Portside

Getting captured on film was the only "mistake" police officer Michael Thomas Slager made when he killed Walter Scott. Otherwise, he did everything by the book, and likely would never have been charged.

What the sanctions made clear is that President Obama’s opening to Cuba represented exactly zero change in Washington’s overall strategy toward the region: The intention of expanding commercial and diplomatic relations with Cuba was mainly to pursue a more effective strategy of undermining the Cuban government--and all of the left governments in the region.

This poem references the violence of enforced disappearance and forced displacement that is rampant in Colombia. Colombia has over 50,000 reported disappearances, and about 5 million internally displaced.

As union elections near, elected officials can generally say things that employers cannot communicate without risking labor law violations. Neither companies nor unions, for instance, can create an “atmosphere of confusion or fear of reprisals” under election procedures. So long as politicians are not conspiring with either party to do that--a difficult fact to prove in itself--no such standard applies to elected leaders like Mayor Summey.

Netanyahu should accept the American offer of dialogue on the draft agreement reached in Lausanne, instead of signalling his intent to scupper it out of hand.

America’s billionaires minimize their tax burdens, making the rest of us pick up their tab.

Angelina Jolie’s public message about her medical decisions related to cancer is about knowing your risks for disease, not hers.

The fact that Walter Scott was killed on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination makes stark the distinction between the reality of the post-civil rights era and pretensions to a post-racial era. The slogan of the day, born from a Twitter hashtag, is Blacklivesmatter. That says a lot. the issue of the sanctity of black life has still not been settled.