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October 2019

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Re-Thinking the United States’ Relationship with Iran

August 06, 2022 12:34 PM
The U.S. holds long-standing, relatively hostile relationships with several Middle Eastern countries. Iran is no exception. The past is marked with several tenuous agreements, such as the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, when both sides agreed that the U.S. would lift sanctions if Iran agreed to halt its nuclear research. Following President Trump’s pull-out of the Iran nuclear deal and subsequent reinstatement of harsh sanctions, the unfriendly relationship between the two countries has become even more aggressive. This came to a head on January 3rd, when the U.S. assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military figure, as he arrived in Iraq to meet with politicians and military allies [1]. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe revenge” on the U.S., but as of yet, the only retaliation has been to launch 12-15 missiles at several Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces, with many believing that Iran “deliberately chose targets that would not result in loss of life” [2].
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Draining the Swamp

April 07, 2022 05:35 PM
With our nation still reeling from the political and social whirlwinds encompassing the 60s, most Americans hoped that the 1970s would usher in a new era of calm. That calm would never come. Soon after the turn of the decade in 1974, our nation's citizens watched on TV as a disgraced President Nixon admitted to wiretapping his political opponents, stealing important documents, and abusing his executive authority in a failed cover up. Just when we thought public trust in our government officials couldn’t get any lower: four years later in 1978, members of the FBI, suspicious about corruption within Congress, set up a sting operation called Operation ABSCAM. Through this investigation they exposed seven sitting members of Congress for taking cash bribes. [1]
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G7 & Grappling with the Optics of International Affairs

April 07, 2022 05:33 PM
Nine years ago, activists in Tunisia, empowered by their ability to effectively organize via new forms of social media, began massive protests for democracy and freedom. New media has inspired global citizens to effectively act together to work toward a fairer society with flourishing civil liberties. Unfortunately, this optimism was short lived. Authoritarian governments and militants throughout the world soon became social media literate themselves, hijacking these platforms to spread misinformation, sew discontent, and inspire and organize militant groups themselves. At the close of this same decade, we can look back at these formative years of the early 2010s and easily recognize both the potential virtue and terror of social media. The proliferation of new media has certainly opened up politics and access to information to a greater number of people than ever before, but by the same token, there are very few ways to control misinformation, and international diplomacy has become incredibly sensationalized and, perhaps, overdramatized. Above all else, it is clear that new media has forever altered how political actors handle domestic and international affairs—for better or worse.
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The Amazon is Burning and Nobody Knows Whose Job It is to Fix It

April 07, 2022 05:31 PM
As various governments grapple with assuming responsibility for the devastation in the Amazon, Americans are also forced to address our own “tragedy of the commons”. Do public lands exist to serve the government and society, or does the government exist to protect such lands?
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Mueller Musings: The Only Tea You’ll Find On Campus

April 07, 2022 05:28 PM
I discovered new passions while interning on Capitol Hill this past summer: business casual, C-SPAN, and, of course, politics. When I came home to find a copy of the 448-page Mueller Report on the living room table, I began reading, knowing it would be a huge flex on all my political colleagues. I was willing to invest the time, no matter how boring, and I have been shocked by its findings. For those who haven’t had the opportunity to read the full report, I will summarize the most intriguing details.
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Brexit? Americans Have Been there, Done That

April 07, 2022 05:25 PM
[9] Liz Covart, “American Independence: An Eighteenth-Century Brexit.” https://www.lizcovart.com/blog/2019/2/10/brexit-and-american-independence
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2020: A Chance to Put a Leader in the White House

April 07, 2022 05:22 PM
Our nation’s greatest times are often associated with the nation’s leaders. George Washington miraculously led revolutionary rebels to victory and exhibited the characteristics of a true leader by stepping down after two terms. Monuments stand in remembrance of Abraham Lincoln’s wise decisions preserved the future of the United States. JFK served less than three years, yet people still glorify his invitation to push the country to new limits and associate that era with a better age for the nation. Individuals who outrightly oppose Lincoln or JFK’s political policies honor these men as some of the greatest to have ever lived. Why then, is a leader’s policy more valuable than their characteristics when we reflect on what has truly made America great? Often, when criticizing the polarized state of this country, we cite the advice George Washington gave in his farewell address to abstain from political parties. He warned, “[political parties] are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people” [1]. Over two hundred years have passed, and the very structure by which constituents elect candidates is reliant on political parties.
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The Precedent of Overturning

April 07, 2022 05:20 PM
During the past five months, two US Supreme Court justices, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer, have raised the alarm that this Court (with new justices Niel Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh) appears to be more willing to overturn existing precedent [1]. These warnings lobbed by two traditionally left-leaning justices at their conservative-leaning colleauges have echoed across liberal American politics and media, with major issues such as LGBT+ rights and abortion likely to make their way to the Court in the near future. With these concerns about overturning precedent and fancy terms like stare decisis being thrown around, it is worth asking, “What is the value of precedent?”, and “What leads some justices to care more about it than others?”
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Abortion: It’s About Agency

April 07, 2022 05:19 PM
Twenty-two million. That’s how many women undergo unsafe abortions every year. Twenty-two million women are subjected to this leading cause of maternal mortality [1]. The debate on abortion focuses on its legality and accessibility, but we have the research: outlawing abortion does nothing to reduce quantity nor demand.
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Rethinking Reparations

April 07, 2022 05:17 PM
The issue of reparations is an elephant in the room of American history. The idea of reparations for slavery has existed since 1865, when General William Tecumseh Sherman ordered that every newly freed slave family be given 40 acres of land. Unsurprisingly, his order was never carried out [1]. Since that time, calls for reparations have been made by many African American activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ta-Nehisi Coates [2, 3, 4]. More recently, 2020 presidential hopefuls, such as Elizabeth Warren, have made reparations a key part of their platforms [5]. I believe that we indeed have a responsibility to pay reparations, and that the most effective way to do so will be to implement policies that reduce wealth inequality for all Americans.
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Politics as Sport: How Partisanship and Theatrics Turns Politics into a Rivalry Game

April 07, 2022 05:14 PM
Every fall, loyal fans around the country converge to watch “their” college team play against its rival. Some rivalries, such as the Ohio State—Michigan rivalry, are so entrenched that many diehards will consider the entire season a success so long as that single game returns a favorable outcome. While such sports rivalries may be genuinely exhilarating, recent research has illuminated a disturbingly similar trend in politics. Voters increasingly place more value on a partisan label, such as “Democrat” or “Republican,” than they care about actual government policy.
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