Start Making Sense Clips

A federal judge ruled last week that all of Obamacare violates the constitution.  If that ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, 20 million people will lose their insurance coverage. The case has the potent name “Texas versus the United States.”  Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, explains why that ruling is likely to be rejected at the Supreme Court--by vote of 9-0. Adverti...

The Armenian Revolution offers “a small light of hope and progressive democratic change in a Europe increasingly shadowed by authoritarian and dictatorial forces, especially in most of the former soviet-bloc states of Eastern Europe.”  That’s what Marc Cooper says—he’s spent months in Yerevan, where elections on Sunday confirmed the victory of the revolutionaries. Advertising Inquiries: https://re...

A report on The Nation’s investigation of massive accounting fraud at the Pentagon – Dave Lindorff found that $21 trillion cannot be accounted for.  For decades, he says, the Pentagon has been “deliberately cooking the books to mislead Congress.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Frederick Douglass, the black abolitionist, was the most famous black American of the 19th century.  Historian Eric Foner says Douglass’s political ideas can help us in our struggles today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Katha Pollitt finds lessons from the midterms about white women who support Trump – she argues that they are unlikely to change their minds, and that we’d do better following the example of Stacey Abrams and mobilizing the nonvoters.  Katha is a poet, essayist, and award-winning columnist for The Nation. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/p...

The Democrats won the midterms by the largest popular vote margin for either party in the history of midterm elections -- larger than the Watergate midterm after Nixon resigned in 1974, 44 years ago.  But there was a deeper and more significant victory hidden behind those numbers, Kai Wright argues: the political mobilization of millions of people of color in the South. Advertising Inquiries: http...

Last week the White House – that is, the Trump White House – released a major scientific report on climate change, with the darkest warnings to date about the consequences of rising temperatures for the United States.  Tom Athanasiou explains. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Cities providing sanctuary for people the federal government is trying to arrest and return to the oppression they had escaped-- today’s battles over Trump’s attacks on undocumented immigrants have some striking parallels with the battles over fugitive slaves in the decade before the Civil War.  Andrew Delbanco will comment--his new book is The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle...

Mass demonstrations in America, from the 1963 March on Washington to the worldwide anti-war protests of 2003 to the 2017 Women’s March: what protests do when they work, and why: L.A. Kauffman explains.  Her new book is How to Read a Protest: The Art of Organizing and Resistance. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A report on that caravan from Central America headed across Mexico toward Tijuana, from Laura Carlsen, who has has been with the caravan. Trump has stopped talking about it, now that the midterms are over and his fear-mongering failed to win key House seats. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Is Trump’s appointment of a new acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, legal?  He hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate – or even nominated.  Erwin Chemerinsky comments—he’s dean of the law school at UC Berkeley, and his new book is “We the People: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the 21st Century.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircl...

Brazil last week elected Jair Bolsonaro.  Our man in Rio, Andy Robinson, says he is “worse than Donald Trump,” and “as close to fascism as you will get in the world today, despite a growing number of contenders.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

@omen won unprecedented victories in the midterms: Joan Walsh analyzes the feminist insurgency that will bring almost a hundred women to the House of Representatives in January—including the first two Muslim women (Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar); the first Native American women (New Mexico’s Deb Haaland and Kansas’s Sharice Davids), Texas’s first two Latina congresswomen (Ver...

Gary Younge, The Nation columnist, talks about politics in the midwest, the heartland, the rust belt – he’s covering the midterms from Racine, Wisconsin, an old Democratic factory town on Lake Michigan.  After so many defeats in the state, Democrats there told him they “can’t afford the luxury of hope.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/pr...

While Democrats are focusing now on voter mobilization and turnout, Republicans are at work on voter suppression.  How significant will the Republican effort be in this election--and where is it likely to have the biggest impact?  Ari Berman reports—he wrote about vote suppression for the New York Times opinion pages. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://r...

Trump’s place in American history: Jill Lepore of the Harvard history department and the New Yorker talks about her new book 'These Truths,' which starts in 1492 with Christopher Columbus, and ends in 2016 with Donald Trump. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In the 1968 presidential election, Richard Nixon won, and many of our current problems began.  The man who almost defeated Nixon was Hubert Humphrey, the onetime Minnesota senator who had become LBJ’s vice president.  Anti-war activists hated Hubert Humphrey in 1968--Michael Kazin will explain. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Arizona is a red state, ground zero for Trump’s anti-immigrant politics, but it’s changing.  Sasha Abramsky has returned from Tucson, with a report on how and why the Democrats seem likely to flip a key House seat there. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A historic challenges to the Republicans is underway in Georgia, where Stacey Abrams is campaigning to become the state’s first black governor, and first female governor. The polls have her tied with her opponent, a far-right figure endorsed by Trump. Joan Walsh just got back from Georgia with a report. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/pr...

What the Democrats can do about newly-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when they win the House in November and take control of the House Judiciary Committee in January: John Nichols talks about investigations that could lead to the filing of articles of impeachment. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

David Cay Johnston talks about the “Mountain of Tax Cheating” by Donald Trump, as exposed in the massive New York Times report on where Trump’s money came from, and the violations of tax laws in his past. David is a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter who has written for the New York Times and the L.A. Times and is now editor of DCReport.org. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy...

While the eyes of the nation search for news on the FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, the hard work of fighting for social change goes on -- for example in St. Paul, where a campaign for a $15 minimum wage is being fought right now.   Michelle Chen reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

D.D. Guttenplan talks about some alternatives to those old white Republican men who shouted and pouted at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week – his new book is “The Next Republic: the Rise of a New Radical Majority.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Universal basic income – government payments to help keep people out of poverty: is that a better idea than a government job guarantee? Bryce Covert explains the current debate on the left. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Also: Florida will vote in November on restoring voting rights for felons, and polls show the measure is likely to pass.  Sasha Abramsky reports on the campaign and its significance. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy