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From Japan to Vietnam, Radiation and Agent Orange Survivors Deserve Justice From the US

Marjorie Cohn Truthout
As we work toward a nuclear deal with Iran, the US government should abide by its commitment to nuclear disarmament in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is also time to fully compensate the victims of Agent Orange and fund a total cleanup of the areas in Vietnam that remain contaminated by the toxic chemical. Urge your congressional representative to cosponsor H.R. 2114, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2015.

Garnishing California's Future: New Bill Seeks to Curb Wage Seizures

Bill Raden Capital and Main
“We see increasing numbers of these families in our legal aid services throughout the state,” the Western Center on Law and Poverty’s Jessica Bartholow told Capital & Main. “People’s lives are being ruined by these very high, 25 percent garnishments — the national maximum — being taken out of their check before they get it home to make sure their kids have shoes and backpacks, to make sure their kids can stay housed.”

Strawberry Jam

Frank Bardacke The Stansbury Forum
“In the strawberries, one dies alone.”

Illinois’ Political Odd Couple: Rauner and Rahm

Curtis Black Chicago Reporter
On one issue—and it’s the most fundamental issue—Rauner and Emanuel stand arm-in-arm. Both oppose the kind of progressive revenue solutions that would target the millionaire class to which they belong and which they represent—the kind of solutions that offer the only realistic path out of the fiscal crisis in which the state and city are mired.

How “Brother” Bernie Is Making Labor’s Day

Steve Early Portside
Whether he wins or loses, Sanders is already helpfully tapping into rank-and-file discontent about who gets to decide what in our unions. While other big union endorsements of Clinton may soon be announced, the Labor Day buzz—at the grassroots, in early primary states—is largely about Bernie.

Amnesty International’s Sex Trade Decision: Not in Our Name

Janice G. Raymond Portside
On August 11th, delegates at the 2015 International Council Meeting of Amnesty International voted to back the decriminalization of the sex industry, one of the more controversial decisions in its 54 years history. But, Amnesty's policy goes far beyond decriminalizing the women but also decriminalizes the perpetrators, says Janice G. Raymond the former co-director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), explaining her opposition to Amnesty’s decision.

The Greatest Threat to Europe is “Strategic Inhumanity”

Laurie Penny New Statesman
The greatest threat to the European “way of life” is not migration. It is that Europeans will swallow the lie that some human lives matter less than others. The behavior of the British and European elite towards migrants is not simple inhumanity. It is strategic inhumanity, weaponized inhumanity designed to convince populations fracturing under hammer-blows of austerity and economic chaos, that there is an “us” that must be protected from “them”.