Today's Liberal News

Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover, Explained in 19 Elon Musk Tweets

Though it feels reductionist to compare Elon Musk and Donald Trump, the Musk era at Twitter has some eerie parallels to the Trump White House. There’s a ton of confusion; lots of firings; people shredding documents; outlandish, impossible-to-execute ideas being floated; sycophantic advisers; nervous employees trying to appease a mercurial man; and tweets—so many tweets. It is an exhausting, enraging, and sometimes grimly hilarious spectacle that changes by the hour.

When the Soviets Voted

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.Americans sometimes forget how blessed they are. I hope they remember today, regardless of their vote, that their Constitution is a miracle. I learned a lesson about this in, of all places, the former Soviet Union.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.

What a ‘Tripledemic’ Means for Your Body

In 2020, and again in 2021, the dreaded twindemic never came. The worry among experts was that a winter COVID surge layered on top of flu season—or even, in worst-case scenarios, a flu outbreak of pandemic proportions—would push already strained hospitals to the brink. Thankfully, we got lucky. Flu season simply didn’t materialize in 2020: The United States recorded only about 2,000 cases, a jaw-dropping 110 times fewer than it had the season prior.

Election Protection Force Fights Voter Suppression: Racist Poll Workers, Vigilantes, Missing Ballots

We speak to Damon Hewitt, the head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which is spearheading nationwide efforts to protect the vote in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Republicans at the national and state levels have tried to disqualify thousands of absentee and mail-in ballots in an effort to swing close races in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s Sister Speaks Out at U.N. Climate Summit as Pressure Grows on Egypt to Free Him

The family of the imprisoned Egyptian dissident Alaa Abd El-Fattah says they no longer know if he is still alive or if he is being force-fed, more than 50 hours after he stopped drinking water in an intensification of a six-month hunger strike. We feature an address by Alaa’s sister Sanaa Seif at the U.N. climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. “The symbolic battle has been won by your show of support,” says Seif. “I just hope his body and he is not sacrificed for it.

Dept. of Homeland Security Ramps Up Efforts to Police Online Speech on Ukraine, COVID & Afghanistan

Documents obtained by The Intercept reveal the Department of Homeland Security is working with private tech companies to fight online speech that undermines support for the U.S. government. We speak to one of the co-authors of The Intercept’s report, investigative journalist Lee Fang, who says the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump expanded the government’s power to reshape online discourse.

Ukraine update: Dystopian Russia preps its children for death

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UPDATE: Tuesday, Nov 8, 2022 · 12:51:05 AM +00:00

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kos

OMG: 

Russian children’s show teaches that children deserve to die for misbehaving This atmosphere of total violence shapes people who are ready to murder, people who think it’s the norm and people who are ready to be murdered. pic.twitter.com/2PB30nS2ox— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 6, 2022

OMG.

Oath Keeper leader throws everyone under the bus during testimony, denies planning Capitol attack

The founder of the Oath Keepers, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, told jurors on Monday that when he learned on Jan. 6 that members of the extremist organization went inside of the Capitol, he told them it was “stupid.”

This. broadly speaking, was a common theme on Monday for Rhodes as he came under cross-examination by U.S. prosecutors at the federal courthouse in Washington.

MIA: Signs of the oft-promised red wave

If one looks to polling as a general guide to Election Day, the ‘red wave’ scenario sold to voters as inevitable isn’t exactly panning out. The last round of polls released over the weekend continues to suggest a highly competitive midterm election that will all come down to turnout in the end.

In that regard, Democrats got some good news with the final NBC News poll of the cycle showing Democrats and Republicans locked dead even on enthusiasm at 73%.

Ron DeSantis and his voter investigation unit are having a chilling effect on Black voters

When Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in April to launch what had all the makings of being a dark election-fraud special police, it was difficult to imagine it actually coming to fruition. And yet it has. In August, deputies from the department arrested 20 Floridians for allegedly voting illegally—and 15 of them (unsurprisingly) were Black voters.

All of the accused were charged with voting illegally.