Innehållsförteckning för March 5, 2018 från The Nation

@thenation.com Hans and Franz Economics The sidebar titled “Pumping Up the Economy” on page 8 of the Jan. 29/ Feb. 5 issue touts the economic benefits of employing gas-station attendants. Prohibiting motorists from pumping their own gas, as is done in New Jersey and Oregon, creates jobs, after all. If this is a good thing, perhaps we should have stall attendants in public restrooms. I read online recently that self-checkout lines in supermarkets should be boycotted because they replace cashiers. This kind of thinking is similar to the flawed logic that President Trump uses to ease regulations on burning coal—so we can keep miners employed. The notion that government should help lower the unemployment rate by mandating that businesses hire people to perform simple tasks—tasks that customers can easily do…

“What’s wrong with white women?” has become a common refrain in progressive political circles. A majority of white women voted for Donald Trump, despite the fact that he faced a highly qualified female opponent who would have shattered the ultimate glass ceiling. A majority of white women in Alabama voted for Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, who (like Trump) faced multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. These elections were not aberrations: White women have voted Republican for the better part of the past three decades. Women of color—black women especially— are responsible for the so-called gender gap in electoral politics and form the core of the progressive base. Yet we also hear stories of emerging activism among newly mobilized constituencies, such as the formerly apolitical white suburban soccer moms…

Twitter has been merciless to Renee Elliott, the laid-off Carrier worker whose speech at a labor-group press conference in mid-January made her the face of the Trump-voting white working class. In a voice vibrating with emotion, Elliott said she’d been excited to vote for Trump, who had visited the plant and promised to keep Carrier jobs from going to Mexico: “He’s walking through and we’re in awe, like, ‘Savior!’” But now, as pink slips were being handed out to 215 workers, including herself, Elliott felt “angry and forgotten.” You might think there’d be a little bit of empathy out there for this middle-aged, divorced mother who’s overcome health problems and other setbacks, only to face a rocky future in a declining community. But no. Typical responses: “stupid,” “ignorant,” “gullible,” “turned…

It has proven this whole Russia probe is a hoax.Yes, it shows that I’m totally innocent, folks.I’m delighted it clears me, as I have been hoping,Of the falsehoods that I, in the past, did some groping.And it proves, without doubt, that I didn’t miscallMy inaugural crowd as the largest of all.Yes, it vindicates me, showing evidence I’veBeen correct on the guilt of the Central Park Five.(Though the DNA showed that they weren’t even there,I have said, nonetheless, they should all get the chair.)And it proves, as I said long ago to my base,That Obama was born in some dark shithole place.So this memo’s release caused in me pure elation,’Cause there’s nothing so sweet as complete vindication.…

“Most of what I have to talk about is somewhere between ‘annoying’ and ‘I need to find a new job.’ It’s cropped up from [either customers or co-workers] at every job I’ve had. I’ve definitely encountered ‘bro’ kitchen culture, wherein using racial slurs and sexual slurs was just considered part of how people talked to one another. “Probably the most egregious thing that happened to me from a co-worker point of view: I told [the chef] I would be late to work one day because I had to go to a doctor’s appointment. He said, ‘OK, that’s fine.’ By the time I got to work, he had spread the rumor that I was pregnant and asked me in front of the staff whether my husband had gotten one past the…

President Trump’s State of the Union address was predictably loaded with falsehoods and malice. Between dissembling on the economy and vilifying immigrants, however, he did leave room for one conspicuous show of bipartisanship: “I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.” Trump has been vowing to rebuild the nation’s dangerously outdated infrastructure for nearly three years now. “We’re becoming a Third World country,” he declared in his campaign announcement, “because of our infrastructure.” During his inaugural address, the president bemoaned that “America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay,” pledging to “build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation.” The problem is that…

There are plenty of rules that determine whether or not someone qualifies for Medicaid, the public health-insurance program available to low-income Americans, but having a job hasn’t been one of them. That’s about to change: The Trump administration has announced that it will grant state requests to add work requirements to their Medicaid programs, forcing recipients to look for or obtain employment in order to receive benefits. Work requirements are a solution to a nonexistent problem. Nearly 80 percent of adults on Medicaid live in a family where someone is employed, and the majority work themselves. The Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid to more people didn’t make individuals any less likely to work. There’s scant evidence that work requirements have helped people find good, steady work. Those without full-time…

San Francisco will toss out thousands of marijuana- related convictions dating as far back as 1975. With recreational pot legal in California as of January 1, District Attorney George Gascón said the city was once again “taking the lead” to undo the damage of a failed War on Drugs and the federal government’s “backwards” marijuana policy. Prosecutors say they will dismiss and seal 3,038 misdemeanor convictions as well as consider downgrading 4,490 felony convictions to misdemeanor crimes, with no action necessary from those convicted. While Proposition 64 legalized recreational cannabis use in the state and allowed those convicted of pot-related crimes to appeal for dismissal, the process itself can take months and often requires the petitioner to hire a lawyer—a barrier to those who can’t afford the costs. The announcement…

