Новости за 15.10.2020

We now have new numbers to confirm what everyone who received a $1,200 stimulus check or extra unemployment benefits over the summer likely already knows: Additional government money is a good thing during an economic collapse. As The New York Times reported this week, two recent studies have found that over the last few months, between six to eight million additional people officially fell below the poverty line, in the absence of renewed government aid, after several provisions in the Cares Act expired in July. Читать дальше...

The ruinous effect contracting Covid-19 has had on my short-term memory is, happily, not a problem when it comes to remembering the key plot points of Netflix’s soapy, flimsy sitcom Emily in Paris, each new episode being more or less a carbon copy of its predecessor. Emily (Lily Collins), a young Chicagoan who does not speak a word of French, invariably does something très Américaine and scandaleuse, like, for example, being pleasant to a co-worker, or eating carbs, or attempting to introduce... Читать дальше...

Here’s one all-too-plausible way that Election Night 2020 might play out. It’s just after 11 p.m., when Fox News cuts live to President Trump’s reelection party. Millions of mail-in ballots remain to be counted in the swing states of Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but Trump claims victory based on the early tabulations from in-person voting. “We must go with the election night results,” he tells a cheering crowd of Republicans sporting MAGA caps, and no more than a smattering of face masks. “This is the only honest count,” he says... Читать дальше...

Over the past four years, there have been dozens of books published about Donald Trump. Some have recorded his numerous failures and general incompetence, others his Churchillian magnificence and world-historical accomplishments. They have documented his real, imagined, and unverified ties to Vladimir Putin; his mental state (he is either a genius or suffering from a host of DSM-5 disorders); his thuggishness and authoritarianism; his role in the demise of the Republican Party; and the various... Читать дальше...

Of course Jeff Bezos is giving money to Republicans. On Tuesday, during Amazon’s annual sale event known as Prime Day, E&E News reported that the same month that Amazon announced a Climate Pledge to offset more carbon dioxide than it produces, the company’s Political Action Committee donated $20,500 to besieged Republican candidates. Overall, from January 2019 through this August, 70 percent of the PAC’s Senate donations went toward supporting Republicans. To state the obvious: Republican... Читать дальше...

With less than three weeks to go until the election, The New York Post published what it apparently thought would be a bombshell report. The tabloid newspaper claims it obtained a cache of emails by Hunter Biden, the Democratic nominee’s controversial son, including one that suggests the younger Biden arranged a meeting between his father and a Ukrainian oligarch with whom Hunter had a business relationship. Biden has previously denied discussing his son’s business dealings while in office.

If you have been watching Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for insight into how the nation’s highest court will interpret the law once she sits on the bench, you should shut them off now. It is a nominee’s job to obfuscate about her beliefs and intentions, the Republicans’ job to pretend they admire her for her prudence, not her utility to their movement, and the Democrats’ job … well, no one, least of all they, can agree on what their job actually is.