Portside

Following the North Star; Lying about lying; Calling all lapdogs; Rushin’ to judgement; Press prognosis

It feels perfectly appropriate that in 2016, a mortifying examination of one man’s ego played a role in the election of America’s next president. Weiner is a depressing pile-up of the year’s governing impulses: the media’s veneration of scandal, the increasing shamelessness of the country’s politicians, and Weiner’s quiet, ashamed delight in his own continued relevance.

California appears to be ready to stand up against the Trump agenda. This builds off much of the organizing already taking place in the state, including some strong victories for workers in 2016. (It is worth noting that even white voters vote differently than whites elsewhere - see http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article119870398.html).

Immigrants have been the target of hateful rhetoric and actions since President-elect Donald Trump launched his campaign over a year ago. Galvanizing his base with promises to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to ban Muslim immigration, Trump has dramatically shifted the tone of the national conversation on immigration and raised fears that he'll follow through on his harshest campaign promises.

The Louisiana coast loses a football field’s worth of land every 38 minutes. This staggering rate of land loss has been brought on by climate change and coastal erosion accelerated by human activities, including water diversion projects and damage done by the oil and gas industry. Moderator's Note: Go to original source for mind-boggling photos of criminal devastation.

The election of Donald Trump represents one of a series of dramatic political uprisings that together signal a collapse of neoliberal hegemony. In every case, voters are saying “No!” to the lethal combination of austerity, free trade, predatory debt, and precarious, ill-paid work that characterize financialized capitalism today.

Interview with behavioral scientist Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating (2006) and Slim by Design (2014) and founder of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. The Food and Brand Lab was started in 1997 at the University of Illinois (before moving to Cornell in 2005), to explore how humans relate to food with the end goal of uncovering solutions to improve eating environments and help individuals eat better. Wansink analyzes why we eat what we eat.

Governments go to pretty low tricks to silent dissent -- curtailing ones that travel to neighboring countries and now stopping social security checks.

Two American veterans journeyed to Japan to apologize for US war crimes. They found a growing grassroots antiwar movement.

In theory, mathematics is neutral – two plus two equals four regardless of what anyone wishes the answer was. But in practice, mathematical algorithms can be formulated and tweaked based on powerful interests.