Portside

" Wouldn’t people have understood precisely who he was?  The answer is simple:  Yes, they understood who he was, and they did not care--until two things happened. First, he fell out of style. And second, the brutality of the man became undeniable."

Academics decry algorithmic monitoring of workers and call for stronger standards – but U.S. unions have been slow to act.

Prior to 2001, U.S. Wars were financed through a mixture of higher taxes and budget cuts, and funded mostly through the regular defense budget. The post 9-11 war funding pattern was completely different.

A year after a mob stormed Brazil’s capital, January 8 is now a date to commemorate democracy’s survival.

Massachusetts voters approved an additional tax on incomes of more than a million dollars. At least a billion extra dollars will support transportation and education projects this year.

Saying that Israel must be democratic and Jewish is like saying the United States must be democratic and white or democratic and Christian.

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Andrew Kosenko urge G7 leaders to send a clear message to rogue regimes waging brutal wars of aggression.

Chicken soup as a therapy can be traced back to 60 A.D. army surgeon whose five-volume medical encyclopedia was consulted by early healers for more than a millennium. But the origins of chicken soup go back thousands of years to ancient China.

Ben Tumin interviews historian Heather Cox Richardson about the rise of fascism in the U.S. and how Americans have resisted it in the past. In her words, “We are living in another time of testing.” Her advice? Stay focused and get creative.

Corporations used the “crying wolf” strategy to claim that raising the minimum wage would harm the poor, that Social Security was a slippery slope towards socialism, and that the government has gone “too far” in regulating carbon emissions.