Portside

A political party cannot investigate itself. And clearly, Chairman Nunes no longer has the credibility to run the House investigation.

Staying silent is to be complicit in perpetrating injustice

"[The Democrats] need a counter-offer, one that's more compelling than the creaky status quo. They need a single-payer, Medicare-for-All plan."

In every Southern state with the death penalty activists are working to abolish it. They include civil rights activists who focus on the system's racial bias, faith leaders who view the work as part of their ministry, and even family members of victims who seek closure but not vengeance.

Social justice protest offers an indispensable and even inspiring view of US history. At the same time, movements for social change must be placed within their historical and social context. In truth, activists often have to rely on middle-class alliances in and out of the political establishment while forging compromises, even unsavory ones, before achieving success.

The Egyptian-born, Brooklyn-based poet Marwa Halal focuses on the absurdity of labeling diverse people inhabiting a certain portion of our global maps as part of the same (misunderstood) "middle east."

While France teeters on the brink of the far right, left parties elsewhere are showing surprising strength. Predicting election outcomes is tricky these days, the Brexit and the election of Donald Trump being cases in point. The most volatile of the upcoming ballots are in France and Italy. Germany's will certainly be important, but even if Merkel survives, the center-right will be much diminished and the left stronger. And that will have EU-wide implications.