Published on Portside (https://portside.org/)

Tidbits- Aug.14 -Readers Comments: Police State Take-Over of Washington, DC; Israel Continues To Murder Gaza Journalists; NYC Mayor’s Race – Call for Universal Childcare; Chick-fil-A Fined for Child Labor; New Resource – Social Security FAQ; and More

https://portside.org/2025-08-14/tidbits-aug14-readers-comments-police-state-take-over-washington-dc-israel-continues
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WHAT? ANOTHER ONE???  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman

 

Jack Ohman
August 13, 2025
Jack Ohman’s You Betcha!

 

Re: The Big Lies About Israel, Anti-Semitism, and Trump
 

Wow--the dynamic duo of evil-- two monsters in one photo! Like Hitler and Mussolini meeting in 1937. Shouldn't we expect to see them embrace each other? No one else on earth would touch these two examples of extreme human depravity. And the story is not over, guys-- we are living in this era of evil, and it is our human and moral responsibility to fight them, to call out evil, to combat the insane policies they both champion. Time to move against them my friends-- the world, the elders, our parents, our grandchildren are watching. Will we be known as the generation of moral cowards? Do we have less courage than our warriors in the Revolutionary War, or the heroes who gave their lives in WW2? Now is our testing time and only those who fight the good fight can die with a clear conscience that they gave their all. Which side are you on? Justice? peace? or cowardice and despair? We all must answer-- and now.

Ted Pierce
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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does his test for hamas apply to likud

Ronald Reosti

 

Re: Gaza City’s Iconic Shuja’iyya Neighborhood No Longer Exists
 

Zionism is a cancer in need of aggressive chemotherapy

Francisco Javier Gonzalez Sosa
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Awdah Hathaleen Showed Me How To Imagine Freedom
 

Wonderful article but I don't quite understand why the author moved to Israel.  The time I visited about 20 years ago, I didn't like it at all.  As an Israeli journalist once wrote, even then there was an air of pervasive rudeness.

Nora Lapin

 

Gaza Journalists  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson

 

 

There are few sights more chilling than the funeral procession of truth itself—its pallbearers carrying not caskets, but the silenced voices of those who dared to bear witness. On Sunday night in Gaza, the Israeli military turned a tent full of reporters into a funeral home, killing five journalists in an airstrike. Among them was Anas al-Sharif, one of Gaza’s most recognizable journalists, whose work for Al Jazeera chronicled the war’s atrocities with unflinching clarity...

Nick Anderson
August 13, 2025
Pen Strokes

 

Re: Conference Report: International Forum for Peace 2025 (Brussels, 23–24 June 2025)
 

The lack of a call for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine is striking. I assume enough supporters of Putin were in the mix to make a deal that leaves the Russian boss off the hook. Now the best of the European peace movement have put themselves on their own hook.

Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Ethan Young negotiated efforts at peace

Tom Edminster
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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that's kind of overlooking that one country is invading another.

Ethan Young
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Ethan Young "the national question" especially in context of post USSR...is quite "problematic"...

Tom Edminster
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

MAGA troops avoid top D.C. crime zone  --  Cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz

 


 

Lalo Alcaraz
August 13, 2025
https://www.pocho.com/

 

MAGA - Make America Germany Again  --  Cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad

 

Benjamin Slyngstad
Slyngstad cartoons

 

Re: NYC Mayor’s Race: Elizabeth Warren Campaigns With Mamdani in NYC, Calling for Universal Childcare at DC37 Union Headquarters

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

Yea! more and more real Dems (in their traditional FDR mode) need to join with Zohran to show support and solidarity with the only progressive NY politician (I know of) in the last 50 years at least. Help bring the Mamdani movement to victory and overthrow the elites ruling NYer's lives and making them so hard and unjust. Cuomo and his allies are the bottom of a very dirty, morally filthy barrel. Well said!

Ted Pierce
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Corporations Want To Prevent Workers From Leaving Their Jobs
 

Indentured servitude returns

C Don Jones
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Pedophile Apologist  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

 


 

"Trump is finally taking "action" on the Epstein scandal. He has moved Epstein's partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted pedophile and sex trafficker, from a federal prison in Florida to a luxury prison camp in Texas. Not exactly the "action" people are demanding."

