Today's Liberal News

The Legal Decision That Could Rewrite the Abortion Battle—Again

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.At last night’s State of the Union address, the first one since the fall of Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden pledged to continue working to protect access to reproductive health care amid more than a dozen extreme state-level bans.

George Santos, the GOP’s Useful Liar

After President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union address last night, George Santos offered his appraisal of the proceedings. “SOTU category is: GASLIGHTING!” the representative pronounced in a tweet.The review was curious, coming as it did from a man who has fabricated much of his own biography.

Republicans Keep Underestimating Joe Biden

Joe Biden knows how to handle a tough crowd. This was evident last night at the State of the Union, and it was apparent to me seven years ago, on March 20, 2016. On that day, President Barack Obama sent Biden to sell the recently struck Iran nuclear deal to the national conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). This was the political equivalent of asking the vice president to push New York Times subscriptions at a Donald Trump rally.

The Challenges of Disaster Planning

Updated at 4:56 pm ET on February 8, 2023This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he 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.

Long Live the Octogenarian Sex Record

After Smokey Robinson announced his upcoming album, many music listeners were aghast. The Motown legend, at the age of 82, unfurled the most blatantly sexual record title of his career: Gasms. It didn’t help that the album, which will be released in late April, includes songs such as “I Wanna Know Your Body” and, ahem, “I Fit in There.” Predictably, the subsequent volley of Viagra jokes alone could’ve crashed Twitter.

Rep. Delia Ramirez to Biden: Further Militarizing the Border Is Not the Answer to Immigration

Democratic Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Illinois praises President Biden for proposing a path to citizenship in his State of the Union address on Tuesday for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country. “My problem is the militarizing of the border,” she adds. Ramirez, who delivered a response to the State of the Union speech on behalf of the Working Families Party, says compassion should be at the center of the debate on immigration.

Matt Duss on Biden’s State of the Union & the Risks of an Anti-China Consensus in Washington

President Biden delivered his second State of the Union speech Tuesday and discussed his administration’s support for Ukraine, growing tensions with China and other international challenges. Foreign policy scholar and former Bernie Sanders adviser Matt Duss says one major missing theme was the “global war on terror.” “We need to acknowledge that this war is still very much ongoing,” says Duss, noting that thousands of U.S. troops are deployed around the world.

Kimberlé Crenshaw on Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality & the Right-Wing War on Public Education

We speak with renowned legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw about right-wing efforts to curtail the teaching of African American history, queer studies and other subjects that focus on marginalized communities. The College Board, the nonprofit group that designs AP courses for high school seniors, recently revised a curriculum for a course in African American studies after criticism from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others who maligned it as “woke indoctrination.

War as Crime of Aggression: Reed Brody on Prosecuting Putin & Probing Western Leaders for Other Wars

As the war in Ukraine nears the one-year mark, we speak with veteran war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody about a growing movement to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin and his closest allies criminally responsible for the invasion. The Ukrainian government has called for a special tribunal to prosecute Russian leaders, modeled on the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials after World War II.

How Biden Successfully Baited Congressional Republicans

In September 2009, a Republican congressman from South Carolina named Joe Wilson inserted himself into history. He interrupted President Barack Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress by shouting, “You lie.”The outburst shocked viewers. Wilson, not Obama, was the top trending item on Twitter in the aftermath of the speech. Wilson apologized, “I let my emotions get the best of me.

Syria’s Compounded Devastation

It took one of the most powerful earthquakes in a century, but the world’s attention has finally returned to Syria, a country devastated by 12 years of civil war; divided among government, militia, and foreign powers; and home to millions of internally displaced people.So far, most of the images of the devastation have come out of Turkey, where the 7.8-magnitude quake struck early Monday morning, followed by another quake of 7.5 magnitude.

The Midlife Renaissance of Women in Hollywood

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.Until recently, women entertainers could count on their 40th birthday as the death knell for their cultural relevance. But a generation of performers is reentering the pop-culture spotlight in midlife, forcing the public to reckon with the way their stories have been told.

More Seinfeld Than Seinfeld Itself

Since the hit sitcom Seinfeld went off the air in 1998 after nine seasons, the show’s devoted followers have long mused about an alternate reality: What if the original “show about nothing” had never ended?Now they’ve gotten what they wished for—well, sort of. In mid-December, a never-ending AI-generated reboot, aptly named Nothing, Forever, launched on the streaming platform Twitch.

‘Scar Girl’ Is a Sign That the Internet Is Broken

The scar first appears on Annie Bonelli’s TikTok on March 18, 2021. In the video, she is in a car, earbuds in, lip-synching to the song “I Know,” by D. Savage. The mark on her cheek is blurry and soft, like a smudge of dirt. She is bobbing her head underneath a caption about how it feels when someone accidentally likes a social-media post that’s more than a year old.