Portside

There is no silver bullet in this fight for economic justice. Not one public official, nor one economist, nor one President will solve our mess. A return to democratic principles and a deepening of participatory process is what it will take to uplift the working class.

Hundreds of current and former drivers are suing a FedEx subsidiary, seeking back pay for overtime worked and for paycheck deductions.

The confidential memo from a former pollster for President Obama contained a blunt warning for Democrats. Written this month with an eye toward Election Day, it predicted “crushing Democratic losses across the country” if the party did not do more to get black voters to the polls.

Ebola is a problem that will not be solved, because it isn’t profitable to do so.

Voters in fifteen states—many with tight races—will face new restrictions at the polling booth for the first time in November.

Losing the sense of smell predicts likelihood of death within five years, according to new research.

Despite the warning signs all around us, the Departments of the Treasury and Transportation appear to be running headlong into a crash - and not just the kind of crash that takes place on a highway. The Obama administration appears to have bought into Public Private Partnerships spinning straw into gold.

An expansive lawsuit against the Kern County school district in the heart of California's Central Valley alleges widespread disparities in the discipline meted out to Latino and African-American students. The lawsuit accuses California's second largest school district with "rampant racial and ethnic disparities" in suspensions and expulsions. The Kern High School District's student body is 62 percent Latino and six percent African-American.

The political manipulation of the irrational fear of immigrants spreading disease is part of an historic pattern in United States. The recent calls for a blanket prohibition on travel from West Africa is prejudice, plain, and simple: prejudging an entire group of people, based on the sickness of a small handful. They echo the kind of bigotry directed at other immigrant groups arriving in this country since the 1800s.

Three years after the Fukushima disaster, 25,000 people evacuated from the region closest to the nuclear reactor station have been told that it will take 120 years before they can return safely to their homes. Tens of thousands of other evacuees who lived outside the most contaminated area, and who the government says will be able to return soon, say they will never return because of the ongoing danger of nuclear contamination.