Katrina vanden Heuvel

Save 'The American Prospect'

Katrina vanden Heuvel on May 18, 2012 - 11:59 AM ET

I believe magazines of opinion are an essential source for the great political ideas and debates that shape and confront our country.

So, at The Nation, we were saddened by the news that The American Prospect might cease publication at the end of May if it’s unable to raise close to $500,000. In this age of consolidation and conglomeratization, when Citizens United has unleashed tens of millions of dollars to excessively influence our politics through brutish and misleading ads, we need the Prospect’s truth-telling independent journalism more than ever.

Founded in 1990 by Robert Kuttner, Robert Reich and Paul Starr as a response to the intellectual ascendancy of conservatism in the 1980s, The American Prospect offers up intelligent liberalism, smart reporting and coverage of movements, progressive thought and policy. It also offers incisive reporting on labor and the progressive infrastructure—of which the Prospect has been an anchor.

It’s also been a remarkably fertile training ground for many of American’s finest progressive journalists, including Josh Marshall, Matt Yglesias, Ann Friedman, Ezra Klein, Garance Franke-Ruta, Kate Sheppard and Jonathan Chait. And in the last year, the Prospect, like The Nation, has invested in the online world, broadening its reach through social media and other digital platforms. Whether founded twenty-two years or 147 years ago, we understand that these investments are a critical part of our future.

The Nation shares some great DNA with the Prospect: Nation writer and education expert Dana Goldstein got her start at TAP. Nation blogger Ben Adler blogged and wrote a weekly web column for the Prospect. Thenation.com’s national security writer, Robert Dreyfuss, was formerly an editor at The Prospect. Nation blogger Jamelle Bouie is a Prospect writing fellow. The Prospect’s executive editor Bob Moser was formerly a senior editor at The Nation. The Prospect’s web editor Gabriel Arena, whose recent moving piece on so-called cures for homosexuality received the site’s highest traffic ever, is a former Nation intern. And that’s just recent history!

The American Prospect urgently needs help to continue publishing. Its passing would be a major loss for the country. Here’s how to help. Please join me in keeping the Prospect alive.

It's Time to Break Up the Big Banks

Katrina vanden Heuvel on May 15, 2012 - 12:17 PM ET

Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Consider $2 billion lost on a bad bet, plus billions more as investors dumped the stock, a providential warning. When Jamie Dimon, the imperious head of JPMorgan Chase, revealed that the bank had lost so much on a derivatives trade gone bad, it was clear warning that, four years after blowing up the economy, the big banks are still playing with bombs.

This was no rogue trader. Dimon admitted to “many errors, sloppiness, bad judgment” in “poorly executed” derivative trades. Heads may roll, but these were authorized trades by the bank’s leading—and notorious—trader, Bruno Iksil, the “London Whale.”

Dimon, of course, has been Wall Street’s most vociferous critic of banking reforms, deploying an army of lawyers and lobbyists—at the cost of an estimated $7.4 million in 2010— to try to delay, dilute and disembowel the Dodd-Frank legislation. The unrelenting legal and lobbying campaign has clearly intimidated the regulators, forcing delays beyond the dates mandated by the statute. Most recently, the bank lobby seemed on the verge of defenestrating the Volcker Rule, which would limit commercial banks from gambling with depositors’ money. That rule, itself a pale shadow of the Glass-Steagall Act repealed during the Clinton years, might have constrained the kind of opaque, risky bets that led to the losses.

Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

This Week: An Idea Whose Time Has Come. PLUS: Live Chat With Dana Goldstein

Katrina vanden Heuvel on May 14, 2012 - 5:43 PM ET

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME. President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage last week was a historic marker of progress in the ongoing fight for marriage equality, but also a signal of the power of LGBT activism and movements in general. No sitting president has explicitly supported marriage for same-sex couples, and, at a time of increasingly popular support for marriage-equality, President Obama’s “evolution” is a testament to an idea whose time has come. TheNation.com executive editor Richard Kim joined MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes on Saturday to discuss the ways in which the LGBT movement has helped propel marriage equality to a decisive issue now at the forefront of public debate. On both Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer and on NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook, Kim looks at whether Obama’s endorsement will lead to substantive policy change as well as the political ramifications as the November election approaches.

A SECOND CHANCE FOR TEENS SENT TO DIE IN PRISON? This week’s deeply reported and compelling cover story, “Throwaway People: Will Teens Sent to Die in Prison Get a Second Chance,” by Nation editor Liliana Segura, introduces us to Philadelphia resident Trina Garnett, who in 1976 accidentally set a fatal fire when she was only 14 years old. Bound by Pennsylvania’s mandatory sentencing laws, Garnett was convicted and sentenced to two life terms plus forty years in prison. Garnett, reports Segura, is approximately one of 2,589 prisoners nationwide serving life without parole for crimes they committed as teenagers. Garnett’s story, like many others, offers a window into the moral and legal limitations of mandatory juvenile sentencing laws. But an upcoming Supreme Court decision, involving two cases in which “lifers” who were 14 when they committed murder, offers these prisoners a second chance. Read the piece here, and be sure to watch the latest edition of VideoNation for a short preview of Trina Garnett’s story.

