Portside

As negotiators begin the 13th round of talks to close the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’s (TTIP) deal, new revelations surfaced regarding Chevron Oil’s attempts to incorporate Investor State Dispute Settlement Courts into the TTIP. These panels threaten national sovereignty because they can rule against a country’s social or environmental laws, if they are deemed to have reduced profits below those projected at the time of the investment.

Milwaukee poet Phyllis Wax throws a cold eye on this year's election: her conclusion is chilling.

When I began my academic career over forty years ago, the idea that a sea change from Andrew Jackson to Harriet Tubman would happen within my lifetime, that my students would come to college familiar with not only Harriet Tubman—but also Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Jacobs—seemed unimaginable. The forgotten voices of women, particularly women of color, are being recovered.

Socialism isn’t the negation of liberalism. It’s the realization of liberal values made impossible by capitalism.

Campaign finance reform, long a lonely political backwater frequented only by good government groups, is suddenly becoming a hot new address for some of this year’s candidates. Whether that will lead to a vibrant new political community remains the open question.

John Oliver: Puerto Rico. Bernie Challenges Dems. Pres. Obama's Language Games. How Did Life Begin on Earth? Samantha Bee | Twenty-Dollar Tubman.

This was written by educator Dave Stovall shortly after Trump was run out of Chicago earlier this year in March and serves as an important reminder: White supremacy predates and will last well beyond Trump. This is not a strange blip in the annals of U.S. history. It is in its foundation. This piece appeared originally on Beacon Broadside.

In the period between the world wars, Stefan Zweig was among the world's best-known authors. His books would soon fuel Nazi bonfires. Zweig held that humanity could no longer afford the belligerent nationalism that had led them into the Great War. Yet Zweig was struck dumb by post 1933 events. That failure, the reviewer says, was of imagination, not nerve. Against the Nazis' depredations, all the consummate writer and speaker could muster was nostalgia for a lost world.

Reader Comments: Puerto Rican Coalition Against Debt Formed; Verizon Strike; Sanders, Hillary and a Revitalized Left; Sanders Allies - June Conference - Future of the Movement; Beyoncé's Lemonade; Harriet Tubman currency; and more; Announcements: Ways to Justice - Perspectives on Nonviolence, Civil Resistance and Self Defense; ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism - 80th Annual Celebration Abraham Lincoln Brigade; Rise of the Right forum (California and New York)

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis revealed for the first time how days after he resigned, the Troika effectively abolished a unit he had set up to combat tax evasion. European Commission (EC) President Jean-Claude Junker led the efforts to prevent Greece from collecting taxes. Junker was Minister of Finance and later Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1989 to 2013. Varoufakis called Luxembourg the largest tax haven in the world.