Portside

Writer Kiese Laymon on Hillary Clinton: "I will vote for Hillary Clinton in November only if she faces her history of punishing and disciplining vulnerable black Americans." A truly great candidate would face – and fix – decades of systemic harm done to black Americans.

Media displaces voters; Deadly president; The gift that keeps on taking; Rahm's emails (and everybody's); Tech, work and organizing; Radio vs on-demand

There is a more important question than whether or not Clinton has officially emerged bloody but victorious. If in fact Sanders has lost, than what have the Democrats won? And what does this mean for the future prospects of the country and world?

Perhaps it would be better to see Donald Trump as a symptom, not the problem itself, to think of him not as the Zika Virus but as the first infectious mosquito to hit the shores of this country. If you need proof that he’s at worst a potential aider and abettor of authoritarianism, just take a look at the rest of our world, where the mosquitoes are many and the virus of right-wing authoritarianism spreading rapidly with the rise of a new nationalism...

Republicans have created immense obstacles to registration - reduced the number of days for early voting, eliminated same-day registration - all with the clear and unadulterated aim of sinking, if not eliminating the Democratic electorate. What is striking is that, not very far behind their bogus arguments regarding alleged voter fraud, Republicans are close to admitting, or will outright admit, that their aim is to get potential Democratic voters to remain home.

More than thirty years have passed since the end of the dictatorship but Brazil's democracy is again being challenged.

No where do America’s wars come home more fiercely or embed themselves more deeply than in USA police forces. Jay Stanley and TomDispatch regular Matthew Harwood, both of the American Civil Liberties Union, write that intrusive new forms of technology, developed by or in conjunction with the Pentagon for battlefield use, are coming to your neighborhood. So welcome to the war zone, America.

He was short in stature, elderly, frail, and couldn't hear particularly well, but what struck me most were his eyes. They were cloudy and rheumy, yes, but there was something else, something deep and troubled, beyond the merely physical, swirling inside them. His eyes were haunted.

California has become ground zero for the national battle over charter school expansion. Some of America’s richest individuals and largest foundations are pouring resources into what critics view as the privatization of public education. Based on six months of reporting and interviews with experts, elected officials, educators and advocates on both sides of the debate, “Failing the Test” is a comprehensive portrait of how charter schools are changing public education.

U.S. law did not even address the issue of separating public restrooms by sex until the end of the 19th century.