• Interview with Benjamin Jealous

    Interview with Benjamin Jealous

    By Urja Mittal and Sarem Gizaw Benjamin Jealous is the current President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He is the youngest person to have led the 104-year-old organization. Earlier in his career, Jealous worked as a journalist for a Mississippi newspaper and served extensively in the non-profit sector. As [...]

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  • Interview with Joe Trippi

    Interview with Joe Trippi

    By Urja Mittal & Anthony Cruz Joe Trippi is a Democratic campaign consultant who has worked on the presidential campaigns of Edward M. Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt, Howard Dean, and John Edwards. He has also done campaign consulting for state and Congressional campaigns, including for Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and for politicians in foreign countries, such [...]

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  • Interview with John Bul Dau

    Interview with John Bul Dau

    By: Samuel Ruddy John Bul Dau is one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan and the founder of non-profit organizations that benefit those who are displaced by the conflict in Sudan. Born into a tribe in the southern region of the war-torn Sudan in 1974, Dau had to flee attacks on his village at the age of 8 and [...]

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  • Dignity for All

    Dignity for All

    By: Jonathan Fried Extreme ideological polariz-ation and large structural deficits are a match made in hell. Indeed, it is quite possible that, given the yawning chasm between congressional Democrats and Republicans, the U.S. will stagger from one mild fiscal crisis to the next. Perhaps the real drivers of our structural budget deficit will be successfully addressed, and perhaps not. But [...]

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  • “First World Problem”: Western Media and Global Rape Culture

    “First World Problem”: Western Media and Global Rape Culture

    by Vanessa Koh The brutal rape and subsequent death of a 23-year-old student in India have sparked outrage and protests against endemic gendered violence. However, there is something unsettling about the way western media has relayed the story of this rape and has handled rape culture. Libby Purves of The Times asserts, “Indian women need a cultural earthquake,” as “murderous, [...]

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  • History Repeats Itself…Sort Of?

    History Repeats Itself…Sort Of?

    By: Chad Klitzman A CIA operative orchestrates an elaborate plot to rescue six Iranian hostages in Ben Affleck’s “Argo.” America’s 16th president illustrates the power of compromise as he works to pass the thirteenth amendment in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln.” And, an elite team of Navy SEALs raids a Pakistani compound housing the world’s most wanted man in Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero [...]

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  • Lobbyists, Votes, And Money, Oh My!

    Lobbyists, Votes, And Money, Oh My!

    By: Benjamin Droz There is a reason why I read political books. It is not because I love the often dry, statistics-filled, obviously self-promoting style of similar texts; it is because these texts often have a therapeutic quality. I follow and participate in politics in this country, because I feel a nagging frustration with all that surrounds us. What drives [...]

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  • President Alexander Lukashenko: A Brief Look Into Europe’s Last Dictatorship

    President Alexander Lukashenko: A Brief Look Into Europe’s Last Dictatorship

    By: Anthony Cruz It is rare to hear Belarus counted among states accused of human rights violations. American scholars, commentators, and writers tend to focus on China, Iran, Syria, and North Korea as the world’s worst human rights offenders.  Since its separation from the Soviet Union in 1990, however, Belarus has maintained one of the world’s worst human rights records. [...]

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  • The Cold War Days are Over

    The Cold War Days are Over

    By: Gregory Segal In December 1991, after over 45 years of bitter rivalry with the United States, the Soviet Union suddenly disappeared from the world map.  With the Soviet Union’s abrupt disintegration, Americans quickly believed that the Cold War, and the era it entailed, rapidly ended along with it.  As President George H. W. Bush said in a June 1992 [...]

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  • The Politics of Homeland

    The Politics of Homeland

    By: Nadia Tareen As I was scrolling through the latest headlines on January 3, one particular news story quickly caught my eye: “Taliban leader Nazir killed in drone strike.” As an avid fan of the series “Homeland,” I marveled at how life was imitating art. The Showtime series revolves around the CIA’s efforts to kill an infamous terrorist with the [...]

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