Portside

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a Director’s Decision Friday rejecting an appeal by environmental watchdog groups to suspend operations at the nearly two dozen reactors in the United States that have the same containment system as the ill-fated Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan. Greenpeace charges the NRC is “backing off post-Fukushima fixes at reactors around the country due to fear that added regulatory costs would topple more nuclear plants."

It always looks bad when you criticize a soldier for doing what he's told. It's equally dangerous to be seduced by the pathos and drama of the individual soldier's experience, because most wars are about something much larger than that.

Anti-vaxxers are quite literally turning back the clock on decades of public health progress.

The state’s experts lied—and they got caught.

Increasing inequality and poverty are very far from inevitable. They’re the result of political and economic decisions.

Rhiannon Giddens -- She's Got You. Love Letters to Richard Dawkins. 'Alabama' John Coltrane and Martin Luther King. The History of Vaccines. Majority Retort.

Reader Comments- Jobs and Higher Wages; Boehner, Netanyahu, Israel, Iran; Martin Luter King - radical anti-capitalist; Charlie Hebdo - racism, nationalism, free speech; Broken Criminal Justice system; Social Security, Disability; Erosion of Collective Bargaining = Income Inequality; Podemos; Solidarity Forever; Selma; Guantanamo protest; Roe v. Wade Anniversary; Announcements- Forums- Ending the Embargo of Cuba; After The Greek Elections; March Delegation to Venezuela

The historic resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba could be (and should be) a precedent for a new approach to North Korea - a country three times larger than Cuba, perhaps more strategically sensitive than the latter and involving a nuclear potential that demands serious diplomacy.

Billie Holiday had been effectively murdered by a conspiracy to break her, orchestrated by the narcotics police - but what could she do? At Billie's funeral, there were swarms of police cars, because they feared their actions against her would trigger a riot. In his eulogy for her, the Reverend Eugene Callender said: 'We should not be here. This young lady was gifted by her creator with tremendous talent . . . She should have lived to be at least eighty years old.'

Low income students are now a majority of the schoolchildren attending the nation's public schools, according to this research bulletin. The latest data collected from the states by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), show that 51 percent of the students across the nation's public schools were low income in 2013.