Portside

Defunding the police is the first step in a longer process that may culminate in the end of policing in the United States. The repeated failure of meaningful reform have made concepts like “defunding” and “abolition” part of mainstream conversation.

The Los Angeles School Board voted to cut $70 million a year budget of the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) by $25 million—35%—and move those funds to programs focused on the needs of Black students.

The “essential workers” picking our food are facing fires, heat waves, and the pandemic, all at once. California’s farmworkers, many undocumented, and many without a choice, have been working through a summer of increasingly brutal conditions.

Mike Pompeo’s trip to the Middle East and North Africa was a scandalous failure. His Sudan visit demonstrates just how degraded the United States’ foreign policy has become under Donald Trump, and with Pompeo at the helm of the State Department.

Author David Graeber passed away several days ago. We are reprinting this interview with him about his book, "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

How he lost and where we go from here.

On this Labor Day weekend of grievous unemployment, poet Carrie Shipers shines a touch of irony on business-as-usual.

The plat­form empha­sizes union jobs, afford­able hous­ing, Medicare for All, pub­lic edu­ca­tion and trans­porta­tion, as well as increas­ing tax­es on the rich.

The virus, like bullets, doesn’t care about your little red hat.

Trump called supporters who intend to cast only one vote for him “disgracefully low-energy.”