Portside

Mike Casey, who has led San Francisco’s UNITE HERE Local 2 for over 20 years, is stepping down. Casey was first elected president of Local 2 in 1994, after a tumultuous period in the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in large membership losses. He has presided over a period of stabilization, consolidation and growth. Local 2, once known as the Culinary Union for its many restaurant contracts that have long since disappeared, is now better known as the Hotel Union.

The .01 percent includes wealthy individuals from both ends of the political spectrum, but there are relatively few in between and the numbers at the extremes are growing. And more money is coming from the right.

In 2013, for the first time, over half of public school students were low-income—and this poverty growth spurt shows little sign of abating.

Our cultural narrative about bullying presumes that youth who are bullied are at greater risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. But research shows that bullies themselves are at risk as well. Bullying involvement of any stripe is harmful.

German-born co-founder of Lamaze International taught breathing and relaxation techniques to generations of expectant mothers

The world as seen by Jose Guerrero is a world full of injustice and violence, a gritty and reeling place where people nonetheless rise up in resistance, solidarity and joy; where even death itself is vanquished by the grinning skeletal calaveras who continue celebrating life on the other side.

Full text of Cuban President Raul Castro address to the Cuban people. "The heroic Cuban people, in the wake of serious dangers, aggressions, adversities and sacrifices has proven to be faithful and will continue to be faithful to our ideals of independence and social justice...As a result of a dialogue...which included a phone conversation...with President Obama, we have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations."

It came from the top and that's never been a secret. The president authorized the building of those CIA "black sites" and the use of what came to be known as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and has spoken of this with a certain pride. The president's top officials essentially put in an order at the Department of Justice for "legal" justifications that would, miraculously, transform those "techniques" into something other than torture. - Tom Engelhardt

This new movement is being led by mostly young black women who won't allow us to forget that black women's lives matter. It is drawing in diverse crowds, including white allies who are not calling for gradual change, but a total end to white supremacy. The movement doesn't look or sound like anything our elders remember(or were taught) about the civil rights era. And that's OK. We have a new fight. We have to create a new model of resistance. Everyone has a role to play

Yesterday Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin declared "now is not the right time" to proceed with any fundamental overhaul of health care financing and delivery in Vermont. He claimed the latest cost estimates for what's known locally as Green Mountain Care (GMC) were higher than originally projected, in a period when "slower recovery from the great recession has tightened the state budget. What Shumlin has championed for nearly five years was "just not affordable" anymore.