LIVE CHAT WITH DANA GOLDSTEIN. Join us this Thursday, May 17, at TheNation.com for a live chat on the role of testing in education reform featuring Nation education reporter Dana Goldstein. She’ll be joined by New York City public school education teacher and blogger Mark Anderson and a representative from the Educators for Excellence network to address reader comments and questions on the controversial growth of standardized testing and its effect on educators and students. Nation comments editor Sarah Arnold will moderate. Participants are encouraged to visit Dana’s blog prior to the chat to submit preliminary questions or to sign up for an e-mail reminder. Dana, a Puffin Foundation writing fellow at The Nation Institute and a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, is one of America’s foremost writers on education. She has reported on education policy, politics, women’s issues and public health for The Nation, The American Prospect, The Washington Post, the Daily Beast and Slate, among other publications. She is currently working on a book on the political history of American public school teaching. You can follow her work at www.danagoldstein.net and on Twitter (@DanaGoldstein).

THE FIGHT OVER THE NYPL’S RENOVATION PLAN. On Wednesday, over 700 scholars, writers, publishers, artists and other New York Public Library patrons sent a letter to NYPL President Anthony Marx protesting the $350 million planned “renovation” of the 42nd Street branch and calling for a public discussion of the plan. The NYPL’s renovation—known as The Central Library Plan (CLP)—has come under increasing scrutiny over the last six months, after Nation contributing writer Scott Sherman’s November 30, 2011, article, “Upheaval at the Library,” revealed how the closely guarded and secretive project would demolish seven levels of original stacks beneath the Rose Reading Room to make way for a state-of-the-art computer-oriented library. The implications of the makeover, explains Sherman, are dire. What was once a serene and congenial environment for scholars, serious readers, intellectuals and book-lovers could be converted into a noisy, tumultuous branch library. And it would not only weaken one of the world’s great libraries but also mar the architectural integrity of an iconic cultural and historic landmark.

STUDENT WRITING CONTEST. We’re delighted to announce The Nation’s 8th Annual Student Writing Contest. We’re looking for thoughtful, provocative student voices to answer this question in 800 words: What do you think is the most important issue of Election 2012? All high-school and college students are eligible. Winning essays are published in The Nation and at TheNation.com and winners receive $1,000 cash awards. Finalists are published at TheNation.com and awarded $250 each. Entries (only one per student) will be accepted through June 15, 2012. A winner will be announced by September 15. Read last year’s winners here. The Nation’s Student Writing Contest offers a platform to aspiring young journalists, including Sarah Stillman, winner of The Nation’s first-ever student writing contest in 2006 for her essay, “Project Corpus Callosum,” which used the metaphor of the portion of our brain that connects our left and right hemispheres to describe a fundamental challenge: How can our knowledge of injustice be effectively wed to our passion to change it? Stillman has gone on to do remarkable journalism, including her award-winning New Yorker report, “The Invisible Army,” for which she received the 2012 Sidney Hillman Award and was named a finalist for both a MOLLY and a National Magazine Award.

VICTOR NAVASKY’S MAD MEN CAMEO. Sunday night’s episode of Mad Men featured an angered and frustrated Pete Campbell—who, after picking up his copy of the New York Times Magazine—phoned Don Draper to lament getting left out of an article titled, “Advertising Is (A Science? An Art? A Business?)”. To our delight, that article, as Alexander Abad-Santos points out in the Atlantic Wire (and Matthew Creamer cites in AdAge) was written by Nation Publisher Emeritus Victor Navasky. Be sure to read the original article, here.

As always, thanks for reading. I’m on Twitter—@KatrinaNation. Please leave your comments below.

Ad Policy

Free Pussy Riot

Katrina vanden Heuvel on May 2, 2012 - 9:18 AM ET

In his final interview as president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev was asked to comment on many of the issues one would expect—relations with the United States, Ukraine and Georgia, government corruption… and the Pussy Riot case.

While you might not have heard much, if anything, about Pussy Riot in this country, the feminist punk rock collective has roiled Russian politics. Back in February, on the eve of Russia’s presidential election, it gave an impromptu performance of “Punk Prayer” on the pulpit of Christ the Savior Cathedral—Moscow’s Russian Orthodox equivalent of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The performers wore ski masks, jabbed and kicked at the air and genuflected to verses imploring the Virgin Mary to “get rid of Putin, get rid of Putin, get rid of Putin.”

