Today's Liberal News

The Summer of Our Discontent

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.I remember fondly the way Washington would shut down in the summer so that the city could give itself a breather, but that was before our politics went haywire.First, here’s more from The Atlantic.
The Supreme Court’s EPA ruling is going to be very, very expensive.

Is Biden a Man Out of Time?

The White House’s response to last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which in 1973 established a constitutional right to abortion, once again has exposed the tension between the conciliatory instincts President Joe Biden developed during his long career in Washington, D.C., and the ferocity of the modern combat between the two major political parties.

Marcel the Shell Is the Hero the World Needs

This world was not built for the likes of Marcel, the stop-motion-animated minuscule shell who sports pink shoes. Riding in a car makes him vomit repeatedly, unreachable itches make him scream, and typing a single word using a laptop keyboard becomes a full-body workout. Marcel, voiced by the actor and comedian Jenny Slate, can be terribly naive and, given his predilection for corny one-liners, unnervingly candid. (“Guess why I smile a lot?” he observes.

The Supreme Court’s EPA Ruling Is Going to Be Very, Very Expensive

Today’s major environmental ruling from the Supreme Court, West Virginia v. EPA, is probably most notable for what it did not do.It did not say that the Environmental Protection Agency is prohibited from regulating heat-trapping carbon pollution from America’s existing power plants.It also did not strip the EPA of its ability to regulate climate pollution at all.

ACLU’s David Cole: Supreme Court Conservatives Imposing “Truly Radical Ideology” on U.S. Population

As the Supreme Court ends its term, Justice Stephen Breyer is officially retiring, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson takes his place as the country’s first Black woman justice, joining a court dominated by conservatives. We speak to ACLU national legal director David Cole about what can be done in the face of lifetime judicial appointments to the nation’s highest court who often rule counter to majority opinion in the country.

Anatol Lieven on NATO Expansion & What a Ukraine Peace Settlement Could Look Like

The United States announced at a NATO summit in Madrid plans to build a permanent military base in Poland, as it formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance after they applied for membership in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We look at the impact of prolonged U.S. military presence in Europe and the overemphasis on Russia or China as enemies to the West at a time when threats to Western liberal democracy seem to be primarily internal.

Ouch. Even Fox’s talking knuckleheads looked stunned by Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 testimony

Well, that was some testimony, huh? Where does Trump go from here, other than further down the road to ignominy? Or maybe he can hop a ride to Antarctica on Hitler’s submarine. I really don’t care, so long as there’s enough Enviromental Protection Agency superfund money left to hoover his Arby’s meat sweats and loser stink lines out of our nation’s delicate moral fabric.

But never mind me.

Migrant deaths in San Antonio highlight a growing crisis

This story was originally published at Prism.

The historic migrant death crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border continues to grow. On Monday evening, 46 migrants were found dead in a semi-truck in San Antonio, Texas. As of Tuesday evening, the death toll had risen to 51, according to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The Domino Effects of New Anti-Abortion Laws

This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he 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.

We Now Know

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.Yesterday, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide for Donald Trump’s chief of staff, provided a key piece of evidence connecting Trump to an attempted coup after the 2020 election. We will learn more in the days to come, but we know the most important things now.

The Abortion Pill Can Be Used Later Than the FDA Says

The “abortion pill” is a bit of a misnomer. Known formally as medical or medication abortion, it is really two separate drugs—mifepristone, which stops the pregnancy from progressing, followed by misoprostol, which triggers uterus contractions—that together mimic what happens in a miscarriage. And so, in the early days of at-home medication abortion in the 1990s in the U.K.

Don’t Forget That 43 Senate Republicans Let Trump Get Away With It

During former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment, even when Republicans insisted that the assault on the Capitol was an unfortunate consequence of heated rhetoric, most did not attempt to defend Trump’s conduct on the merits. Instead, they relied on the absurd technicality that the president was no longer in office, and therefore could not be convicted.

The Kate Bush Resurgence Is a Reminder That We Can Have Nice Things

Much of the music that defined my early-2000s adolescence was written before I could walk. Listening to CD-Rs filled with songs that had been ripped from the internet, my friends and I warbled to the Pixies’ 1988 oddity “Where Is My Mind?,” moped to Tears for Fears’ 1982 dirge “Mad World” (and its 2001 cover by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews), and mewled to various versions of Leonard Cohen’s 1984 masterpiece “Hallelujah.

After Jan. 6, Meadows & Giuliani Sought Pardons; Cheney Says Trump Allies Tampering with Witnesses

Former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, revealed Tuesday to the House January 6 committee that Meadows and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani both sought pardons after the insurrection. Meanwhile, in a video deposition with Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Flynn repeatedly refused to answer questions from committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney.