Today's Liberal News

The Colorado Ruling Changed My Mind

When I review divided appellate-court decisions, I almost always read the dissenting opinions first. The habit formed back when I was a young law student and lawyer—and Federalist Society member—in the late 1980s, when I would pore (and, I confess, usually coo) over Justice Antonin Scalia’s latest dissents.

The Most Unsettling ‘Christmas Carol’

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.Over the past few years, I’ve reminded you of the best Christmas specials and talked about some classic Christmas music. This year, it’s time to clear the field for the greatest adaptation of the greatest Christmas story.

The Colorado Ruling Calls the Originalists’ Bluff

The Colorado Supreme Court has left the justices of the United States Supreme Court in the very uncomfortable position of having to prove that they have the courage of their stated convictions.Yesterday, Colorado’s high court ruled in a 4–3 decision that former President Donald Trump, because of his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is disqualified from appearing on the ballot in Colorado, based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Xi Jinping Is Fighting a Culture War at Home

In October, a Communist Party–run television network in the province of Hunan aired a five-episode program called When Marx Met Confucius. In it, actors portraying the European revolutionary and the ancient Chinese sage pontificate on their doctrines and discover that their ideas are in perfect harmony.
“I am longing for a supreme and far-reaching ideal world, where everyone can do their best and get what they need,” Marx says. “I call it a communist society.

“This Is a Colonial War”: Historian Rashid Khalidi on Israel, Gaza & the Future of Palestine

Historian Rashid Khalidi discusses the pending United Nations Security Council vote on suspending fighting in Gaza to allow the entry of humanitarian aid, and the future of Palestine. The Biden administration reportedly delayed the U.N. vote and pushed other countries to water down the language. This comes as Israel and Hamas leaders have signaled they are open to another truce and hostage exchange.

The Colorado Supreme Court Just Gave Republicans a Chance to Save Themselves

“The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary,” John Kenneth Galbraith wrote. “No economist should be denied it, and not many are.”I’m not an economist. But I was wrong about the litigation to bar Donald Trump from the ballot as an insurrectionist. I wrote in August that the project was a “fantasy.” Now, by a 4–3 vote, the Colorado Supreme Court has converted fantasy into at least temporary reality.

Airlines Have an Accountability Problem

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.Southwest Airlines was just ordered to pay a whopping fine for last year’s holiday breakdown. The penalty is a step toward accountability, but it tackles only a slice of the industry’s broader problems.

Reader Views on Gender-Divided Social Spaces

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.Last week, I asked for your thoughts on all-male and all-female social spaces.Replies have been edited for length and clarity.Amy was a Girl Scout as a kid and is now a leader of her 7-year-old daughter’s troop.

Courts Are Choosing TikTok Over Children

Some court decisions are bad; others are abysmal. The bad ones merely misapply the law; abysmal decisions go a step further and elevate abstract principle over democratic will and basic morality. The latter’s flaw is less about legal error and more about “a judicial system gone wrong,” as the legal scholar Gerard Magliocca once put it. A case such as Hammer v.

​​Israel’s War on Children: Fadi Abu Shammalah on Horrific Ordeal Facing Kids in Gaza, Including His Own

In Part 2 of our interview with Fadi Abu Shammalah, the head of Gaza’s General Union of Cultural Centers, he describes how his three children were finally able to flee to Cairo this morning. He is now working to secure safe passage for more than a dozen family members still stuck behind the blockade. “The international community are silent. And a lot of them are supporting it,” Abu Shammalah says.