The Nation November 18, 2013

Miami Vice 
 I always enjoyed Carl Hiaasen’s humorous writing about the corruption in Miami, but I thought he was exaggerating. After reading Ken Silverstein’s “Miami: Where Luxury Real Estate Meets Dirty Money” [Oct. 21], I realize that Hiaasen has understated the level of corruption. NELL FARR Elk Grove, Calif.
 _________________________ Hillary Fever 
 Richard Kim provided a refreshing note of dissent regarding the premature anointing of presidential candidates [“It’s Not Hillary’s Turn,” Oct. 21]. I share his lack of enthusiasm for being stampeded into accepting Hillary Clinton, or anyone, until there is an understanding of a candidate’s position on the issues that face America. Kim’s call for vigorous debate on these issues (e.g., “the yawning gap between the rich and everyone else”) to help determine the best person to…

@RichardKimNYC: Each top 10 CEO made as much as 92,126 average Americans.
 @brycecovert: The unemployment rate for blacks (12.9%) is more than double that of whites (6.3%).
 @garyyounge: New York Times headline: “Are the Roma Primitive, or Just Poor?” Better headline: “Is The New York Times Racist, or Just Ignorant?”
 @ZoeSCarpenter: The infuriating irony of the designation “pro-life”: groups sue to keep poor Ohioans uninsured.
 @gzornick: Too many reporters refuse to think through the horrors of the Iraq War. Those now comparing it to a hinky website still haven’t learned.
 @aurabogado: Our schools have become literal battlegrounds in the so-called debate over the Second Amendment. 
 @MiriMarkow: Why yes, that was me editing with an eyebrow pencil on the subway this morning!
…

Marijuana is indeed a gateway drug,” quips
Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies. “It’s a gateway drug to the Oval Office!” Indeed. From Bill Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale it” through George W. Bush’s “I was young and foolish” to Barack Obama’s teen years in the Choom Gang (“I inhaled frequently—
that was the point”), the last three presidents have more or less owned up to breaking America’s drug laws.
 All of them were elected. Then re-elected.
 This raises obvious questions: If Clinton, Bush and Obama, ex–pot smokers all, were deemed responsible enough to lead the world’s most powerful nation, largest economy and strongest military (with thousands of nukes), why are we still arresting young men and women—especially young African-Americans and Latinos—for doing what these men did? Why do countless people…

The candidate confronts a dark chapter in US history.
 As a young adult, Warren Wilhelm Jr. became so alienated from his moody, alcoholic father that he adopted his childhood nickname, Bill, and his mother’s surname, de Blasio. The recent discovery that Warren Wil­­helm Sr.’s government career was truncated in the 1950s by allegations of disloyalty to the United States may help de Blasio come to terms with his ­troubled family history. More significant for us, de Blasio’s candidacy for New York City mayor presents an opportunity for Americans to confront the enduring legacy of the Red Scare—and to consider the possibility of escaping its shadow. 
 Warren Wilhelm met Maria de Blasio in 1939 when both were on the editorial staff at Time. Recent graduates of Yale and Smith, they…

In 1990, Paul Butler was a federal prosecutor in Washington, DC, when he was arrested for a crime he did not commit. The ordeal led him to question his career, a topic he discusses in his book Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice. Today, he is a leading proponent of jury nullification, encouraging jurors to refuse to convict guilty people on nonviolent drug charges. I spoke with Butler over the phone in October. The interview has been edited for clarity and condensed.—Liliana Segura
 LS: You once made your living urging jurors to send drug offenders to jail. Now you say they should refuse to convict. Explain.
 PB: My values have remained consistent. I’ve always been concerned about making communities whole and especially protecting African-American communities. I started out…

On October 24, two institutions held parties to celebrate their birthdays: Dissent, the quarterly journal of democratic socialism, was turning sixty, and the Center for American Progress, the center-left Washington think tank, turned ten. The two have little in common except that American liberalism is fortunate to have both in its bullpen. 
 “When intellectuals can do nothing else, they start a magazine,” Irving Howe observed of Dissent’s founding. The fact of so under-financed and under-circulated an intellectual journal surviving without institutional support is a kind of miracle. Looking back, it’s hard to see just what market niche Howe and co-founder Lewis Coser thought they had identified when, in the magazine’s first issue, its founders promised to “reassert the libertarian values of the socialist ideal.” America was hardly on the…