Hey, readers, and Happy Friday!
My name is Annie, and Iâll be taking over todayâs newsletter. Iâm a researcher for our magazine, which means I help checkâalongside my fellow print researchers, Blaise, Julian, and Shreya, who are probably reading this right now, so helloâthe facts that make our journalism so vital.
This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion providers can continue their challenge to Texasâs Senate Bill 8, a near-total ban on abortions in the state. The ruling here is virtually inconsequential; the ban still looms large in Texas. S.B. 8, along with Dobbs v. Jackson, has shifted mass attention to the fragility of Roe v. Wade in the hands of a conservative-majority Supreme Court. But what does it really mean if the Supreme Court axes Roe, when the problem of abortion access has metastasized well beyond the right to an abortion? I liked what Molly Toth wrote in Jacobin this week: âTo win a future where abortion is available on demand, for free, and without apology will require radically different tactics.⦠We deserve much better than Roe.â
Here in New York City (where I am), nearly one million noncitizens will be eligible to vote, thanks to City Councilâs approval of a decisive bill. âIf weâre going to build a city that takes care of the most vulnerable New Yorkers, then we have to give them a direct tool ⦠to have their voices heard,â legislator Tiffany Cabán, one of the 33 councilmembers who voted in favor of the bill, told the Queens Daily Eagle ahead of the vote. This mass of new voters brings âthe largest addition of eligible voters since the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 half a century ago,â John Washington wrote in The Nation, back in July.
In Congress, the Senate voted for a pathway to raise the federal debt ceiling and avert what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls a âcatastrophic, calamitous default.â The approved measure is the first of two steps to raise the debt ceiling, offering a one-time change to the legislative rules that allows the Democrats to vote to raise the countryâs borrowing limit in a simple majority vote without Republicans having to implicate themselves. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that legislators have until December 15, a quickly looming deadline, to figure out what to do about the debt ceiling or else face a first-ever default.
Speaking of history: Starbucks workers voted to unionize in Buffalo, New York, marking the first unionized store of the coffee chainâs nearly 9,000 across the United States. The unionâs success marks a triumph against the corporationâs extraordinary union-busting efforts, which included a visit to Buffalo from former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. âThis victory will go down in labor history as a turning point in the decades-long decline of unions,â a lead organizer on the Starbucks unionization campaign told Lauren Kaori Gurley at Motherboard. âIt is a signal to other workers in the service sector that David can defeat Goliath.â
After years of backlash, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is removing the Sackler familyâs name from its galleries, âin order to allow The Met to further its core mission,â the institution wrote in a statement. Photographer Nan Goldin, who has been staging protests in the Met since 2018, has been instrumental in galvanizing the institution to take action against the Sacklers, who have drawn no small part of their billion-dollar fortune from the misery of millions of opioid-addicted Americans. If you havenât already, read our July/August print feature by Libby Lewis about the lawyer behind the legal push against the Sacklers.
This week has swelled with tributes to the late critic and artist Greg Tate, who passed away on Tuesday. âTate elevated everyoneâthe weird, the polished, the delicate, the explosive,â Marcus J. Moore wrote in Pitchfork. Tate was a person with âunabashed embrace of the mystical and sublime,â Leah Mirakhor observed in 2018. His writing is swaggering, vicious, often contemptuous, but not without a delicacy managed only by those who believe, fiercely and adamantly, in the promise of artâs beauty, no matter its form: Public Enemy, Basquiat, Joni Mitchell, and more. When asked how he achieved the poetic bite that has left a lasting legacy on criticism, Tate said: âThereâs really nothing to it. You just have to get old.â
Today at NewRepublic.com, we have Tim Noah on why the Congressional Review Act, a vestige of the Republican agenda in the 1990s, should be repealed. Kevin Mahnken writes on the deceptive popularity of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. âI had a public defender come up to me once and say, âThank you, judges will set lower bail if youâre in the room,ââ a volunteer told Molly Osberg in her piece on Court Watch NYC. Zephyr Teachout writes on taking down tech monopolies: âWe simply have to begin to use the tools we already have against the behemoths that are telling us not to.â
Thatâs it for me. I hope you all have a great weekend!
âAnnie Geng, reporter-researcher |
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