Tabla de contenidos para October 2/9, 2023 en The Nation

WHEN JOE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE, HE DIDN’T JUST TAKE AGGRESSIVE STEPS TO CONTAIN the Covid-19 pandemic; through the American Rescue Plan, signed into law in March 2021, he wove together one of the strongest safety nets the country has ever seen. But now, only two years later, that net has rapidly unraveled. The ARP expanded the existing child tax credit, offering it to those who earn little to nothing for the first time and giving them more money while paying it out monthly instead of once a year at tax time. Couples who earned less than $150,000, or individuals who earned less than $75,000, received $300 a month for each child under the age of 6 and $250 for older ones. The payments helped reduce the child poverty rate in…

RECENTLY, A FRIEND WHO IS HOUSE-HUNTING LAMENTED that houses don’t look like houses anymore. Rather, they look like hotel lobbies or Airbnbs, or the “after” result of one of those renovation TV shows that take a house full of people’s stuff and turn it into a hotel lobby or an Airbnb. This spring, in a superb essay, “Merchandizing the Void,” that appeared in the online feminist journal Dilettante Army, Kelly Pendergrast expounded on the strange, hyperorganized, almost retail-like environment of the contemporary pantry (think Khloé Kardashian’s). Noting the proliferation of Excel-grid-like shelving systems displaying accumulated wares in the aspirational kitchens of today, she describes a turn toward the “logistical imaginary” in the home: Luxury pantries, not incidentally, resemble distribution centers. Pendergrast argues that because delivery has almost completely supplanted in-store…

Queen Anastasia Alexander, also known as John, is a 35-year-old drag queen who does customer service by day and front handsprings at Club XYZ in Knoxville by night. In the wake of the Tennessee Legislature’s attacks on trans and queer people, John is on a mission: to acquaint straight people with drag. This evening, he and a handful of other drag performers from East Tennessee will perform a family-friendly drag show, with the aim of fostering respectful dialogue, for an audience that includes religious leaders and influential community members. The drive down to Chattanooga is what you might expect for a gay man and a trans woman in the Southeast. We joke about which boys could ruin our lives. We pass a “TRUMP MAGA” message painted on a trailer home.…

LATELY, FLORIDA GOVERNOR AND REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL candidate Ron DeSantis has significantly curtailed his use of the term “woke.” Whereas just a few months ago he said the word seven times in 26 seconds in a speech, he avoided it completely during the first primary debate. DeSantis’s rhetorical retreat is likely due to recent polling showing that his once-declared “war on woke” is yielding diminishing electoral returns. But anyone hoping that this political shift would be accompanied by a policy shift will be disappointed. His authoritarian, white supremacist attacks on Florida’s public education system have continued apace. DeSantis has enacted multiple “educational gag orders” that criminalize classroom discussions of race, gender identity, and ugly historical realities that might make white students “feel guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.”…

WHEN THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNED ROE V. WADE LAST June, abortion opponents weren’t the only ones ready to embrace a world beyond it. Dr. Colleen McNicholas, for one, had presided over the last abortion clinic in Missouri, where doctors performed fewer than 100 abortions in the year before Roe fell. The state restrictions allowed under Roe, including a 72-hour waiting period, meant that most Missourians seeking abortions were already traveling out of state for care. Erika Christensen, for another, had learned in 2016, when she was 30 weeks pregnant, that her fetus wouldn’t be able to breathe outside the womb. Since her home state of New York had criminalized abortion after 24 weeks, she flew to Colorado and paid $10,000 for an injection to end her pregnancy. “Roe is the…

EVEN A CASUAL OBSERVER OF THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM is likely aware that most criminal defendants plead guilty. Although jury trials are often heralded in law school classrooms and dramatized on television shows, the reality is that more than 90 percent of criminal cases end in a guilty plea. Many of these pleas result from plea bargaining—the process by which a defendant gives up their right to a trial and pleads guilty in exchange for a promise of a charge reduction, a sentence reduction, or both. To some observers, plea bargaining appears efficient, even good: A trial court can process more cases at a faster rate, and defendants who are guilty get credit for admitting fault. The predominance of plea bargaining and the eclipse of trials, however, have led to…

ON AUGUST 16, THE FIFTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS issued a ruling that, if upheld by the Supreme Court, will significantly restrict access to mifepristone, one of two drugs used in a regimen to induce an abortion. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel—all Republican appointees—reduces the window during which the drug can be taken and blocks access to it through telehealth and the mail. But one of the judges, James Ho, wanted to go even further; in a concurring opinion, he argued that the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of the drug should be revoked. To justify this extreme position, he contended that the litigants—a group of forced-birth doctors who had neither used nor prescribed mifepristone and therefore should have had no standing in the case—had a right…

1 in 3 Number of childcare facilities that are expected to close after their pandemic-era funding expires at the end of September, unless Congress takes action 3.2M Approximate number of children who could lose access to childcare 43% Portion of childcare centers that will raise tuition 37% Portion of home-based childcare providers who will raise tuition 51% Portion of parents spending more than 20 percent of their household income on childcare $27K Average annual salary of childcare workers 40K Number of additional childcare workers currently needed…

In her new book, Survivor Injustice, the journalist Kylie Cheung links attacks on abortion rights with domestic violence and voter suppression to show how the state not only enables abusers to inflict harm and violence but often functions as an abuser itself. Cheung spoke with The Nation about the ways in which domestic violence and the ongoing attacks on bodily autonomy impede the democratic process; the pitfalls of relying on the state to end gender-based violence; and what survivor justice might look like. This interview has been edited for clarity. —Victoria Law VL: What prompted you to write this book? KC: I started writing in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic. I was initially inspired by the surge in reported rates of domestic violence that we were seeing at that time,…