Portside

• Cornell  --  Cartoon by Rob Rogers

• Re: Why French Students Are Revolting  (Rob Prince)

• Re: The Dilemmas of Socialist Governance of a Capitalist State  (Lewis Grupper)

• Re: The Road to Universal Medicare  (Marilyn Albert)

• We’re self-policing  --  Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

• Re: SUNDAY SCIENCE: SUPERPOWERS RACE TO PUT NUCLEAR REACTORS ON THE MOON  (Mark)

• Re: Regime Change  (Eleanor Roosevelt)

• Measles...and Parents  --  Cartoon by Emily Flake

• But it would be wrong, that’s for sure  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman

• The Cornell Seven  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson

Resources:

• Statement From Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on the Third Anniversary of October 7

• New York Times Bestselling Authors Call for the Release of Palestinian Leader Marwan Barghouti  (Free Marwan Now)

• Watch NAZA

Announcements:

• Hands Off Cuba - Let Cuba Live - Stop the Genocide - Virtual Meeting - October 11 (Labor-Community Alliance of South Florida, Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba, People's Progressive Caucus of Miami-Dade)

• Sounds of Solidarity: A Benefit Concert for Palestine - Jersey City - October 25  (MECA - Middle East Children's Alliance)
  
  
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  Cornell  --  Cartoon by Rob Rogers

Rob Rogers
October 6, 2026
https://robrogers.com
 

 Re: Why French Students Are Revolting
 

C'est tout aussi grave ici, aux États-Unis.

   It's just as serious here, in the United States.

Rob Prince
Posted on Portside's Facebook page
 

Re: The Dilemmas of Socialist Governance of a Capitalist State
 

I really enjoyed your latest article in Portside “The Dilemmas of Socialist Governance of a Capitalist State.” Your praise for Zohran Mamdani’s and DSA’s electoral success is tight on the money. I agree with about 95% of your article.  One area of disagreement is your call for a “revolutionary rupture” (eventually).  Your excellent advice that the dogmas of the past will not serve us is prescient.  Unfortunately those of us trained in Leninism may still cling to remnants of those dogmas. I hope Bernie Sanders’ Campaigns for President (following in Eugene V. Debs’ footsteps) has dispelled many of those illusions.  But that “revolutionary rupture” at a time where the Left is nowhere near that stage will just isolate us from the working class we need to win.

Lewis Grupper

Re: The Road to Universal Medicare
 

Portside recently posted an article by Robert Kuttner claiming that what I call "small steps" such as the Public Option, or Medicare Buy In, will lead to a high quality universal guaranteed health system for all.

Two experts on Medicare for All, responded to Kuttner in the Health Justice Monitor article cited above - Drs. Hank Abrons and James Kahn - a physician and a leading health economist.

Many other activists in the movement for Improved Medicare for All/single payer health care will disagree with Kuttner - we want a one-tier, one risk pool, equal access, improved care system. We don't want "different strokes for different folks"!

Marilyn Albert
Retired Nurse
https://www.healthjusticemonitor.org/whats-wrong-with-medicare-public-option/

We’re self-policing  --  Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

 

Mike Luckovich
September 30, 2026
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 

Re: SUNDAY SCIENCE: SUPERPOWERS RACE TO PUT NUCLEAR REACTORS ON THE MOON
 

The New York Times:

The United States wants a reactor on the moon by 2030. A Russian-Chinese alliance is working on one for 2036. Some leading scientists say the danger is great.

Stop. I expect far, far more from the NYT than this idiocy that's fit for the old National Enquirer.

"An explosion or a meltdown on the moon’s surface would risk turning entire regions into no-go zones."

The author clearly has never set foot into a science class. They appear to think the Moon has an atmosphere, and a strong magnetic field, that filters out the immense radiation from the Sun. Even noticing the radiation after a meltdown would barely raise the radiation level already there.

mark

Re: Regime Change
 

That Trump coin looks like something they'd give away at a Shell station in 1966. And is worth as much.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

Measles...and Parents  --  Cartoon by Emily Flake
 

Emily Flake
February 2, 2015
The New Yorker
 

But it would be wrong, that’s for sure  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman
 

Jack Ohman
October 6, 2026
Jack Ohman's You Betcha!
 

The Cornell Seven  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson
 

Donald Trump returned to the White House carrying something unusual for an American president: a civil jury verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse.

But Trump isn’t the only prominent figure in his political orbit to have faced allegations of sexual assault or misconduct. Several men Trump has nominated, appointed or selected for powerful positions—including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and former attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz—have faced allegations or findings involving sexual misconduct.

In Trump’s case, there’s an actual civil verdict. A federal jury found in 2023 that Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll and defamed her. The Supreme Court declined in June 2026 to hear Trump’s appeal, leaving the $5 million verdict intact. Trump has denied Carroll’s allegation, but 27 other women have also accused him of sexual misconduct. The pattern seems pretty clear.

Then there’s Hegseth. Before Trump selected him to run the Pentagon, Hegseth had been accused of sexually assaulting a woman following a Republican women’s conference in Monterey, California, in 2017. Police investigated but no charges were filed. Hegseth told police the encounter was consensual and has denied sexually assaulting the woman. Trump nominated him anyway. The Senate confirmed him, and he now oversees roughly 1.3 million active-duty military personnel.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, was accused by a former family babysitter, Eliza Cooney, of groping her in the late 1990s. Kennedy said he had no memory of the alleged incident and subsequently sent Cooney a text apologizing for anything he may have done that made her uncomfortable. He, too, was confirmed.

The pattern extends back to Trump’s first term.

Brett Kavanaugh was accused by Christine Blasey Ford of sexually assaulting her when the two were teenagers. Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegation. Deborah Ramirez separately accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her while they were students at Yale, which he also denied.

