Innholdsfortegnelse for April 15, 2019 i The Nation

What About the Marshall Court? Re Karen J. Greenberg’s “Political Scripture” [Feb. 25/March 4]: It strikes me as surprising that Professor Greenberg makes no mention of the role of the “founding era” Supreme Court in answering the questions that Jonathan Gienapp’s book, The Second Creation, raises—that is, what kind of instrument was the Constitution, and how was it to be interpreted? Chief Justice John Marshall was certainly active in the founding era. He famously used both “excavation” and “invention,” as well as several other, often weightier interpretive strategies, in deciding the leading cases of that era. Marshall regularly interpreted the Constitution only after considering, among other factors, the inherent ambiguity of language, the dictionary meaning of the text, contemporary economic realities, and the nature of a constitution itself. Ultimately, he…

COMMENT Special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings should finally put to rest the “collusion” theory that has consumed the mainstream media and the political class for more than two years. The central question of Mueller’s probe was whether there was any conspiracy between candidate Donald Trump and the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin to secure Trump’s election over Hillary Clinton in 2016. And after an exhaustive inquiry with sweeping investigative authority, Mueller has answered it: The special counsel’s office “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” The faith in a conspiracy theory stood to benefit Trump. The outcome is no surprise to those who scrutinized the facts as they emerged. Time and again, the available evidence…

COMMENT ‘‘If I owned all the real estate in the world, I wouldn’t feel so powerful as I do on the streets of this socialist city,” declared former New York City councilman Baruch Vladeck when he arrived in Milwaukee in 1932 for the Socialist Party’s national convention in that city. Norman Thomas, the famed civil-rights and economic-justice campaigner who became the party’s presidential nominee that year, celebrated the fact that he was chosen for that honor in a city governed by Socialists. The success of Milwaukee under then-Mayor Dan Hoan, Thomas said, was proof that the party’s social-democratic “dreams will someday come true.” “Someday” was dramatically delayed by the results of the 1932 elections. The Socialist ticket did well, securing almost 900,000 votes nationwide and registering its highest percentage of…

Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential candidacy poses a conundrum for progressives. Not since 1936, when Franklin Roosevelt said that he “welcomed” the hatred of corporate interests, has a serious presidential candidate offered so aggressive a challenge to the conservative powers that be. At the same time, however, a dangerous lunatic is president of the United States, and Sanders, of all the major Democratic contenders, is the one who will make Donald Trump’s reelection most likely. Eight years of a Trump presidency could mean the end of meaningful democracy in the United States, along with many of the rights that women, minorities, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and others now take for granted. Let me clarify: I’ve been a fan and supporter of Sanders ever since he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in…

WHEN I WAS 7 OR 8 YEARS OLD, MY MOTHER WOULD PUT on Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” every day before we left home for school and work, and we sang along from start to finish. Standing in the living room moments before we shrugged on our coats, we belted out lyrics about self-reliance and persistence, finding a kind of armor through song. We wrapped ourselves in the richness and power of Whitney’s voice, reaching for the high notes right along with her. I can’t remember how long this lasted, but I consider it a defining ritual of my childhood. She’s too young now, but I plan to do something similar with my daughter, Isobel, who is 2. Black children and their families need this. We need a kind…

After 22 months of painstaking inquiry, the investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller is finally over. The key finding was instant headline news on the day that it was announced: Mueller found no evidence that Donald Trump or his subordinates conspired with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election. Critics of the president should not try to relitigate that aspect of Mueller’s findings or imagine that he somehow missed or misinterpreted details about Russian interference. Not settled, however, is the question of whether the president engaged in obstruction of justice. As Attorney General William Barr noted in his four-page summation of Mueller’s inquiry, “the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and…

Since mid-December, 13-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor has skipped school every Friday to protest outside the United Nations. Each week, she sits on the same bench with two cardboard signs: “School Strike 4 Climate” and “COP24 Failed Us” (the latter a reference to the UN’s 2018 climate-change conference in Poland). Not even the polar vortex could deter her—when the wind-chill temperatures fell below zero, Villaseñor continued her demonstration from the warmth of her sleeping bag. Villaseñor was also a leader of the New York City climate strike—one of more than 2,000 demonstrations across some 120 countries that took place on March 15. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who began her #Fridaysfor-Future protest in front of the Swedish Parliament building last year, more than a million children and teens filled the…

In March, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City announced that it would no longer accept donations from the Sackler family, the owners of the drug company Purdue Pharma, which is facing hundreds of lawsuits alleging that it aggressively promoted the use of OxyContin while downplaying the drug’s addictive and lethal effects. In the process, Purdue generated billions of dollars in revenue and gave rise to America’s opioid epidemic. The museum’s announcement signals a victory for grassroots activists, who drew national attention to the issue last month when artist Nan Goldin, herself a former addict, led a die-in at the Guggenheim to protest its embrace of Sackler money. The communion between super-rich patrons and the fine arts is an age-old tradition. New York Times critic Roberta Smith suggests that it’s…

