Portside

Reports from Morocco and Tunisia

Eastwood's Birthday, Austerity, Japan, Bangladesh and more

The Venezuelan election was nearly stolen – by the US-backed anti-Chávistas. How? That’s what Chávez wanted Maduro to find out from me: how could US operatives jerk with Venezuela’s voter rolls? It wasn’t a mere policy question: they knew Chávez wouldn't be allowed to survive through another coup. My answer: They could steal the vote the same way Bush did it in Florida – in fact, using the very same contractor. Take a look at these documents.

When a phony Associated Press tweet reported explosions in the White House, Wall Street's computers reacted as if it were real.

Leo Branton, who died on April 19, was a member of a formidable defense team that conducted a successful courtroom defense of radical black activist and former UCLA professor Angela Davis. He was a prominent entertainment lawyer who also conducted numerous important civil rights court cases.

Gil Scott-Heron -- Work for Peace. Money to be made in conspiracy dating. Harvest of Empire / Global Labor Film Festival. The moral behavior of animals. The Bartles and Jaymes of austerity economics.

The Campaign for America’s Future is joining 100 other organizations in delivering a message to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell: Enough is enough. End the obstruction. Stop the constant abuse of the filibuster.

The news, with the usual notable exceptions, was generally a tawdry affair in the service of power. Still, can there be any question that, as the newspaper fades, we're entering a new age of conglomerated mainstream chaos? You only needed to check out the "coverage" of the Boston Marathon bombing aftermath - which you would have had to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss... What possible dreams (other than coverage nightmares) could emerge from that? - Tom Engelhardt

Most US union members belong to very large, highly bureaucratized organizations - the 3 million member NEA, the 2 million member SEIU, the 1.3 million member AFSCME and Teamsters, and so on. Change - whether it be to elect a new slate of officers or to change organizational culture - is a daunting challenge: There are often complex hoops that member-activists and local leaders have to jump through to get dissenting or diverging voices heard.

Ask yourself this: Do you know the name of any one of the victims killed in the West Chemical and Fertilizer Company disaster? Do you know how many of them there were? Their ages, aspirations, what they looked like, whether they left behind children or what messages they last posted on Facebook? Do you know if there is an explanation yet for what caused the explosion? Or if investigators are still searching for one?