Новости за 05.10.2022

Who will win this year’s Nobel Prize in literature? And what—beyond literary excellence—does the award stand for? On episode 54 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Alex Shephard, a staff writer at The New Republic and an inveterate Nobel watcher, about the enigmatic politics of the oldest and most distinguished literary prize in the world. Will the Nobel Committee salute freedom of speech by honoring Salman Rushdie, who was brutally attacked onstage in August? Читать дальше...

Things are largely looking up for Republicans after a brutal summer. As gas prices and fears of a recession rise, the GOP has begun to make gains in tight Senate races, raising the possibility that it will control both chambers of Congress come January. Races in Pennsylvania and Arizona increasingly look like toss-ups, while Ron Johnson appears to be pulling ahead in Wisconsin. For the first time since June—and with the midterms just one month away—the Republican Party has clear momentum.

The Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion, guns, and climate change regulation in the past year have sparked outrage and upended decades-old laws and precedent. Public esteem for the high court has fallen to its lowest level in decades. But the court has an older set of decisions that are causing increasing problems, forcing Americans to tolerate a government saddled by corruption. Money pervades politics, but the court has shown a predilection for permissiveness, striking down any regulation... Читать дальше...

In his concurrence with the majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Brett Kavanaugh made a familiar argument about the states. “The Court’s decision properly leaves the question of abortion for the people and their elected representatives in the democratic process,” he wrote, by allowing “the numerous States” to decide the matter. Kavanaugh’s claim rested upon an abiding myth: that state governments are more accurate representations of the will of the people... Читать дальше...

Bolsonaro is still in the game. Heading into the first round of voting in Brazil’s presidential election last Sunday, the most optimistic supporters of leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva believed that the former president would defeat the far-right incumbent outright, avoiding a runoff. Lula needed to clear 50 percent support to end Bolsonaro’s presidency. But it was not to be. Lula finished with about 48 percent of the vote, which was within the margin of error of most polls released near the end of the campaign. Читать дальше...

“The world today faces enormous crises,” Senator Bernie Sanders began. I had asked the Vermont independent how he would characterize two years of the razor-thin 50-seat Democratic majority.