Portside

The oldest known genome of a modern human solves long-standing puzzles about the New World's genetic heritage.

If today’s extremist rhetoric sounds familiar, that’s because it is eerily, poignantly similar to the vitriol aimed squarely at John F. Kennedy during his presidency. And just like today, Texans were leading what some of them saw as a moral crusade. To find the very roots of the tea party of 2013, just go back to downtown Dallas in 1963, back to the months and weeks leading to the Kennedy assassination.

Progressive organizing was indeed crucial to changing the filibuster, with Senators like Merkley and Udall working the inside game while the outside groups got the public riled up. Many Democratic senators—including Reid—didn’t want to do rules reform back in 2009 when the GOP began its unprecedented obstruction, and it took a lot of convincing.

The conflict in Washington State involves far more than a local dispute over wages and benefits. Boeing appears determined to set the bar higher in its labor relations. As is the trend in much of labor negotiations these days, the bosses have simply decided that moving forward, workers are going to have to forfeit the medical and retirement benefits their unions have previously secured.

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) joins major environmental and development groups in protest action at COP 19 in Warsaw where Governments are not acting responsibly to tackle the threat to lives, jobs and livelihoods that climate change represents.

The university campus workers joining the medical center workers in the ULP strike have also had similar concessions forced on them. Campus workers struck in 2005 and sympathy-struck in May, but this is the first time both groups have struck together. Unionized graduate students, members of UAW 2865, are sympathy-striking this time.

Protests in Los Angeles, Miami, Bay Area, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Sacramento mark Largest Mobilization of Working Families in Recent History. Environmental, Religious, Women's & Immigrants' Rights Groups Join Workers to Call For An End to Illegal Retaliation, $25,000 a Year, Full-Time Work

IF the fundamental issues that are of concern to the great mass of Americans - the collapse of the middle class, growing wealth and income inequality, growth in poverty, global warming - then (big IF), just maybe Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders will run for President in 2016. Both could challenge Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Taxing the wealthy and not cutting but expanding Social Security, could become their rallying cry.