Новости за 23.08.2021

Criticism of President Biden over the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has reached a fever pitch in recent days, amid reports of Americans left stranded and images of Afghans clinging to departing planes. Many of these criticisms are valid: His administration should have done more to make sure the systems and procedures were in place to evacuate our Afghan allies and to expedite the special immigrant visa process. This shouldn’t have to be done after the fact, and it makes it... Читать дальше...

Last year, while promising better pandemic-era treatment for their workers, gig companies like Lyft and Uber poured more than $200 million into a propaganda campaign in favor of Proposition 22, a ballot initiative in California that would solidify workers as something less than employees deserving full benefits. Despite driver protests, vigorous media campaigns from both sides, and the sheer obscenity of putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a political campaign that could otherwise have... Читать дальше...

A depressingly familiar theme has dominated the reports and commentary that have surfaced in the wake of the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan in the aftermath of U.S. withdrawal: The end of 20 years of imperial war is a feminist disaster. “Women in Afghanistan Fear Return to a Repressive Past Under Taliban,” one New York Times headline declaimed. USA Today put it more condescendingly: “We can’t make a country care about its own women. Only Afghanistan can do that.”

Practice, alas, makes perfect. It took an agonizing, heartrending week, but Joe Biden finally hit the right tone and seemingly the right strategy for handling the retreat from Kabul.

On a warm June evening in downtown Manhattan, tourists hoping to visit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum are disappointed. The spot is closed after 5 p.m., a security guard repeats patiently to visitors. From behind a rope, the tourists look at the spaces where the Twin Towers used to be. The names of the 2,977 people killed by Al Qaeda in September 2001 are etched into bronze parapets surrounding two pools. Water flows down 30 feet in clear streams over the walls into the pools. Читать дальше...

“It’s time for us to resist,” Rand Paul says, railing against vaccine and mask mandates, “lockdown measures,” and other pandemic interventions, in a new video making the rounds on social media. “They can’t arrest all of us.” The video, defiantly titled “Do Not Comply,” has more than 105,000 views on Gab TV, the video site affiliated with a similarly named social network. While Paul was suspended earlier this month from YouTube for spreading misinformation about masks, he is a featured presence on right-wing alternatives like Gab. Читать дальше...