Portside

The crisis in Mali, Hillary Clinton’s legacy, and why Obama has not closed Guantanamo Bay prison.

Here come the contract demands that the Philadelphia School District would like to cram down the throat of the city's unionized school teachers. The so-called City of Brotherly Love is on the brink of setting a new standard in squeezing middle- class workers to death. It's not like we haven't seen this story before: Working men and women asked to take a sizable pay cut...and work longer hours...and pay more for shrinking benefits.

Margrit Adler Pittman, an activist journalist with a lifelong commitment to the fight for peace, democracy and social and economic justice, died February 4 in New York City at the age of 93.

Recent Problems with Portside Delivery. Readers' Comments on: Roots of Poverty; Israel, Palestine and the Oscars; Friday Nite Videos; `Demographics' Are Not Simply Passive Numbers; Do You Know Genetics; Big Labor's Lock 'Em Up Mentality; Oscar Nominee `Invisible War'; Portside should use Facebook page more. Announcements - upcoming events in New York, Bay Area, Chicago and Washington, DC

Repeal Sequestration to Disarm Hostage Takers

"It no longer surprises me when extremist state legislators try to restrict our voting rights. I don't like it and we fight against it, but I'm no longer surprised by it." "What surprises and outrages me is that yesterday a Supreme Court Justice said that the protection of the right to vote is a 'perpetuation of racial entitlement.'" Benjamin Jealous, President and CEO, NAACP

The Big Loser? Austerity

Consumer watchdogs, Internet activists and European farmers are gearing up to fight the planned trade agreement between Europe and the United States. Many in Europe are worried that politicians will make backroom deals at the expense of consumers.

A founding member of the Latino Arts Movement, Hernandez was 'our unofficial poet laureate'

The takeaway from all of this is simple: even the low benchmarks suggested here (one half the average production wage, the poverty level for a family of two, simply recapturing the minimum’s 1968 value) come in at more than $9.00. The benchmarks that actually sustain the value of the minimum or tie it to economic growth over time come in at close to twice that.