Portside

With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, few noticed that the state of North Dakota became the first state in the country to allow police to equip drones with so-called “less than lethal” weapons such as rubber bullets, sound cannons, pepper spray, Tasers and tear gas. North Dakota House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a law enforcement lobbyist with close ties to the drone industry got his hands on it.

The slaying of two journalists Wednesday presents us with a moment to mourn but also a moment to learn lessons and demand action. The horror isn’t just one macabre double-murder, but the unrelenting toll of gun violence that claims one life every 16 minutes in the United States. It is time we address gun deaths as a public health crisis, and move from our passive horror to take steps to reduce the 92 lives claimed by gun violence in the United States daily.

America’s neoconservatives and their liberal interventionist sidekicks have pushed an aggressive “regime change” strategy that has left bloody chaos in their wake. The cumulative impact, including Mideast refugees flooding Europe and overuse of sanctions, is now contributing to a global economic crisis. According to columnist Robert Parry, international pragmatism, including working with adversaries, may be the only way to prevent a devastating financial crash.

A huge study -- of 100 scientific papers in psychology, published in high-quality journals -- has failed to confirm the results claimed by about two thirds of the papers. Is this a colossal failure of science? No, say the authors of the study. It's an example of the value of skepticism and the step-by-step, sometimes indirect, process by which uncertainty is reduced.

"It's hard to imagine Democrats' 2016 nominee will be truly tough on Wall Street banks that break the law, if they won't commit to banning their advisors from receiving legalized bribes from those same banks," says Charles Chamberlain of Democracy for America. Still Hillary Clinton has refused to address the issue.

It’s remarkable that most of the Republicans who would be president are declaring that the retirement age — which has already been pushed up from 65 to 66, and is scheduled to rise to 67 — should go up even further. Americans love Social Security, so why aren’t the candidates at least pretending to share that sentiment? The answer is about Big Money.

"Bernie Sanders and other progressive politicians need to hit issues of police murder and police terror... But it's very important never to downplay the critique of Wall Street domination or downplay the critique of capitalism as a whole. In that sense, indeed, Bernie Sanders is a prophetic politician."

Videos: John Oliver: Washington DC Statehood. We Need Truth and Reconciliation. Bob Dylan -- Desolation Row at 50. Affordable Housing Crisis. Pastor Dewey Smith: Homosexuality.

Reader Comments: Straight Outta Compton; Bernie Sanders and Labor; GOP Racism & Immigration; China's Currency Devaluation; Artic Oil Drilling; NLRB and Faster Union Elections; Amnesty and the Sex Trade; Announcements: Film: Warrior, the Life of Leonard Peltier - New York - September 12; 60 Years of Rebels and Reformers - New York - October 3

Years before the thaw and the restoration of relations between the United States and Cuba, Miles Jackson and a college friend had been building a different kind of diplomacy: one on wheels. Their hope is that skateboarding can help pry open a notoriously stiff relationship and encourage a new generation of skateboarders to join an international sporting community.