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

Tidbits-Aug. 20: Reader Comments: Where Next for Wisconsin?; He Doesn’t Care About the Crew; Gloves That Deliver Electric Shocks; ‘Zionist’ Has Become Toxic; Three Israeli Arab Parties Announce Joint Slate; Live-Stream the Socialism Conference;

https://portside.org/2026-08-20/tidbits-aug-20-reader-comments-where-next-wisconsin-he-doesnt-care-about-crew-gloves
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Via Portside comes two essays on the Wisconsin outcomes worth reviewing imo: one by John Nichols writing in The Nation Magazine, the other by Greg Sargent in The New Republic. 
After the Primary, Where Next for Wisconsin? | Portside

Daniel Millstone
Post on Facebook

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you had to be there, and I am not anymore. But I can see that a tactical choice was made.

Paul Buhle
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Francesca Hong was an excellent candidate and has made great strides in building a left in Wisconsin. But this article like virtually all analyses since last Tuesday ignore the candidacy, constituency, and history of David Crowley, the winner. Milwaukee, as the ACLU reported, is one of the most racist cities in the US. The African American population makes up 38 percent of Wisconsin's largest city. Thirty-four percent of African American residents live in poverty. And one of their own was running for the statewide office never held by an African American. In short, the primary election had a win/win outcome. But we on the left need to contextualize our analyses and reflect on the connections between the contextualization and future political strategy.

Harry Targ
Posted on Portside's Facebook page




 

Proving He Doesn't Care About the Crew  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Benjamin Slyngstad
 

 

Proving once again he does not care about service members and only about selling access. Apparently he thinks the crew hasn’t been deployed long enough.

Benjamin Slyngstad
August 15, 2026
Slyngstad Cartoons
 




 

Join the Navy and see Hegseth  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman
 

 


Jack Ohman
August 17, 2026
Jack Ohman's You Betcha!
 




 

Re: ICE Plans To Give Officers Gloves That Can Deliver Electric Shocks
 

What could go wrong?

Felice Sage
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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This should be outlawed

Marguerite Horberg
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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Horrible

Builder Levy
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

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What's the difference between theses gloves and a stun gun?

Roy Schulman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page



 

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Rewrites the Rules
 

Wow, so very noble. How about free childcare for the millions of women with kids who must work to provide for them? That I could get excited about.

Shelley Kelly
Posted on Portside's Facebook page



 

Re: AI Should Be Made To Serve the Public Interest
 

How is AI going to "serve the public interest"????  By ELIMINATING OUR JOBS, causing ENERGY COSTS TO SKYROCKET??  By forcing the construction of more environment-destroying data centers???  AI SHOULD BE BANNED!!!!

Soledad Haren



 

Re: ‘Zionist’ Has Become Toxic in America. The U.S. Jewish Establishment Must Face It Head-On
 

The Jewish establishment in the US can't face the fact that many American Jews (especially those under 30), and many Americans in general, are highly critical of Israel, don't think of themselves as Zionists or support Zionism, and think the US shouldn't provide military aid to Israel so long as it continues to inflict atrocities in Gaza and illegal occupy Arab areas. Even those who have some sympathy for a Jewish state are alienated from groups like ADL and AIPAC.  Young Jews are not joining or donating to established Jewish organizations, including synagogues and Jewish community centers, at the same rate as earlier generations. But the Jewish establishment groups, like local federations, seem blind to these realities, according to this article originally published in Haaretz, the liberal Israeli newspaper.

Peter Dreier
Post on Facebook

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I don't use the term Zionism because the term obscures more than it reveals: Zionism is Jewish nationalism so please stop pussyfooting around with semantics and call a spade a spade.

Nick Slater

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I was born in Tel Aviv in Mandatory Palestine, and my family immigrated to the United States in 1939, shortly after I was born. Throughout my life, I have carried a deep emotional connection to Israel. I have also devoted my life to the work of building a multiracial democracy in the United States, while remaining willing to criticize my own government’s domestic and foreign policies when they fall short of democratic ideals. I consider myself a radical and progressive Zionist: I believe in the right of the Jewish people to return and build a home in Palestine, but only hand in hand with our Arab brothers, sisters, and cousins. Israel’s Declaration of Independence promised equal social, economic, and political rights to all its inhabitants. That aspirational language, like the promises embedded in the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, has too often been ignored by those who govern. I believe Israel, like the United States, should be a democracy that provides refuge and belonging for the Jewish people without becoming a theocracy. It must be a state committed to equal rights, human dignity, and justice for all who live there. I am critical of the racist MAGA movement in the United States, just as I am critical of Israel’s racist Kahanist government—a nihilistic and fascistic ideology born in Brooklyn and carried to Israel and Palestine decades ago. The policies of Trump, Netanyahu, Putin, and other anti-democratic despots must be rejected. Their alliances must be challenged, and all forms of discrimination, displacement, dehumanization, and genocidal violence must be exposed and replaced with a politics rooted in democracy, equality, and shared humanity.

