Today's Liberal News
Democrats Demand Documents In Suspected Pardon Bribery Scam Linked To Trump PAC
Trump pardoned two arsonist ranchers a week after a $10,000 donation was made to the America First Action PAC, which funded his 2020 reelection bid.
Obama Chides Herschel Walker Over Werewolf, Vampire Observations
The former president’s semi-serious jests come as Walker is set to face off against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a Georgia runoff next week.
Jump In Twitter Hate Speech Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find
“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said an anti-hate group’s CEO.
Adding to the Arizona pile-on: Federal judge sanctions Lake and Finchem’s lawyers
Lots of good news out of Arizona Thursday night, further confirming the old adage “timing is everything.” And bad timing usually gets you nothing. Both Kari Lake and Mark Finchem jumped on the so-much-fun Trump train of baselessly claiming “election fraud,” but rather late in the game. And both are now experiencing the consequences of that bad timing.
Ukraine update: Advances near Svatove and Kreminna show that Ukrainian forces are still on the move
UPDATE: Friday, Dec 2, 2022 · 8:41:01 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
On the “it’s all one front” front, here’s what’s happening down near Donetsk. Russian forces engaged in small scale assaults against Ukrainian troops in a number of towns, with the biggest push apparently along the highway to Pervomaiske. None of these attacks was successful.
Russia launched multiple attacks out of Donetsk on Friday. None appear to have any success.
The Trump bus runs over longtime Trump Org employee Allen Weisselberg
Donald Trump has hired more coffee boys than Starbucks over the years, and they all get the same treatment after he’s through sucking the marrow out of their sad, brittle, untermensch bones: He claims he doesn’t know them, and if he happens to have been photographed with them 90 times over the course of 30 years, he’s quick to point out that he’s regularly seen with lots of sketchy people who are mysteriously drawn to his grand, elysian fi
Biden’s closing argument on protecting democracy was exactly right—another miss for pundits
The more we learn about the 2022 midterms, the clearer it becomes just how off the mark many pundits and strategists were in their preelection analysis of the dynamics.
That proved true for the fantastical “red wave,” the notion that abortion was “fading” as a potent issue, and the idea that economic concerns would dominate all other issues.
Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Rum Balls FRIDAY!
Late Night Snark: Dinner Is Served Edition
“Last week Trump ate dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West and a prominent white supremacist named Nick Fuentes. We don’t know exactly what happened at that dinner except that no one ordered latkes.”
—Trevor Noah
“Only Donald Trump would defend himself by saying, I was only planning to eat with one anti-Semite.”
—Jimmy Kimmel
Continued…
You are now below the fold.
The Wizardry of South Korea’s Win
This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.The World Cup is never short on magic, and today, South Korea needed some.After conceding an early goal to Portugal in the game’s first half, the Reds had fought back to level the match that could send them to the knockout stages of the competition. But a tie would not be good enough. They needed a goal.
Change May Be Coming in China
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.China is signaling that its three-year battle against COVID-19 is entering a “new stage.” What that looks like will have huge political and economic consequences.But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
Kanye West Finally Says What He Means
What was your line with Kanye West? If you never listened to what he had to say in the first place, you don’t get a medal: The rapper now known as Ye really did, at one time, merit attention for making some of the most forward-thinking art of this century. (Plus he was funny, in an actually-trying-to-be way.
HHS to end public health emergency for monkeypox in January
With new infections down, health officials will wind down emergency and let it expire by end of next month.
The Far Right Is Getting What It Asked For
If you’re looking for a way to understand the right wing’s internet-poisoned, extremist trajectory, one great document is an infamous October 6 tweet from the House Judiciary GOP that read, “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” This tweet was likely intended to own the libs by adding Kanye to an informal, Avengers-style list of supposed free-speech warriors and truth tellers—a variation, perhaps, on the sort of viral meme that the Trump camp deployed during the 2016 election.
