Portside

When the US entered the nuclear age, it did so recklessly. New research suggests that the hidden cost of developing nuclear weapons were far larger than previous estimates, with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973. The nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in 250,000 deaths. And now, Donald Trump is threatening to use nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

The election of Donald Trump produced a rash of commentaries heralding the death of organized labor, or at minimum an existential crisis. Although these epitaphs are not new and are very overblown, it is true that organized labor prematurely backed the corporate Democrat, failed to elect the candidate it did back, and is left divided over how to deal with the presidency of Donald Trump.

The left’s role is to move opposition in the direction of politics — enabling working people to apply pressure when it can change the situation in their favor, building their (small-d) democratic strength. This is our mission inside and outside the Democratic Party, in social movements, in unions and in intellectual settings.

Biographer Chernow "gives us a military genius who understood the full scope of the war and pursued a winning strategy," writes reviewer Richard Moe, "and a sometimes inept president who, though unschooled in politics, made his highest priority the protection of the lives and rights of freed slaves."

Decades after the company tried to tackle sexual misconduct at two Chicago plants, continued abuse raises questions about the possibility of change.

Commentators Melvin Rogers, Patrisse Cullors, Carol Anderson and Shailja Patel discuss the impact of the debate and struggle for racial equality.

Running up the deficit so extravagantly would serve two strategic purposes.

With the feeling that there’s a “war on science” afoot, savvy scientists are thinking about how to defend their work.

On September 3, 1991, the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, North Carolina burst into flames. Twenty-five people died, trapped behind the locked doors of the red-brick factory. Most of the victims were women; many were women of color, most were single moms. Another sixty people were injured, and the blast left more than fifty children orphaned. Local officials called the fire an accident, but the women and men who worked at Imperial had been made vulnerable by the factory’s owners as well as public policy.

Year end casualty count; Where the bodies are buried; Another press martyr; Wormy Apple; Bloodshot eye on sexism; NPR sausage recipe; Hazen out