Portside

It is with deep concern that I write to address the ongoing travesty inflicted on the residents of one small, impoverished community: Uniontown, Perry County, in Alabama's Black Belt. My family has lived in Uniontown for many generations and, as a longtime resident, I have observed with sadness the harmful effects, distress, and heartache Uniontown citizens have experienced since the establishment of Arrowhead Landfill.

In a region known for being among the worst nationally for its air quality, plans are marching briskly forward on a proposed integration project that will combine operations at two sprawling oil refineries near Southern California's Long Beach area, expanding it into the single largest oil refinery by far on the nation's West Coast.

Call it the tale of two pension crises. In June, the Los Angeles Times’ business pages looked at the looming retirement savings disaster caused by the nearly 40-year transition from traditional employer-sponsored defined-benefit pensions to individual 401(k) plans — a sea change in retirement insecurity, it noted, that “has been a failure for all but the wealthiest Americans.”

One week after Hurricane Matthew devastated Haiti, many on social media are suggesting it's time for France to repay its debt to the country.

The ALBA countries outperformed the wealthiest countries in the region during the world’s most serious economic crisis in nearly a century.

Trump’s rigged election lies distract from the real threat to American democracy. You’re more likely to be struck by lightning than impersonate another voter at the polls. The real danger to American democracy stems from GOP efforts to make it harder to vote.

What to expect if Trump loses? More attempts at gridlock, and more anger, and an ever-widening opening for the extremist right to dig their heels further into the GOP.

Assuming that not even Donald Trump can destroy American democracy, the real challenge begins for whoever is sworn in as president on January 20 2017. Americans need more economic security for their enlightened sides to shine through again. This means more good jobs at living wages for men as well as women. Only then can the country begin to close the social chasms revealed and fueled by Trump’s campaign.

The numbers will be clear: downscale whites are a big pool of untapped votes. Yet if a cordon sanitaire is placed around that demographic territory and hung with the notorious label, “Trump Vote,” the Democrats will be even more likely to let the party system drift down its current path: into the culture-war politics of the reactionary Tammany-versus-Klan 1920s, rather than the class-based politics that followed.

In fact, they've been doing scientific research since the days of Florence Nightingale