Portside

The virus in our heads - and Trump's - and more as the culture churns.

Rising rents, health care and other living costs mean that for many entering their retirement years, balancing the household budget can be a struggle.

Americans are aging, and millions will be unable to afford long-term care. The only way to avert social catastrophe is to implement a Medicare-for-All system with comprehensive long-term care benefits.

Reader Comments: GOP Health Plan = Death Squads; Trump Tax Plan - More for the Rich; It Could Have Been Me (protests then and now); Locked Up for Being Poor; Politics of Questioning the Civil War (and the end of Slavery); Time to Save Net Neutrality; Announcements: Building Bridges Across the Generation Gap: Shared Struggles; Michelle Alexander and Susan Burton; Posters - Reclaim! Remain! Rebuild: Affordable Housing, Gentrification & Resistance; and more...

Reader Comments: Labor Movement, Unions and Trump; Coal Miner's Heritage; North Carolina; More on the Rockettes; Protests and Social Security; Progressives, Neoliberalism and the Broadest Fight Against Trump-readers exchange; Vietnam War;

Governments go to pretty low tricks to silent dissent -- curtailing ones that travel to neighboring countries and now stopping social security checks.

100 corporate CEOs possess company retirement funds totaling $4.7 billion - an amount equivalent to the entire retirement savings of 41 percent of U.S. families. Things were not always like this. From 1946 to 1980, a combination of union action and government policy led to the expansion of pension benefits for American workers. Now, Donald Trump's pick to direct the Office of Management and Budget says: We have to end Medicare as we know it.

AARP, the non-profit seniors organization that exists to promote the financial security, pensions and healthcare of those over 50, is secretly funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization whose bills have acted against the interests of ordinary Americans, including retirees and their families. What can you do? -- sign the petition below.

Elizabeth Warren is proposing to fund a one-time Social Security boost for seniors by ending the taxpayer subsidy for CEO bonuses. Otherwise, seniors will get no increase in Social Security this year. So far, Hillary Clinton as has not taken a position on this or several other measures to improve benefits and assure the solvency of the program. Clinton will have another opportunity at Saturday’s Democratic debate to be clear about where she stands.