Rob Rogers
August 8. 2025
TinyView

 

Re: We Don’t Need Nuclear Reactors on the Moon
 

These people are nuts

Deborah R Kingery
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Liberal Who Hates Leftists

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

Amen and thank you.

I'm wondering (forward to the author) if Britain still considers Pakistanis and Indians to be "black" because that possibly could skew statistics about black and white?

I thought it was a great article.

Lita Kurth

 

Like the Gestapo, But for Cowards  --  Cartoon by Jesse Duquette

 


 

I keep seeing those creepy “Defend the Homeland” placards about joining ICE and it made me think they could use a more honest and direct upgrade.

I’d also like to clarify - since there were a number of comments about this - that, yes of course, the Gestapo were cowards. All bullies are. My point was that the Gestapo, unlike ICE, didn’t require masks to hide their identity while being evil shits. A distinction with minor difference, and mainly just taking shots at the fascists we’re contending with right now.

Jesse Duquette
Week of Aug. 4 - 11, 2025
Weekly Cartoon Round-up #21

 

Re: Mar-Jac Poultry, Chick-fil-A’s Chicken Provider, Fined for Child Labor

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

I Have NEVER eaten their food and never will.

Karen George
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Oh look, yet another reason to continue my boycott of chick fil a

Mel Blakely
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Their stance on lgbtq rights is enough reason for me to drive by without stopping, but this doesn’t seem surprising.

Kt Marie
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Chick-fil-A is one of the WORST companies in America

William Doyle
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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I think Alabama has changed their work requirements like Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders did in Arkansas. The working age is now 14 and they don't need a work permit.

Lorrie Stephens
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Any law punishable by fine is legal for a fee.

Robert Lorenz
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Oh my I’m surprised that this administration did anything about this since they are trying to relabel children of 14 as adults.

Melissa Gingerich
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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All these years, I never realized what it really meant to be Christian.

Chuck Theile
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Trumps AmeriKKKa. What are you complaining about. Yall voted for this.

Gracie Moto
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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plus its trash “ food”
salty crap sold by racist evangelicals

Pandora Tadefa-Everett
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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What else would you expect out of an Evangelical joint?

Betty Cole Proper
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

The Smell Test  --  Cartoon by Pat Bagley

 

Pat Bagley
August 4, 2025
The Salt Lake Tribune

 

Social Security FAQ  (Economic Policy Institute)

 

Report • By Monique Morrissey and Josh Bivens • August 11, 2025

Economic Policy Institute

Social Security turns 90 this year. Despite its popularity and exemplary record of never having missed a payment—even after the 9/11 terror attacks and Hurricane Katrina—misperceptions persist about many fundamental aspects of this universal program.

This FAQ provides essential background and facts, as well as answers to some of the most frequently asked questions. It confirms that Social Security is an extraordinarily valuable public program that is well run, strategically designed, eminently sustainable, and popular with the public. It will of course need some policy tweaking in coming years to ensure that it continues to provide the same (or even greater) level of economic security it provides today, but these changes are manageable and would be welcomed by the public.

Sections

  1. What is Social Security and how is it financed?
    1. What is Social Security?
    2. Why is Social Security so important?
    3. How is Social Security financed?
    4. Does Congress control Social Security’s budget?
    5. What is the Social Security trust fund?
  2. What Social Security benefits do people receive?
    1. How are Social Security benefits calculated?
    2. How are benefits adjusted for age of take-up and other factors?
    3. How are Social Security benefits taxed?
    4. How are Social Security benefits adjusted for inflation?
    5. How have DOGE cuts affected access to benefits?
    6. Is Social Security a good return on investment?
    7. Is Social Security fair to low-income workers?
    8. Is Social Security fair to workers of color?
    9. Is Social Security fair to women?
    10. Is Social Security fair to younger workers?
  3. Why is Social Security facing a shortfall?
    1. Who estimates the shortfall?
    2. How big is the projected shortfall?
    3. What caused the shortfall?
    4. What happens if the trust fund runs out?
    5. How do people in the U.S. want to fix the funding gap?
    6. Why is Congress sitting on the sidelines?
    7. Does it matter what caused the shortfall?
  4. Want to learn more?

Read the full report - Click here

Economic Policy Institute
1225 Eye St. NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-775-8810 • epi@epi.org

Source URL: https://portside.org/2025-08-14/tidbits-aug14-readers-comments-police-state-take-over-washington-dc-israel-continues