Portside

A CO2 emission rate standard that allows averaging across all electricity generators could reduce electric sector CO2 emissions in 2020 by 380 million tons compared to business as usual, or 16 percent, without significantly increasing electricity prices.

The trend toward larger prison populations has finally stopped and reversed in many states. Ten years ago, only ten states had reduced their prison populations, in 2012 prison populations declined in 27 states and incarceration rates fell in 29 states.

Move aside Florida, North Carolina is now the new poster child for voter suppression. The Moral Monday movement in the state is now more important than ever. Maybe someday we’ll look back at this period as the turning point when the nation realized just how important the Voting Rights Act was and is.

“If Detroit fails it will hurt our nation as a whole. It will send a message to minority and urban youth that their futures are as hopeless as they seem and the country doesn't care. It will add to a national atmosphere of hopelessness and decay. And we will have missed an opportunity to turn the tide for America's cities.”

While a depleted, discredited and disorganized nuclear utility moves to restart its other reactors, its stricken units at Fukushima continue to hold the rest of us at the brink of apocalyptic terror.

Today, the Dream Defenders--a multiracial, multiethnic group of young people--celebrated the 10th day of occupying Florida's state capitol. They say they're not leaving until Florida takes concrete steps to deal with the bigger issues exposed by Trayvon Martin's shooting. When Gov. Rick Scott met with them and suggested they "pray" about racial profiling, they responded, "Faith without works is dead."

Reader's Comments - North Carolina and Voting Rights; Socialist Youth Reunion; Zimmerman Acquittal; Internet & Inequality; Farmworkers; Wall-Mart; Petition - Save Worker Education Program at Brooklyn College; Announcements - Forgotten History of Civil Rights: The March On Washington - Book Signing & Forum- NYC- Aug 1; Confronting the Climate Crisis- Bay Area- Aug 2; Legacies of the March on Washington- NYC- Aug 16; Jean Damu, R.I.P.; Margrit Pittman Memorial - Oct 6

In the upcoming Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the issue will be what it has always been: will there be an end to the Israeli occupation and an agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state?