Portside

Robert Reich explains why the growing federal debt enriches Wall St. bankers and wealthy Americans.

The President confirmed on Thursday that he will likely potentially certainly improbably possibly doubtfully absolutely declare a national emergency. For sure, maybe.

How do extraordinarily complex emergent phenomena — like ants assembling themselves into living bridges, or tiny water and air molecules forming into swirling hurricanes — spontaneously arise from systems of much simpler elements?

Survivors Asante McGee, Kitti Jones, Lizzette Martinez, Lisa Van Allen, backup singer Jovante Cunningham, performing artist Sparkle, and ex-wife and survivor of R. Kelly, Andrea Kelly, address R. Kelly directly in this bonus clip from Episode 6 of Surviving R. Kelly, "Black Girls Matter." #SurvivingRKelly

Bob Dylan's memorable 1988 Live Oakland performance of With God on Our Side made into a historical / lyric video.

Student loans are leaving millions of Americans with really bad hangovers.

AlphaZero taught itself from scratch chess, shogi and Go, beating a world-champion program in each case and discovering new and creative playing strategies that hint at the potential to tackle other complex problems.

A classic Paddy Chayevsky film starring Faye Dunaway and William Holden about a the role of the media in the corrupt system by which the very rich screw the middle class and poor. Now in a theater version with Bryan Cranston.

In the Trump era, everyone from comedians to pundits have claimed that “nothing matters”. MSNBC anchor Ari Melber runs through an exhaustive list of times when Trump has been defeated or stopped by facts and reporting. “In a democracy, things matter when we make them matter.”