The Cursed Goal
This is an edition of The Great Game, a newsletter about the 2022 World Cup—and how soccer explains the world. Sign up here.Yesterday, the FIFA-ranked No. 2 team in the world, Belgium, exited the World Cup after a narrow victory over Canada, a loss to group winner Morocco, and a scoreless draw with the 2018 finalists Croatia.But it was not just that it went out, but the way it went out that is torturous for Belgium fans.
The New McCarthyism: Angela Davis Speaks in New York After Critics Shut Down Two Events
When high school students in Rockland County, New York, invited renowned activist and professor Angela Davis to speak, the event got shut down in two different venues over protests that she was “too radical.” But the students persevered, and Angela Davis addressed a packed church Thursday night.
Inside Israel’s Cover-up & U.S. Response to Murder of Palestinian American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
More than six months since the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while reporting in the occupied West Bank, “there is still no accountability in what happened,” says journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous. He is the correspondent on a new Al Jazeera documentary for the program “Fault Lines” that investigates Abu Akleh’s May killing.
Biden administration prepares to end monkeypox emergency declaration
Health officials may allow the declaration to expire, even as they keep their mpox response in place.
‘A complete about face’: Some Republicans change tune on Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion
The latest round of Medicaid expansion negotiations comes as states prepare for the eventual end of the Covid-19 public health emergency, and as nearly a third of rural hospitals are at risk of closure.
Fauci on Covid lab leak theory: ‘I have a completely open mind’
He also criticized China’s Covid-19 response as “shutdowns without a seeming purpose.
Facing virus trifecta, health officials project cautious optimism
“I think we’re going to see a lot more people getting vaccinated in the upcoming weeks. This is why we’re launching the campaign we are right now,” said Ashish Jha, the coordinator of the White House’s Covid-19 response.
Georgia high court reinstates ban on abortions after 6 weeks
The Georgia Supreme Court Wednesday reinstated the state’s ban on abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.
Fed jacks up rates again but Powell hints it might slow down
Inflation has cooled only slightly and job growth remains strong.
Voters remain gloomy despite recent economic gains
A new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll suggests voters’ views of the economy are baked in.
U.S. economy returned to growth last quarter, expanding 2.6 percent
Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26 percent annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates.
More voters trust Republicans on economy as interest in midterms hits high, polls say
According to an NBC News poll released Sunday, 70 percent of registered voters expressed interest in the upcoming election as a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale.
Meet Puerto Rican Journalist Bianca Graulau, Featured in Viral Bad Bunny Video on Injustices in PR
Puerto Rico’s financial oversight board has voted to extend a contract with LUMA Energy — the private U.S.-Canadian corporation that took over the island’s power grid and is widely denounced by residents on the island for its inconsistent service and high prices. The privatization of Puerto Rico’s power grid, supported by an unelected board appointed by the U.S.
RM of BTS Is Embracing the Silence
One year ago today, the leader of the world’s biggest pop group stood beneath bright lights and told more than 50,000 fans about his fears. Kim Namjoon, better known by his stage name RM, had guided his fellow BTS members through the vagaries of early-pandemic life—a canceled world tour, delayed music releases and life plans, illness.
This is the day the world changed: Three years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic began
On this date three years ago, a man walked into Hubei Provincial Hospital in Wuhan, China, reporting flu-like symptoms. Within two weeks, there were 27 cases showing similar symptoms. Then, just four days before the end of the year, the head of the hospital’s respiratory department, Dr. Zhang Jixian, made a report to state health officials that the cases were caused by “a novel coronavirus.” At that point, the number of known infections was approaching 180.
Dec.
Gas prices are down, oil production is up, and Russia’s threat to energy markets is evaporating
As Russia began positioning forces for an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine at the end of 2021, oil speculators did what oil speculators do in every potentially difficult situation: They drove oil future prices up. A week before the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, prices for West Texas crude had already been elevated by $20 a barrel to over $90.