It seemed a feisty—perhaps to some tasteless—musical prank, amplifying the demands of thousands who’d protested in Moscow’s streets since December. And it probably wasn’t the most tactful way to attract a broad spectrum of supporters to the opposition’s views. But these punk rockers have been around for a couple of years, taunting authorities with their flamboyant performance art and music. On video, their action almost has the feel of a flash mob—and a small one at that—albeit at the nexus of power between church and state.

But the authorities didn’t view it as so benign. On March 3—one day before the presidential election won by Putin— two members of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were arrested “by heavily armed police officers” for allegedly participating in the performance. Two weeks later, another band member, Irina Loktina, was arrested.

All three women have been charged with “hooliganism” and face up to seven years in prison. Despite the fact that two of the women are mothers of young children, they are all being held in pre-trial detention, which was recently extended from April 24 to June 24. According to the New York Times, “There is every indication that it will be extended again, with a trial unlikely to start until the fall.”

The women have written to President Medvedev and asked that he look into the legality of the decision to open a criminal case against them. Amnesty International has declared them prisoners of conscience. (There are only two other well-known prisoners of conscience in Russia—former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev.) Their case has led punk rockers, women and feminists in the United States to try to raise awareness and support for Pussy Riot too. Indeed, the Free Pussy Riot campaign has gone global.

But in Russia in particular, key (even conservative) newspapers, Russian women and protesters who filled the streets before the parliamentary and presidential elections have taken up their cause—signaling a real backlash against the government for its harsh response.

Muckraking blogger, lawyer and protest leader Aleksei Navalny called the arrests “senseless and horrible cruelty, which is much worse than their very stupid but small offense”—an offense which he said “obviously cannot be punished harsher than five days of arrest.” He noted a recent case of an election commissioner’s daughter who “ran over two people,” one of whom died and the other was “maimed.” The sentence was three years “in a settlement colony”—and it was suspended for fourteen years because the woman is the mother of a young child.

The case has also illuminated and exposed divisions in the Russian Orthodox Church itself—between the hierarchy and many in the rank and file. The church has been at the forefront in calling for all involved in the Pussy Riot performance to be punished for their “blasphemy.” In fact, according to the New York Times, priests said they were “ordered to circulate” a letter calling for the punk rockers “to be punished as severely as possible.” The Moscow patriarch denied it. But a senior Orthodox cleric said the performers “have declared war on Orthodox people, and there will be a war.”

Many in Russia view the actions and hyperbole the church is engaging in as a thinly veiled effort to deflect attention from its own corruption, power and immense wealth.

Indeed, when I was in Moscow in early April, a story broke that the Orthodox Church had photoshopped Patriarch Kirill I’s Breguet watch worth at least $30,000 out of a photo on its website—but neglected to remove the reflection that was still visible on the table where the patriarch was seated. The patriarch also won a $600,000 lawsuit for dust damage to an apartment he owns in an expensive building, and bloggers allege that he has a “large country house, a private yacht and a penchant for ski vacations in Switzerland.”

Many Russians feel that this kind of bad publicity was the real motivating factor behind the church’s organizing a massive demonstration in front of the cathedral last week. Crowd estimates range between 30,000 and 65,000 people—large by any measure—as the church called on supporters to help it “defend itself” against a “campaign of blasphemy,” including the Pussy Riot performance, the Times reports. The church bused in people “from over a dozen dioceses,” including “the Night Wolves, a group of nationalist motorcyclists.” It was a real show of strength—as big or bigger than any of Moscow’s pro-democracy demonstrations—and priests who opposed the gathering were denounced by Patriarch Kirill I as “traitors in cassocks.”

Boris Kagarlitsky, director of the Institute of Social Movements and Globalization and a keen observer of Russian society and politics, writes: “The Pussy Riot affair has turned into a PR disaster for the Russian Orthodox Church, adding to the scandals with the Patriarch. The women are under arrest and much of the religious Christian community is disgusted with the position of the hierarchy which is behind the persecution. The mass rally organized to pray for the church [for being] ‘attacked’ and even ‘persecuted’ by Pussy Riot made things even worse. Some priests publicly protested against the policies of the Patriarch—for the first time in many years. Now we have a growing movement to defend secularism, which wasn’t there even a month ago.”

The Pussy Riot case has revealed real fissures between the secular and more conservative elements of Russia, and within the Russian Orthodox Church itself. Medvedev didn’t quite seem to comprehend the significance—despite the fact that the issue came up in his final interview—responding that the women “got exactly what they were seeking—popularity,” and refusing further comment.

Maybe they did want popularity. Or maybe they simply wanted to do exactly what they did—make a bold political statement without physically damaging the church or harming anyone. Either way, detention and up to seven years prison for these actions seems riot-worthy. It’s time to free Pussy Riot.

