160 Americans To Take Protest Trip To Cuba

demonstrators holding Venceremos Brigade banner
Brigadistas will return to the U.S. to educate their communities about the realities seen and experienced in Cuba, and to advocate for the end of the blockade and travel ban, the return of occupied Guantánamo Bay, and truly normal relations.

A Trump Plan to Throw 55,000 Children Out of Their Home

Children sitting on a balcony
A proposed rule would strip housing benefits from U.S. citizens if they’re found to have family members with the wrong immigration status.

What Sanctions Mean for My Iranian-American Family

Iranian market
Whether it’s Cuba or Venezuela or Iran, history shows that sanctions alone have never forced a change in policy by an adversary. Iranians and Americans alike deserve diplomacy, not war — and that includes war by economic means.

Manning’s Daily Fines For Grand Jury Resistance: $1000

If Manning “persists in her refusal” for the next 15 months or until the grand jury’s term ends, her legal team says she will face a total amount of fines that is over $440,000. This excessive amount may violate her Eighth Amendment rights...

The American Dark Money Behind Europe’s Far Right

politican kissing rosary
A recent openDemocracy investigation found that America’s Christian right spent at least $50 million of “dark money” to fund campaigns and advocacy in Europe over the past decade.

Debating the Origin of Cell Types in the First Animals

Theories about how animals became multicellular are shifting as researchers find greater complexity in our single-celled ancestors.

The Lasalin Massacre and Human Rights Crisis in Haiti

It is our finding, based upon our investigation, that the Lasalin massacre was directed and facilitated by the Moise/ PHTK government.

Fascist Ideology and Italian Nature Conservation

[T]ransforming the countryside was not merely a patriotic activity but explicitly a military one in which the enemy was nature itself.

What School Segregation Looks like in the US Today

White students have lower exposure to students of other races than any other group of students. The typical white student attends a school that is 69% white.

Jackie Robinson: ‘I Cannot Stand and Sing the Anthem.’

“The fact that it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality, and lynching when it happens doesn’t change the truth of his charges."
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Culture

food

Iowa Crops Look Like Food — But No One’s Eating

Mark Bittman Heated: by Medium and Mark Bittman
Inside a system that traps farmers and screws up the planet Iowa is unrecognizable from centuries ago, when Europeans took the land for themselves. What were prairie and wetlands are now neatly partitioned grids of intensely cultivated land: the model for the farm as factory.

poetry

Leaves of Crass

Jeff Balch Evanston Round Table
Illinois poet Jeff Balch takes some liberties with Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” turning the verse into something like the voice of our president, if he were poetic.

The Smoked Paprika Museum in Spain Honors a Family Tradition

Jennifer Billock Smithsonian Magazine
Smoked paprika, the finished product. In Extremadura, entire families participate in harvesting peppers and making smoked paprika. A museum in Jaraiz de la Vera honors the Hernández family and others in the region who have been instrumental in the production of the spice.

Labor

labor

The Soul of a Union Man

Leo Gerard Daily Kos
I learned two important lessons when young. One was that the company would do nothing for the workers unless forced by collective action. The other was that labor unions were instruments of both economic and social justice.

labor

Hector Figueroa, Union Leader With Impact, Dies at 57

Patrick McGeehan The New York Times
Hector Figueroa, who as president of one of the country’s most influential labor unions led successful campaigns for better pay and working conditions for thousands of low-wage workers, died on Thursday at his home in Jackson Heights, Queens.

labor

Organize 100,000 New Workers in 5 Years? UNITE HERE Says It Will

Andrew Wallender Bloomberg Law Daily Labor Report
UNITE HERE set an ambitious organizing goal at its convention. The union also pledged to get more of its members elected into political office, increase retirement security, and build a culture of inclusion and partnership within its ranks.

Friday nite video

video

AOC Grills Trump Official on Secret Border Patrol Facebook Group

‘You don’t think that having 10,000 officers in a violent, racist group sharing rape memes of members of Congress points to any concern?’ — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) pressed the DHS sec after he denied a culture of dehumanization within Border Patrol.

video

COVFEFE - Grounds for Impeachment

In preparation for Mueller testimony before Congress, we present Roy Zimmerman's explanation of the real meaning of the mysterious Covfefe tweet

video

The Dark Side of the Moon Mission

“For that kind of money,” Kurt Vonnegut cracked on the CBS Evening News about the Apollo 11 moon landing, “the least NASA can do is discover God.” At the time of the mission, civil rights activists, anti-Vietnam War protesters and even top scientists were skeptical of its purpose and doubtful of its value. Contributions of women and black people like test pilot Ed Dwight were diminished and buried for years. Nostalgia lends itself to glossing over the protest and unrest of the time.

video

Bernie Sanders Sits Down With Rachel Maddow

Senator Bernie Sanders talks with Rachel Maddow about the overwhelming audiences for his campaign events, the exhausting pace of the campaign, and spontaneous generation of as many as 200,000 grassroots volunteers nationwide helping spread the word