Nation in the News

Josh Eidelson: What's Next for the Minimum Wage?

Nation in the News on February 15, 2013 - 1:51 PM ET

President Obama proposed a minimum wage increase in his State of the Union address. What’s going to happen next? “What we should watch for,” Nation writer Josh Eidelson says, “is not just will this pass, but how much will it get watered down, and will tipped workers, like workers in restaurants, who now have just $2.13, be left out?” Eidelson joins Jobs With Justice executive director Sarita Gupta to talk business and labor on The Young Turks.

—James Cersonsky

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The Next New Deal, or Something Like It

Nation in the News on February 13, 2013 - 3:14 PM ET

“We’ve had such regression of humanism about work and jobs in this country,” says Nation editor-in-chief Katrina vanden Heuvel, about Obama’s proposed minimum wage increase, “that the president putting that out there is something people can organize around in states and communities.” Appearing on The Brian Lehrer Show, vanden Heuvel breaks down what Obama said—and didn’t say—in his State of the Union address.

—James Cersonsky

Aura Bogado: Why Won't Obama Halt Deportations?

Nation in the News on February 13, 2013 - 1:35 PM ET

In his State of the Union address, President Obama trumpeted comprehensive immigration reform to rousing applause. But as Nation reporter Aura Bogado says, “what people were hoping to hear was a halt to deportations.” Bogado breaks down Obama’s speech for Democracy Now!

—James Cersonsky

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Nick Turse: The United States Hasn't Owned up to Vietnam War Crimes

Nation in the News on February 11, 2013 - 6:02 PM ET

The United States has yet to come to terms with the civilian casualties and war crimes perpetrated by its military during the Vietnam War—and Nick Turse has dedicated twelve years of his life to changing that.

In an interview with Bill Moyers on Moyers & Company, Turse, an Investigative Fund Fellow at The Nation Institute, described discovering a “horror trove” of massacres, murders, mutilation and torture in the course of his research.

John Nichols: Austerity Will Not Save Us

Nation in the News on February 11, 2013 - 12:49 PM ET

What’s next for the Democratic Party? Should strategists take Bill Clinton’s advice? “We don’t need austerity right now—that, I hope, is the message that Democrats take in,” Nation writer John Nichols says. Nichols joins an Ed Show panel to assess President Clinton’s speech to congressional Democrats and forecast the partisan battles of the next two years.

—James Cersonsky

Jeremy Scahill: Why Did the Senate Let John Brennan Get Away With Murder?

Nation in the News on February 8, 2013 - 1:34 PM ET

John Brennan is “at the center of a secret process where the White House is deciding who lives and who dies around the world every day,” says Nation national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill about the CIA nominee’s confirmation hearings. “And yet the conversation that took place was as though they were talking about adding a wing onto a school in Idaho.” Scahill, producer and writer of the film Dirty Wars, discusses the failures of yesterday’s Senate hearing on Democracy Now!

—James Cersonsky

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Does Obama Really Shoot Skeet? Who Cares?

Nation in the News on February 5, 2013 - 6:54 PM ET

As Barack Obama traveled to Minneapolis to make his case for tougher gun regulations, the news media back in Washington was working itself into a lather over a photo of the president shooting skeet at Camp David.

In another example of "inside-the-beltway media malpractice," the press is distracting itself with irrelevant stunts rather than covering issues people care about, Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel said Monday on MSNBC's The Ed Show. The photo frenzy comes on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, when the Washington media displayed a similar lack of accountability, vanden Heuvel noted.

Dave Zirin: Where Sports, Politics and the Kardashians Collide

Nation in the News on February 4, 2013 - 5:12 PM ET

“A lot of people think sports and politics go together like Dick Cheney and a falafel sandwich,”" says Nation writer Dave Zirin. Appearing on Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, Zirin discusses how he came to appreciate the politics of sport, the possibility of an openly gay athlete and more from his new book, Game Over.

—James Cersonsky

Sharif Abdel Kouddous: 'Right Now, Egypt Is Ungovernable'

Nation in the News on January 30, 2013 - 11:47 AM ET

Reporting from Port Said, Egypt, frequent Nation contributor Sharif Andel Kouddous explains why the young Egyptian government could be on the brink of collapse.

Watch more updates from Kouddous at DemocracyNow.org.

Nick Turse: The US Military Regularly Killed Civilians in Vietnam

Nation in the News on January 30, 2013 - 8:49 AM ET

The My Lai massacre, in which US soldiers gunned down hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, shocked America and helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. Now, a new book by Nick Turse, an Investigative Fund Fellow at The Nation Institute, has revealed that My Lai was not an isolated atrocity: The United States deliberately killed civilians throughout the course of the conflict.

The killing of non-combatants "stemmed from deliberate policies that were dictated at the highest levels of the US military" and was amplified by excessive firepower, Turse said in an interview on NPR's Fresh Air. The author also recounted how he slept in his car in the National Archives parking lot for several nights in order to copy files on atrocities that were later removed.

—Alec Luhn