Portside

The Republican nominee says he’ll only accept the election results if he wins. That’s like a man saying he believes in getting consent – but only if she says yes.

John Oliver | Third Parties. Leonard Cohen | You Want It Darker. Where Does Complexity Come From? The Park of Friendship in Tijuana. Monkeys Can Make Stone Tools Too.

Last June, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 11. The law, which went into effect in August, allows anyone with a license to carry a handgun to bring a handgun onto campus, and even into the classroom. Private universities and colleges can ban guns on their campuses, but public universities must comply.

The Black Panther Party was founded 50 years ago in Oakland, on Oct. 15, 1966, and within two years it had chapters across the country. The New York Times is taking this opportunity to explore the Black Panthers’ legacy, through their iconic use of imagery and how they were covered in its own pages. The Black Panther Party is often associated with armed resistance, but one of the most potent weapons in its outreach was its artwork.

Claudia Rankine is extremely interested in whiteness, believing that “it’s important that people begin to understand that whiteness is not inevitable, and that white dominance is not inevitable.”

Reader Comments: Trump-A Setting Time Bomb; You Can Help Protect Our Elections; Inequality (and Climate Change) ARE Defining Issues of Our Time; Women Share Rape Stories; Paul Ryan's Fear - GOP Loss is Win for Bernie Sanders; Lift Us Up - A song for America (Sung by Bethany Yarrow; written by Peter Yarrow); Thoughts on Syria; Announcements: 70th Anniversary of Southern Youth Legislature; Justice for Laquan - Chicago; Book Talk: Women Fight the Islamic State

A librarian in Kansas City, Missouri was arrested for standing up for a library patron's free speech rights. The right to read, to think, to discuss and listen to ideas in a public forum is essential to an open society, as is our individual privacy. One hopes that the Kansas City case-only the most recent of many-will be resolved, and that librarians there and everywhere will be able to do their jobs without taking on the added burden of battling for our freedom.

An open letter to the left from 47 grassroots organizers. Defeating Trump in the presidential election is a top priority for the left. And at a minimum, that means mobilizing voters for Hillary Clinton in swing states. When we hear people say they don't know who to vote for because both candidates are equally bad, we get worried. A Trump victory would embolden hard-core racists, Islamophobes, misogynists, and anti-immigrant groups.

'Luckily, not everyone has been glued to the screen, eternally watching The Donald. From Black Lives Matter to the climate change movement, activists have, as TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon points out, never stopped working to make this a better world and, as she indicates, if we can take our eyes off the media spectacle-cum-circus for a few moments, they offer us a kind of hope for our future that shouldn't be ignored.' - Tom Engelhardt

'More Southern Dudes Need to Say Black Lives Matter.' From police treatment of African-Americans to the current presidential election, the issues roiling America today have led the Drive-By Truckers to drill down on the topic that has preoccupied them for 20 years - the South - while bringing a relatively unheard perspective to pop music's discourse: that of the progressive white Southerner.