This Week: Beyond ALEC. PLUS: Toward May Day and a General Strike

Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 28, 2012 - 12:16 PM ET

BEYOND ALEC. The successful campaign against the right-wing shadow lobbying group reached a new phase this week. The good government group Common Cause filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that ALEC is violating its tax-exempt status by pushing “model legislation” designed to boost profits of its corporate membership. After The Nation and The Center for Media and Democracy published a trove of these model bills last summer, revealing the corporate driven legislative assault on labor, education and voting rights, a successful progressive counterforce has emerged that has led to the exit of fourteen of ALEC’s corporate members, including Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Intuit, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and most recently, the for-profit education firm Kaplan. Zaid Jilani also details the 28 lawmakers who have quit ALEC just this month. But as we note this week, the Exit ALEC movement must go beyond the group to confront the damage it has done. Thirty-four states have introduced and nine have have passed restrictive voter ID laws that disproportionately affect people of color, touting mythical allegations of rampant voter fraud. I told Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer this week, the great fraud is that we have been told voter fraud is a serious problem. We go around this world and preach democracy, when in fact we erect barriers that make it harder for people to vote. Instead, we need universal voter registration and same-day, election-day registration.

VOTING RIGHTS WATCH 2012. To help cast a vigilant eye on anti-democratic efforts, we’re delighted to announce a new partnership with Colorlines.com that will offer in-depth coverage of voter suppression efforts nationwide throughout the 2012 election season. “Voting Rights Watch 2012” will focus on the racial impact and dimensions of restrictive Voter ID laws, barriers faced by voter registration organizations, and efforts to “police the vote” and other intimidation tactics on Election Day. The project, led by Nation.com executive editor Richard Kim and Colorlines.com editorial director Kai Wright, will consist of on-the-ground reporting by New Orleans–based investigative journalist and Colorlines.com Voting Rights Fellow Brentin Mock, and will be co-published at TheNation.com and Colorines.com. Read Mock’s recent post, “People of Color Less Likely to Vote Because of SuperPAC Influence,” here.

MAY DAY AND IMAGINING A NEW GENERAL STRIKE. The Occupy Wall Street movement is planning a resurgence on May 1 (May Day) with calls for a “General Strike.” This day of resistance, reports Nation correspondent Allison Kilkenny, asks Americans to “stop offering their labor and money to corporations for one day and join their local Occupy chapter for a day of resistance.” Over 100 activist groups, labor unions and other progressive organizations have pledged to participate in rallies and marches in New York City and throughout the country. Be sure to follow The Nation’s live May Day coverage here. Colleague Peter Rothberg also offers up an important “Guide to May Day,” both its legacy and meaningful actions taking place around the country. Read that here. And check out The Nation’s May Day VideoNation series, Imagining a New General Strike, featuring Washington correspondent John Nichols, Marina Sitrin and Gayatri Spivak discussing the meaning and impact of a general strike in today’s global economy.

NATION ‘GUIDE TO MEANINGFUL ACTION. To better channel the outrage many feel after reading about abuses of power and privilege as well as the good intentions inspired by tales of positive social change, The Nation magazine has launched Take Action, a new weekly guide to meaningful action to connect readers with resources, activists and organizations working for change. Each week, this “Guide to Meaningful Action” will accompany one editorial, article or feature story and highlight one concrete step that readers can take to make their voice heard. There’ll also be a recommended reading suggestion and a single highlighted video to forge greater understanding and make it easy for readers to share resources on a variety of platforms. Recent Nation Take Action campaigns have urged readers to help blow the whistle on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), help Gulf residents reclaim their lives two-years after the disastrous BP oil spill; pass the Rebuild America Act; free imprisoned Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye; and demand a federal probe into the NYPD’s spying on Muslims.

As always, thanks for reading. I’m on Twitter—@KatrinaNation. Please leave your comments below.

Koch Brothers Exposed

Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 23, 2012 - 5:23 PM ET

With an unflinching investigative look at the Koch brothers’ money and power, Brave New Films has once again created a film full of rollicking and rigorous facts that informs and challenges corporate media with the truth. The latest in a series of tough and sharp social justice films—check out Rethink Afghanistan, WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price and Sick for Profit—Koch Brothers Exposed should be a wake-up call for people across the political spectrum to take action to halt the selling off of our democracy.

As radio and television host Ed Schultz says of the film, “Every person in this country who cares about democracy should care about this work.”

I was interviewed for the film—seemed a valuable project because it raises perhaps the central question of our time: are we a democracy or are we now a plutocracy? And what kind of country, what kind of society, what kind of economy do we want to live in?

Throughout American history—though there have been major challenges and pitfalls—there has been a degree of balance between government and market. But we are now living in a moment when the extremist right wants to shatter that balance and is using its resources to throw the country back to Gilded Age inequality.

