Новости за 07.11.2022

President Biden says democracy is on the ballot. In his speech that he delivered as a final salvo before midterm elections, he reminded us that political violence based on lies is a true threat to democracy. He’s right, of course. The news cycle has been filled with hate, from the violent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, to the threat assessment released by the Department of Homeland Security, which believes we have to be more vigilant around the potential for more violent attacks by election deniers. Читать дальше...

Steven Crowder thinks that a peaceful transfer of power is overrated.

The right-wing media figure made the remark on the eve of the first national elections to follow the January 6 riots attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

“The idea that the peaceful transfer of power is inherently our most valued tradition—it’s not. Our original tradition is rebellion, violent rebellion,” Crowder said on his show.

“I’m not suggesting any kind of violent upheaval over the election... Читать дальше...

It’s almost Election Day, and everything is on fire …

Which is, frankly, normal. Particularly since 2016, every Election Day feels a little more urgent these days than it used to.

But not all fires are created equal. Federal elections are your ordinary, throw-a-match-on-something-soaked-in-gasoline fires: straightforward, each a little different but fundamentally operating under the same set of rules and norms. State-level elections, however, are coal-seam fires burning deep underground... Читать дальше...

As if Mondays weren’t bad enough, Elon Musk shared a photo of a Nazi soldier and then encouraged “independent-minded voters” to follow his lead and vote Republican in the midterm elections.

On a daily basis now, Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist who co-chairs the Defend Democracy Project, a nonprofit group focused on fighting efforts to undermine democratic elections, gets on the phone with a number of allied outside groups and committees to advise them on messaging, voter outreach, and what to be prepared for on Election Day—and, perhaps especially, right after.

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley thinks that America should deport Senator Raphael Warnock. It’s not clear where exactly she wants to deport him to, given that he was born in Savannah, Georgia.

Don’t worry everyone, Elon Musk totally knows what he’s doing at the helm of Twitter.

Maybe you are one of the 26 million people who have applied to have their student debt reduced or eliminated entirely. You probably breathed a sigh of relief when you hit “submit,” knowing that, in the new year, you’ll have an easier time paying rent, buying food, or maybe saving to buy a home or for retirement.

Senator Raphael Warnock took the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church, smiling at the choir that had just finished a triumphant trio of songs at the beginning of worship service. It was the final Sunday before the election day that would determine whether he remained in secular higher office, or whether he would return to his flock after two years of dual pastoral and political service in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

The hard right, which GOP candidates dare not contradict, says tomorrow’s midterm elections will be rigged. This is not easy to reconcile with the strong likelihood that tomorrow’s midterm elections will go well for Republicans. The election-denying sore loser party of 2020 is preparing to become the election-denying sore winner party of 2022.

When residents of the United States wake up on Wednesday, they may well find Republicans have won a majority in the House and even Senate. It seems unlikely the GOP will gain a filibuster-proof majority in the upper chamber, which means its more sweeping legislative dreams are probably off the table. But control of even one chamber will offer Republicans the ability to throw a wrench in just about anything Democrats might want to do between now and the end of the Biden administration—particularly on climate change. Читать дальше...

Last month, it was revealed that the billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel is seeking Maltese citizenship—what would be his third passport, at least—even while he is “spending more than $30 million on more than a dozen right-wing congressional candidates who have decried globalization and pledged to put America first,” according to The New York Times. Thiel and his favored candidates share a dark view of what he calls America’s “deranged society,” which was created by a “completely deranged... Читать дальше...

In a different world, we could be referring to 2022 as the “Climate Midterms.” The top two fastest-warming cities in the country, Reno and Las Vegas, are both in Nevada, where a crucial election could determine which party controls the Senate. In Washington and Colorado, which have been greatly affected by recent wildfires, Democratic senators are facing surprisingly stiff reelection races. Miami, the “most vulnerable” coastal city in the world, has a competitive House race where the Republican... Читать дальше...

The number of Americans without health insurance has been on the rise since 2016, and every year tens of thousands of people die because they are uninsured. Twelve percent of Americans have significant disabilities; this group is more than twice as likely to avoid care because they can’t afford it. Nearly seven in 10 Americans support a public option. Over half support Medicare for All. But you’d hardly know it, given conservatives’ fierce opposition to any threat to private insurance and the... Читать дальше...

Of course Kevin McCarthy spent the final weekend of the midterms campaigning with Newt Gingrich. The 79-year-old Georgian was the architect of the Republicans’ 54-seat romp in 1994 that gave the party its first House majority in 40 years. He’s also the second most toxic figure in American politics of the last 50 years (if you need me to tell you who number one is, you’re reading the wrong columnist), so the chosen pairing tells us something about what kind of House majority McCarthy intends to... Читать дальше...