Today's Liberal News

The Curtain Falls on George Santos

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.This morning, Republican Representative George Santos became the sixth House member in American history to be expelled from Congress. Though Santos managed to hang on to the support of the majority in his party, he was ousted in a 311–114 vote.

Expelling George Santos Was a Mistake

George Santos, the former Republican representative from New York, seemed like he stepped out of an episode of the HBO political-comedy show Veep. His reality-TV antics and ostentatious fabrications about his life, and the criminal allegations swirling around him, made him a surreal character in an already surreal Congress.

George Santos Was Finally Too Much for Republicans

So long, George Santos, we hardly knew ye—and that was pretty much the problem.This morning, House members evicted one of their own for only the sixth time in history, terminating the congressional career of the Long Island Republican barely a year after he won election on a campaign of lies and alleged fraud. The vote to expel Santos was 311–114, easily clearing the two-thirds threshold needed to pass.

The Case Against Henry Kissinger: War Crimes Prosecutor Reed Brody on Kissinger’s Legacy of “Slaughter”

Former U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser Henry Kissinger has died at the age of 100. He leaves behind a legacy of American statecraft that brought war, covert intervention and mass atrocities to Southeast Asia, South Asia and South America. “Few people have had a hand in so much death and destruction,” says our guest, human rights attorney and war crimes prosecutor Reed Brody.

Resumed Bombing of Gaza Will Be Crushing to Palestinian Students Shot in Vermont, Says Victim’s Mother

We speak with the mother of Hisham Awartani, one of the three 20-year-old Palestinian college students who were shot last weekend in Burlington, Vermont, in a suspected hate crime. Elizabeth Price traveled from her home in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to see her son, who is still hospitalized in Burlington. He was shot in the spine and, while in stable condition, now faces an immediate loss of mobility.

“Mass Assassination Factory”: Israel Using AI to Generate Targets in Gaza, Increasing Civilian Toll

We look at a new report that reveals how Israel is using artificial intelligence to draw up targets in its military assault of Gaza. The report’s author, journalist Yuval Abraham, has found that the IDF’s increasing use of AI is partly a response to previous operations in Gaza when Israel quickly ran out of military targets, causing it to loosen its constraints on attacks that could kill civilians.

Remembering Rosalynn Carter, Former First Lady & Pioneering Advocate for Mental Health Journalism

We look at former first lady Rosalynn Carter’s decadeslong advocacy for mental healthcare in the United States. She died November 19 at the age of 96. Carter campaigned for legislation forcing health insurance to cover mental healthcare and fought to remove stigma around the topic through a fellowship program for journalists. “There are hundreds of fellows that were inspired by Mrs.

The Murky Shoplifting Narrative

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.Despite inconclusive evidence, some retailers have seized on the narrative that theft is a major issue, pressuring lawmakers to crack down and changing the shopping experience as a result.

Admit It, the Cybertruck Is Awesome

Of the many quirks of Elon Musk’s Cybertruck, the Cybertruckiest of them all might be this: its windshield wiper. Not wipers, wiper. Tesla’s electric pickup, which debuted today and starts at $61,000, has just a single gigantic rain-wicking blade—a monstrosity that stretches several feet and that Musk says is “like a katana.” (The original idea, laser-beam wipers, apparently didn’t work.

One Year In, ChatGPT’s Legacy Is Clear

ChatGPT is one year old today, and it’s accomplished a lot in its first trip around the sun. The chatbot has upended or outright killed high-school and college essay writing and thoroughly scrambled the brains of academics, creating an on-campus arms race that professors have already lost. It has been used to write books, article summaries, and political content, and it has flooded online marketplaces with computer-generated slop.

A Masterful Depiction of Male Cruelty

Halfway through Small Things Like These, the Irish writer Claire Keegan’s Booker-shortlisted 2022 novel, something out of the ordinary happens. The coal merchant Bill Furlong discovers during a Christmas-week delivery that a young woman has been shut in a nunnery’s coal shed overnight. Her bare feet are black with dust; she has had to go to the toilet where she slept. Horror is shot into the narrative like a hidden pouch of stage blood being pierced.

Historian Greg Grandin: Glowing Obituaries for Henry Kissinger Reveal “Moral Bankruptcy” of U.S. Elites

Henry Kissinger is dead at the age of 100. The former U.S. statesman served as national security adviser and secretary of state at the height of the Cold War and wielded influence over U.S. foreign policy for decades afterward. His actions led to massacres, coups and and even genocide, leaving a bloody legacy in Latin America, Southeast Asia and beyond. Once out of office, Kissinger continued until his death to advise U.S.

“This Is Genocide”: Attorney Raji Sourani on Israeli War Crimes & Fleeing Gaza After Home Was Bombed

After his home in Gaza was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in October, Palestinian human rights lawyer Raji Sourani joins us from Cairo. He says Israel is enacting a “new Nakba” in its war on Gaza, and the expulsion of all Palestinians from their homeland is the clear end goal of the Israeli state. “They want us out, out of Palestine, out of Gaza, out of the West Bank,” says Sourani.