No one is pursuing that course more aggressively than Charles and David Koch.

This film exposes tactics used by the Koch brothers to sway political power in their favor, while illustrating the dangers of unchecked influence concentrated in the hands of the few. This includes their efforts to suppress voter rights, re-segregate public schools, weaken EPA regulation, and privatize Social Security.

The strategy pursued by the Koch Brothers has a potent history. As Bill Moyers describes in his Nation cover story “How Wall Street Occupied America,” the late Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell’s confidential memorandum in 1971 to his friends in the US Chamber of Commerce was “a call to arms for class war waged from the top down.” It was a blueprint for what is now coming to fruition with the phenomenon of the Koch brothers, Citizens United, and a right-wing activist Supreme Court ready to roll back decades of New Deal jurisprudence.

Moyers lays out how “the Powell Memo”—in response to bipartisan support for new regulation of air quality, lead paint, pesticides and the creation of the EPA—urged corporate America to “fight back and fight back hard. Build a movement. Set speakers loose across the country. Take on prominent institutions of public opinion—especially the universities, the media and the courts. Keep television programs ‘monitored the same way textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance.’ And above all, recognize that political power must be ‘assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination’ and ‘without embarrassment.’ ”

In his memo, Powell called for the creation of think tanks, legal foundations and front groups aligned through “careful long-range planning and … consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and united organizations.”

Moyers notes that corporate PACs and lobbyists subsequently multiplied, as did “other organizations united in pushing back against political equality and shared prosperity": for example, the Business Roundtable, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy (precursor to what we now know as Americans for Prosperity).

“They triggered an economic transformation that would in time touch every aspect of our lives,” writes Moyers.

Now the Koch Brothers have become a symbol of something that is corrosive and dangerous to fulfilling the great possibilities of this country. They are the poster boys for the 1 percent. Brave New Films has done a service in researching and calling out their actions and activities.

Most of these activities are devised to deploy the Koch’s political agenda. Sure, people have a right to fight for the political society they want to live in. But when the concentration of power and wealth is so great, and what Robert Reich in his new book calls “the Regressive Right” is so strong, we are in peril of losing our democracy.

The film exposes the impact of Koch activities on public policy. Take Social Security, which the Koch Brother are working to dismantle by funding an echo chamber of think tanks. Brave New Foundation researchers reveal a $28.4 million Koch effort that has manufactured 297 opinions and commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting Social Security’s effectiveness and purpose.

“The Koch Brothers are funding think tanks spreading an enormous amount of disinformation about Social Security,” Senator Bernie Sanders says in the film.

Koch-backed groups are also pushing onerous voter ID requirements on minorities and the poor. They have funded efforts to potentially thwart 21 million Americans from voting by writing and proposing voting suppression bills in thirty-eight states.

“The Koch Brothers support laws that are the most aggressive attempt to roll back voting rights in this country that we’ve seen in over a century,” says Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP.

One of the film’s most wrenching sections tells the story of a low-income neighborhood near a Koch chemical plant in Crossett, Arkansas. The facility emits large quantities of formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen. The surrounding area is noticeably affected by air pollution—especially in a minority neighborhood dying of cancer.

“We have fifteen homes in this area, and maybe eleven people have died with cancer,” says one resident.

Not surprisingly, the Kochs have gone on the attack against filmmaker Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films. Greenwald responds by arguing that Americans should not fall for the Kochs’ attempt to change the subject from their own disproportionate and deleterious impact on the country.

“The smears and name-calling may not be pleasant but [it] won’t stop the film from being shared by 25 groups partnering with us and thousands of people online,” Greenwald writes.

Indeed starting May 8 the film will be available in millions of homes via streaming outlets. Stay tuned too for house parties, screenings, and actions around the country. Don’t miss this film.

“Corrupt corporate forces are trying to buy our democracy, with disastrous consequences,” says former Senator Russ Feingold. “Koch Brothers Exposed helps shed a light on how.”

This Week: BP's Toxic Legacy. PLUS: Save Earth Day!

Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 21, 2012 - 8:17 AM ET

A HIDDEN HEALTH CRISIS IN THE GULF. Two years after BP released an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, residents and cleanup workers continue to suffer serious health issues, reports investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz in this week's cover story. "BP's Toxic Legacy," published in collaboration with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, reveals a range of troubling ailments, including respiratory conditions, bleeding from ears and noses, skin conditions that have come to be described as "the BP rash," even dementia at a bewilderingly young age. Once healthy children are now on a steady stream of medications, and chronic long-term health effects, including cancers, birth defects and developmental disorders are anticipated. Shanna Devine, an investigator for a Government Accountability Project (GAP) study calls it “the worst public health tragedies of any investigation in GAP’s 35 year history.” And yet, the current proposed settlements with BP fails to address the longer-term health crisis. As we explain in this week's Nation Action, compounding the injustice are BP and the government's efforts to elide responsibility for the untold suffering wrought by the disaster. Be sure to read the piece and find out how you can help Gulf residents reclaim their lives.

