Portside

Join us at the largest-ever national conference of single-payer advocates, including hundreds of union activists and leaders!

Rep. Scott Allen Statement on the closing of GE Waukesha. Disappointment was my first reaction of the news about GE shutting down its engine manufacturing functions at the Waukesha Power and Water facility. In a press release, and substantiated by my conversation with GE corporate spokesperson, Patrick Theisen, this afternoon, GE wishes to blame the problem on the House of Representatives and that body's failure to act on the U.S. Export Import Bank.

The Persian poet Majid Naficy fled Iran in 1983 to live in exile in various places, currently in Los Angeles. His poetry here addresses the sense of loss, the urge to create roots.

For the first time, a complete DNA sequence from Africa dating back thousands of years has been recovered. The DNA of this Ethiopian man sheds new light on the movement out of Africa, and also movement of Eurasians back into Africa.

It’s time that our politicians acknowledge that it’s way too easy to get guns – legal and illegal – in this country. No one should be able to get an AK-47 through a few phone calls – including me.

To a degree unseen since the Gilded Age over a century ago, money will pour into the 2016 elections from a handful of donors giving once unimaginable sums. Many want something from government. And many of these donors will operate undisturbed -- their identities secret from the public, if not from the grateful politicians. It's called "dark money."

Boehner announced his resignation from Congress. He’d give himself another month, postpone a government shutdown until he was long gone and couldn’t be blamed for it. He had a ready successor lined-up in the form of Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Then it all fell apart.