Search Results for: The Nation

Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade Decision Legalizing Abortion Nationwide, Dies at 69

Longreads Pick

An obituary of Norma McCorvey, aka “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that yielded the legalization of abortion. McCorvey later became a born-again Christian, had a change of heart, revised parts of her story including recanting the part about having become pregnant while being raped, and became an anti-abortion activist.

Source: Washington Post
Published: Feb 18, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,777 words)

Read the Letter Coretta Scott King Wrote Opposing Sessions’s 1986 Federal Nomination

Longreads Pick

On Tuesday, February 7th, Elizabeth Warren was silenced by Republicans at Jeffrey Sessions’s confirmation hearing as Attorney General, because she read aloud Coretta Scott King’s March 19, 1986 letter to Senator Strom Thurmond opposing Sessions’ appointment as a Federal Judge for the Southern District of Alabama. King’s objection stemmed from Sessions’ alleged attempts to intimidate elderly black voters from voting, via a 1984 voter fraud case he prosecuted. In the letter, she writes, “Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used-the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.” (Many news outlets have since published links to the letter, but most credit the Washington Post with having it first.)

Source: Washington Post
Published: Feb 7, 2017
Length: 7 minutes (1,878 words)

The 2017 National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List

Longreads Pick

While the big titles, like New York, ESPN the Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, held sway in several categories, there were some stunners among the honors, including Huffington Post Highline, Pacific Standard, California Sunday Magazine, and Eater. Mother Jones won the Ellie for “Magazine of the Year.”

Author: Editors
Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 7, 2017

The 2017 National Magazine Award Winners: A Reading List

Credit: Keith Jenkins/Flickr

This year’s National Magazine Awards—otherwise known as the Ellies (or the award shaped like a modernist elephant)—was held at a luncheon Tuesday afternoon in New York. While the big titles, like New York, ESPN the Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, held sway in several categories, there were some stunners among the honors, including Huffington Post Highline, Pacific Standard, California Sunday Magazine, and Eater. Mother Jones won the Ellie for “Magazine of the Year.” Read more…

Finding the Limit of a Nation of Laws: Integrity, or the Lack Thereof

Drawing by DonkeyHotey (CC BY 2.0).

Rushed to publication because of the speed with which the Trump administration is already damaging the rule of law in the U.S., this David Frum piece in The Atlantic  is a roadmap to Trump’s likeliest path to authoritarianism and self-enrichment — and therefore also a guide to what Americans of conscience need to do to protect democracy.

If Congress is quiescent, what can Trump do? A better question, perhaps, is what can’t he do?

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, who often articulates Trumpist ideas more candidly than Trump himself might think prudent, offered a sharp lesson in how difficult it will be to enforce laws against an uncooperative president. During a radio roundtable in December, on the topic of whether it would violate anti-nepotism laws to bring Trump’s daughter and son-in-law onto the White House staff, Gingrich said: The president “has, frankly, the power of the pardon. It is a totally open power, and he could simply say, ‘Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anybody finds them to have behaved against the rules. Period.’ And technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority.”

That statement is true, and it points to a deeper truth: The United States may be a nation of laws, but the proper functioning of the law depends upon the competence and integrity of those charged with executing it. A president determined to thwart the law in order to protect himself and those in his circle has many means to do so.

Read the story

How the Town of Whitefish Defeated Its Neo-Nazi Trolls — And Became a National Model of Resistance

Longreads Pick

When resident neo-Nazi Richard Spencer and his fellow white supremacists started trying to intimidate the people of Whitefish, Montana about their support of Jewish businesses and neighbors, citizens took to the streets, protesting, throwing a block party and coming together to let the world know: this tiny town will not let racists dictate how people live here, and threats or not, Whitefish won’t back down.

Source: Yahoo News
Published: Jan 19, 2017
Length: 19 minutes (4,823 words)

Finalists for the 2017 National Magazine Awards

Longreads Pick
Author: Editors
Published: Jan 19, 2017