Programming Note: Catch Antonia Juhasz on MSNBC's UP with Chris Hayes on Saturday morning, live from New Orleans discussing her most recent investigation for The Nation.

THE NATION AT THE GREEN FESTIVAL. I'm delighted to take part in the first-ever New York City Green Festival, the country's premiere sustainability event. The Nation and hundreds of other organizations and publications, including 300 exhibitors, 125 speakers and tens of thousands of attendees will gather at the Javits Center on Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22, with a serious objective: expanding popular support for policies aimed at ecological sustainability and social justice. I'll be delivering a keynote at 1pm on Saturday on the Main Stage followed by a book-signing. Joining me will be other featured speakers, including Amy Goodman, Van Jones, Helen Caldicott and Frances Moore Lappe. And stop by The Nation's booth (#703) to meet writers, staffers and pick up free copies of the magazine! For more on the festival, check out colleague Peter Rothberg's post, here.

SAVE EARTH DAY. "Instead of rallying public pressure for far-reaching reforms, Earth Day is becoming, at least in the United States, a bland, tired ritual that polluters and politicians have learned to ignore or co-opt," writes Nation environmental correspondent Mark Hertsgaard in this week's issue. In his compelling call-to-action, Hertsgaard reminds us of the critical battles ahead on energy policy and the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline. "We need millions of Americans to stand up and take action, risks and political scalps," he writes. And in this week's edition of NationConversations, Jane McAlevey argues that a deeper kind of solidarity between labor and environmentalists is urgently needed, a "real blue-green alliance" that can salvage the labor-environmental alliance and, save the planet. Listen to that here.

THE NATION AT THE LA TIMES BOOKS FESTIVAL. Catch a wide range of Nation writers, including John Nichols, Eric Alterman and Nation Books authors Robert Scheer, Tom Hayden, Van Jones and Rebecca Solnit at this year's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, taking place all day on the campus of USC on both Saturday, April 21 and Sunday, April 22. The festival features scores of panels, readings, signings, workshops and informal gatherings. I'll be speaking at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center at 10:30am on Sunday, followed by a book signing at The Nation's booth (#108). Come by and meet Nation writers and staffers and pick-up a free copy of the magazine!

ERIC ALTERMAN FINALIST IN 2012 MIRROR AWARDS. Hats-off to Nation columnist Eric Alterman, finalist for the 2012 Mirror Awards for Best Commentary. The Mirror Awards honor excellence in media industry reporting, and recognizes "reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public's benefit." With a respect for the power of evidence that is unusual (and often unwelcome) in today's frenzied haste of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, Alterman is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom with erudition, polemics, humor, tenacity and bracing honesty. Be sure to read the three columns for which he is honored, "How Low Will the 'Washington Post' Go?", "How Rupert Murdoch Buys Friends and Influences People," "The Agony and Ecstasy--and 'Disgrace'--of Steve Jobs."

SUNDAY SHOWS SKEW RIGHT AND WHITE. Nation contributor Leslie Savan rightly points out that there's "light at the end of the week" amid the narrow range of guests on Sunday morning talk shows. This, based on a new report by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). Savan reminds us that two shows, "MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes" and "Melissa Harris-Perry" remain diverse in terms of gender, race and parts of the brain utilized, unlike their network counterparts. The LA Times offers up an inside look at "Melissa Harris-Perry." Read that here.

THE NATION STUDENT WRITING CONTEST. Seven years ago, The Nation launched an annual Student Writing Contest to identify, support and reward some of the many smart, progressive student journalists writing, reporting and blogging today. This year, we're looking for original, thoughtful, provocative student voices to answer this question in 800 words: What do you think is the most important issue of Election 2012?

As always, thanks for reading. I'm on Twitter--@KatrinaNation. Please leave your comments below.

An Elite Consensus We Can't Afford

Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 18, 2012 - 1:31 PM ET

Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

“Why can’t we all get along?” The iconic question has become the fixation of much of Washington’s chattering class. David Brooks and Thomas Friedman censure President Obama for blowing the “Grand Bargain” or not embracing the recommendations of Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of the deficit reduction commission. Self-proclaimed bipartisan efforts—No Labels, Americans Elect—call for putting aside partisan squabbles and electing moderates who can get things done.

All this chatter leaves out one thing—any sense of reality. The old bipartisanship, such as it was, was built on the postwar economy that worked for everyone. Top-end taxes were at 90 percent, providing the resources to invest in essential programs such as the interstate highways, the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe, the G.I. bill and housing subsidies that educated a generation and built the suburbs.

