Portside

We can no longer ignore the fact that members of law enforcement have become a threat to the lives of black men and women.

The Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights is the result of four years of organizing work by the Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers, which campaigned on behalf of the estimated 65,000 domestic workers in the state. The law went into effect on April 1 in Massachusetts.

For years McDonald's new products, business ventures, even social media attempts have gone wrong. It has spectacularly failed to attract or even hold on to millennial customers, who’ve fled in droves. It’s the most visible target of an alliance of workers fighting for $15 an hour and its food is seen as anything but sustainable, fresh or healthy. A result has been a whopping 15 percent drop in its United States operating income in the last quarter of 2014.

On March 30, Mr. Abu-Jamal collapsed in the prison infirmary at SCI Mahanoy from diabetic shock before being hospitalized in the ICU at Schuylkill Medical Center. Despite his serious condition, he was transferred back to the prison just two days later. The medical attention given to Mr. Abu-Jamal thus far has been administered without adequate information and has raised questions of medical neglect.

Several of the biggest steps toward today's condition of mass incarceration and ever-more-visible lethal police violance against civilians were undertaken during Democratic Presidential administrations. Naomi Murakawa has written a history of these developments. Here, Mike Konczal shows us that changing the police-prison industrial system starts with an outlook that begins to think "not about how to make the system better, but about how to take it apart."

One explanation of why do many celebrities are Scientologists is hidden in plain sight: The way the cult mirrors the star-obsessed, profit-driven culture of Hollywood. "Going Clear" also posits the rest of the answer: Stars stick with Scientology because of the meticulously kept notes, recordings and videos from E-meter "auditing" sessions that are central to the religion's practice, and make for ideal blackmail material.

The conflict over fast track is fundamental. Organized labor wants to kill the legislation. Obama wants to sign it. The rough outlines of the bill would enable Congress to make its preferences known and receive updates while trade negotiations are under way in exchange for a clean vote -- no amendments -- on a final trade agreement.

“Organizing boycotts, work stoppages inside prisons and the refusal by prisoners and their families to pay into the accounts of phone companies and commissary companies is the only weapon we have left,” said Amos Caley, who runs the Interfaith Prison Coalition, a group formed by prisoners, the formerly incarcerated, their families and religious leaders.

Whether Emanuel wins or loses his fight for mayor, the savvy coalition leading the charge against him may already have changed Chicago politics for the better.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was given repeated access to millions of Americans to talk trash about the deal over the weekend and to make mostly false allegations about its contours. What does he want? Netanyahu wants to keep Iran poor and undeveloped. He wants to make sure that “crippling” sanctions aren’t lifted. He wants to keep Iranians in grinding poverty.