Portside

The new law bans public employee unions in most cases from negotiating over issues such as health insurance, evaluation procedures, staff reduction and leaves of absence for political purposes. Police officers and firefighters are exempted from that portion of the law, a move that AFSCME argues in the lawsuit violates the Iowa Constitution by creating "favored" and "disfavored" groups of government workers.

“It doesn’t work for organizations to bigfoot strategy; it’s not the way organizing happens now,” said Kelley Robinson, the deputy national organizing director for Planned Parenthood, which is fighting the defunding of its health clinics. “There are bigger ideas coming out of the grass roots than the traditional organizations.”

The official guidelines, signed by DHS Secretary John Kelly, "expand raids and the definition of criminal aliens, while diminishing sanctuary areas and enlisting local law enforcement to execute federal immigration policy," The Hill reported.

Instead of falling to the Nazi party, Norway broke through to a social democracy. Their history shows us polarization is nothing to despair over.

French fascism looks familiar; Eat fist, Nazi; Now you see it; Assessing the damage; Alt.right culture horror show

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who won an Oscar in 2012 for “A Separation” and whose second Oscar-nominated film, “The Salesman” is playing on more than 65 screens and could pass the $1 million mark this weekend, grabbed a lot of press when he canceled his plans to attend the February 26th Oscars ceremony following President Donald Trump’s 90-day visa ban for citizens from seven Muslim countries, including Iran.

The confirmation hearing for Trump's Secretary of Labor nominee, Andrew Puzder, was scheduled to start January 17 but has been pushed back and may not happen until next month. It may be that worker protest is having an impact. Critics have revealed that Puzder's company has frequently violated wage and hour, and safety and health laws.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most influential black leaders in history. His legacy has inspired people around the world to fight for equality — but that hyper-visibility also led to the whitewashing and sanitization of his life. It's a disservice to King's memory to ignore the full scope of his beliefs and his complexity as a person. His words can teach us a lot about what it means to be an activist and advocate for social justice.

Many US historians have advanced the theory that Lincoln spoke against the war for political reasons, subsequent speeches disprove that theory as do his letters to his law partner, William Herndon. He railed against the war a second time a month after his famous “spot resolutions” over objections of the younger members of his party, and even voted for an amendment condemning the war which was tacked on to a resolution honoring war hero Zachary Taylor, who would be next

Daniel Duane examines how a shy Ph.D. in English literature revolutionized the science of cooking and became revered in the most famous kitchens in the world.