Nation in the News | The Nation

Is the Baseball Hall of Fame ignoring its past? Appearing on Current TV's Viewpoint, Nation sports columnist Dave Zirin criticizes the Hall for not selecting new inductees this year. The Hall left out not only figureheads of baseball’s steroids era like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens but others like Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio who were never directly implicated in drug use. The Hall is acting like “the 1990s just didn't happen,” Zirin says.

—James Cersonsky

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As the United States faces down potential economic disaster, Republicans are demanding entitlement cuts before they'll vote to raise the debt ceiling. This time, however, the stakes are even higher than in the fiscal cliff standoff, and refusal to raise the ceiling could lead to significant job loss. On MSNBC's The Ed Show, Nation columnist John Nichols explained who will be hurt the most and what he sees as Barack Obama's leverage in the situation.

Americans are still grieving over the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. But despite public support for sensible gun laws that could prevent future massacres, the NRA continues to obstruct any political progress. Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel joined MSNBC’s The Ed Show to talk about the way forward for a safer America, and how to wrest control of public safety policy from the gun industry.

—Christie Thompson

Congress’s late-night budget deal was overall bad news for progressives. Despite winning temporary protection for entitlement programs, they had to give major concessions on revenue. For the millions of Americans hoping to finally go back to work in 2013, the loss in potential stimulus could be devastating. DC correspondent George Zornick joined C-SPAN to give a rundown on the fiscal cliff deal, from Obama’s press conference remarks to the jobs crisis that’s been largely missing from the deficit debate. 

—Christie Thompson