Portside

Rex Tillerson stands a good chance of being confirmed as Secretary of State. His statements about climate change adaptation, whether, hubris, ignorance, or deception talking-it's a dangerous view. It's playing with other people's lives. So why does Rex Tillerson want a job that could easily be seen as a step down in power and influence? He has unfinished business, particularly in Russia, which he likely does not trust the Trump administration to handle.

Occasionally entertainment and politics intersect. Sunday Meryl Streep tearfully addressed the stars assembled at the Golden Globes about her anxieties and distress at the advent of the Trump era in the United States. She made the powerful point, which is that no human experience is really foreign to us as human beings if only we can find the tools to understand it, emotionally and intellectually. And Trump does not.

Duterte's campaign to rid the Philippines of drug users and pushers through extrajudicial executions elicited shock even among the most hardened observers. And his now legendary cursing of President Obama as a "son of a bitch" - part of an angry farewell to a long-standing alliance with Washington and an embrace of China - upended Asian geopolitics.

Hit that old song again, loud and clear! "Over there, over there, Send the word, send the word, That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming." Yes, sirree! Shades of 1918 and the Battle of the Marne! Shades of 1944 and the beaches of Normandy! But no, not just shades and not just words have already been sent. The U.S. is sending significant military assets to Germany, and to countries bordering Russia.

Reader Comments: Protests Should Also be Used for Organizing; Another Extreme Trump Nominee to Run National Intelligence; Top Prosecutor in Leonard Peltier Case Urges Clemency; Hidden Figures; Black Women and Civil Rights; It's Time to #TeachResistance: A Toolkit for Educators; Announcements and more....

The form of political action that Clinton defenders in labor advocate is a suffocating loser. It seeks accommodation when confrontation is required. It is more concerned with the longevity of the union as an institution – an important consideration for labor, but one that demands a more courageous vision – than with the overall strength of its members vis a vis their employers, which in fact is the only guarantor of institutional survival.

After two days of near silence, Republican presidential candidates are finally praying for the victims of the Colorado attack. Praying is always okay, even for sinners. It's a turn of phrase that doesn't risk showing even the slightest desire to protect Planned Parenthood from future attacks. Republicans might not want Planned Parenthood workers killed, but they sure don't seem to mind if their angry hordes do everything just short of that.

Recent tragedies have shown all too clearly the state of crisis in which we find ourselves. The Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting illustrates how right-wing hostility to women's rights makes those providing and seeking reproductive services targets for murder. The shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis by white supremacists demonstrates that anyone doing work around racial justice must now expect and prepare for a violent racist response.

Like the people within, immigrant detention centers are often invisible as well. Photos and drawings of these places are rarely public; access is even more limited. Canada has three designated immigrant prisons, and it also rents beds in government-run prisons to house over one-third of its detainees. Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention begins to strip away at this invisibility.

Last year also saw the launch of Portside Culture, with reviews, news and analysis on the arts and letters. The service Portside provides is in greater demand. Thousands are discovering that there is a Left in the US, and our daily posts help give a sense of its real scope. We turn for you to help because as we grow, so do our financial needs. We will continue, but to measure up to a re- charged and re-vitalized movement, your contributions will make all the difference.