After one of the most contentious Supreme Court confirmation battles in modern history, Kavanaugh was confirmed 50-48.

And then there’s Matt Gaetz. Trump selected the former Florida congressman to become attorney general after the 2024 election. Gaetz withdrew before confirmation, but the bipartisan House Ethics Committee subsequently released its investigation.

Its findings went considerably beyond an unsubstantiated allegation. The committee said there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz regularly paid women for sex and had sex with a 17-year-old girl in 2017, which the committee concluded violated Florida’s statutory-rape law. Gaetz denied having sex with a minor and has denied wrongdoing. A separate Justice Department investigation ended without criminal charges.

So the common denominator isn’t that all these men were proved guilty of sexual assault. It’s that allegations or findings of serious sexual misconduct repeatedly failed to disqualify men Trump wanted in positions of extraordinary power. That represents a significant change from the political assumptions of an earlier era, when merely facing a serious allegation could derail a nomination.

With Trump, the allegations themselves have increasingly become part of the confirmation fight rather than an automatic end to it.

Hegseth is perhaps the clearest example. Senators knew about the 2017 sexual-assault allegation during his confirmation process. The police investigation and Hegseth’s denial were publicly available. The Senate considered them, and confirmed him anyway.

Kennedy’s allegation was also public before he entered Trump’s Cabinet.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings became nationally televised examinations of Ford’s allegation.

And Gaetz was selected to become the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer despite a long-running House Ethics investigation into allegations that included sexual misconduct. The committee’s findings became public only after he withdrew.

In Trump’s political movement, sexual-misconduct allegations that once might have ended a nominee’s prospects have repeatedly become obstacles to overcome rather than barriers to office, and perhaps nothing illustrates that transformation better than the man making the appointments.

The president selecting nominees accused of sexual misconduct is himself a man whom a federal jury found liable for sexual abuse. Given his track record, he seems to see it more as a qualification rather than an impediment.

Nick Anderson
October 6, 2026
Pen Strokes
 

Statement From Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on the Third Anniversary of October 7
 

October 7, 2026
NYC Official website

Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani released the following statement on the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks:

This day is profoundly painful for so many New Yorkers. It marks three years since the horrific war crimes of October 7. On that day, Hamas killed more than 1,100 Israelis and abducted 251 others. We grieve alongside our many friends and neighbors who still carry that unthinkable loss.

The suffering did not begin nor end that day. It instead continued through the Israeli government’s devastating, ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which it has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians—including more than 21,000 children. Even since the so-called ceasefire, more than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed. That suffering has intensified with every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing. Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them—all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes.

Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.

To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.

###

Media Contact: 
pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov

New York Times Bestselling Authors Call for the Release of Palestinian Leader Marwan Barghouti
 

“We express our grave concern at the continuing imprisonment of Marwan Barghouti, his violent mistreatment and denial of legal rights whilst imprisoned. We call upon the United Nations and the Governments of the World to actively seek the release of Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prison.”

Signed:

Margaret Atwood
Kaliane Bradley
Rob Delaney
Stephen Fry
Mohsin Hamid
Johann Hari
Marlon James
Rupi Kaur
Rashid Khalidi
Lily King
Naomi Klein
Gabor Maté
Colin Meloy
David Nicholls
Philip Pullman
Sally Rooney
Arundhati Roy
Zadie Smith
Colm Tóibín
Oliver Jeffers

Join the campaign, @FreeMarwanNow

#NYT #NYTBESTSELLERS #NEWYORKTIMES #booktok

Post created by: Free Marwan Now - The International Campaign to #FreeMarwan Barghouti and all Palestinian political prisoners

Watch NAZA
 

Hands Off Cuba - Let Cuba Live - Stop the Genocide - Virtual Meeting - October 11 (Labor-Community Alliance of South Florida, Miami Coalition to End the U.S. Blockade of Cuba, People's Progressive Caucus of Miami-Dade)

 

Register here https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/GQsdAJbNRCOd8Ic5VBn3pQ#/registration

Sounds of Solidarity: A Benefit Concert for Palestine - Jersey City - October 25  (MECA - Middle East Children's Alliance)
 

Sounds of Solidarity: A Benefit Concert for Palestine

Featuring: The Palestinian Youth Choir & Musical Guests

On Sunday October 25, 2026, join us at Grace Church Van Vorst for a benefit concert in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

For over three years, Gaza has endured relentless bombardment, displacement, and blockade, with children bearing the heaviest toll. Tens of thousands of children have been killed, orphaned, and cut off from food, clean water, and medical care. The devastation has stretched far beyond the immediate loss of life as entire families have been erased, homes and hospitals reduced to rubble, and an entire generation left to grow up amid trauma, grief, and uncertainty about what, if anything, will be left to return to.

Every dollar from your ticket purchase goes directly to the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), which provides humanitarian aid, medical relief, and support for children and families in Gaza and across Palestine.

Sounds of Solidarity is sponsored by:

• CFN NJ
• VP NNJ
• NJ Peace Action
• 4 Falasteen NJ
• Palestinian American Community Center
• Young Vision Africa

Musical Lineup:

The Palestinian Youth Choir
Con Vivo Music
Poppies 4 Palestine
Special Guests

Doors open at 3:30. Concert runs from 4:00-6:00 PM.

Join us for an afternoon of music, community, and solidarity.

If you are unable to join but still want to make a contribution, please use the "additional donation" field to do so. You may make an additional donation without purchasing a ticket. All donations and tickets are tax deductible.

If you would like to join but cannot afford any of the listed tiered ticket prices, please email us at meerajaffrey7@gmail.com so we can arrange a ticket for you. 
For tickets click here