Новости за 17.06.2022

In 1980, the poet Thom Gunn hung a poster of Sid Vicious in his workroom. Middle-aged when the Sex Pistols appeared in the 1970s, Gunn nonetheless felt a rapport with the young enfant terrible of punk rock. Both were disaffected Englishmen who jeered at the stuffy rituals and pomposity of their homeland. Both had fatal appetites for booze and drugs. Both fancied themselves exemplars of a live-fast-die-young credo that was self-fulfilling in Vicious’s case but jokily theoretical in Gunn’s. When... Читать дальше...

Fifty years ago today, five burglars working for President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex. It’s an anniversary that raises disconcerting parallels with the events of January 6, 2021. But the differences are more instructive. Watergate was, and remains, a whodunit (specifically, a who-ordered-it), whereas there’s no mystery at all as to whether efforts to overturn the last presidential election... Читать дальше...

Gun control in America doesn’t just move slowly, it moves backward. After school shootings, gun sales only increase, while right-wing politicians call for more weapons, cameras, and intense security measures in schools. And as the U.S. Senate reportedly comes close to a deal to move forward on modest gun legislation, it appears national Democrats are also ready to support throwing money at schools to supposedly enhance their security. But a closer look at these school security devices—largely... Читать дальше...

Thursday afternoon’s January 6 committee hearing—the third session over the past week—included revelations and made-for-TV moments. There was the disclosure that John Eastman, the lawyer providing faux intellectual heft to Donald Trump’s scheme to convince Mike Pence to overturn the election, had asked the president for a preemptive pardon. The committee revealed that an unnamed Proud Boys witness has confessed that members of the extremist group intended to assassinate Pence—which, was particularly... Читать дальше...