Portside

The gig economy is a disaster for workers. Hollywood’s unions can help them learn to fight back.

Where HBO's Game of Thrones once showed a one-dimensional view of female strength, it now makes clear that there are many ways to be strong.

For many people in 1927 and after, the two men were victims of a deep-seated fear of immigrants. For others, they were criminals and terrorists who benefited from a worldwide campaign led by people who despised America and its institutions.Today, the United States is engaged in a bitter struggle between these same two views, with the xenophobic forces currently in political power, especially in the White House.

We knew that climate change stands to make such events worse. We knew how to prepare communities and infrastructure for major storms. We knew why we shouldn’t build infrastructure in floodplains and why we shouldn’t design infrastructure that can’t withstand wind and water risks.

A Chicago Tribune feature story last week mentioned in passing “mainstream supporters” of Italian fascism in 1930s Chicago; indeed, Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly appears to have been an enthusiastic fan of Mussolini. But we should also remember the courageous anti-fascist organizing in Chicago at the time by Italian Americans and African Americans, who drew explicit connections between the fascist ideology being celebrated and the racist and repressive system existing here

Thousands of laundry workers—largely African-American or immigrant women—labor in hot, crowded, and often dangerous or toxic conditions to clean the linens used by millions. And it is these workers who endure the consequences of an industry plagued by poor working conditions, exploitation, and abuse.

Most of the various predecessors to FEMA weren’t all that concerned with civilian natural disasters. They were primarily focused on responding to nuclear war; the evolution to being the first call after a hurricane, flood, or tornado came about in part because it turned out America doesn’t have all that many nuclear wars—and the equipment and supply stockpiles and disaster-response experts at FEMA’s predecessors were useful for something other than the apocalypse.

Opioids killed more than 33,000 Americans in 2015 and certainly more last year. Half of deaths involved prescription painkillers. And most of those who overdose on heroin or synthetic opiates, such as fentanyl, first became hooked on legal pills. The US, with 5% of the people, consumes 80% of the global opioid pill production. This is an American crisis, caused by Big Pharma, politicians who colluded with it, and regulators who approved one opioid pill after another.

While your staff has not shared with us the details of the current draft, we understand from colleagues in other single-payer advocacy groups that it mandates copayments for medical services for most Americans and proposes a four-year delay before the implementation of the single-payer reform.