Portside

When a state feels destined to rule – as with ancient Rome, the Chinese “Middle Kingdom” centuries ago, the British Empire from 1750 to 1950, and the US since World War II – compromise is hardly a part of its political vocabulary. Sooner rather than later this leads to the state bankrupting itself ithrough “imperial overreach.”

As recently as 2015, Donald Trump was still collecting a $168,000 pension — and maybe more — from the Screen Actors Guild for playing himself in The Apprentice. Now that Trump is about to be president, the most important question is: What is Trump's plan to save the system that is designed to protect millions of union pensions like his own?

In his no-holds-barred book, “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers,” former Marine and Army Joseph Hickman exposes the knowing contamination of thousands of soldiers stationed on bases with these lethal pits.

I have a very simple, even modest, proposal, one that offers us means both of having the cake and of eating it too. Why not, in the very same legislation that repeals ObamaCare, instantly entitle all who lose their insurance coverage under the ACA immediately to enroll in Medicare? The enrollment might be permanent, and at the prices that Medicare currently costs its participants, or it might be simply until such time as a viable replacement for ObamaCare is found . . .

The old instrumental notion of the state, that it’s a machine, and you grab it and use it for your own purposes, or even more stupidly, that you smash it, are wrong. What does it mean to smash the state? This is our great challenge.

Senator Sessions’ record suggests a remarkable consistency in support of policies that contradict and subvert the Reconstruction amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantee citizenship, equal protection under the law, and the ballot to all Americans.

Trumpsters against Jews; Trumpsters against Trumpsters; Jews against Jews; Trumpsters against Intellectuals; Intellectuals against Trump; Alt.Right and Guilt.Left

La La Land is not, in the end, so very different from Whiplash (an earlier Chazelle film) for all their tonal differences. Above all, the vision they paint of the artistic life is masculine. In Damien Chazelle’s movies, men have power, and they get (almost) everything they want... And women? All they get to do is listen.

In a decision issued on January 7th, United States District Judge Matthew Kennelly found that the local "right to work" law passed by the Village of Lincolnshire, Illinois in 2015 is pre-empted by federal law, and that only states and territories have the authority to such laws.

Moderator's NOTE: Bill Fletcher and Bob Wing's article "Fighting Back Against White Revolt 2016" http://portside.org/2016-12-05/fighting-back-against-white-revolt-2016 has sparked discussion from Peter Olney "Go Red" http://portside.org/2016-12-26/go-red-thoughts-labor-movement-age-trump-response-fletcher-and-wing-portside-december-5 and today a response piece by Ruth Needleman. Following is today's reply posting from Fletcher and Wing.