REBEKAH FRANK GOT INTO THE FOOD-SERVICE INDUSTRY BECAUSE OF THE FREEDOM IT ALLOWED HER: TO TRAVEL, to go to school, to figure out what she might want to do later. She hopped among a number of different jobs in New York City—at a pub, a steak house, a celebrity chef’s restaurant. About three years ago, she got a job bartending in Brooklyn. Soon after the job started, her manager told her to be careful about how much water she drank on the job, because male customers were going to grope her on the way to the bathroom. And they did, frequently grabbing her butt or hugging her while making offensive comments. “At least once every single shift, someone would whisper something absolutely foul into my ear,” Frank said. One guy…

At the Philadelphia restaurant where Meredith started working in 2016, one of the chefs “was really gross in a way that’s not uncommon…. He always used to say shit when I would walk into the kitchen, be like, ‘Oh my God, baby!’ and stuff like that. You learn to laugh it off as a survival thing, because you can’t afford to get upset every time someone does that or else you won’t survive working in restaurants.” A different chef told Meredith that the chef in question would make comments about her behind her back, including, “She’s really hot—I’m going to fuck her.” At the end of one shift, Meredith had to use the bathroom. “The bathrooms that the staff use obviously can’t be the same ones the guests use. They…

Well, we weren’t the best.We merely neededfleece. Were the sheep bred?Yes. Fed? Frequently.Yet they grew depressed. Wherever they went,bellwethers, rebels,they preferred elsewhere.(They’d never evenleft west Tennessee.) They deserved better. Hence we levelled trees,extended fences,pledged fresh scenery:when the creek meltedthere’d be plenty weeds. We sweetened them, see.Were they restless? Yes—they knew they weren’t free—yet the center held.We were very blessed.…

New reports by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Church World Service detail the rise in immigrant arrests as well as the unprecedented response by the New Sanctuary Movement to protect undocumented people. 147% Increase from 2016 to 2017 in immigration arrests of individuals with no criminal record 37 People who have taken public sanctuary since Donald Trump’s inauguration 7,000+ Americans who have signed a pledge to open up their homes, churches, schools, hospitals, college campuses, and community centers to immigrants in need of sanctuary 26 Cities across the United States where people are currently in sanctuary…

On January 31, Michigan State University named former Republican governor John Engler as its interim president after the conviction of Larry Nassar, a former doctor for USA Gymnastics and MSU, on sexual-abuse charges and the subsequent resignation of university president Lou Anna Simon. But the selection angered many students and faculty members. As Michigan governor, Engler dismissed reports by hundreds of incarcerated women that they were harassed or raped by male prison guards. In 1998, he refused to cooperate with a United Nations investigation into the claims and shrugged off the federal government’s assertion that “the state has violated the civil and constitutional rights of women prison inmates.” More than a decade later, in 2009, the state paid $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of 500…

I was in grade school when I first discovered how crazy white people can get about race, and how protective they can be of their privilege. I had a new friend, a white kid I’d met at school. This was in the 1980s, but the Indianapolis district in which I lived was still coming to terms with integration, largely by busing black kids to white schools. Once we were inside the building, however, our classrooms remained starkly divided: white students in the “advanced” classes; black students, not. I had the kind of parents who made sure I was the odd black student in the wrong room, and that’s where I met this friend. I’ll call him Jack. He was a smart, openhearted, upper-middle-class boy who was used to coming out…

“I was a theater major. When I got out of school, I didn’t have any money, and [restaurant work] was something that I could easily start doing. The energy and excitement of working in a restaurant is like no other job that I’ve ever had. I would never have imagined growing up that if I got a job in a restaurant, I would get to…learn all of the things I’ve learned about the world. Learning about wine means learning about places…. When you work with conscientious restaurants, it means you’re learning about farms…. So much of our economy is based on the factory-farming system…. “Whoever your team is for the night, it’s kind of like you guys against the world. There’s a bond that forms; you pour your whole self…

WE WERE IN WASHINGTON, BUT WE WEREN’T ABOUT WASHINGTON. The next phase of the US climate movement launched with a packed rally from the nation’s capital that was streamed to gatherings around the country. It was a jubilant evening in many ways, and its message was: The time for licking wounds is past. Those wounds are real. The Trump administration has officially overturned any hope of a smooth and orderly transition to a new energy world. It has pulled us out of the Paris climate accord and opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Trump’s EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have even made a mockery of hurricane, flood, and fire victims, from San Juan to Houston to Montecito, California. But the fossil-fuel industry doesn’t…

ACROSS 1 Mad non-scientist lacking method (12) 10 Getting up to follow news service at start of press briefing (9) 11 A pair of climatologists acknowledge someone with big shoes to fill (5) 12 Nobleman to read characters in front of this clue and above this puzzle, one after the other (5) 13 Gang member, at wit’s end, captivated by certain books of the Bible (9) 14 Class for one learning macramé? (4) 15 Bond fanatics, having run with it (10) 19 California diatribes involving Republicans: “They have deep pockets” (5,5) 21 Agitate in prison (4) 24 Warsaw native heads west, amid seven tangled wrappers (9) 26 Metropolitan headdress is timeless (5) 27 Flip conclusion of terrific woman (5) 28 Proclaims, “Coulter’s a lightweight on the inside” (9) 29 A…