Новости за 28.09.2017

On Tuesday, health care activists and Democrats celebrated the defeat of Graham-Cassidy, the GOP’s third attempt to repeal Obamacare since President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Thanks to reams of bad press and highly visible protests in the Capitol led by groups like ADAPT, Maine’s Susan Collins on Monday became the third senator to oppose the bill, effectively making it dead on arrival. The following day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided to shelve the bill without putting it to a vote. Читать дальше...

Donald Trump is at home on the cultural battlefield, as shown by his legendary feuds with everyone from Rosie O’Donnell to Alec Baldwin to Meryl Streep. The more sober members of the press tread Trump’s cultural wars as a diversion, perhaps intentionally, from his political failures. Yet it is hard to ignore how central cultural strife is to Trump’s presidency after his latest incitement, attacking Colin Kaepernick and other football players who have kneeled during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Читать дальше...

Illustration by Emiliano Ponzi

Even the best novelists are rarely congratulated on the quality of their observations about contemporary life. Realism is all well and good, but, it seems, there can be too much of it. There is something a little vulgar about writing a novel that is too close to the present, too concerned with current events, too eager to critique technological advancements. Imagine, if you will, a novel that was actually, directly, about Donald Trump. Too on the nose, we reviewers would sniff. Читать дальше...

Roy Moore, who defeated Senator Luther Strange in Tuesday’s Alabama primary, is a nutcase. He has equated homosexuality with bestiality, and declared that it should be illegal. He told Vox’s Jeff Stein that there are communities in Illinois living under “sharia law.” He said that 9/11 was divine retribution for removing Christianity from public life, and refused to obey a federal order to remove a 5,280-pound granite block inscribed with the Ten Commandments that he had installed outside Alabama’s judicial building. Читать дальше...

The woman in the wheelchair is resolute. Her voice does not waver; her message does not change. “No cuts to Medicaid!” she shouts. “Save our liberty!” She is a rock, borne away by a police officer who grips the handles of her wheelchair. Behind her, another activist follows, with the same chant, with the same resolution on his face. “Save our liberty,” they say, and it is not a plea. It is a demand.

The American labor movement currently stands at one of its lowest points in history. Barely one-tenth of all workers belong to a union—down from more than one-third in the 1950s. Over the past half-century, the courts have gutted legal protections for striking workers, curtailed their ability to engage in political action, and granted employers broad “free speech” rights to frighten them out of unionizing. Under President Trump, workers are likely to be besieged by even more hostile attacks from... Читать дальше...