Portside

Bank of America and the other giant banks have set their predatory sights on the 25 percent of U.S. residents who rely on the unregulated system of payday lenders, check cashing joints, and pawnshops for their financial services. While the giant banks see an opportunity for maximizing profit, others say this population would best be served by banking through a non-profit institution such as the U.S. Postal Service.

The Environmental Protection Agency, the government agency charged with safeguarding the country's health from environmental pollutants, pursues criminal charges in “fewer than one-half of one percent” of total legal violations. And the U.S. Justice Department has an even worse record. Consequently, all corporate violators, even repeat offenders and those involved in the illegal release of large amounts of dangerous toxic chemicals, escape criminal prosecution.

Hundreds of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are worried about what’s being called the new Agent Orange: open air burn pits. Burn pits are open-air areas where the US military burned water bottles and plastic-foam cups, as well as human and medical waste. In a survey of some 2,000 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, three-quarters reported being exposed to burn pits and half said they have "symptoms associated with that exposure."

Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is gone but Libya is now more dangerous than ever. Where are the NATO Alliance "liberators" that facilitated the demise of the Libyan dictator's regime and left the country to the fate of warring militias and tribal warlords? Libya desperately needs viable political institutions and a credible security apparatus but "none of the 'liberators' seem interested any more."

There are fundamental differences in the way right-wingers and left-wingers understand poverty.

Reader Comments - Gaza, Israel, Palestine and the Jewish Community; Water Privatization; Charlie Haden; McDonald's and Low-wage Workers; Portside Book Reviews; Koch Bros.; Universal Soldier; Argentina; HIV; NSA, spying and Saudi Arabia; Public Education; Market Basket Revolt; Immigration Reform Infographic; new poems by Tom Karlson and Alan Gilbert; Afro-American Artists to Present Works in Cuba; Sinéad O'Connor: 'I Won't Play in Israel'

Kiev's siege of the Donbass, supported by the Obama administration, is escalating an already perilous crisis.

Kids who identify with the hero of J.K. Rowling's popular fantasy novels hold more open-minded attitudes toward immigrants and gays.

In my visits to Israel I've met with and been at demonstrations with the thousands of both Palestinian and Israeli activists who know that Israel is at a turning point, that it faces a clear choice. They assert that it is exactly with one's enemies that one negotiates to find peace. Americans - Jewish or not and whether we wish to or not - have the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that Israel makes the right choice. The United States is not a bystander.

Israel is not my birthright writes a U.S. Jewish author, raised to think the country was ours by divine right. But this horror in Gaza has challenged even my deepest beliefs. The Haaretz' Gaza reporter, daughter of Holocaust survivors, writes, 'If victory is measured by the success at causing lifelong trauma to 1.8 million people (and not for the first time) waiting to be executed any moment - then the victory is yours.'