Portside

Eric Garner died after being put in a chokehold by the police on the sidewalk outside a shop a year ago this Friday. The battle over his death isn’t only about policing, but about public space. It’s about real estate and urban renewal, lines that should not be crossed, and places that are off limits to certain people. And it’s about public places where African-Americans and others are supposed to be invisible, without access to their infrastructure and amenities.

The recent riots at the for-profit Kingman Prison in Arizona are focusing renewed attention on that state legislature’s long, cozy relationship with the private prison industry. Prisoner unrest the July 4th weekend left 15 wounded and forced the transfer of 1,000 inmates to other facilities. The same facility, run by Management Training Corporation, suffered a major riot in 2010. The repeated failings of for-profit prisons have led Arizonans to ask some big questions.

On July 2, the states attorneys general in Louisiana and four other Gulf Coast states celebrated an $18.7 billion settlement with BP over claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But, according to the Public Interest Research Group, at least $13.2 billion in the settlement is not defined as a penalty, meaning BP could potentially get billions in tax breaks, even on payments it made to restore natural resources damaged by the spill.

Mondoweiss co-editors Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss talk with Palestinian human rights activist Omar Barghouti, on the 10th anniversary of the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement. Barghouti is co-founder of the movement, which, he says, has played a critical role in changing the discourse on the question of Palestine after more than two decades of a “fraudulent peace process” that undermined Palestinian rights and served as a fig leaf for Israeli expansion.

The Lancet, one of the world’s most respected medical journals, comments on the final report on the World Health Organization’s handling of the Ebola crisis, a devastating critique of the WHO and its member states, which “fatally let down the people of West Africa.” It criticizes the report for not addressing lack of accountability and chronic underinvestment in the WHO, the need to create resilient health systems, and the need for universal health coverage.

The Republican rising star struggled for two days to get clarity with regard to his appearance at a "white pride" - Ku Klux Klan event in 2002. Initially, his office tried to keep things vague, suggesting it was "likely" Scalise attended. He was a veteran state legislator then, elected from the same precincts where David Duke once ran strong. When it became clear he was not just present but a presenter, Scalise started spinning scenarios that might explain it all away.

Kenworthy thinks that capitalism working at its best—an Americanized version of the Nordic model—would be worth fighting for. I agree.

When unions serve the interests of the few, they lose their way and their ability to be forward-looking. But one of the better-kept secrets is that invariably, they also quietly become alienated from their own members. Inevitably, if the leadership of the PBA continues to ignore and fail on this challenge, new leadership will be destined to take it up.

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.

Despite the ongoing pandemic of violence against women, the threats online and the harassment on the streets, women’s voices assumed an unprecedented power in 2014, writes Rebecca Solnit.