In those days, U.S. companies exported goods rather than jobs, and a decent argument could be made that what was good for General Motors was in fact good for America. It wasn’t perfect. The “other America” lived lives of quiet desperation. Segregation still was brutally enforced. But the bipartisan consensus reflected an economy that was working for many, not just the few.

Editor’s Note: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

This Week: Was Hilary Rosen Right? PLUS: Voting Rights Watch 2012

Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 14, 2012 - 11:34 AM ET

WAS HILARY ROSEN RIGHT? I joined Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer Thursday night to explain that of course being a full-time mother is work, referring to the recent comment by Hilary Rosen, a CNN contributor and Democratic political consultant, who told Anderson Cooper on Wednesday that Mitt Romney’s wife, a stay-at-home mother of five, “never worked a day in her life.” But as I explained, this should not distract or detract from the fundamental core issues that face women in this country, whether it’s sick pay leave, equal pay or issues of quality health care or access to contraception. “There’s no doubt that [she] made a gaffe in providing such a juicy sound bite. But her message—in context—was right on,” writes Jessica Valenti. Right or wrong, “Rosen was referring to the fact that Ann Romney—an incredibly rich and elite woman—likely does not understand the economic concerns of most American women,” explains Valenti. More importantly, Valenti points out that “focusing on this slip-up just brings more attention to the way in which a Romney presidency wouldn’t support mothers.”

VOTING RIGHTS WATCH 2012. We’re delighted to announce a new partnership with Colorlines.com that will offer in-depth coverage of voter suppression efforts nationwide throughout the 2012 election season. “Voting Rights Watch 2012” will focus on the racial impact and dimensions of restrictive Voter ID laws, barriers faced by voter registration organizations, and efforts to “police the vote” and other intimidation tactics on Election Day. The project, led by Nation.com executive editor Richard Kim and Colorlines.com editorial director Kai Wright, will consist of on-the-ground reporting by New Orleans–based investigative journalist and Colorlines.com Voting Rights Fellow Brenton Mock, and will be co-published at TheNation.com and Colorines.com. Read Brenton Mock’s recent post, “The War on Women Voting,” here.

PROGRAMMING NOTE. I’ll be joining ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos this Sunday, April 15 at 10 am ET, along with by ABC’s Cokie Roberts, the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot, former Obama domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes and Romney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden to discuss all the week’s politics, including the state of the economy, the latest on the presidential election campaign, the larger issues involved in the Hilary Rosen and Ann Romney dust-up, and developments in the Trayvon Martin case. For more, and to check your local listings, click here.

‘THIS WEEK IN POVERTY’ HONORED FOR MEDIA AWARD. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) announced this week their 2012 NASW Media Award Winners, including “This Week in Poverty,” by Nation contributor Greg Kaufmann for ‘Single Topic Blog.’ The award recognizes Greg’s tireless coverage of poverty issues, including unemployment, children in poor households and Temporary Assistance to Need Famillies. Congratulations to Greg! Be sure to read his latest post, “Will Pennsylvania Rip Another Hole in the Safety Net?”

INSIDE THE ELIZABETH WARREN CAMPAIGN. Nation contributor E.J. Graff’s inside look at Elizabeth Warren’s high-stakes Senate campaign was the subject of a segment on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes, including exclusive footage shot by Nation web editor Emily Douglas and producer Frank Reynolds. As Graff explains in the piece, progressives adore her, conservatives despise her, but it’s Massachusetts’ independents who’ll decide her high-stakes Senate seat showdown with Scott Brown in November. Read the piece here and be sure to check out the video here.

As always, thanks for reading. I’m on Twitter—@KatrinaNation. Please leave your comments below.

Building a Progressive Counterforce to ALEC

Katrina vanden Heuvel on April 11, 2012 - 12:43 PM ET

In recent months, the need to build progressive strength in cities, towns, counties and states across the country has become crystal clear. Conservative coordination across state lines has led to assaults on workers rights, voting rights and women’s rights, and only an energetic, well-coordinated progressive response has prevented far more extensive damage to our democracy.

Mississippi soundly defeated a ballot initiative to legalize “fetus personhood.” Maine saved same-day voter registration at the ballot box. As The Nation’s John Nichols has so brilliantly laid out in his new book Uprising, the people of Wisconsin employed an inside/outside strategy to fight back against a right-wing attack on workers’ rights. Dozens of towns and states have passed resolutions calling for the repeal of Citizens United.

Increasingly, citizens and progressive politicians have begun to win sensible reforms. There have been key wins on paid sick leave and the minimum wage—common sense reforms that benefit the 99 percent. Gay and lesbian equality has advanced at the state and local levels.

