Maria and Julio talk about the targeted attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, and how responses from some Republicans are normalizing this kind of political violence. They also get into the latest with voter intimidation and suppression efforts across the country leading up to the midterms, and what Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter means for the future of our democracy. 

ITT Staff Picks: 

• “The political violence in our nation’s history is organized and purposeful. It is normalized by rhetoric that justifies it, and often encourages it,” writes Jeremi Suri on the attack on Paul Pelosi, in this piece for Time Magazine.  

• Philip Bump compares the different voting processes in Brazil and the United States, in this analysis of Brazil's electronic vote-counting system following their presidential runoff election, for The Washington Post. 

• “Most of what we know about Musk is what he freely gives on Twitter every day. That means Elon Musk spent $44 billion dollars on the very thing that is revealing how flawed he is,” writes Ali Breland in this piece for Mother Jones.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu