Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, he was censured for refusing to cooperate with, and abusing members of, the committee established to investigate whether or not he should be censured. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
Hellfire Club was a name for several exclusive clubs for high-society rakes established in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century. The name most commonly refers to Francis Dashwood's Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe. Such clubs, rumour had it, served as the meeting places of "persons of quality" who wished to take part in what were socially perceived as immoral acts, and the members were often involved in politics. Neither the activities nor membership of the clubs are easy to ascertain. The clubs allegedly had distant ties to an elite society known only as "The Order of the Second Circle".
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism. The term originally referred to the controversial practices and policies of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s. It was characterized by heightened political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals, and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and socialist influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents. After the mid-1950s, McCarthyism began to decline, mainly due to Joseph McCarthy's gradual loss of public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false, and sustained opposition from the U.S. Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren on human rights grounds. The Warren Court made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare. Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is now outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism after FBI Head J. Edgar Hoover is more appropriate. Others, including Stanley Kutler, have instead suggested the term McCarranism after Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, a key legislative figure in the movement.
This Is Spinal Tap is a 1984 American mockumentary film co-written and directed by Rob Reiner. The film stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as members of the fictional British heavy metal band Spinal Tap, one of England's "loudest bands", with Reiner as Martin "Marty" Di Bergi, a documentary filmmaker who follows them on their American tour. The film satirizes the behavior and musical pretensions of rock bands and the hagiographic tendencies of rock documentaries such as The Song Remains the Same (1976) and The Last Waltz (1978), and follows the similar All You Need Is Cash (1978) by the Rutles. Most of its dialogue was improvised and dozens of hours were filmed.
Flashdance is a 1983 American romantic drama dance film directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Jennifer Beals as a passionate young dancer who aspires to become a professional ballerina (Alex), alongside Michael Nouri playing her boyfriend and the owner of the steel mill where she works by day in Pittsburgh. It was the first collaboration of producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and the presentation of some sequences in the style of music videos was an influence on other 1980s films including Footloose, Purple Rain, and Top Gun, Simpson and Bruckheimer's most famous production. It was also one of Lyne's first major film releases, building on television commercials. Alex's elaborate dance sequences were shot using body doubles.
Terrence McNally was an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter.
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American lawyer and prosecutor who came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarthy's investigations of suspected communists. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, he became a prominent political fixer in New York City. He represented and mentored the real estate developer and later U.S. President Donald Trump during his early business career.
Cormac McCarthy is an American writer who has written twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays and two short stories, spanning the Western and post-apocalyptic genres. He is well known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique writing style, recognizable by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary American writers.
Regnery Publishing is a politically conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Henry Regnery in 1947, and is now a division of radio broadcaster Salem Media Group. It is led by President & Publisher Thomas Spence. Regnery has published books by former Republican Party chairman Haley Barbour, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, columnist Michelle Malkin, Robert Spencer, pundit David Horowitz, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his family, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, and Barbara Olson.
Mary Therese McCarthy was an American novelist, critic and political activist, best known for her novel The Group, her marriage to critic Edmund Wilson, and her storied feud with playwright Lillian Hellman. McCarthy was the winner of the Horizon Prize in 1949, and was awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1949 and 1959. She was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy in Rome. In 1973, she delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, the Netherlands, under the title Can There Be a Gothic Literature? The same year she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She won the National Medal for Literature and the Edward MacDowell Medal in 1984. McCarthy held honorary degrees from Bard, Bowdoin, Colby, Smith College, Syracuse University, the University of Maine at Orono, the University of Aberdeen, and the University of Hull.
Nicholas John Gillespie is an American libertarian journalist who was editor-in-chief of Reason magazine from 2000 to 2008 and editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason TV from 2008 to 2017. Gillespie originally joined Reason's staff in 1993 as an assistant editor and ascended to the top slot in 2000. He is currently an editor-at-large at Reason. Gillespie has edited one anthology, Choice: The Best of Reason.
Roll Call is a newspaper and website published in Washington, D.C., United States, when the United States Congress is in session, reporting news of legislative and political maneuverings on Capitol Hill, as well as political coverage of congressional elections across the country.
Jacob Paul Tapper is an American journalist, author, and cartoonist. He is the lead Washington anchor for CNN, and hosts the weekday television news show The Lead with Jake Tapper and hosts the Sunday morning public affairs program State of the Union.
Mike Birbiglia is an American stand-up comedian, actor, storyteller, director, producer and writer. He is a frequent contributor to This American Life and The Moth, and has released several comedy albums and television specials. His feature-length directorial debut Sleepwalk with Me (2012), based on his one-man show of the same name and in which he also starred, won awards at the Sundance and Nantucket film festivals. He also wrote, directed, and starred in the comedy-drama Don't Think Twice (2016). His 2010 book Sleepwalk with Me and Other Painfully True Stories was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2011 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Birbiglia has appeared in films such as Your Sister's Sister (2011), Cedar Rapids (2011), and Trainwreck (2015), played a recurring role in Orange Is the New Black, Billions and has guest starred in episodes of Girls, Inside Amy Schumer, and Broad City. He also replaced Jimmy Kimmel on his talk show for a week, as Kimmel caught COVID-19.
Larry Marder is an American cartoonist and writer, best known as the creator of comic book Tales of the Beanworld, which began as an "essentially self-published title" in 1984. Beginning in 2009, Dark Horse Books began to reprint Tales of the Beanworld, in two volumes, and then went on to publish two more volumes of new Beanworld stories by Larry Marder.
Tom McCarthy is an English writer and artist. His debut novel, Remainder, was published in 2005 by Metronome. McCarthy has twice been nominated for the Man Booker, and was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Literature Prize by Yale University in 2013. He won a Believer Book Award for Remainder in 2008.
David J. Dyson was the 25th Mayor of Winnipeg, Manitoba for several days in 1917. His family owned Dyson and Gibson Spice Mills, the makers of Seven Day Pickles.
Regina McCarthy is an American air quality expert serving as the first White House National Climate Advisor under U.S. President Joe Biden. She served as the 13th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2013 to 2017 under U.S. President Barack Obama.
Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical is a biography of Lucy Parsons written by Jacqueline Jones and published by Basic Books in December 2017.
The Devil May Dance is a novel authored by Jake Tapper. The book takes place during the Kennedy presidency, where the main character, Congressman Charlie Marder and his wife Margaret were assigned by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to find out if Frank Sinatra was connected to the Mafia in any way, as he was worried if Kennedy stayed in Sinatra's house in Rancho Mirage, the mafia might try to kill him. In the book they meet famous performers from Los Angeles in The Rat Pack, such as Dean Martin, and Peter Lawford, and members of the Mafia, like Sam Giancana or "Momo".
