Portside

Steve Thornton has been an activist in Hartford since moving there in the 1970's after graduating from the University of Connecticut. He worked for many years for the Hartford-based health care workers union, New England District 1199, and has been involved in many organizations and campaigns there over the last 40 years. He also has a keen interest in local people's history, and some years ago started a website, shoeleatherhistoryproject.com, to popularize that history

Over 100,000 people have signed a petition urging President Obama to grant clemency to Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera, who has been imprisoned for about 35 years, much of the time in solitary confinement.

Progressives who treat anti-Russia propaganda spin as fact, in order to weaken Trump, are encouraging a kind of McCarthyism. Of all the good reasons to “delegitimate” Trump, alleged Kremlin intervention in the election should rank low. Focus should instead be on his greed, pathological lying, enthusiasm for oligarchy, bigotry, environmental destruction, racism, misogyny, economic injustice, voter suppression and rampant conflicts of interest.

For those of us who need a reminder of the notorious record of the CIA over the last sixty-plus years, here is a useful up-to-date history. Reviewer Paul Buhle shows some of this new book's high points.

The lesson for Democrats from the Republican coup in North Carolina is that public education is a cornerstone of our democracy, and closely related to the fight for voting rights, racial justice, and a more equal society.

There were the most minimum wage victories in 2016 of any year since Fight for $15 began. Campaigns are underway in more than a dozen additional jurisdictions to continue movement’s winning streak in 2017 and 2018.

The friend who urged me to see Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea told me it was the only film she’d been able to watch since the election, the only work of art that had, even briefly, distracted her from her worry about the future of our democracy. It might seem odd to describe a film about unendurable grief and sadness as a distraction—a word we more often associate with entertainment and escape. But after watching Lonergan’s astonishing film, I understood.

Teen Vogue Spreads Terror; Sounds of Silence; War and Hanukkah; Make way for the alt-center; Mad City Rumble

President Obama’s decision to allow passage of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal has done more to change the shape of the conflict than any other action in the last ten years.

Tens of thousands of workers walked out of factories this month in the manufacturing hub of Ashulia which make clothes for top western brands such as Gap, Zara and H&M, prompting concerns over supply during the holiday season. The protests were sparked by the sacking of 121 workers, but soon evolved into a demand for the trebling of workers’ pay from the current monthly minimum of 5,300 taka (£54).