Portside

Private U.S. corporations, taking advantage of lucrative opportunities created by the intentionally crippled tax base of local governments, are grabbing public assets and resources, particularly water. But water is not a commodity; it is a human right. And in the U.S., as around the world, the onslaught of corporate privatization is being countered by a powerful backlash to reclaim that precious resource for the public sphere.

Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations about the NSA’s global surveillance practices sparked outrage around the world, but nowhere more than in Latin America. Now that the dust has settled, we should ask: Did the Latin American response to the NSA disclosures represent a historic break in hemispheric relations? Or was this just business as usual, another insult added to the ongoing injury of U.S. hegemony in the Americas?

The aftermath of the murder of the three American students in Chapel Hill reconfirms the truth that Muslim lives matter only when they're villains not victims. But the responsibility extends beyond the media. Government-run programs targeting Muslims as "enemy combatants", "national security risks", and "unassimilable", affix the state seal of approval on the vilification of Muslim Americans, stirring Islamophobia and spurring violence.

The truth is that Stewart was often at his most exciting when he got down in the dirt, instead of remaining decent and high-minded, your twinkly-eyed smartest friend. That kind of digging, of disrespecting authority, was a model for reinventing journalism, not comedy.

The latest findings from the FBI provide further evidence that states can reduce incarceration rates without compromising public safety.

A new study points to the influential role played by teachers’ unconscious biases, but it also highlights how powerful a little encouragement can be for children.

The political calculation by House Speaker John Boehner and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that they would reap dividends from a speech to a joint session of Congress is getting an unprecedented rebuff from both representatives and senators.

A Friday Nite Videos special edition featuring Jon Stewart and Daily Show spin-offs, offspring and talents.

Reader Comments - Black Future Month, Vanishing Black Professors, Black-Brown Unity, Lynching; Selma, Civil Rights, LBJ; Vietnam War; Immigration: ISIS, Charlie Hebdo; Labor's Bigger Tent, Adjunct Profs and Right-to-Work (for less); Science; Greece, Spain and the EU; Educational Testing; South African women against big coal; movie feedback; Announcements - Malcolm X; Spain; Cuba Embargo; Labor and the Police; Black Men Speak; Debra E. Bernhardt Labor Journalism Prize

Today the U.S. government treats immigrants from Latin America the way liberated Jews were treated after World War II. Then a presidential aid reported: "we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops." Our nation of immigrants treats modern immigrants with arrest and detention; and modern immigrant (concentration) camps.