Innehållsförteckning för July 2/9, 2018 från The Nation

Ever since Cynthia Nixon announced her long-shot campaign to become New York’s next governor, the current incumbent has been a changed man. Not only has Andrew Cuomo publicly reconsidered his longtime opposition to legalizing marijuana and issued an executive order restoring voting rights to felons who have been released on parole, he also spoke out against the wave of federal immigration raids across the state. After first refusing to endorse a $19 billion plan to overhaul New York City’s crumbling subways, the governor now supports it. Somewhere under a sofa in Albany, he also found a spare $250 million to begin to address New York City’s ongoing public-housing emergency. Thanks to the “Cynthia effect,” Cuomo has even managed to find the political muscle to broker an end to the Independent…

Dear Liza, I fell into an instant and deep connection with a man while on a work trip. I’m happily married, so there’s no chance of a romantic future, but the friendship has been, and is, enlivening. We share many interests, but mostly we have an easy understanding—something slow and patient and unusual in this world. We occasionally talk on the phone about life, and we’re looking forward to having lunch when our paths cross again next month. However, in the gaps between conversations, I’ve come to realize that he might be a fan of Jordan Peterson. He hasn’t mentioned his name, but there have been significant clues. More alarmingly, he has betrayed a thin-skinnedness around sensitive topics like #MeToo and transgender issues. He’s said nothing that’s outright offensive—maybe because…

On May 31, The Stanford Daily published e-mails revealing that Niall Ferguson, the prominent historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, had encouraged a group of Republican students to conduct “opposition research” on a progressive classmate. In his typical pompous fashion, Ferguson proclaimed that “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” and urged his young acolytes to unite against social-justice warriors. Ferguson has since resigned his position with Stanford’s “Cardinal Conversations” series and acknowledged that he needs to “grow up.” But to write this off as a matter of one immature 54-year-old would be to understate the degree to which the conservative movement has embedded itself at Stanford. According to one campus publication, the university recently cleared students to open a branch of Turning Point USA, which attempts…

@thenation.com Mangled Meaning Both D.D. Guttenplan [“Texas Showdown,” June 4/11] and Robert L. Borosage [“Why Primary Fights Are Good for the Democratic Party,” May 11, The Nation.com] mischaracterize my April 23 article in The Daily Beast urging Democrats to avoid ripping each other apart or wasting money on distractions (e.g., Cynthia Nixon’s gubernatorial campaign) when protecting democracy demands a laser-like focus on winning back the House. Contrary to Guttenplan’s critique, I never supported nominating “Rahm clones,” and I didn’t mention, much less back, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s ham-handed (and unsuccessful) effort to drive Laura Moser from a House race in Texas. I did write about a potentially serious problem in certain California congressional districts, where too many Democratic primary candidates might split the vote and allow Republicans to finish…

17 Estimated number of workers killed during the construction of World Cup stadiums in Russia -13ºF Temperature at which the laborers were still required to work at World Cup sites 110 Minimum number of North Korean slaves forced to help build Krestovsky Stadium in St. Petersburg, according to a Norwegian soccer magazine 42% Percentage of the 12 World Cup stadiums that have seen worker protests over unpaid wages since 2016 $11B Estimated amount that Russia has spent so far on World Cup infrastructure 0 Number of workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch who had seen any labor inspections or monitoring…

“There must be a way to make abortion rights be about love,” the journalist Anthea McTeirnan said to me when we met in Dublin in 2015, just before Ireland’s referendum on marriage equality. Same-sex marriage was going to win big, she believed, because the campaign was all about love and compassion and inclusion, not just abstract legal rights. People could see that their friends and neighbors and relatives simply wanted to express their commitment to their partners the way straight people do. The campaign reflected that spirit, full of joy and humor; its guiding spirit was the sweet and popular drag queen and bar owner Panti Bliss. And, as it turned out, McTeirnan was right: That May, the referendum won by 62 to 38 percent, making Ireland the first country…

Back in January, German Chancellor Angela Merkel entertained the press corps with tales of a bizarre non-negotiation she’d conducted with British Prime Minister Theresa May. “Make me an offer,” May kept telling Merkel. To which Merkel would reply: “But you’re leaving—we don’t have to make you an offer. Come on, what do you want?” To which May would retort: “Make me an offer.” Five months later, Britain’s negotiating position has, if anything, become weaker. As though chiding a toddler (Merkel is said to have referred to the UK as the European Union’s “problem child”), an EU official recently complained, “The precondition for fruitful discussions has to be that the UK accepts the consequences of its own choices.” The British government’s buffoonish approach to Brexit has left two overarching impressions. The…

WITH ITS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS LAVISHED ON HUNDREDS OF weapon systems, the US defense budget has itself become a weapon of mass destruction, decimating our social programs and infrastructure. Republicans have no problem with this arrangement. Democrats, however, are afraid to challenge these military expenditures for fear of being labeled “soft.” They need not worry. Our latest research shows that not only can Democrats oppose excessive defense spending without fear, but they will benefit politically by doing so. The progressive position on America’s wars, military spending, and nuclear weapons outpolls the conservative position by as much as three to one. We, not the conservatives, have the winning message. Right now, the United States spends an estimated $1.2 trillion per year on defense. This includes the Pentagon budget, supplemental appropriations for…

In June’s Supreme Court decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, baker Jack Phillips won absolution from legal liability for refusing to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple. On the surface, the 7-2 ruling, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, appears not to be the disaster that many LGBTQ advocates feared. The decision is limited to the specific facts of this case, in which the majority found that the statements of some of Colorado’s civil-rights commissioners, along with the commission’s treatment of discrimination claims brought by another person in an unrelated case, were evidence of government “hostility” to Phillips’s religion. Without those particular facts, a different case could lead to a different result. But while the decision isn’t a sweeping exemption from antidiscrimination laws, it’s hardly a…

In a stinging rebuke to Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, the EPA’s official Science Advisory Board voted almost unanimously on May 31 to review several of Pruitt’s most consequential actions to dismantle US climate policy. The group’s meeting was the first since Pruitt instituted a rule last year barring scientists who receive EPA funding from serving on the board. Pruitt subsequently appointed 18 new members, several of whom came from industry groups or had long histories of opposing EPA regulations. To the surprise of many environmental advocates (and likely Pruitt himself), over a third of those who requested the review were Pruitt’s own appointees. The Science Advisory Board—which includes public-health academics, environmental specialists, and a fossil-fuel executive—said it had received insufficient information regarding the science behind six key regulatory…

THE SYMBOLISM COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE STARK: ON THE OPENING MORNING OF THE NEW YORK State Democratic Party Convention at Hofstra University in May, the progressive caucus had been relegated to a curtained-off area that fit fewer than half the folks who showed up. There were no microphones, and speakers had to yell to be heard. Nearby, hired acts practiced their routines; for a while, a gospel choir soared. Across the way, the party’s powerful executive committee began its meeting in a much roomier space. They had multiple microphones, and their voices boomed over those addressing the progressive faithful. Against this backdrop, upstart gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon strained to make the case that she deserved to have her name put on the primary ballot to challenge two-term incumbent Andrew…