September 17, 2012 Issue

Cover art by:

Cover design by Milton Glaser Incorporated; cover art by Steve Brodner

Feature

Never Mind Super PACs: How Big Business Is Buying the Election

Thanks to Citizens United, US and foreign corporations can secretly spend millions on political campaigns under the cover of trade associations.
Lee Fang
The US Chamber of Commerce’s Multimillion-Dollar Attack Plan

The nation’s top business lobby has built up a huge war chest for conservatives. But has it crossed the legal line?
Sasha Abramsky
Ai Weiwei and the Art of Protest

The courageous Chinese dissident has always had an eye for the point where art and politics meet in performance.
Danielle Allen

Editorial

Rhyme or Reason

The further cartoon adventures of O-Man
Robert Grossman
Open the Presidential Debates!

For a quarter-century, they have been tightly controlled by the major political parties to protect the status quo. It’s time for a change.
John Nichols
Noted

Katrina vanden Heuvel on subsidized CEOs, Marisa Carroll on Obamacare and transgender people, Brett Warnke on the US and South Korea
Various Contributors
Dispatches From Tampa

At the RNC, Nation reporters find a hard-right party that’s cozy with lobbyists and interested in dealing with major storms only when they threaten their convention.
John Nichols and George Zornick
For Julian Assange, Justice Foreclosed

The imperatives of the national security state override the possibility that Assange could face a fair investigation in his sex crimes charges.
JoAnn Wypijewski
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Books & the Arts

Ai Weiwei and the Art of Protest

The courageous Chinese dissident has always had an eye for the point where art and politics meet in performance.
Danielle Allen
Pariahs’ Progress: On Isolationism

For Christopher McKnight Nichols, isolationists were cultural cosmopolitans who distrusted the impact of empire.
Jackson Lears
The Antagonist: On Lillian Hellman

How did Lillian Hellman become the archetype of hypocrisy?
Victor Navasky
Scissor Work: On the Unintended Reformation

Brad Gregory wants to upend how we think about the emergence of capitalism, secularism and individualism.
Paula Findlen
Holiday

Rae Armantrout
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