To survive domestic violence, some individuals resort to violence themselves. Others are coerced into committing crimes by their abusers. Often, these people—disproportionately black and brown women—end up incarcerated for years. After a decade of advocacy by the Coalition for Women Prisoners and others, the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act passed the newly Democratic-controlled New York State Senate on March 12. The legislation now sits on the desk of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is expected to sign it into law. “The bill will allow judges to issue shorter prison terms to survivors of domestic violence who were convicted of crimes directly related to the abuse they suffered,” according to the Coalition for Women Prisoners. “In some cases, such individuals could be sentenced to community-based alternatives to incarceration programs instead of prison.”…

When a man traps a fishhe removes the hook from its sideand once it has beaten its frightinto the wooden boat with its strongest slapshe will clutch the fish to his chestand hold it as it struggleshe will hold it in the tender airHe will hold its tail as if it were his dance partner’s waistand gaze into the fish’s face for many minutes When a man seizes a fish, he soothes itcaresses its whole body tip to tipwhile it thrashes bloody against his bare chestHe will clasp the fish with one handlike a newbornand hush its gasping with the otherWith love he will tuck it under his chinso he can feel its heartbeatin the insistent heat that hangs above the water Remember: when a man captures a fishhe will…

128K People incarcerated in private prisons in the United States in 2016, or about 8.5 percent of the total US prison population 120% Increase in the use of private prisons since 2000 73% Immigrant detainees held in privately owned facilities $4.16B Combined 2018 revenue of the GEO Group and CoreCivic, the two largest private-prison companies $135K Amount that the private-prison industry contributed to the Democratic Party in the 2018 election cycle $1.1M Amount that the industry contributed to the Republican Party in the 2018 election cycle…

W.S. Merwin, The Nation’s poetry editor in 1962 and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, died at his home near Haiku on the Hawaiian island of Maui. He was 91 years old. Merwin was a celebrated poet, translator, and writer who published more than 30 books. His relationship with The Nation was long and storied, and he contributed not just poetry but journalistic dispatches on the environmental crisis and on nonviolent-resistance movements. In 1956, when he was just 28 years old and already an accomplished poet, Merwin published his first piece in The Nation, a poem called “Faces and Landscapes.” He would go on to write dozens of other pieces for the magazine, including “Berryman,” one of his most famous poems. His last appearance in The Nation was in a 2011…

Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) sued Twitter on March 18, claiming that the social-media company acted negligently as a “portal for defamation.” Twitter’s alleged misdeed? Hosting three accounts critical of the Trumploving congressman. For his “pain, insult, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress and mental suffering,” Nunes is seeking $250 million in damages. The purported online bullies are GOP strategist Liz Mair—noted in the complaint as having described Nunes as “Dirty Devin”—and two parody accounts, @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow. “Are you trying to obstruct a federal investigation again? You come home right this instant or no more Minecraft!” @DevinNunesMom tweeted at the congressman. That account has since been suspended. Meanwhile, @DevinCow—which is still active and now has more than 633,000 followers—described Nunes as a “treasonous cowpoke” and added, “Devin’s boots are full of manure.…

When Breitbart asked Donald Trump about his recent executive order to “protect” speech on college campuses, the president gave a wandering reply that included something of a threat: “I can tell you, I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump—I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.” If Trump’s statement sounded inconsistent with his mandate of free speech, the backdrop against which he spoke was even more remarkable. The news that week was filled with reports that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been deploying armed motorcycle gangs as extrajudicial enforcers in his country. (By the same token, Vladimir Putin’s fondness…

THE UNITED STATES IS IN THE EARLY STAGES OF A CRIPPLING RETIREment crisis. Nearly half of all private-sector employees in the country—some 58 million people—had no company-sponsored retirement plan in 2018. As recently as 1999, only 39 percent of retiring workers were in this predicament. The retirement situation in the United States isn’t just bad; it’s getting worse with each passing year. The crisis engulfs all kinds of workers: blue-collar teamsters, high-skilled professionals working for profitable corporations like Verizon and United Airlines, and public-sector civil servants in cities plagued by budget crises (read: Detroit). Many have lost their health insurance and pension benefits—and in some places, they’ve even been ordered to return payments that were miscalculated by pension authorities years in the past. An increasing number of people now work…

Revolution Française Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a NationBy Sophie PedderBloomsbury. 320 pp. $28 Last September, French President Emmanuel Macron met an unassuming gardener on the grounds of the Élysée Palace. Introducing himself, the 25-year-old timidly explained that he was having trouble finding work. “I send résumés and cover letters… they don’t lead to anything,” he told the president. Many people in France can relate: The country’s unemployment rate hovers just below 9 percent, more than two points above the European Union average. The joblessness rate, meanwhile, is more than twice that for young people age 15 to 24. Macron’s reaction, however, was less than sympathetic—almost as if he were hearing this problem for the very first time and wasn’t all that convinced of its seriousness. “If you’re willing…