Portside

Workers have walked out of six apple packinghouses in Washington State. They demand safer working conditions and an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay.

Amid the worsening COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, the US government is brokering a $2 billion arms sale to Rodrigo Duterte’s repressive regime. The sale would only pour further fuel on an already dire human rights catastrophe.

This week the COVID-related strike in Washington state’s Yakima Valley quadrupled in size, as workers walked out at three more apple packinghouses with two main demands for safer working conditions and an extra $2 an hour in hazard pay.

When it comes to the Pentagon and the CEOs running a large part of the arms industry, examples abound of them asking what they can do to help themselves. Continuing to prioritize the U.S. military will further weaken the USA public health system.

Andrea Circle Bear, 30, had been sentenced to 26 months in federal prison on a drug charge.

If Foxconn establishes production in Wisconsin it will be in a highly automated capital-intensive facility that would not create anywhere near the number of jobs being bandied about. CEO Terry Gou clearly stated, "Automation, software and technology innovation will be our key focus in the U.S. in the coming few years.”Here’s reality: Cyber component manufacturing with large numbers of employees has mainly occurred in low-wage, marginally regulated countries.

It’s somehow fitting that a hedge fund investor who does no investing has now become the spokesman for a president who appears to do very little actual governing. What Scaramucci does very well, however, is promote Scaramucci. The Mooch’s antics make him Trump’s ideal Mini-Me. He’s another empty-hatted showboater, loudly distracting the audience from the pickpockets moving among them.

My book inquiring into the origins and veracity of the stories about disparaged Vietnam veterans came out in 1998. Little did I imagine at the time that, 20 years later, versions of the same stories would be figuring in remembrances appearing upon the 50th anniversaries of some important dates of the war in Vietnam.

As the president’s various scandals preoccupy media attention, we should focus on an issue that responds to what people urgently need and want.

The United States is fueling a conflict that has resulted in war crimes and famine.