The spirit and urgency of Occupy has inspired organizations and activists to work more nimbly and collaboratively—and has reduced some of the turf war fights that often plague these efforts.

“People are now looking to do what the right has done so effectively—coordinating ideas, narratives, legislators and activists to really push in a progressive direction,” says New York City Councilman Brad Lander, co-chair of the council’s Progressive Caucus.

It was in that spirit earlier this month that Lander joined Seattle Councilman Nick Licata, Philadelphia Councilman Wilson Goode Jr. and Chicago Alderman Joe Moore to convene a meeting in DC with other progressive municipal elected officials from across the country—and key progressive allies—to discuss the creation of a national network focused on local progressive action.

“There were also city council members from Los Angeles, Cleveland and smaller cities like Springfield, Massachusetts, and Pinecrest, Florida,” says Lander. “The legislators in the room were lead sponsors of an amazing array of progressive legislation—from responsible banking ordinances and local Community Reinvestment Act laws, to anti-blight and foreclosure laws, to paid sick days and a domestic worker bill of rights, to inclusionary zoning for affordable housing. And everyone had good thoughts on how to spread these ideas around the country.”

Part of spreading those ideas will involve working with existing organizations and networks, some of which were represented at the meeting, including New Bottom Line, Progressive States Network, Democratic Municipal Officials, PolicyLink, Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS, led by its director, Nation contributing editor Joel Rogers), Progressive Majority, Center for American Progress and the Working Families Party.

“There is a realization that a lot of progressive policies can be achieved at the local level, and there’s renewed energy to advance these policies in cities and communities around the country,” says Lander. “People are interested in helping each other and also in being part of a broader national effort, like we’ve been able to do with city council resolutions calling for the repeal of Citizens United. That’s exciting and energizing.”

Lander says the need for this kind of network to share expertise and “deepen the progressive bench” is clear. While New York City councilmembers receive “a full-time salary and a few staff—that’s not enough to do deep policy research and campaign strategy.”

“In a lot of places serving in the legislature isn’t a full-time job, and many local legislators have no legal or policy staff,” he says. “So you might be excited by the idea of making sure that all of your economic development projects pay workers a living wage, but you would be enormously helped by having some model legislation, and a network with the ability to help you draft it.”

In the case of living-wage laws, for example, legislators can count on opposition from most local chambers of commerce. In addition to model legislation, the network would help provide talking points and data showing its benefits.

“And then maybe when you have your hearing you can have someone come from another town who can describe how well similar legislation is working in their jurisdiction,” Lander says, noting that an executive from the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles made a big impact at the New York City hearing on its living wage bill.

Over the next couple of months an exploratory committee chaired by Licata will be working on the organization’s structure and funding, and by July 4 Lander hopes they will be ready to “bring a much broader set of people into the fold.”

There is a complementary project being pursued by Progressive Majority and its director, Gloria Totten. Totten has organized groups that have networks of state elected officials—including the Young Elected Officials Network, Progressive States Network, the AFL-CIO and others—to form the Elected Officials Alliance to coordinate lawmakers across issue and organizational lines. This work is part of a broader strategy Totten is pursuing to link state and local officials to policy networks, including the EARN network, groups developing model legislation, and state and local advocates.

The aim is to create a counterforce to ALEC, which for nearly forty years has provided model state law to more than 2,000 state legislators to increase business domination of American public life and weaken our democracy. In recent weeks we have seen ALEC’s regressive handiwork in action time after time, from helping Republican governors roll back workers’ rights to pushing an array of model voter suppression bills, to inventing new ways to harass and debase women who are trying to exercise their legal rights, to passing around the so-called “Stand Your Ground” gun bills that now blight twenty-three states across the country, as demonstrated so horribly in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

On the policy side, the centerpiece of this new organizing effort is the American Legislative and Issue Campaign Exchange (ALICE) created by Joel Rogers of COWS. ALICE would offer model laws for both state and local legislators, citizen-directed efforts like ballot initiatives, and executive actions such as executive orders and regulations all based on the values of equity, sustainability, and responsible government.

While ALICE would be broader than the municipal political network Lander and his colleagues are pursuing, Lander says “it’s all part of the same big picture.”

“This is a great opportunity to connect people working on the ground in our communities—legislators, activists, labor unions and community-based organizations—to push together for policies that make our cities and towns more just and equitable places,” says Lander.

This conscious and coordinated sharing of successes and ideas at the local and state levels shows one kind of inside-outside strategy we need to keep the right in check and protect and strengthen our democracy. This is particularly true in our cities, urban counties and bluer states, our political base, where our next generation of leaders must prove that they know how to govern in a way that makes people’s lives better. ALEC has put itself at the service of the 1 percent for decades now; it’s time we built similar networks to boost the 99 percent.