Portside

Who Gets the Bird? is a new weekly newsletter about what is happening in the US labor movement.

Before Covid-19, American women were already in crisis

It's an apolitical show. So why do politicians keep talking about it? It’s ironic that so many people have hung the American self-image on a show with its roots in a mildly condescending joke about ugly Americans.

U.S. music was shaped to a considerable extent by people the government sought to destroy. Even as it mounted an effective attack on the Communist Party, the government was unable to erase the influence of musicians with which it was associated.

Widely circulating coronavirus variants and persistent hesitancy about vaccines will keep the goal out of reach. The virus is here to stay, but vaccinating the most vulnerable may be enough to restore normalcy.

Two articles: Pharma Loses Vaccine IP Battle Despite Record Q1 Lobbying (Open Secrets) -- Vaccine Patent Waivers Face More Hurdles Despite Biden Support (The Hill)

Newton may have been exceptional, but he can no longer be seen as William Wordsworth’s Romantic genius soaring in strange seas of thought alone, an abstract mind divorced from the mundane concerns that affect every human being.

Biden’s investment plan addresses longstanding needs in the country. We will likely have to reduce other spending in the economy to make room for it. A financial transactions tax is a great place to look for some of the offset.

Elite media would have us believe they are engaged in a serious reckoning with the racism of the US criminal justice system, that they care about over-incarceration and prison conditions. Yet elite media continues its silence about Mumia.

The defeat of the regressive tax bill is an unprecedented triumph for the youth, the urban poor, and the unions of teachers and health care workers who promoted the uprising.