Новости за 20.09.2021

For those looking to insurgent electoral movements to freshen our political possibilities, this week’s preliminary mayoral results in Boston offer reason for good cheer. Two current city council members—Michelle Wu and Anissa Essaibi George, both women of color—snagged the top spots in the preliminary mayoral election and will now face off in what will likely amount to a straightforward left versus moderate general election this November. Should Wu, the nominal front-runner, maintain her lead over the next several weeks... Читать дальше...

In recent years, we’ve seen the Republican Party cross bridge after bridge in the name of gaining partisan advantage to a degree that would have been unthinkable a couple generations ago.

Late last week Joe Biden went before TV cameras to deliver a passionate appeal for tax fairness. “This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them—and not just for big corporations and those at the top.” While he never directly made the linkage, the president implied that those extra federal tax dollars could fund aggressive action to battle climate change, major investments in health care, support for daycare and eldercare, expansion of preschool, tuition-free community college... Читать дальше...

Emotions ran tepid as American discourse prevailed at the J6 rally in D.C. yesterday, for better or for worse. The expectation of violence, or any attempt the protesters made to do anything other than raise their homemade signs or shout a bit, was quickly overpowered by encircling journalists and law enforcement, whose numbers matched those of the rallygoers themselves. 

Against all odds and after weeks of work, they finally got it done—a massive bipartisan infrastructure bill. “This bill is not perfect, but it is a commonsense compromise, and an important first step in the right direction,” the president said upon passage in the Senate. With palpable relief, the transportation secretary said in a statement that the bill reflected “a bipartisan compromise I always knew was possible.” The Washington Post called it a “landmark moment for a Congress that is reviled by many Americans as a do-nothing body... Читать дальше...

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, says Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill threatens economic prosperity. Mankiw doesn’t doubt whether, “from a narrow budgetary standpoint,” the United States can afford to spend $3.5 trillion. Unlike the reconciliation bill’s Republican opponents in Congress, he thinks we can. The problem, he says, lies in the “broader economic effects” of the bill’s economic redistribution. Читать дальше...

In the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, new fears have been raised that a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan represents a potentially deadly terrorism threat to the United States. “Al Qaeda operated from Afghanistan before September 11, and they can do so again, with deadly consequences,” or so the argument goes.