Portside

Trump University is an outrage. But the lesson to learn goes beyond Trump himself and his alleged crookedness. What’s also likely true is that this egregious institution is yet another example of how profit-making and education are a bad mix for all except the few who are able to bank the results.

An interview with Michael Lebowitz

Reeves’ injunction barred all “agents, officers, employees, and subsidiaries” of Mississippi from treating same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex couples. HB 1523 explicitly contravenes this order, granting circuit clerks the total freedom to turn away same-sex couples while continuing to license opposite-sex couples.

In the California primary, the independent voters registered as NPP, or no party preference, can vote in the Democratic primary. They can ask for a ballot and they are allowed to vote. The Orange County poll workers were told if NPP voters ask for a Democratic Party ballot to vote for Bernie or Hillary, they are not to be given regular ballots, but provisional ballots.

The decision is extremely important. Especially since the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers strike – when President Ronald Reagan fired all the controllers, who struck over safety issues, and permanently replaced them – employers routinely fire striking workers and bring in “permanent replacements,” or threaten to, sometimes even before a strike begins.

The N.C. Chamber of Commerce, a familiar player in state Supreme Court elections, has spent $450,000 on a TV ad supporting the conservative justice. As many ads in court races do, it touts him as tough on crime.

How many devils does it take to make hell? The poet Charlotte Muse brings a requiem for the horror of Cambodia.

In Burning Country, journalist Robin Yassin-Kassab and human rights activist Leila Al-Shami make plain that no matter how long the Syrian war rages or how distant a political settlement may appear, the world owes it to the Syrian people to hear their stories and support their cause. The book portrays the opposition as a movement of protest against Bashar al-Assad's brutal regime, something missed abroad amid the factionalism and power politics driving the conflict.

We simply can't afford to throw away the energy, the idealism, the thirst for justice that the Sanders campaign has revealed and revived. In the long run, that probably matters even more than who sits in the Oval Office. For the Democrats, the road to reconciliation is not obscure. Sanders is right to rail at our rigged system - but if the Democrats win in November thanks in part to his ideas and his voters, he'll be positioned to do something about it.

Verizon workers went on strike one week before a competitive New York state primary in which a socialist is running. You had a credible national candidate for president on a nationally-televised debate calling out the CEO of a big corporation. That just does not happen very often. Given the current climate, Hillary Clinton made a big point of coming to our picket line the first day of the strike, Bill went to a picket line in Buffalo.