Many people younger than I am are already committed to building safer, more inclusive, multiracial societies. We should join their efforts, not dampen their vision. Their struggle to build pluralistic democracies, confront climate change, and respect the dignity, aspirations, and rights of all peoples is not separate from ours—it is the continuation of the democratic promise we must finally make real.

This is a particular challenge for the American Jewish community. Many of us have rightly been critical of abuses committed by the United States government, yet too many remain silent when Israel violates the very democratic principles we claim to cherish. True love for Israel cannot mean defending every act of its government or looking away from injustice. It must mean holding Israel accountable to its founding ideals: a diverse, non-theocratic democracy in which all inhabitants enjoy equal economic, social, and political rights. To insist on those principles is not a betrayal of Israel. It is an act of fidelity to the best promise of Israel, to the Jewish ethical tradition, and to the possibility of a shared future grounded in justice and peace.

Ronald Shiffman
Post on Facebook




 

The American Gestapo  --  Meme by CeCe Rogers?
 

 


CeCe Rogers
August 16, 2026
Singer/Songwriter/Musician/Producer - cecerogers.com
 




 

Remember all the things Trump promised he’d fix on Day One?  --  Cartoon by Garth German
 

 


Garth German
August 17, 2026
Reality Of My Surrounding
 




 

Family Is Everything  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman
 

 


Jack Ohman
August 13, 2026
Jack Ohman's You Betcha!
 



 

Re: Vietnam: Labor Newspaper Closed (Global Left Midweek — August 12, 2026)
 

Sorry to see Portside posting the article by Joe Buckley with so-called analysis of changes in Vietnam's labor press including an anti-communist summation of ever evolving Vietnam economy, state, labor movement, Party, etc.  Surely there are more balanced sources of news and analysis from Vietnam itself.

Leanna Noble



 

Re: Road Sign on Interstate 5

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

Tell Robert Peake to look again - the man is NOT pulling the woman.

Henry Norr



 

Three Israeli Arab Parties Announce Joint Slate Ahead of Knesset Election
 

Hadash, Ta'al and Balad announced on Wednesday that they have reached an agreement on a joint slate, after protracted negotiations amid disagreements over the distribution of each party's Knesset seats

Jack Khoury
August 19, 2026
Haaretz


 

Ahmad Tibi (right) and Yousef Jabareen at the Knesset in May.  (Photo credit: Itay Cohen / Haaretz)

 

Three Arab-majority parties announced on Wednesday that they will run together on a joint slate in the upcoming Knesset election.

Former MK Yousef Jabareen, who leads the mixed Arab-Jewish communist party Hadash, will be placed at the top of the slate. He will be followed by Ahmad Tibi, leader of the secular Arab nationalist Ta'al party. Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the secular Palestinian nationalist party Balad, will take the third spot.

The election – the first since the October 7, 2023, attacks and the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul – will take place on October 27.

The three parties held lengthy negotiations over the joint slate, with the main obstacle being the distribution of each party's Knesset seats. In late May, the three parties said they would work to form a joint slate and called on a fourth Arab party, the United Arab List, to join them.

Disagreements arose between the UAL, which is not part of the announced agreement, and the three other parties concerning how the alliance would operate after the election. The UAL is in advance talks with former Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz over his possibly joining the party.

The Joint List of United Arab List, Hadash, Ta'al and Balad ran first in 2015 and again in 2019, and despite the parties' disparate platforms and backgrounds, ran together to maximize their Knesset showing. Once in parliament, the parties largely voted as a bloc to advance the interests of the Arab community, but they dissolved the union in 2022 amid ideological and policy differences.

Before the agreement was reached, Haaretz learned that Ta'al examined other possible political alliances, including a union with the fledgling Jewish-Arab party A Place for Us All. Both parties conducted their own polls to assess the chances of success for a joint run, and according to sources in both parties, the results indicated that in the most optimistic scenario, the union might win about 3.7% of the votes. This result does not guarantee passing the electoral threshold, putting both parties at risk. Ta'al, therefore, preferred to move forward toward the three-way alliance. The party's leadership is expected to convene on Wednesday to approve the agreement.



 

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Source URL: https://portside.org/2026-08-20/tidbits-aug-20-reader-comments-where-next-wisconsin-he-doesnt-care-about-crew-gloves