Living in the USA

Unions are taking up the fight against Amazon - notably the Teamsters, notably in Southern California. Harold Meyerson explains. Also: gerrymandering - and the wild card at the Supreme Court. Plus: The new Omicron variant of Covid-19: Gregg Gonsalves argues that it serves as a reminder of how little we're doing on pandemic prevention. Meanwhile, Republicans are describing Omicron as a Democratic p...

Racial justice and injustice in America today. We are relieved by the guilty verdicts and life sentences for all three men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick Georgia. But we’re still thinking about the Not Guilty verdict for Kyle Rittenhouse, charged with shooting three people, killing two, during the street protests over the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha,...

Our politics commentary with Harold Meyerson starts with the House preparing to pass Biden's Build Back Better bill, then to Glasgow for the climate summit, then Texas where Beto is running for governor. Plus: We’ll talk about politics and pleasure with Rebecca Solnit --she’s probably best known as the author of “Men explain things to me.” Now she has a new book out - it’s called “Orwell’s Roses.”...

The House will pass a Build Back Better bill next week, maybe--Harold Meyerson explains. Plus: A comic novel about Ethel Rosenberg? Francine Prose has written one--"The Vixen"--and it's terrific. Also: EllaTaylor on "Passing," the film about a Black woman passing for white in New York City in the 1920s - playing now on Netflix.

Tuesday was a dark day for Democrats: Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia was not particularly surprising. But how did he manage to present himself both as a Trump supporter and as a more moderate, less crazy kind of country club Republican? Harold Meyerson has our analysis. Plus: how a small group of people challenged an unjust law and changed history: Eric Foner talks about the Under...

Obama spent months negotating with reluctant Dems over his health care bill. The result: massive losses in the midterms. Is Biden making the same mistake with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? Harold Meyerson comments. Also: who really runs Haiti: the government, or the gangs? the kidnappings suggest it’s the gangs – and the leader of the gang that kidnapped 16 Americans has openly expressed politic...

The latest on the Democrats’ reconciliation bill: Harold Meyerson reports on the big cuts demanded by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Also: gubernatorial elections threaten Democratic power in Virginia, and Republican power in Texas. Plus: The Nation’s sports editor Dave Zirin talks about what he calls “The Kaepernick Effect” – how an NFL quarterback who had never been an activist made “Taking a k...

What’s the best strategy for the Democrats for 2022, when the odds are against them for holding the House and Senate? Pundits say the Dems should stop talking about climate, immigration, and the police. Harold Meyerson disagrees. Plus: draft resistance in the Vietnam era: there’s a new documentary, “The Boys Who Said NO!" with it’s online launch this weekend, and an online event Sunday at 5pm feat...

Biden backed the Progressive Caucus in insisting that the bipartisan infrastructure bill not be voted separately from the reconciliation bill. But the question remains: What does Kyrsten Sinema want? Harold Meyerson comments. Also: The co-founder of Black Lives Matter LA, Melina Abdullah, will talk about the LAPD showing up in force at her house twice in the week since she filed a lawsuit over las...

How to cut the cost of the Democrats’ “Reconciliation Bill” without eliminating programs? Harold Meyerson says make it a four-year bill program instead of ten. Also: reapportionment in California, and a new mayor for LA. Plus: Civil rights attorney Carol Sobel talks about the LAPD’s dramatic increase in the use of dispersal orders in response to the protests of the last couple of years--declaring...

Our Washington political update starts with the Fox News report, “Democrats tee up filibuster reform by forcing issue on immigration, voting rights.” Harold Meyerson comments on that – and on reports that Dan Quayle saved American democracy on January 6. Also: Amy Wilentz on Haitians and Haiti – and Joe Biden’s disastrous decision to deport those 15,000 Haitian refugees who crossed the border at D...

Harold Meyerson on the sweeping Democratic victory in the California recall: its national significance for the 2022 midterms, and where it leaves California Republicans (with Larry Elder as their leader?). Also, our national politics update: today’s Reconciliation Report, and episode 15 of What Does Joe Manchin Want? Today: the Dems’ revised voting rights bill. Later in the show: this week is the...

