Portside

“Taking away local control over wages (and a range of other pro-worker, pro-environment, and pro-civil rights policies) has become a major priority of ALEC, a corporate-backed group with extensive lobbying resources and influence in our state legislatures,” according to an National Employment Law Project statement. “ALEC drafts “model” minimum wage preemption bills for conservative legislatures to simply copy and paste.”

Death of notorious leader known as ‘CIA’s man in Panama’ announced by President Juan Carlos Varela on Twitter

Through much of the United States, Washington is viewed with deep suspicion. When unconnected with a higher purpose, said Augustine, the state is nothing more than highway robbery on a larger scale. (2) When was the last time the American state seemed connected to higher purpose? This sensibility is acute in the rust belt, with our towering hulks of shuttered steel mills, machine shops, auto assembly plants and so on.

Voters in Flint, Michigan "wouldn't ask you about Russia and Jared Kushner," said Turner. "They want to know how they are gonna get some clean water and why some 8,000 people are about to lose their homes"

Portland heroes; Manchester: Islamophobia; Manchester: sexism; ‘Counterterror’ at Standing Rock; Federalist Society cracks down; Islamophobes plan June 10 rallies

Israel is not my birthright writes a U.S. Jewish author, raised to think the country was ours by divine right. But this horror in Gaza has challenged even my deepest beliefs. The Haaretz' Gaza reporter, daughter of Holocaust survivors, writes, 'If victory is measured by the success at causing lifelong trauma to 1.8 million people (and not for the first time) waiting to be executed any moment - then the victory is yours.'

In my visits to Israel I've met with and been at demonstrations with the thousands of both Palestinian and Israeli activists who know that Israel is at a turning point, that it faces a clear choice. They assert that it is exactly with one's enemies that one negotiates to find peace. Americans - Jewish or not and whether we wish to or not - have the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that Israel makes the right choice. The United States is not a bystander.

Kids who identify with the hero of J.K. Rowling's popular fantasy novels hold more open-minded attitudes toward immigrants and gays.

Kiev's siege of the Donbass, supported by the Obama administration, is escalating an already perilous crisis.

Reader Comments - Gaza, Israel, Palestine and the Jewish Community; Water Privatization; Charlie Haden; McDonald's and Low-wage Workers; Portside Book Reviews; Koch Bros.; Universal Soldier; Argentina; HIV; NSA, spying and Saudi Arabia; Public Education; Market Basket Revolt; Immigration Reform Infographic; new poems by Tom Karlson and Alan Gilbert; Afro-American Artists to Present Works in Cuba; Sinéad O'Connor: 'I Won't Play in Israel'