Skip to main content
Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it.

Bernie and the Movement

Bill Fletcher, Jr. Jacobin
Bernie Sanders is a boon to progressive politics. But we need a movement that rebuilds the networks and organizations of the Left.

The Supreme Court After Scalia

Rob Hunter Jacobin
We should instead explore and promote options that would subordinate the Supreme Court to political control. Now is the right moment to dream of a chastened Court and to envision how that dream may become a reality.

Secret Memo Details U.S.'s Broader Strategy to Crack Phones

Michael Riley and Jordan Robertson Bloomberg
Security specialists say the case carries enormous consequences, for privacy and the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, and that the National Security Council directive, which has not been previously reported, shows that technology companies underestimated the resolve of the U.S. government to access encrypted data.

Friday Nite Videos -- February 19, 2016

Portside
A Face In The Crowd - Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal. Samantha Bee: Oh God, Don't Make Me Agree With Donald Trump. John Oliver: Voting. Buddy Guy - First Time I Met The Blues. Network Earth.

Walking Free After 42 Years in Solitary

Aviva Shen ThinkProgress
Albert Woodfox’s conviction for the 1972 murder of a prison guard, Brent Miller, has been overturned several times, yet he has remained in prison. The state had planned to mount a third trial against him, even though all of the witnesses to the murder have since died. Wallace will now go free Friday because of a plea deal with the state.

Feeling Sleepy? You Might Be at Risk of Falsely Confessing

S. Berkowitz, E. Loftus, K., S. Frenda The Conversation
Researchers have been hard at work studying how it is that innocent people sometimes go to prison for crimes they did not commit. A recent report documented that in 2015 there were a record number of exonerations in the United States, as many as one in four involving false confessions. Here are three pathways to a false confession.

Why America Is Moving Left

Peter Beinart The Atlantic
Republicans may have a lock on Congress and the nation's statehouses - and could well win the presidency - but the liberal era ushered in by Barack Obama is only just beginning. The need to win the votes of Millennials and minorities, who lean left not just on cultural issues but on economic ones, will shape how whoever wins in the general election, and governs once in office.

World's Most Famous Economist Says Bernie Sanders Could "Change the Face of the Country"

Zeeshan Aleem Policy.Mic
The Vermont senator's success so far demonstrates the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections. Piketty's doesn't see Sanders as following in the footsteps of Europe's social democratic models, but rather leading the United States toward a possible return to the nation's pioneering 20th century experiments with extremely progressive taxation and social spending.
Subscribe to Portside