It’s Time to Fix the Estate Tax It’s Time to Fix the Estate Tax
It's been said that only death and taxes are certain. But the "death tax" is anything but certain right now. Costing the Treasury billions, Congress has allowed the estat...
Jul 26, 2010 / Blog / Katrina vanden Heuvel
Finding Racial Inspiration in the Shirley Sherrod Story Finding Racial Inspiration in the Shirley Sherrod Story
The Sunday morning pundits have renewed my frustration with our national reaction to the vilification of Shirley Sherrod. It seems we are insisting on focusing exclusively on the p...
Jul 25, 2010 / The Notion / Melissa Harris-Perry
Zealots and Fake Journalism: The Shirley Sherrod Case Zealots and Fake Journalism: The Shirley Sherrod Case
The Sherrod controversy "was a ginned-up, fabricated story,” The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel explains on The Today Show. “And this country can’t afford...
Jul 23, 2010 / Nation in the News / Press Room
Not-so-Slacker Friday Not-so-Slacker Friday
Charlie Rangel, "Top Secret America" and a new addition to Altercation.
Jul 23, 2010 / Blog / Eric Alterman
National Confrontation on Race National Confrontation on Race
At the end of a long painful week, Shirley Sherrod's been offered a new job with the USDA's Office of Civil Rights and Community Outreach. She's still considering, though, and who can blame her? In an interview on Good Morning America Sherrod said Thursday that she wasn't ready to accept Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's job offer. She said she wanted to hear more from the Secretary and his boss. She wants to know that the President is "fully behind" her." "I would hope that he is..." she said. "I would love to talk to him." And that's where we're at. Yesterday in our studio, Harry Belafonte noted that we don't have a national conversation about race, we have a confrontation. People from different races still don't know one another. As he put it, in an interview with ColorLines: "The person from whom you're thinking of taking life, or land, have you heard their story, have you sung their song?" While the race- like the red-baiting by the Right- is the most obvious crime in the Sherrod story, the question of who believes whom and why, comes next. It may even be a bigger problem -- after all, it's only because of misplaced trust -- that the baiting works. Tom Vilsack, in his apology to Sherrod Wednesday, said he didn't think before calling for resignation. But that's not quite true. He did think. And he chose to believe the baiters first. That's the first problem. Why did they, not she, win his first gut-level confidence? Melissa Harris-Lacewell pointed out on MSNBC Wednesday night, had Vilsack known Sherrod's history better -- he'd have known that her father was shot in the back by a white farmer when she was 17; that she had history with the civil rights movement. That her husband worked with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and he'd have known of her involvement with a lawsuit, recently settled, representing black farmers, long dispossessed as part of the post-Reconstruction backlash against emancipated blacks. If he'd understood those things, if they'd resonated -- he'd have known they made her a perfect target. If he'd known that -- and felt it -- there's a chance that even at the gut-level, he'd have heard an echo of past, similar fabrications -- not a fact. Indeed, if the entire USDA heard and felt that history, they'd not have dragged their mostly-white feet so long in getting black farmers justice. Eric Holder was right. We're still a nation of cowards on the issue of race. But here's another opportunity to grapple with it. We don't need a debate over whether we're post-racial -- clearly that's settled. As is the matter of whether the Fox News Channel is a journalistic project. What we need now is what Sherrod's asking for from the president -- time to talk. We need true conversation, that starts with learning one another's histories. Not the whitewashed sort that Texas and Arizona textbooks want to teach, but our real histories - and why they matter. It's not just a question for the President. It's for all of us. Do we as a nation have Sherrod's back?
Jul 23, 2010 / The Notion / Laura Flanders
Stop Coddling the McCarthyite Smear Machine Stop Coddling the McCarthyite Smear Machine
The right-wing smear machine that nearly cost an exemplary Agriculture Department official her job should be denounced for what it is: a high-tech, low-rent McCarthyism with no pur...
Jul 23, 2010 / Robert L. Borosage
The Breakdown: Will the Financial Reform Bill Prevent Future Meltdowns? The Breakdown: Will the Financial Reform Bill Prevent Future Meltdowns?
Obama signed the Frank-Dodd bill into law this week. What does the bill do to reform Wall Street, and will it prevent bailouts? Finance blogger Mike Konczal joins Chris Hayes to ta...
Jul 23, 2010 / Audio / Chris Hayes
Bernie Sanders: No To Oligarchy Bernie Sanders: No To Oligarchy
While the middle class disappears and more Americans fall into poverty, the wealthiest people in our country are using their wealth and political power to protect their privileged ...
Jul 22, 2010 / Sen. Bernie Sanders
There’s a Beautiful Story Hidden in the Sherrod Mess There’s a Beautiful Story Hidden in the Sherrod Mess
Nation columnist, Melissa Harris-Lacewell is angry with the administration, the NAACP, and blogger Andrew Breitbart, but maybe some good can come out of all of this.
Jul 22, 2010 / Nation in the News / Press Room
Nattering Nabobs of Nascar Nattering Nabobs of Nascar
Eric explains his problem with Nascar.
Jul 22, 2010 / Blog / Eric Alterman