Portside

What is notable about the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal is not that corporate executives lie and cheat, but its environmental scope. By rigging the emissions tests, Volkswagen cars may have added nearly a million tons of air pollution to the atmosphere annually – roughly the same as combined annual emissions for all power stations, vehicles, industry and agriculture in England. And, according to the New York Times, VW executives might not face any U.S. criminal charges.

Last week the Los Angeles Times obtained a secret 44-page proposal drafted by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and other charter advocates, that according to one critic would "do away with democratically controlled, publicly accountable education in LA." With the aid of a billionaires’ club of supporters, the plan is designed to charterize 50% of LA public schools.

America’s rental housing crisis will worsen over the next decade with millions more struggling to make their monthly payments. According to a new study by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and Enterprise Community Partners, the rental population in the U.S. will climb by 4 million over the next 10 years, and the percentage of Americans who are severely rent-burdened (paying 50 percent or more) will increase by 11 percent, to 13 million people by 2025.

In the second such episode in recent months, U.S.-trained Syrian rebels are reported to have handed over their weapons to al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. The supposedly well-vetted fighters of Division 30, the “moderate” U.S.-backed rebel division, surrendered to Jabhat al-Nusra immediately after entering Syria on Monday. Last July, Jabhat al-Nusra routed the first group of Division 30 fighters to re-enter Syria, seizing their weapons and their commander.

New evidence confirms brain disease is widespread among former NFL players. But so far, the increased awareness and concern about concussions hasn’t impacted the NFL’s bottom line. In fact, the NFL is more popular than ever — the opening weekend of the 2015 season was the most-watched ever.

As the Volkswagen case shows, the more trouble caused by closed-off code embedded in an ever-increasing number of physical objects, the more the makers of those objects will struggle to shield themselves from calls for transparency. When code inflicts real harm, such as Volkswagen’s polluting cars, the creators of that code must be held accountable. It’s time to start demanding that smart things open up.

Whether or not the words “slave” or “slavery” appear in the text of the Constitution, they dominate its spirit. Slavery profoundly altered the four months of Constitutional debate with respect to how slaves would be counted for apportionment, how often the census would be taken, how a president would be elected. By the time the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, slavery had indeed become a national institution.

Donald Trump Has Nothing To Apologize For. John Oliver: Public Defenders. Brutally Honest NFL Theme Song with Bonnie McKee. Interview: From Freedom Fighter to President. 2-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal Hearing Abilities of Early Humans.

Sanders faces a problem that often confronts progressive mavericks who strike a chord with the Democratic electorate, but who routinely fail to ring a bell with voters of color. They have often been blinded by cultural assumptions that devalue the sensibilities of the black community. But in 21st-century America, race is fundamental. Sanders has readjusted his policy platform and stump speeches, addressing racism and the criminalization of the black community.

Mexican labor unions and workers are, overall, in the worst situation in decades. President Peña Nieto has succeeded in passing a series of so-called reforms - education, labor, energy, and communications - that will have devastating effects on an already weakened labor movement. The Mexican government has controlled unions since the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, but it was in the 1930s that the system of one-party state control over the unions was fully developed.