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Category: Politics and Current Events

  • Recommended Reading for the 2016 Election Cycle

    Throughout this election cycle, we’ve seen the rise of the radical right reminiscent of the pull of ultraconservative organizations from the past; increasing calls to prevent new immigrants from entering our country; increased calls to improve gun control legislation; a resurging wave of religious intolerance against Muslim Americans; and nationwide protests imploring racial justice and…

  • What Trump Vs. Clinton Means For Gun Control

    By Dennis A. Henigan For the first time since 2000, the Presidential election promises to be pivotal for the politics of gun control. Both for supporters of stronger gun laws, and for “gun rights” partisans, the stakes could not be higher. It was not long ago that the political death of gun control was accepted…

  • Prison Reform Misdirection: 5 Caveats About Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration

    By Kay Whitlock | The August 2016 announcement by the Obama administration that it will phase out or “substantially reduce” contracts with private prisons to house federal prisoners provides a master lesson in the political benefit of the magician’s art of misdirection. Hailed by many as a definitive step forward in criminal justice reform and…

  • The Great Sioux Nation and the Resistance to Colonial Land Grabbing

    By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz The first international relationship between the Sioux Nation and the US government was established in 1805 with a treaty of peace and friendship two years after the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory, which included the Sioux Nation among many other Indigenous nations. Other such treaties followed in 1815 and 1825. These…

  • Graduate Students and the Expansion of Trade Unionism

    By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Graduate students have been attempting to organize labor unions for decades. Until recently, those at private universities and colleges have been blocked from unionizing largely due to a Supreme Court decision from 1980, NLRB v Yeshiva University, that placed graduate students into the camp of managerial personnel and, therefore, ineligible for…

  • What Trump’s “Second Amendment People” Really Think About Armed Insurrection

    By Dennis A. Henigan The suggestion of politically-motivated violence against public officials is terrifying on its face, but it is certainly nothing new. Indeed, Trump’s comments are a specific application of the “insurrectionist” view of Second Amendment rights that has long been a core tenet of the ideology of the National Rifle Association and the…

  • The Drone of Political Theater: 2016’s DNC and RNC

    By José Orduña One convention featured the jingoistic speeches of retired generals, and ex-CIA director Leon Panetta, of protestors chanting “No more war!” being out shouted by people chanting “U-S-A!” The other convention was the Republicans’. As a Mexican immigrant naturalized as a US citizen in 2011, this is the second US general election for…

  • Expanding Social Security to Protect Millennials and Future Generations

    By Steven Hill Social Security will always have somewhat of a perception problem among younger Americans. For a certain number, it will always be viewed as “money for old people who get it from the government.” For people of any age who are working and having taxes deducted from their paychecks, Social Security is a…

  • Apple Pie and Vanilla Ice-Cream Go Together, Not Olympics and Sacrifice

    By Ginny Gilder Marching into Opening Ceremonies is a big moment for athletes all over the world, a public, and oh-so-welcome acknowledgement of the extraordinary effort and amazing accomplishment required to land in the middle of this global phenomenon. Unquestionably, it’s the right time to extol the assembly of top athletes, to marvel over their…

  • That Roving Band of Gypsy Whores…that Wasn’t

    By Melinda Chateauvert Hysteria Alert! We’re heading into another international sporting event, so the predictable, hysterical, and utterly fantastical stories about international sex trafficking are on the rise. We heard this claptrap about “sex tourism” two years ago when Brazil hosted the World Cup, when some NGOs claimed “40,000” women and girls would be involved.…