Portside

Mayor Bloomberg pushed through re-zoning of nearly 40 percent of New York City. Bill de Blasio campaigned against urban gentrification. Can the new mayor reverse the trend? Can big-city electoral coalitions buck the trend of the real estate and financial speculators? Author Michael Hirsch reviews the new book about Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel - the mayor of the 1% in the second largest city of the country.

Report by New York attorney general is first detailed examination of policy deemed unconstitutional earlier this year

Elections show the tide can turn against the unholy alliance of big business, the Tea Party, and the religious right. Growing protests - the "Moral Monday" movement in North Carolina, militant immigrant rights activism, battles to protect women's health clinics from state budget cuts, strikes by low-wage workers, civil disobedience actions to challenge voter suppression, & campaigns against global energy corporations. Virginia - win in a race lost by 17 points in 2009.

On the heels of recently report showing that taxpayers lose when fast food workers, who receive low wages, are forced to seek public assistance (Univ. of California), fast food workers and their allies rallied in cities across the country. Front-leading New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio called for not only supporting efforts to raise the minimum wage, but to also help these workers organize.

Democrats have reached a watershed. After two decades in which the party has moved leftward on social issues but has largely accepted the financial sector's economic preferences - the abject failures of the market economy are pushing the party leftward. The revolt against Summers was less about his positions on today's economic issues but his opposition to regulating derivatives. In Congress, in New York City and Chicago, Democrats are feeling the heat of the people.

The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities; Toni Morrison Responds to Ohio School Board Prez; When did Sadness Become a Disease?; Taking Over the Judiciary; "Commie Camp"