Innehållsförteckning för June 1/8, 2020 från The Nation

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or go to TheNation.com/StartMakingSense to listen today. STACEY ABRAMS MARGARET ATWOOD CHARLES M. BLOW SHERROD BROWN NOAM CHOMSKY GAIL COLLINS MIKE DAVIS ELIZABETH DREW BARBARA EHRENREICH DANIEL ELLSBERG FRANCES FITZGERALD ERIC FONER THOMAS FRANK HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. MICHELLE GOLDBERG AMY GOODMAN CHRIS HAYES MARGO JEFFERSON DAVID CAY JOHNSTON NAOMI KLEIN RACHEL KUSHNER VIET THANH NGUYEN NORMAN LEAR GREIL MARCUS JANE MAYER BILL MCKIBBEN WALTER MOSLEY JOHN NICHOLS LAWRENCE O’DONNELL LAURA POITRAS KATHA POLLITT ROBERT REICH JOY REID FRANK RICH ARUNDHATI ROY BERNIE SANDERS ANNA DEAVERE SMITH EDWARD SNOWDEN REBECCA SOLNIT MARGARET TALBOT CALVIN TRILLIN KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL YANIS VAROUFAKIS JOAN WALSH AMY WILENTZ GARY YOUNGE…

Nobody will be held to account for the massively corrupt scheme of political retribution known as Bridgegate. Not former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, whose office ordered the closure of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge in 2013 to punish the mayor of Fort Lee, Mark Sokolich, after he refused to endorse the governor for reelection. Not Christie’s right-hand man, David Wildstein, who pleaded guilty to avoid serving time. And not Bridget Anne Kelly or Bill Baroni, the henchmen who orchestrated the lane closures. That was the lesson of the unanimous Supreme Court ruling on May 7 overturning the convictions of Kelly and Baroni, who were the only people ever prosecuted for the scheme. Now everybody has gotten away with it, and Christie, whose proto-Trumpian pettiness set the stage…

Nation editorial board member and frequent contributor Greg Grandin won a Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction on May 4 for The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America. The book was also a finalist in the history category. The Nation published an excerpt, titled “The Blowback of Empire’s Defeat,” in our March 11/18, 2019, issue. The Pulitzer board called The End of the Myth “a sweeping and beautifully written book that probes the American myth of boundless expansion and provides a compelling context for thinking about the current political moment.” He was also nominated for a Pulitzer in history in 2010 for his book Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City. Grandin has been contributing to The…

With an employment history distinguished by hypocrisy, dishonesty, racism, xeno phobia, homophobia, and shamelessness, Donald Trump’s new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, might be the president’s most perfect appointment yet. The press is treating her lack of training in journalism or government as unique, but McEnany is, in fact, following in the footsteps of Heather Nauert, who burst onto the media scene 20 years ago with no qualifications, save for a burning desire to be famous and an ability to persuade an older white male network executive—Fox News’ Roger Ailes—to put her on television to pontificate about politics. Now these are exactly the kind of “qualifications” that land a person in a top-level government job. (Nauert, Trump’s former State Department spokesperson, would probably be the nation’s UN ambassador today had she…

@thenation.com What’s the Matter With San Fran? It was so sad to read “The Extinction Crisis Comes Home” by Jimmy Tobias [May 4/11]. I lived in San Francisco from 1967 to 1987. It was the most delightful city in the world. What made it so was the incredible diversity of ideas, ethnicities, lifestyles, income levels, and the arts. The Board of Supervisors was young, hip, and progressive. It was horrific to read that Mayor London Breed has actively opposed healing the bay. How does this happen to a city that has championed recycling, gender equality, LGBT rights, the environment, progressive politics, and many other ground-breaking ideas? I think it has to do with money, who has it now, and how to keep it. GINNY BUTLERSPOKANE, WASH. Unspoken Rules I really…

30% Share of US businesses owned by people of color, accounting for 8.7 million jobs and $1.3 trillion in revenue annually 78% Share of white-owned businesses shut out of the first round of loans from the Paycheck Protection Program 91% Share of businesses owned by Latinos, Native Hawaiians, or Pacific Islanders shut out of the first round of the PPP 95% Share of black-owned businesses shut out of the first round of the PPP 100% Share of business owners with a felony conviction in the past five years barred from applying to the PPP 0 Number of standard demographic questions on the PPP loan application…

As Election Day nears, William Barr’s Justice Department has abandoned all pretense of impartiality or legality. In dropping the charges against Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty not once but twice, the attorney general has caved to the president’s dictatorial whim. Barr’s action was so shocking that, for a moment, it knocked the coronavirus from the headlines. Former president Barack Obama even suggested that the rule of law was threatened as a result of Barr’s move—an extraordinary statement, given how careful Obama has been to stay out of the daily fray over the past three years. Meanwhile, Trump reacted with a series of tirades against the crooked G-men and evil political figures who had wrongly ensnared Flynn and would soon be getting their comeuppance. In…

By now, there is no need to recount the details here. It is a fair enough summation to write that three months ago, Ahmaud Arbery, a black 25-year-old, was hunted and summarily executed by white gunmen while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia. Despite his killer having literal blood on his hands when officers arrived at the scene, the state ruled that Arbery’s murder was not worth inconveniencing his assailants’ lives with either arrest or prosecution. In the instant they grabbed guns, put together a posse, and pursued him, Arbery’s white killers demonstrated their confidence that white American indifference to black death grants them power, impunity, and above all, liberty. Which is to say, white American freedom. That ideal has always been a sinister thing, rooted in the notion that whiteness is…

Like many Americans, Joe Biden is skeptical about President Trump’s respect for democracy. “Mark my words: I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Biden said at an online fundraiser in late April. He’s right to worry but wrong about how Trump’s inclination toward voter suppression will manifest itself this fall. It would take an act of Congress—including the Democratic-controlled House—to upend the federal law that requires general elections be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But that does not mean Trump won’t try to mess with the elections, in which, polls suggest, he and Republican Senate candidates are now vulnerable. This president thrives on chaos and fear, and the Covid-19…

Every Thursday at 8 pm, I open my front door, step out, and bang a saucepan. My neighbors, most of whom I have not seen since the previous Thursday, are there too. Clapping, clanging, banging garbage can lids. We come out to cheer the National Health Service. The lockdowns have spawned many rituals across the globe to show public support for health workers during the coronavirus crisis. The clapping started in Wuhan. It took off in Italy. The Spaniards and French began doing it every night. But the British ritual has a slightly different meaning. The NHS, created in 1948, is the only entirely nationalized health care system in Europe. It makes us more proud to be British than the royal family. It’s virtually the only element of the postwar…

There is no freedom of the press without the press. And the press is threatened as never before. Exacerbated by the pandemic, the crisis in local media requires immediate attention. Congress must support journalism in future stimulus measures. Free Press Action has a comprehensive plan that, if adopted by Congress, could go a long way toward saving local journalism. Its proposed recovery package would do the following: § Provide approximately $1.5 billion in emergency stabilization grants to local news organizations at $50,000 per newsroom position. This would cover 30,000 newsroom jobs. § Direct this money toward workers: The funds must be devoted to maintaining payrolls and benefits. Any news company is eligible, but recipients would be barred from using funds for dividend payments, executive compensation, debt service, or purchasing securities.…