Portside

The US war in Afghanistan, this country’s longest war, cannot be won. Nonetheless, the Trump Administration is reportedly considering deploying an additional 3,000 to 5,000 more soldiers in Afghanistan, while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, announced this week it is also considering increasing troop strength by “a few thousand troops.” The human and financial costs continue to mount but the generals can’t see defeat and the war corporations see only profit.

In 1925 a Tennessee teacher of biology named Thomas Scopes was tried for teaching the theory of evolution. An expert witness at the trial relates how evolution lost in court but won in the eyes of the nation.

The new Quinnipiac poll also shows the president's favorable rating dropping to a new low of 35 percent. The percentage of Americans who strongly approve of him is tied for an all-time low at 25 percent.

My grandfather, Henry A. Wallace was asked to write about "The Danger of American Fascism." And in my view, he predicted President Trump.

Kris Kobach is the GOP mastermind behind a secretive system that purged 1.1 million Americans from the voter rolls.

Elizabeth Warren: Trump Fires the Investigators. John Lee Hooker - Serves Me Right to Suffer. John Oliver | Net Neutrality II. Mother's Day for Peace. Stephen Colbert Reacts to Trump Calling Him 'A No-Talent Guy'.

Reader Comments: GOP Health Plan = Death Squads; Trump Tax Plan - More for the Rich; It Could Have Been Me (protests then and now); Locked Up for Being Poor; Politics of Questioning the Civil War (and the end of Slavery); Time to Save Net Neutrality; Announcements: Building Bridges Across the Generation Gap: Shared Struggles; Michelle Alexander and Susan Burton; Posters - Reclaim! Remain! Rebuild: Affordable Housing, Gentrification & Resistance; and more...

Voters got a package deal with Trump - the whole clan. First daughter Ivanka who, along with her husband, Jared Kushner, are key political advisers to the president. Both have offices in the White House. They have multiple security clearances, access to high-level leaders whenever they visit, and the perfect formula for the sort of brand-enhancement that now seems to come with such eminence. President Trump sees the Presidency like a business... a family business.

Racism, fascism, and working-class Americans. If you’re looking for Trump’s implacable support, Texas trailer parks and Kentucky cabins are the wrong places to find it. Fascism develops over hands of poker in furnished basements, over the grill by the backyard pool, over beers on the commuter-rail ride back from the ball game—and in police stations and squad cars.

Most Americans know the song “MTA,” popularized by the Kingston Trio in 1959. It’s the one about a “man named Charlie” doomed to “ride forever ’neath the streets of Boston . . . the man who never returned.” What’s forgotten, however, is that the song was originally made for a left-wing political campaign. In 1949, the Boston People’s Artists wrote “MTA” for a left-wing candidate. The song became a hit — the man behind it disappeared.