Portside

Kennedy went bigger than expected in Windsor, the DOMA case, by rooting his argument in equal protection and not just federalism.

A refreshingly principled stand by a small country against a powerful nation engaged in what many see as the political persecution of one of its own citizens.

Ghassan al-Khouly, an unemployed labourer who specialised in tiling floors, was one of the latest of an estimated 93,000 Syrians to have died since the start of the civil war in March 2011.

These regressive trends can be turned around. But that will require the mobilization of an expansive political movement, sufficiently inclusive to attract Hispanics, low-income white southerners and African-Americans.

Through outreach, organizing, and advocacy workers can improve their wages, hours, and benefits through direct action and by enacting pro-worker policies. The only reason manufacturing jobs paid well in the first place was because workers demanded that they did decades ago.

Reformers in Newark Teachers Union win majority of seats on the Executive Board but lose Presidency by 9 votes. This is another indication of growing rank and file opposition to the attack on teachers.

The United States is now a direct participant in the war to bring down the Damascus regime, thus shedding any possibility that, along with Russia, it could act as a neutral force to bring the parties together.