This week was marked a successful launch of The Nation on GRIT TV, the first of a new collaboration between The Nation and GRIT TV with Laura Flanders. The Nation on GRIT TV is a new weekly program, which gives readers both quick-hits and in-depth looks at the big stories and investigative pieces in news and politics every week. Laura Flanders, a long time Nation contributor and former RadioNation host is ideal to bring what is essentially a broadcast version of The Nation—with interviews and commentaries from writers, editors and columnists, activists and organizers—into a lively video format. From this week on we’ll post The Nation on GRIT TV in segments, starting with a news round up on Monday, "The Week Ahead."
Starting us off this week is:
The Year of the Woman?
Melissa Harris-Lacewell and I joined Laura Flanders to discuss the recent number of rightwing women winning primaries. But do these conservative, anti-government women’s candidacies translate into gains for women nationwide? Or will the cuts in government program that they propose hurt more women than their candidacies help? For a smart analysis of this issue check out Executive Editor Betsy Reed’s editorial in this week’s issue.
Also this week at TheNation.com:
Jeremy Scahill talks Minerals, Wikileaks and Blackwater with Laura Flanders
On GRIT TV with Laura Flanders, Nation writer and blogger Jeremy Scahill discusses the Pentagon’s “hunt” for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who may be in possession of sensitive information. Scahill also talks about a potential secret prison and interrogation facility within the Bagram Air Base and analyzes the New York Times’s coverage of Afghanistan’s just discovered mineral wealth—estimated at a trillion dollars.
Glenn Beck’s Blues: Why the Far Right Hates the World Cup
Just in time for the start of the World Cup, Nation Sports Editor Dave Zirin challenges the far right’s notion that Americans just don’t like soccer. Zirin argues that embracing the sport is not rejecting the idea of American exceptionalism—as conservatives G. Gordon Liddy and Glenn Beck suggest—but rather Beck and company have a case of soccer-envy. “Is it possible that if the USA was favored to win the World Cup, Beck himself would be in the streets with his own solid gold vuvuzela?” asks Zirin. Click here to find out.
We Need a Cleaner Economy, So Let’s Do It
On Thursday I was on Morning Joe, arguing that the criticism of President Obama’s Tuesday night Oval Office speech was off target. Obama not only spoke humanely of recovery and restoration of the Gulf Coast and of holding BP accountable, he also showed a strong sense that this is more than just an oil spill and linked it to the larger economic crisis. Here’s my segment from Tuesday.
As always thank you for reading. Comments are welcome below, and you can follow me on Twitter — @KatrinaNation.