Portside

How did the biggest-ever mobilization of fast-food workers come about, and what is its endgame?

Yes, this is a politically difficult moment for President Obama. But everyone needs to chill out.

Report by New York attorney general is first detailed examination of policy deemed unconstitutional earlier this year

Most scientific fields have been made over with a revolutionary theory at least once in recent centuries. Such makeovers, or paradigm shifts, reorder old knowledge into a new framework. Revolutionary theories succeed when the new framework makes it possible to solve problems that stymied the previous intellectual regime. Here are my favorite revolutions. I’m hoping for more before I die.

Socialist candidate, Kshama Sawant has a 1,000 vote lead for a City Council seat in Seattle Washington. The Working Families Party could have been a viable progressive force, but only if it stayed consistent in its own agenda.

If the Tea Party is going for a smaller party that's more pure, they're not necessarily deterred by getting beaten. [With incidents like the shutdown,] they just feel like they got sold out, so they redouble their efforts. At some point, this process will curdle on itself and collapse, but I don't think we've reached that point yet. I think the Tea Party's going to keep fighting. If the Republican caucus in Iowa for president was next week, I think Ted Cruz would win it.

A Supreme Court case being argued could take away a tactic that's kept unions alive. The case, Unite Here Local 355 v. Mulhall, involves the constitutionality of "card check neutrality agreements" between unions and companies they're trying to organize. The case now facing Antonin Scalia and company could be "the most significant labor case in a generation."