Portside

Reader Comments: Congress Plots to Undermine Retiree Pensions; Is It Bad Enough Yet?; Angela Davis: the unbroken line of police violence; James Baldwin on Racism; LAWCHA's Teacher/Public Sector Initiative; #BlackLivesMatter Takes the Field; They Fear and The Kill; Thousands March to Protest Police Brutality; Torture - Senate Report, Lessons from Latin America; Trade; Chanukah 2014; CELEBRATING CHARLIE HADEN memorial and celebration of his life - New York - Jan. 13

Yesterday Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin declared "now is not the right time" to proceed with any fundamental overhaul of health care financing and delivery in Vermont. He claimed the latest cost estimates for what's known locally as Green Mountain Care (GMC) were higher than originally projected, in a period when "slower recovery from the great recession has tightened the state budget. What Shumlin has championed for nearly five years was "just not affordable" anymore.

This new movement is being led by mostly young black women who won't allow us to forget that black women's lives matter. It is drawing in diverse crowds, including white allies who are not calling for gradual change, but a total end to white supremacy. The movement doesn't look or sound like anything our elders remember(or were taught) about the civil rights era. And that's OK. We have a new fight. We have to create a new model of resistance. Everyone has a role to play

It came from the top and that's never been a secret. The president authorized the building of those CIA "black sites" and the use of what came to be known as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and has spoken of this with a certain pride. The president's top officials essentially put in an order at the Department of Justice for "legal" justifications that would, miraculously, transform those "techniques" into something other than torture. - Tom Engelhardt

Full text of Cuban President Raul Castro address to the Cuban people. "The heroic Cuban people, in the wake of serious dangers, aggressions, adversities and sacrifices has proven to be faithful and will continue to be faithful to our ideals of independence and social justice...As a result of a dialogue...which included a phone conversation...with President Obama, we have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations."

The sheer persistence of police killings of black youth contradicts the assumption that these are isolated aberrations. . . And they, in turn, represent an unbroken stream of racist violence, both official and extra-legal, from slave patrols and the Ku Klux Klan, to contemporary profiling practices and present-day vigilantes.

As you know the response to police violence is going mass. Portside has been faithfully keeping up with the fast-breaking events. If you meant to make a contribution but got caught up in the flurry of action - as we all have - here's a reminder about Portside's purpose and work. We need your help to keep going. We don't intend to stand still. In the next year, we will improve and expand Portside...

On Wednesday, a judge threw out the conviction of George Stinney, who at 14, was the youngest person to be executed in the United States in 1944. In the span of three months he was arrested, convicted of murdering two young girls, and sent to the electric chair.

Both are Ferguson residents and University of Missouri – St. Louis students who chose to put school on hold after Michael Brown Jr.’s death and devote themselves to organizing against police brutality. They founded Millennial Activists United with Ashley Yates – all black women in their 20s – and have since become some of the most prominent faces and voices of the Ferguson movement.

As the Pentagon pursues its program to commemorate the “valor” of US troops in Vietnam which “upheld the highest traditions of our Armed Forces” –as proclaimed by President Obama — we think it is crucial for Americans, and especially young people, to be reminded of the realities of that brutal and unnecessary war.