The name Martin Luther King Jr. is iconic in the United States. The outgoing 44th president, Barack Obama, spoke of King in both his Democratic National Convention nomination acceptance and victory speeches in 2008:
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An early scene in Hidden Figures shows an exhausted Katherine Goble (Taraji Henson) returning to her well-appointed suburban house, hours after sundown. Her NASA colleagues and friends Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) have dropped her off before continuing on to their own houses. All three women have multi-child families. Of the three, Katherine is the only widow; Dorothy and Mary have husbands anticipating their return. Katherine opens her door to find her mother waiting up for her at the dining room table.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt may be a climate change denier, but that alone won’t derail his nomination to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. So when confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial pick begin on January 18, you can expect to hear a lot about mercury. It’s part of a larger strategy by Senate Democrats to frame his nomination as the culmination of a cynical, years-long attack on science and reason whose purpose was to protect the interests of the oil and gas industry—and his own. Читать дальше...
Earlier this month, in a final sketch as President Barack Obama’s ever-exasperated “anger translator” on The Daily Show, comedian Keegan-Michael Key compared the dawn of Donald Trump’s presidency to a certain popular book-cum-movie franchise.
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Liberals, and even many conservatives, are finding some relief in the hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, as nominee after nominee repudiates his most extreme and heterodox positions. The New York Times last week unexpectedly endorsed retired General James Mattis as secretary of defense, writing, “It was encouraging that he had no qualms in stating views at odds with positions Mr. Trump campaigned on”—notably his wariness of Russia, strong support for NATO and other alliances... Читать дальше...
