Today's Liberal News

The Real Weaponization of the Department of Justice

In January, one of the first acts of the new Republican House majority was to establish a special subcommittee devoted to rooting out the ways the FBI and other federal bodies have supposedly been used as tools of political persecution.“We have a duty to get into these agencies and look at how they have been weaponized to go against the very people they’re supposed to represent,” said Representative Jim Jordan, the Trump ally who chairs the body.

The Ukrainian Counteroffensive Is Not an Action Movie

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 Ukrainian counteroffensive, under way since the spring, is slogging through miles of trenches and minefields. Progress will depend on the battlefield, not on Western impatience.

They Are Still With Him

Come November of next year, Donald Trump might be elected president of the nation whose democracy he attempted to overthrow. Although it’s early, Trump is polling strongly against his successor, President Joe Biden, despite having been indicted for state and federal crimes, including a conspiracy to keep himself in power after his 2020 election loss.

Trump’s Threat to Democracy Is Now Systemic

The long-awaited federal indictment of Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election may be necessary to contain the threat to American democracy that he has unleashed. But it’s unlikely to be sufficient.The germ of election denialism that Trump injected into the American political system has spread so far throughout the Republican Party that it is virtually certain to survive whatever legal accountability the former president faces.

Conflict in Ukraine: Putin & Zelensky Dig In for Long War Amid Nuclear Risks, Global Food Disruption

Nearly a year and a half after Russia invaded Ukraine, we speak with defense and international affairs expert Rajan Menon about the state of the war and prospects for peace. “The difficulty is that neither side, neither Ukraine nor Russia, feels that it is losing the war,” says Menon, director of the Grand Strategy program at Defense Priorities and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.

What Did Columbia Know? Survivors of Convicted Sex Abuser OB-GYN Robert Hadden Demand Full Accountability

Former New York gynecologist Robert Hadden has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for sexually assaulting patients over more than two decades while working as an OB-GYN at the Columbia University Medical Center starting in the late 1980s. Hadden’s federal conviction relates to four survivors, and he has been accused of abusing at least 245 women under the guise of medical examinations.

This Is the Case

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.Donald Trump stands indicted for attempting to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and subvert the rights of American citizens. This is the moment that will decide our future as a democracy.

Trump Attempted a Brazen, Dead-Serious Attack on American Democracy

More than two and a half years after Donald Trump attempted to steal the 2020 presidential election, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., has indicted the former president on four felony counts related to the plot.This is the third time that Trump has been charged with felonies in 2023, but it is also the most significant case against him.

The Indictment of Donald Trump—And His Enablers

Updated at 7:45 p.m. ET on August 1, 2023Earlier today, Donald Trump was indicted for a third time, on the charge that he attempted to subvert the 2020 presidential election. The indictment, filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith, accuses Trump of a conspiracy to defraud the United States by “using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit”; a conspiracy to “corruptly obstruct and impede” an official proceeding of the U.S.

The End of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Dominance

The U.S. Women’s National Team suffers by comparison to its old glories. At the previous World Cup, in 2019, it channeled the best of the American character: magnetic self-confidence that verged on arrogance, individualism that flamboyantly flouted archaic norms. In the press, players jawboned about the president of the United States as they waged war against their own employer in the name of equal pay.

Reader Views on Press Coverage of Race

Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Remembering Juan Ramos, Puerto Rican Activist & Leader of Philadelphia Young Lords

Democracy Now! co-host Juan González remembers his longtime friend and comrade, Juan Ramos, a founder and leader of the Young Lords chapter in Philadelphia in the early 1970s who recently died after a long bout with Alzheimer’s. “It’s really not possible to overestimate the influence that Juan Ramos had on the social and political and liberation struggles of the Puerto Rican, Latino community, but also all communities, in Philadelphia,” shares González.

Did Western Military Presence Help Foster Coup in Niger, Where U.S. Has Drone Base & 1,000+ Troops?

We look at the growing crisis in Niger, where the country’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, was overthrown last week by his own presidential guard. One of the coup’s leaders, Brigadier General Moussa Salaou Barmou, was trained by the U.S., making the Nigerien coup the 11th in West Africa since 2008 to involve U.S.-trained military officers. The U.S.