Portside

Analyzing offender data on roughly 1.5 million US prisoners, researchers from the Brennan Center for Justice concluded that for one in four, drug treatment, community service, probation or a fine would have been a more effective sentence than incarceration. The study also concluded that another 14% of incarcerated individuals had already served an appropriate sentence. These people could be released within the next year “with little risk to public safety”.

An issue of this magnitude clearly isn’t down to a few shady companies.

The Trump Administration is likely to see the greatest revival of environmentalism as a confrontational, grassroots, and perhaps radical movement since the 1970s, as ever more people who believe the fate of the environment has become a life-or-death issue are going to start acting like it. But to be successful this movement will have to embrace environmental justice and incorporate the struggles for economic and racial equality and for the rights of indigenous peoples.

"Complete this report as fully as possible to the best/of your recollection. Do not consult video evidence." So the Carolina poet Dan Albergotti introduces the absurdities and illogic of bureaucratic obscurity that allows a person to avoid responsibility for discharging a deadly weapon.

We recognize that our democracy has long been compromised by capitalism, neoliberalism, militarization, and special interests, and has been, since the founding of our nation, interwoven with white supremacy and imperialism. The U.S. is a nation of brutal-made-to-be-normalized violence. On this front, Trump’s election is nothing new. Nor are the fissures revealed by the election.

The president-elect slammed a Carrier union leader and then chose a fast-food executive to be labor secretary. The working-class will fight back

If the Trump administration is a pair of bifocals, one lens is the military, the other is corporate power

Castro's biggest test was in the 1990s, when the sudden end of subsidized trade with the Eastern Bloc, combined with sanctions from the United States, led to a severe economic crisis. His response - which history may judge as his greatest legacy - was to launch an ambitious program in organic agriculture, environmental planning, renewable energy and other sustainable development practices.

For decades there’s been interest by some U.S. administrations—the Reagan administration with its “Star Wars” plan a leading example—in placing weapons in space. The Obama administration has mainly been opposed. With the Trump administration, a drive to weaponize space appears in the offing.