Today's Liberal News

News Roundup: DeSantis is costing Florida a fortune; the Senate continues to Senate

Monday’s House select committee hearings on the Jan. 6. coup attempt raised new questions about just how much of Trump’s post-election fundraising was just a money-seeking grift, but his most likely Republican presidential competitor in 2024 won’t play second fiddle to anyone when it comes to making off with other people’s money: It turns out that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ various “culture war” laws are costing Florida taxpayers a fortune.

Ukraine update: As Russia surges toward Slovyansk, Ukraine moves on Izyum

There’s no way around it. In spite of taking heavy losses. In spite of an artillery exchange that at the moment seems to seriously favor Ukraine. In spite of bad organization, bad logistics, bad leadership, bad training, and bad maintenance … Russia is still putting enough forces into place in eastern Ukraine to slowly grind their way toward the objective of capturing critical sites in Luhansk and Donetsk.

MTG touts climate change ‘benefits’ while bizarrely claiming no one can see Jan. 6 video footage

You may not have heard of Right Side Broadcasting Network, and if that’s the case—congratulations! You live a rich, full life unadulterated by brain weevils. Obviously, you’re not part of the network’s target demographic, which appears to consist almost entirely of Scott Baio getting shambolically drunk on Boone’s Farm.

But what the network lacks in gravitas it more than makes up for in goofy-ass displays of meretricious nonsense.

Jan. 6 hearings reveal how easily millions were conned—and why they won’t stop believing in Trump

Con artists are a special breed of predator. Not only do they traffic in humanity’s most basic passions—their hopes, fears and expectations—but they rely on the singular human emotions of self-respect and self-worth in order to protect themselves from blowback if their con is discovered. The most painful thing for any person to admit is that they were snookered, led down the merry garden path by a huckster, or simply “ripped off.

Leave Joe Biden Alone

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.Every administration has its ups and downs; today I examine why the Biden White House is taking more than its fair share of hits. But first, here are three great new stories from The Atlantic.
The right to become a parent is now at risk too.
Monkeypox vaccines are too gnarly for the masses.

The Problem of English Identity

The week I saw Jerusalem, the West End revival of Jez Butterworth’s extraordinary 2009 play, London was still cleaning up after a days-long ruckus celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, the 70th anniversary of her reign. In my neighborhood, tattered bunting clung weakly to lampposts and gathered dirt under car tires at the side of the road. I picked bits of plastic flags and ice-cream wrappers out from my window boxes.

Minority Report Tried to Warn Us About Technology

In Minority Report, when the detective John Anderton goes on the run in Washington, D.C., one of the first things he needs to do is swap out his eyes. The police of Steven Spielberg’s film, set in 2054, are not the only ones tracking people with eye-scanning machines mounted around the city. Public transit does so too, as does every business, and even all the billboards, which scream slogans such as “John Anderton! You could use a Guinness right about now!” as he walks by them.

Google’s ‘Sentient’ Chatbot Is Our Self-Deceiving Future

A Google engineer named Blake Lemoine became so enthralled by an AI chatbot that he may have sacrificed his job to defend it. “I know a person when I talk to it,” he told The Washington Post for a story published last weekend. “It doesn’t matter whether they have a brain made of meat in their head. Or if they have a billion lines of code.” After discovering that he’d gone public with his claims, Google put Lemoine on administrative leave.

Our Powerful, Shiny New Space Telescope Got Its First Upsetting Ding

Lee Feinberg was on vacation, and he deserved it. It was late May, and Feinberg, a manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, had spent “an incredibly tense several months” leading the effort to carefully deploy the mirrors on the world’s newest and most powerful space telescope, making sure that each of the gold-coated tiles—18 in all, arranged in a honeycomb shape—was properly aligned.

Pennsylvania GOP Election Official Tells Jan. 6 Comm. His Family Faced Death Threats Because of Trump

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack heard live testimony Monday from Al Schmidt, the sole Republican on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2020 election. He described how he found no evidence of voter fraud in 2020, and said he and his family received death threats after Trump lashed out at him on Twitter for not halting the vote count due to false claims of fraud.

“Detached from Reality”: Barr Says Trump Embraced Lies & Conspiracy Theories After His Election Loss

One of the key witnesses who testified live at Monday’s hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol was former Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt, who led the the Fox News decision to become the first network to call Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in November 2020. Fox fired Stirewalt months later. Answering questions from Congressmember Zoe Lofgren, Stirewalt said Trump’s chance of winning was virtually zero.

A Drunk Rudy Giuliani Urged Trump to Declare Victory on Election Night, Trump Aides Testify

We spend the hour featuring highlights from the second public hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Main witnesses were ex-President Donald Trump’s former inner circle, including campaign manager Bill Stepien, Attorney General William Barr, campaign adviser Jason Miller and his own daughter Ivanka Trump, who all said Trump ignored them on election night in November 2020 when they argued against declaring victory.

Carnage & Chaos: “I Was Slipping in People’s Blood” on Jan. 6, Says Brain-Injured Capitol Officer

The second witness who testified live in the first primetime hearing of the House select January 6 committee was Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as she tried to hold the line outside the Capitol with fellow officers. She was with officer Brian Sicknick, who she said appeared to have been sprayed in the face and was extremely pale. Sicknick died the next day. Sicknick’s fiancee sat behind Edwards as she testified.

“From Protesters … to Insurrectionists”: Jan. 6 Witness Describes Proud Boys’ Violence at the Capitol

The white supremacist Proud Boys group and the far-right, anti-government Oath Keepers militia played an instrumental role in planning for a violent insurrection on the Capitol, according to the January 6 House committee, which aired new testimony from witnesses and the groups’ leaders in its first public hearing Thursday night. British filmmaker Nick Quested was embedded with the Proud Boys and shared his footage with the committee.