Around The Nation

Around The Nation

This was a rough week for progressives. But will it be our Waterloo–or a turning point? Here’s a piece I did for the Wall Street Journal, "Give Up onPost-Partisanship." And here are some suggestions from William Greider to the President on how to regain the public trust.

 

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This was a rough week for progressives. But will it be our Waterloo–or a turning point? Here’s a piece I did for the Wall Street Journal, "Give Up onPost-Partisanship." And here are some suggestions from William Greider to the President on how to regain the public trust.

A few other things this week:

The Breakdown: Can Healthcare Reform Be Saved …

There aren’t many questions more pressing for progressives this week than "Is healthcare reform dead?" In this weeks installment of "TheBreakdown," Chris Hayes (joined by Ryan Grim of Huffington Post) asks if healthcare reform can still pass, and how it could happen. He looks at both the politics and the logistical barriers now facing reform.

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1. Lost in the discussion of President Obama’s first year in office is an assessment of how well he fared on one issue: gay rights. In this VideoNation exclusive, noted playwright and activist Tony Kushner shared his thoughts on the pace and scope of President Obama’s gay rights agenda. His answers may surprise you.

2. I did a video commentary for Wednesday’s GRIT TV with Laura Flanders. The topic? "Change won’t come easy." Watch here.

Two "Nation in the News" appearances…

1. Eric Alterman and Melissa Harris-Lacewell will be on Bill Moyers Journal this weekend (PBS) discussing President Obama’s first year in office. You can check local listings and see video highlights here.

2. Jeremy Scahill was on Rachel Maddow discussing the emerging role of contractors in Haiti. While we mourn for the still mounting human toll in the devastated nation, we also have to be vigilant about how the reconstruction work moves forward, and who will carry it out. Jeremy gives a great primer here.

An Investigation of Note …

If you haven’t had the opportunity to read Scott Horton’s groundbreaking investigation on the murders at Guantanamo Bay, you should read it now. The story appears in the upcoming issue of Harper’s. Horton is a Nation Institute Fellow, and this disturbing story came about because of his hard work and because of support for investigative reporting from organizations like The Nation Institute. We’ll be following the story in the magazine and online, and we’re hopeful that this reporting will spark the appropriate Congressional and government oversight. It deserves a vigorous inquiry.

Finally, I’ll be "tweeting" the State of the Union Address on Wednesday night. You can follow me on Twitter, but also at CBSNews.com, which will be aggregating "tweets" from five left/progressive and five conservative pundits throughout the speech.

Support independent journalism that does not fall in line

Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more. 

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