Новости за 23.03.2017

It was only a matter of time before the presidential chatter began. Al Franken, the comedian-turned-politician from Minnesota, kept a conspicuously low profile during his first term in the Senate, sticking quietly to policy matters to convince the world that he was a serious guy, not just a celebrity with a political jones. But since Donald Trump’s election (and Franken’s re-election), the senator has been busting out all over, mainly due to his expert grilling of the Trump nominees that liberals most love to hate. Читать дальше...

Dave Chappelle is no stranger to controversy. Twelve years ago, at the height of his career, Chappelle walked away from his hit television show and a $50 million deal with Comedy Central. So many Chappelle’s Show segments—and not just the ones he did about Rick James, Charlie Murphy, and Prince—have already become the stuff of legend, and the show is rightfully credited for dramatically changing the way American audiences think, talk, and laugh about race.

The relationship between President Donald Trump and his allies in Congress is rooted less in a simpatico bond than in a particularly ugly kind of transactional politics.

Donald Trump had occupied the White House for less than a month before he decided to launch an all-out attack on the easiest target possible: the media. The day after he held the most unhinged press conference since Richard Nixon went on national TV to declare he wasn’t a crook, Trump took to Twitter to blast the press as “the enemy of the American people.” A few weeks earlier, the president’s chief strategist had expressed the administration’s attitude in equally bellicose terms: “I want you... Читать дальше...

Charles de Gaulle, a titan not prone to false modesty, wrote four volumes of memoirs. Norman Podhoretz—De Gaulle’s equal in self-regard, if not in achievement—has also given us four autobiographical tomes. The comparison between the liberator of Paris and the former editor of Commentary might seem a wild stretch, but the underlying argument of all of Podhoretz’s work is that his literary career (and the careers of his rivals) have a world-historical importance. And since Podhoretz remains feisty and self-obsessed as ever at the age of 87... Читать дальше...