Portside

The pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others.

The coronavirus didn't break America. It revealed what was already broken. Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault and steady defunding. He set about finishing the job, destroying the civil service.

Presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden is trying to out-hawk President Trump on China. That has three problems. It promotes bad foreign policy; it could stoke anti-Chinese racism; and, it doesn’t even make long-term sense politically.

New data from 29 states confirm the extent of the racial disparities.

One in 10 Covid-19 deaths in the US have occurred in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. The virus is rampant in New Orleans and growing in Georgia’s southwest. These outbreaks are unique because so many younger people are dying.

As Democrats fret about their own prospects, many fail to recognize the president’s fundamental weakness.

The effects of caffeine mesh with the needs of capitalism in myriad ways.

Italy now has too many coronavirus patients for each to receive adequate care. So those who are too old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too low a number of “life-years” left even if they should survive, may be left to die.

Bernie Sanders’s victory in the New Hampshire primary marks a turning point for Democratic politics. “No candidate so firmly planted on the left has been so well positioned to capture the nomination of the Democratic Party,”