The Nation February 10, 2020

Impeachment Is an Inside Job I enjoy Jeet Heer’s articles for The Nation, but his argument in “Impeachment Needs to Move to the Streets” [December 30/January 6] threw me. Impeachment, according to our Constitution, which is the foundation of our laws, rests not with the masses but with Congress. The rule of law determines not only what is legal or illegal but also how that determination is made. Due process is at the heart of the law. That other countries govern through mass protest is their affair but not our procedure. Protest in the United States works, but not in the streets. It works at the ballot box. Instead of advocating going to the streets, why didn’t Heer suggest that citizens express their convictions to their elected members of Congress?…

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…

Although The Nation has not—yet—endorsed a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries, we’ve long made clear our admiration for the two real progressives in the race: Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Either, in our collective view, would make a superb president (though as Richard Parker argues below, any of the current Democratic contenders would be a HUUUGE improvement over the incumbent). But just because we still cling—perhaps foolishly, given the most recent controversy between the two candidates—to a “both/and” approach and the view that the longer the two of them remain viable candidates, arguing for bold, radical ideas, the better, doesn’t mean everyone in our orbit shares that inclination. When Nation editorial board member Zephyr Teachout told me she was endorsing Sanders and asked if the magazine would be interested…

A few weeks ago, I got to watch Bernie Sanders at a health care town hall meeting on a Saturday morning in New Hampshire. He walked into a room of some 100 people, mostly middle- and working-class. After introducing himself and thanking those who were there, he asked people to share how they pay for health care. He listened closely to their stories and made sure he got everybody’s name. One woman, representing a family of four, described her $800-a-month premium and $12,000-a-year deductible. Another woman was worried that a big health disaster would happen early in the year, because she couldn’t pay her $7,000-a-year deductible out of pocket. Sanders then used those stories to illustrate how we currently pay for health care; why it represents waste, greed, and…

Of the four top-tier candidates still chasing the Democratic nomination, only Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders offer bold realignment as core to their campaigns. Joe Biden—for me, and I’m guessing perhaps for you—is the too-accommodating conciliator, while Pete Buttigieg, though immensely talented, is too young, too corporate, and without experience at the national or even state level. In my view, Warren offers a far more plausible and more detailed case for how the next president must run the government once inA office. Her “I’ve got a plan for that” is actually true: She and her staff tapped first-class teams of advisers from nationwide networks of progressive lawyers, economists, techies, educators, medical and military personnel, and environmentalists. In each of her plans, she has adroitly analyzed key issues (in readable, nontechnical…

304 Human rights defenders killed across the globe in 2019, according to a new report by Front Line Defenders 40% Percentage of murdered human rights defenders who advocated for land, environmental, or indigenous peoples’ rights 3.5K Human rights defenders killed since 1998, the year the United Nations adopted its Declaration on Human Rights Defenders 85% Percentage of murdered human rights defenders who had previously been threatened 107 Human rights defenders killed in Colombia in 2019, the highest of any country that year (13 cases are still being investigated, which could bring the total to 120)…