Portside

Output growth at the nation’s factories has [...] been weak since 2000. And though automation undoubtedly has displaced some workers in manufacturing, research suggests that persistent trade deficits and America’s decline as a location for production have accounted for much of the sector’s job loss. Boosting exports or reducing imports enough to bring trade into balance would generate 4.2 million jobs directly and another 2.1 million jobs indirectly.

The immediate threat poor blacks face today in Jackson comes from outside developers and speculators with the resources to move in and take over their neighborhoods.

The dramatic and widening gap in household wealth along racial lines in the United States reflects policies and institutional practices that create different opportunities for whites and African-Americans. Personal ambition and behavioral choices are but a small part of the equation.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!; Progressive Budget, Ryan Budget and economic inequality; General Motors; Supreme Court McCutcheon decision; USAID, Twitter and Cuba; Ukraine

The vast middle class and poor don't have enough purchasing power, as 95 percent of the economy's gains go to the top 1 percent. Some wealthy people and big corporations have a strangle-hold on our politics. "McCutcheon" makes that strangle-hold even tighter. Connect the dots and you see how the big-money takeover of our democracy has lead to an economy that's barely functioning for most Americans.

I remain forever hopeful that, like the nonviolent efforts that have preceded it, the BDS movement will ultimately become a catalyst for honest peace and reconciliation for all our brothers and sisters, both Palestinian and Israeli, in the Holy Land.

The tide is turning, but we need stronger executive action to end our country’s unjust deportation policy.