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Friday Nite Videos -- July 24, 2015

Portside
Slavery to Mass Incarceration. Mess Within Texas - Sandra Bland's Arrest. Traffic Stop. Are We Really 99% Chimp? The First Openly Asshole President.

Discovering a New Dinosaur Helped Us Prove Velociraptors Had Feathers

Stephen Brusatte The Conversation
In Jurassic World, Velociraptors are depicted as big, drab-coloured, scaly brutes. We've known for some time that wasn't true - Velociraptors had feathers. And now, thanks to a spectacular fossil of a new dinosaur, we know in detail what the real Velociraptor would have been like. Far from being a scaly-skinned reptilian monster, Velociraptor would have been a fluffy, feathered poodle from hell.

Massacre in Louisiana: The Shooter's Ideology, and the Governor's

Kira Lerner, Ryan Lenz
When mass shootings fit into Gov. Bobby Jindal’s view of “radical Islamic terrorists” he is quick to condemn the violence as terrorism. But when the incidents are results of lax gun control laws and radical right-wing shooters he simply calls the situation tragic and is quick to move on. The evidence already indicates that the shooter in the Lafayette Theater was a fan of David Duke, neo-Nazis, and antigovernment conspiracies.

Socialism, American-Style

Gar Alperovitz, Thomas M. Hanna New York Times
Public ownership is already widespread in the United States, and is popular in practice, if not in the abstract, with both liberals and conservatives. It includes hospitals, parks, public utilities, public Internet systems, hotels, and Public Wealth Funds generated by state owned oil and mineral wealth that subsidize public education and provide guaranteed incomes to millions of people. With skepticism about capitalism growing, will we see more such endeavors?

Tidbits - July 23, 2015 - #BlackLivesMatter and Bernie Sanders; Police Violence & Racism; Serena Williams; Rosa Luxemburg Conference; more...

Portside
Reader Comments: #BlackLivesMatter and Bernie Sanders; The Value of Protest; US Cited for Police Violence, Racism; Private Prisons; Euro Agreement and Greece; Urban Renewal and Public Space; Announcement: Rosa Luxemburg Conference - New Takes on a Longtime Classic - New York - August 21 - 22 (Moderator's Note - There will be no Tidbits for the next three weeks)

The U.S. Aids and Abets War Crimes in the Philippines

Marjorie Cohn truthdig
People and groups have been labeled terrorists by the Philippine government, the U.S. government and other countries at the behest of the U.S. government. The Philippine government engages in - red tagging - political vilification. Targets are frequently human rights activists and advocates, political opponents, community organizers or groups struggling for national liberation. Those targeted for assassination are placed on the order of battle list.

What do Angela Merkel and Mitt Romney Have in Common? - Austerity unites right-wing Americans and Eurozone leaders

Richard D. Wolff Aljazeera America
European bankers attack on Greece is like the Mitt Romney attack on 47 percent of the people. U.S. voters rejected those policies in 2012. Germany and Europe embrace what voters in our country rejected...The welfare consensus was initially adopted because capitalists were trying to stave off threats of socialist alternatives: providing for the poor, they reasoned, would prevent citizens from sympathizing with Marxists, Communists, and other left-leaning groups.

Israel Security Establishment Breaks With Bibi on Iran Deal

J.J. Goldberg Jewish Daily Forward
Many Israeili security insiders say the deal signed in Vienna isn't as bad as Netanyahu claims. Some call it good for Israel. They include former chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin; former chief of arms technology, Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, who now chairs The Israel Space Agency; former chief of military operations, Israel Ziv; the architect of Israeli military intelligence, Dov Tamari; former director of Shin Bet domestic security service, Ami Ayalon; and others.

The Campaign of Deception Against Planned Parenthood

The Editorial Board, The New York Times The New York Times
Anti-abortion groups have long pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money is used to provide abortions. But that hasn't stopped their efforts to shut down the clinics, which provide services like contraception, cancer screening and other tests.