Portside

1. Reproductive Police
2. Going to Work For ICE
3. Volunteering Against ICE
4. Military Insubordination
5. A Fourth of July Message From 1828
6. Church Corner
7. Flood? What Flood?
8. Movement Building
9. Country Music’s Walls Come A-Tumblin’ Down
10. Affording Meat

Reproductive Police

By Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung
Abortion Everyday

Almost no one is getting an abortion in Indiana. So why pour all this state money, manpower, and energy into policing a tiny handful of abortions? The whole point is to scare the hell out of anyone considering abortion, or helping someone get care. It's about building formal state systems that make pregnancy surveillance and policing look normal. 

Going to Work For ICE

By Yanis Varoufuckice
N+1

The motivating force behind American career fascism would appear to be wanderlust. Granting that the banality of evil, as an explanation, has itself become banal, it was hard to know what else to make of all this. The US is filled with “pretty nice guys” who are ready to inflict, who have already inflicted, senseless and life-shattering violence on innocent, impoverished people.

Volunteering Against ICE

By Julia Lurie
Mother Jones

Fuerza is one of countless rapid response groups that have sprung up to document arrests and warn other immigrants to stay away. In Waltham MA, when someone thinks they see ICE activity, they call a volunteer-staffed hotline run by a statewide immigrant rights group. Flyers for the hotline are everywhere in Massachusetts, online and on the streets.

Military Insubordination

 • Soldiers Are Taking a Stand   By Liza Featherstone, The New Republic

 • Vets Defend the Constitution   By Marc Steiner, The Real News Network

 • Demoralized ICE   By Alexander Willis, Raw Story
 

A Fourth of July Message From 1828

By Mary Giovagnoli
Ms.

Almost 200 years ago, Frances Wright, an early feminist, abolitionist and utopian visionary, gave a Fourth of July address that celebrated true patriotism as the embrace of change, moving always toward the improvement of humanity. 

Church Corner

 • Episcopalians Say Keep the State Separate   By Caleb Maglaya Galaraga, The Living Church

 • Opposing the Christian Zionist Lobby   By Jaisal Noor, Waging Nonviolence

 • Evangelicals Divided Over Immigration   By Marianna Bacallao, NPR

 • UCC: The Prophetic and the Pastoral   By Hans Holznagel, United Church of Christ

 • Pope Leo and Declining Catholicism   By Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY
 

Flood? What Flood?

By Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica

On July 4, the Guadalupe River in Texas rose by more than 26 vertical feet in just 45 minutes. The rapid onset of disruptive climate change — driven by the burning of oil, gasoline and coal — is making disasters like this one more common, more deadly and far more costly to Americans, even as the federal government is running away from the policies and research that might begin to address it.

Movement Building

 • What Do Successful Coalitions Have in Common?   By Maraam A. Dwidar, Convergence

 • Taking Inspiration From Nature   By John Paul Lederach, Waging Nonviolence

 • How Inclusionary Social Movements Succeed   By Colin Greer, Observatory
 

Country Music’s Walls Come A-Tumblin’ Down

 • Beyoncé Claims the Flag   By Darryl Robertson, MSNBC

 • Drunk Ass Country Star Takes Offense   By Althea Legaspi, Rolling Stone

 • Shaboozey Speaks   By Tamara Palmer, Grammy Awards

 • 20 Black Country Hits   By Jacquez Printup, Yardbarker
 

Affording Meat

By Alexandra Emanuelli
Huffpost

With grocery prices sky-high (and set to keep rising thanks to unpredictable tariffs, shipping delays and supply chain gaps), shoppers are rethinking their meat purchases in real time — trading down, buying less or skipping meat altogether.