Portside

Reader Comments: Impeachment and Rule of Law; Sanders, Warren and Trolls; Biden and corruption; Chicago Teachers Strike; Turkey, Kurds, Syria; "Glass Floor"; Housing; Puerto Rico; Resource: Stopping Workplace Sexual Harassment; Announcements (lots)

Trump is counting on his base to endorse his increasingly open law-breaking. It may not end well. His public appeal to China last week to help uncover dirt on the Biden family was both a brazen flouting of the law and an astute political tactic.

Impeachment is a constitutional tool designed for times of extraordinary abnormality — say, for instance, when a president presides over an obscenely lawless administration. It's a way of bringing politics back to normal.

Time is short and the risks of failure are high, but Democrats have no choice except to proceed. The anonymous whistle-blower's complaint that the House Intelligence Committee released is a straightforward and clearly written document.

Forget what you saw in 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'

As growth slows in wealthy countries, Western food companies are aggressively expanding in developing nations, contributing to obesity and health problems.

In what may seem a paradox, the worse off Illinois government gets the more the wealthy are willing to spend to gain control. It is part of a national trend that has seen ever escalating spending battles for even down the ballot offices. Down the ballot, a $1 million legislative race in Illinois used to be an oddity. Last year 23 topped $1 million, with five between $5 million and $6 million, according to Redfield’s analysis of state campaign finance records.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the legitimacy not only of President Jacob Zuma and the ANC, but also the notion of the liberation struggle itself is in shreds. For some of us, it was unthinkable that such an alliance of forces could degenerate into a moneymaking, lawless and violent operation represented by people who were prepared to trample on the values that we understood the movement to embody. Certainly, this did not happen overnight.