The Atlantic

2 days ago | theatlantic.com | Jonathan Chait

Congressional Republicans claim to have achieved something truly miraculous. Their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they argue, would cut nearly $800 billion from Medicaid spending over 10 years without causing any Americans to lose health care—or, at least, without making anyone who loses health care worse off. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, by imposing Medicaid work requirements, the bill would eventually increase the uninsured population by at least 8.6 million.

3 days ago | theatlantic.com | Ashley Parker |Michael Scherer

Just before Election Day, a disturbing piece of information made its way to Donald Trump. Whenever he takes or makes calls on his personal cellphone, Trump learned, Chinese hackers could be listening and gathering intelligence. Iranians had already hacked into his campaign’s email system—which was not a problem for Trump personally, because he has never liked putting things in writing—and the Chinese had breached the emails of the Republican National Committee.

3 days ago | theatlantic.com | Yasmin Tayag

The morning of April 28, 2004, started like the rest of Jeff Turner’s mornings in Iraq. Breakfast in the chow hall, a walk across the grounds to his station. The same sun, the same palm trees, the same desert. But the two distant thumps Turner heard as he left the hall were unusual. Boy, that sounds like mortars, he thought. The hall exploded first. Shards of its metal frame shot into his flesh. The second bomb erupted in the sand nearby, encircling him in smoke.

3 days ago | theatlantic.com | Julie Beck

Know thyself: Many have said this. Socrates—maybe you’ve heard of him? Though he seems to have gotten the phrase from the oracle at Apollo’s temple in Delphi, where it was chiseled into the stone facade. In the Tao-te Ching, Lao-tzu wrote, “If you understand others you are smart. If you understand yourself you are illuminated.” And Shakespeare had his own pithy aphorism, “To thine own self be true,” presupposing that thou knowest enough about thine own self to be true to it. Good advice, to a point.

3 days ago | theatlantic.com | Eliot A. Cohen

I have taught strategy in war colleges in the United States and other countries. Like most instructors, I describe strategy as an endeavor that strives to match ends and means in a rational way, a dialogue between soldiers and politicians seeking to use force for political purposes. That is certainly what the senior officers who attend such institutions believe.