The Nation Podcasts The Nation Magazine

American women in 2023: the news is bad, but it’s not all bad. Katha Pollitt is on the Start Making Sense podcast to explain.
Also: the largest anti-war demonstrations in American history were the protests in the fall of 1969--with more than two million people in the streets demanding “End the War in Vietnam.” But did those demonstrations help end the war? Historian Chris Appy comments on the new documentary, “The Movement and the ‘Madman,’” out on PBS American Experience March 28.
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Last year, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision. This has only emboldened the anti-choice movement. Those who hoped that abortion would at least be safe in blue states and kept available in red states via mifepristone are waking up to a world where the anti-choice movement is using legal warfare to move towards its goal of a nation-wide abortion ban. As Moira Donegan notes in a recent column in The Guardian, a right-wing Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas is hearing arguments for rolling back FDA approval of mifepristone. Elsewhere, pharmacists and doctors are being intimidated by legal threats so that even legal abortion services are getting harder to come by. A novel legal argument is being used to raise the possibility that anti-abortion laws can be applied retroactively, again creating a chilling effect.
I talked with Moira about these and other trends. As she notes, they raise a fundamental question about not just reproductive freedom but also the future of American democracy. It’s no longer clear whether there is a federal rule of law that can protect reproductive freedom even in blue states. We also take up the urgency of Democrats making reproductive freedom a top issue. 
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On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we speak to Daily Memphian columnist Chris Herrington about the personal troubles of Memphis Grizzlies point guard and budding icon Ja Morant. We talk about the Grizzlies, the city of Memphis, and what’s next for the superstar point guard.
We have Choice Words about the MVP debate going on between Embiid, Jokic, and Giannis. We also have a Just Stand Up award to Lamar Jackson for standing on his principle, and a Just Sit Down award for the NFL owners that are seemingly colluding against Lamar. All that and more on this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast!
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Since the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last week, we need to understand how and why medium-sized banks have been allowed to avoid strict supervision from federal banking authorities and avoid safety requirements. John Nichols comments.
Also: Do masks work to help stop the spread of COVID-19? A New York Times columnist recently said that they don’t, and cited an authoritative review of research as his source. But it turns he was wrong about that study. Gregg Gonsalves is on the show to explain.
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The good news is we have one less thing to worry about: so-called Havana Syndrome turns out not to be caused by a mysterious super-weapon to harm American diplomats and military personnel, despite numerous press reports warning of a hypothetical ray gun created by a foreign foe (Cuba? Russia? China?). Instead, an assessment by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) concluded that the symptoms of Havana Syndrome, reported by hundreds of government officials working all over the world) likely had “medical, environmental, and social factors that plausibly can explain.” In less polite terms, this was an example of a mass psychogenic illness, a product of hysteria and over-active imaginations. 
Writing in Jacobin, Branko Marcetic links the Havana Syndrome frenzy to other examples of national security paranoia such as the false reports of Russians paying for Taliban bounty hunters and the recent meltdown over Chinese surveillance balloons. I talked with Branko about both the Havana Syndrome, and the reasons – political and psychological–that the military-industrial complex is going into over drive conjuring up imaginary or overhyped threats.
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On this episode of the Edge of Sports podcast, we speak to author and sports opinionist Kate Fagan about her new illustrated history of the women in basketball, Hoop Muses: An Insider’s Account to Pop Culture and the (Women’s Game). The book is illustrated by Sophia Chang and curated by the legendary hoopster Seimone Augustus. Fagan and I talk about her inspiration, creative process and what it was like working with Seimone Augustus.
We'll have Choice Words about the effort to ban trans athletes from youth sports. We give a Just Stand Up award to the New York Knicks for looking like a legitimate, joyous playoff contender down the home stretch of the season. We also have a Just Sit Down award for Texas Tech basketball coach, Mark Adams for the wild comments he made to members of his team.
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