Portside

The liberation of Afghanistan women was one of the Bush Administration's prime selling points for the U.S. invasion in 2001. But for more than a decade the U.S. has repeatedly sided with the most ultraconservative undemocratic forces in Afghanistan to the detriment of the rights of Afghan women. Today, after 13 years of war, and 13 years of U.S. promises, the women of Afghanistan "have been shut out, shut down, and silenced by fear."

America’s campaign against ISIS has already lost its way.

The Vanished Voter Registrations Could Determine Control of the Senate

The number of Ebola cases appear to be dropping in Liberia—but what will it take to stamp out the disease?

Millions of minority voters are threatened by an electoral purge

Bad Reputation (music video). Rock The Vote Presents: #TURNOUTFORWHAT. Democalypse 2014 -- Ad of Brothers. Lewis Black Says F#%! Voter Suppression. What Would Happen Under a Republican Senate?

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U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes. Information was readily available that these were compromised men. The wide use of Nazi spies grew out of a Cold War mentality and McCarthyism. Mr. Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, and Mr. Dulles, the C.I.A. director.believed "moderate" Nazis might "be useful" to America, records show.

Catalonia has decided to recast its planned November 9 referendum on independence as a nonbinding consultation.Why are so many Scots (45% in September's referendum) and Catalans (50% in recent polls) set on leaving now? The answer is surely a desperate search for sovereignty with longstanding resentments over discrimination by the power centers in their respective states. Like many other Europeans, they feel cheated by their governments' response to the Great Recession.

Many of the most deadly diseases on earth - malaria, dengue and yellow fever, encephalitis and cholera - are highly climate sensitive, and are thriving as patterns of temperature, precipitation, and sea levels shift in their favor. They are spreading to new parts of the globe, including the US. Instead of celebrating the bravery of the nursing profession, politicians and media reacted to the Ebola outbreak by blaming nurses for their carelessness.