Journalism

How George H.W. Bush Paved the Way for Trump Pardons: Harold Meyerson on the dark side of Reagan’s successor.

The second-worst thing Bush did was his last act as president: pardoning many of the Iran/Contra conspirators, in order to block investigation of his own breaking the law. That points the way for Donald Trump to follow his example — by pardoning the people who might testify against him.
(The worst thing?  Nominating Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.)
. . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE  12/5/18

Michelle Obama’s Carefully Scrubbed Memoir: Amy Wilentz on the missing politics in ‘Becoming’

In LA, Michelle’s event was not at a bookstore, but rather at the Forum in Inglewood, where the Lakers used to play. It has 17,000 seats and was sold out for her event. She has similar venues in other cities. It’s not your typical author appearance. . . We’re interested in what the book has to say about politics, because hers were maybe more complicated than she let on. . . .
continued at TheNation.com, Nov. 30, 2018, HERE

 

Rebecca Traister: The Politics of Women’s Anger

Q: The New York Times page-one headline after Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony read, “A Nominee is Rescued By a Display of Rage.” I wonder if you have any comment on that?
Rebecca Traister: One of the things I write about in the book is the issue of whose rage is taken seriously as politically valid and politically consequential. . . .
Continued at TheNation.com, HERE  10/12/18

Michael Moore: How Democrats Paved the Way to Trump

Michael Moore: I live in that other world, where I watched The Apprentice. If we were able to ask everybody listening to this right now, “How many of you watched The Apprentice every week when Donald Trump was the host?” I’m guessing not many would say “I did.”
JW: I didn’t.
MM: Of course you didn’t. You don’t waste your time with crap like that. You went to college, and you’re an enlightened, educated person.
JW: Aw, shucks.
. . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE   9/21/18

Bill McKibben: Hurricane Florence Will Be Made Worse by ‘Stupid Political Decisions’

Q&A with Bill McKibben: “These days there’s always some new illustration of our folly. Florence is going to be a bloody and brutal affair, I’m afraid. It does remind us of just how much of a role stupid political decisions play. You may remember that it was the North Carolina state legislature six years ago that voted to ban the use of the latest science as it related to sea-level rise in coastal planning. That’s one of the reasons, I guess, that so many more structures there are in harm’s way now, as Florence approaches. ”
… continued at TheNation.com, HERE  9/13/18

Brett Kavanaugh Must Answer These Questions: David Cole

Read HERE
The ACLU’s David Cole on the three most important questions the Supreme Court nominee should be asked: “My number one is whether he is someone who believes in an evolving Constitution, or whether he is committed to the Constitution as it was understood by the dead white men who wrote it 200 years ago.” 9/5/18

The Democratic Establishment Has No Message of Its Own:
Q&A with Gary Younge

Jon Wiener: Return with us now to March 2016. Ten people are running for the Republican nomination, and Donald Trump is in the lead. The evangelical candidate on the far right is Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Trump takes an unprecedented step in modern American politics and goes after Cruz’s wife Heidi with an insulting tweet. You wrote recently that this incident still has significance for our politics today, more than two years later—but not because of the tweet itself.
Gary Younge: That’s right. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, sees this horror show unfolding, and says, “I want Donald Trump to talk every single day for the rest of this election.” Hillary Clinton has her own version, taken from The West Wing: “let Donald be Donald.”  Because he’s his own worst enemy.  So let the man talk. Well, he did, and he won.
… continued at TheNation.com, HERE  8/27/18

Avital and Nimrod: Sexual Harassment and “Campy Communications” at NYU

It’s not often that a literary theorist lands on page one of the New York Times. The August 13 story about Avital Ronell, who the Times described as “one of the very few philosopher-stars of this world,” was shocking: NYU was suspending her without pay for a year after finding her responsible for sexual harassment of a male grad student, Nimrod Reitman. He complained that for three years she had sent him unwanted emails referring to him as “my most adored one,” “Sweet cuddly Baby,” “cock-er spaniel,” and “my astounding and beautiful Nimrod” — and insisted that he reply in kind.
. . . continued at the LA Review of Books, HERE   8-20-18