The beginning of the year 2014 was marked by a peculiar event. In an appellate court decision, a mother was found guilty of abuse and neglect for leaving her toddler in the car while she went into a s…
2018’s October Surprise?: Hurricanes and What they Mean for the Midterm Elections
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the southern portion of the United States. The disaster resulted in thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage, leaving many to argue that the response…
Lights, Camera, Deregulation! Big Banks Get Their Big Break
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Tackling one of America’s most dire, pressing issues, Congress turned its attention in March away from passé, low-stakes issues like gun control and immigration to —…
Search Engine Politics: How Algorithms are Creating Political Controversy
With new and emerging technologies including social media platforms and search engines, old problems are being brought to the forefront once again. One of those issues is political bias and it is an i…
The Political Side of Fútbol
The FIFA World Cup is the most watched event in the world, and this summer, it will be played in Russia. There are 32 teams competing for the title, with powerhouses such as Germany, France, Brazil, a…
Legalizing Trafficking: Iran’s Unjust Organ Market and Why Legal Selling of Organs Should Not be The Resolve
Celeste Lee has been patiently waiting for a kidney for over 20 years. She was just 17 when an autoimmune disease wrecked her kidney Function, and since then has been relying on a transplanted kidney …
Development: A Dam Problem
It seems odd to juxtapose “environment” with “refugee”. The environment is a set of conditions that cultivate the life of beings. By definition, it is suited to the livelihoods of certain human…
Why isn’t the United States Killing the Death Penalty?
At 2:19 pm on February 14th, I was basking under the pleasant skies on memorial glade, a common pastime of any Berkeley student on a sunny day. At 2:19 pm on February 14th, Nikolas Cruz had entered Ma…
Gill v. Whitford: A Case That Will Literally Map American Politics
Partisan gerrymandering has to be one of the least discussed but politically important topics in our generation. The notion that states can reapportion their districts with lines that can give the inc…
The Power in a Political Narrative
It may be a cliche, but the phrase “Trump means it seriously, but not literally” may be quite telling about the power of rhetoric that supports a particular worldview. Narratives, or larger stories ab…
Divisive Indivisible: Will Democrats Decide to Divorce?
Marriages are messy. Every couple shares some common ground that forms the basis of their relationship, but, humans being humans, each will have disagreements that create tension. Sometimes, the spous…
Of Miscreants and Malignancy
Something is rotten in the state of the Union. Our leaders are more concerned about making the other side look bad than they are about effective governance, and have forgotten that they were elected t…
Hillary Clinton’s Brand of Nationalism
In the February of 1942, a mere two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 127,000 people of Japanese descent were rounded up from all along the west coast, and were subsequently marched into Americ…
Why The Golden State Didn’t Bern
Senator Sanders’ rallies, like this one in Oakland, CA drew thousands of enthusiastic supporters. (Getty) Despite the hype, California didn’t swing for Bernie on June 7, 2016. While national pol…
Religion and Politics: The Limitations of Secularism and Liberal Discourse in the Non-West
This past weekend, Europa Laica (Secular Europe), a non-profit organization committed to the promotion of secularism, the secular state, and the separation of church and State in Europe, launched its …
Gun Violence and the American Mind
“Reform the mental health care system.” Time and time again, this has been the right-wing response to mass shootings. From three years ago, when 26 lives were lost at Sandy Hook Elementary…
“Leapfrogging”: Can developing countries truly skip over fossil fuel reliance in favor of renewable energies?
There is a popular argument that progress and growth are not possible without reliance on fossil fuel-powered energy. Examples abide to support this claim: almost every industrialized country is (rel…
A Coded Political Mantra
According to Malcolm X, “Racism is like a Cadillac, they bring out a new model every year.” Since the outlaw of slavery, racial discrimination taken on many different forms, from physical abuse, to le…