Democrats are headed toward passage of both the bipartisan infrastructure bill AND the reconciliation bill: Harold Meyerson reports. Plus: Abortion politics and Republican power – Rick Perlstein explains the long history of how abortion became a Republican issue – starting in 1972, His latest book is “Reaganland.” Also: our favorite documentary of the summer that just ended was “Summer of Soul” --...

America’s longest war came to an end on Monday as the last troops left Afghanistan, 20 years after we started fighting there. How much have the disasters around the Afghan pullout hurt Joe Biden and his agenda? How much will it hurt the Democrats in the midterms next November? Alan Misnky comments. Also: The life, and death, of Ethel Rosenberg, the accused “atom spy”: who was she before she was fr...

Joe Biden is betting that voters care more about health, education and jobs than about Afghanistan--Alan Minsky explains. Plus: What Americans owe Afghan women: Katha Pollitt has been talking to women who lead Afghan women's organizations. Also: 'Chair' is the new campus comedy starring Sandra Oh, on Netflix: Ella Taylor has our review.

Afghanistan in American politics, past and present: Harold Meyerson explains why the disastrous end of our Afghan war won’t matter in the elections in 2022 and 2024. Plus: the Taliban Triumph: Andrew Bacevich comments on 20 years of American hubris and ignorance, promises made, and promises broken. Also: there was only one member of Congress who voted against the authorization for the use of force...

The great comics artist Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus, has a new book out: Street Cop, illustrations for a story by Robert Coover, published by Isolarii.com. He talks about working on that during the pandemic, and about his most controversial drawings – at the New Yorker, and The Nation. Also: here’s a new book about the sixties--about the heroism, and the disasters, of the mov...

The deficiencies in the bipartisan infrastructure bill will be remedied in the big one that Dems aim to pass via reconciliation, says Harold Meyerson. Also: The significance for Progressives of the defeat of Nina Turner in the Cleveland House primary: Alan Minsky comments. And Gregg Gonsalves explains three things Biden needs to do to stop the gobal spread of the Delta variant, and the next varian...

The one trillion dollar infrastructure bill has made it to the floor of the Senate—where it is expected to pass. Bipartisanship lives! Harold Meyerson comments – also on the California recall, and on the most successful economic justice movement of the past decade: the Fight for $15. Plus: the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. It’s known today as the heartland of Chicano culture. Historia...

Senate Republicans blocked taking up the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Wednesday-Democrats are trying one more time to satisfy GOP demands on this one. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: “Utopian” has been a term of abuse in politics for a long time now, synonymous with “irrational” and “impossible.” Instead, we are told, we should focus on realistic plans to improve things. But The Nation is pub...

Biden’s Big Budget: Harold Meyerson comments on the Democrats’ agreement to spend $3.5 trillion, and on Bernie’s new status as the architect of some of the most progressive elements of the bill. Plus: plutocrats in space. Also: triumphs and disasters of the sixties: there’s a new book about the movements of that decade, about some of heroes, and some of the problems. The authors are the brother an...

The Supremes gave the green light last week to Republican moves to make it harder to vote -- that gives Democrats and voting rights groups more work to do. Harold Meyerson comments. Also: “Critical Race Theory” has been attacked on Fox News nearly 1300 times. It’s being banned from public schools and colleges in something like 15 Republican states. But what IS “critical race theory”? And why is th...

First, the divorce last May, and then Warren Buffett resigned as a trustee last week; so, who exactly IS Bill Gates, the second richest man in the world, giving his money to? Tim Schwab, writer of award-winning reports on the Gates Foundation, explains. Next Up: the political transformation of Kyrsten Sinema: Aida Chavez of The Intercept reports. Also: Dr. Seuss Enterprises took six of his books o...

Tuesday Republicans blocked the Senate from even beginning to consider voting rights legislation. Chuck Schumer said afterwards, “In the fight for voting rights, this vote was the starting gun, not the finish.” Now what? Harold Meyerson comments. Also: Most of us think of Jimmy Carter as a failure as president, the Democrat who opened the door to Reagan, and the only president whose work AFTER lea...

Republican efforts to make it harder to vote, and easier for their judges and state legislatures to reverse elections they have lost, may backfire: Harold Meyerson comments. Also: rethinking the Green New Deal. Also: Katha Pollitt talks about a new book of advice for men – Jordan Peterson’s international best-seller “Rules for Life”. Rule Number One: “stand up straight, with your shoulders back.”...