinks for $5 (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, lemonade), but I figured that for an extra dollar, it would be worth it to know the taste of freedom. Screamin’ Freedom, specifically. This drink offers “natural energy,” “mental focus,” “hydration,” “zero sugar,” “200 MG caffeine,” and a picture of an eagle.

Something Is Happening in the Democratic Base

Something is happening in the Democratic base.
For a year and a half Democrats have been disgusted with President Trump. They’ve been similarly outraged by the fecklessness of their own party leaders. Now, after a handful of surprising primary elections last night in Colorado, a third observation is coming into focus: The Democratic base would like to shove the entire political establishment into a blade grinder.

The Supreme Court’s Utterly Mainstream Ruling on Women’s Sports

Sports are unlike other parts of American life—treating men and women differently on the court or the field is okay. That’s the crucial point made by the Supreme Court’s judgment in West Virginia v. B.P.J. yesterday. By a 6–3 margin, the justices upheld state laws that define men’s and women’s sports by biological sex instead of gender identity.

“We Continue to Fight”: Chase Strangio on the Supreme Court’s Ban on Trans Girls & Women in Sports

The Supreme Court has ruled that states can prohibit transgender student athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports teams, with the court’s conservative justices finding that such bans — currently introduced in Idaho and West Virginia — do not violate the Constitution, and all nine justices agreeing that they do not violate Title IX, the federal anti-sex discrimination statute.

“America Is a Multiracial Democracy”: Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Bid to End Birthright Citizenship

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ … We keep that promise today.” So concludes the decision of the Supreme Court in the landmark case Trump v. Barbara, affirming the constitutional right to birthright citizenship and rejecting President Trump’s attempt to end it.