The Women’s Court on war crimes against women during the war in the 1990ies formally started in Sarajevo, Bosnia on May 7.

Women came together from all the corners of the former-Yugoslavia to participate in the Women’s Court in Sarajevo, to demand justice for the crimes committed against them during the wars and the enduring inequalities and suffering that followed.

This is the latest in a series of articles discusing the pros and cons of a Bernie Sanders campaign in the Democratic Party. Scroll down to find other articles. – Ed. 

“If you had a President who said: `Nobody in America is going to make less than $12 or $14 an hour,’ what do you think that would do? If you had a President who said: `You know what, everybody in this country is going to get free primary health care within a year,’ what do you think that would do? If you had a President say, `Every kid in this country is going to go to college regardless of their income,’ what do you think that would do? If you had a President say, `I stand here today and guarantee you that we are not going to cut a nickel in Social Security; in fact we’re going to improve the Social Security program,’ what do you think that would do? If you had a president who said, `Global warming is the great planetary crisis of our time, I’m going to create millions of jobs as we transform our energy system. I know the oil companies don’t like it. I know the coal companies don’t like it. But that is what this planet needs: we’re going to lead the world in that direction. We’re going to transform the energy system across this planet-and create millions of jobs while we do that.’ If you had a President say that, what kind of excitement would you generate from young people all over this world?”

-Bernie Sanders, from the November, 2013 issue of The Progressive

On May 22 this year, people in the Republic of Ireland will exercise their democratic right by going to the polls to vote on two proposals to change the constitution. The first proposal is to allow same sex couples the right to marry each other. It is a proposal that has created much debate across the nation but one in which many favour and looks set to pass comfortably. The second proposal is one which has sparked less of a debate and it is worrying.

“The sheepdog is a card the Democratic Party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat running for re-election.”

Spoiler alert: we have seen the Bernie Sanders show before, and we know exactly how it ends. Bernie has zero likelihood of winning the Democratic nomination for president over Hillary Clinton. Bernie will lose, Hillary will win. When Bernie folds his tent in the summer of 2016, the money, the hopes and prayers, the year of activist zeal that folks put behind Bernie Sanders' either vanishes into thin air, or directly benefits the Hillary Clinton campaign.

This article is republished here with the permission of the author, Peter Dreier, and of American Prospect.

Now that Bernie Sanders has entered the contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Americans are going to hear a lot about socialism, because the 73-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont describes himself as a “democratic socialist.”

Deflategate has driven virtually every other story off of the news shows and talk shows for several days now. At the center of the controversy is Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots, who, a National Football League report says, very likely knew that Patriot employees were involved in deflating several footballs to give Brady and the Patriots an advantage in the American Football Conference Championship Game of the 2014 season. Pundits have called the Brady and his team ”cheaters” and “liars,” though interestingly Governor Chris Christie—also accused of being a cheater and a liar—defends Brady, saying people are just jealous of those whose lives seem so perfect.

We should welcome Bernie Sanders' run, while being aware of its limits.

"I am not a capitalist soldier. I am a proletarian revolutionist. . . . I am opposed to every war but one.” So said Senator Bernie Sanders in 1979, reciting a speech from five-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs for a Folkways Records collection. 

It’s all over the news, mainstream and left/alternative alike, as well as social media, and is certainly one of the most important items of political news of recent vintage: after much consideration and testing of the political waters, Bernie Sanders (whom only the staid New York Times refers to as “Bernard”!), Independent Senator from Vermont and self-proclaimed “democratic socialist,” is running for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

The upcoming presidential contest was shaping up to be one of the most underwhelming in electoral history. An heir to the Bush dynasty, real estate magnate Jeb, looked like the safest bet to become the Republican presidential nominee, and challenge the anointed frontrunner from the Democrats' leading dynasty, corporate drone Hilary Clinton.

Some 200 political activists from a variety of independent political organizations, as well as individual activists, carried out a rich discussion and an amicable debate about how to collaborate in the work of building a large political alternative to the left of the Democratic Party. Participating in the Future of the Left/Independent Politics Conference, in an unprecedented spirit of cooperation, national, state, and local candidates and activists, as well as elected officials from the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Richmond Progressive Alliance, Socialist Alternative, and the Vermont Progressive Party discussed the challenges of campaigning and the difficulties of actually holding office while trying to both build movements and push progressive policies. Also at the conference were members of Progressive Democrats of America and the Justice Party.

This is the fifth in a series of articles about the Chicago mayor and council elections. Scroll down to find others. – Eds. 

Chicago hasn’t seen such electoral contention since the days of Dick and Jane – and Harold. Even in defeat, the Jesús “Chuy” Garcia challenge brought a familiar spirit back to the city by the lake. No one expected the immigrant from Durango to challenge the abrasive Rahm in a run off. Nor could we have have predicted the surprising synergy that would result from over a dozen insurgent ward campaigns and Chuy’s crusade. In the 12^th ward on the Southwest side, we learned that politics is local.

More than three hundred Mexican American community activists marched through New York City from Union Square to the United Nations on April 26, marking the seven-month anniversary of the killing of six and forced disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Guerrero, Mexico.