When I went to vote for the first time in the fall of 2022, I received a ballot I wasn’t quite expecting. As I looked forward to, I had the opportunity to vote for my representative, state legislative assemblymember, and local city council members. However, as I kept going down the ballot, I encountered something that surprised me. After voting for federal, state, and local candidates, I was faced with seven ballot initiatives on a wide range of issues.
Read MorePro-Palestinian students, protesters, and organizations have faced an enormous wave of censorship since October 7th. Pro-Palestinian groups have been barred from college campuses, pro-Palestinian students have been blacklisted and had job offers rescinded, and university presidents have lost their jobs for defending pro-Palestinian students’ First Amendment rights. In a radical shift away from their purported belief in freedom of speech — and their fight to expose all Americans, particularly college students, to views that may be deemed controversial, offensive, or outright harmful — many on the American political Right have embarked on an aggressive campaign to silence pro-Palestinian speech.
Read MoreThe long legal debate over affirmative action has finally come to a close. In June 2023, the Supreme Court banned the use of race-conscious admissions programs within universities. While the debate over the legality of affirmative action has come to an end, a Pandora’s box of political uncertainties has been opened for the college-hopeful class of 2028. Without much guidance from the Supreme Court’s decision, the closing of the legal battle now marks the beginning of a political battle over how to implement and navigate a new college admissions policy.
Read MoreThe rarity of the quadrennial event of the Olympics creates a huge buzz around the world. The best of the best athletes from all corners of the globe compete under bright lights proudly in their nation's colors. It comes with an extreme glitz and glamor for sports taking center stage of media and conversations for these special few weeks. This silencing attention that the games receive, even from those who are not avid sports fans, creates an anomalous ability for athletes to speak to the globe as a whole.
Read MoreSince September 11th, 2001, the United States has initiated an international “War On Terror”, with the stated objectives being targeting and eliminating the networks of terrorism responsible for the events of 9/11. Over the previous two decades, 940,000 individuals have perished directly because of the ongoing wars throughout the greater Middle East. Approximately 3.5-3.8 million individuals have died indirectly because of the humanitarian catastrophes that have unfolded since the wars began. Between 38 and 57 million individuals have been displaced, becoming refugees and creating what are considered to be among the worst humanitarian catastrophes that have ever occurred.
Read MoreWhen watching the news, many Americans look on their screen at the elected official representing them and see the same type of politician: someone who is of a much older generation. Even as the country has become increasingly diverse and seen significant changes in ideology and values, Baby Boomer leaders have stood the test of time. Our country has failed to usher new generations into office to lead the way into this new era, especially in the higher positions where long-time incumbents have dominated the polls.
Read MoreOn November 19, 2023, Argentina held a historic general election that will likely redefine its existing center-left to center-right party system. Javier Milei, an economist and deputy in the Argentine Congress won election to the Presidency with 56 percent of the vote. In recent decades, Argentina has reeled from a series of economic crises, including debt defaults, depressions and currency crises; the inflation rate topped 120 percent as of October. These woes have greatly impacted the standard of living of ordinary people, as the depreciation of Argentina’s currency induces unpredictability and effectively erases private savings by forcing up the real cost of goods.
Read MoreAs I worked as a camp counselor this summer, I was ready for all of the surprises– from pulling ticks out from between my kid's toes to telling them to stop starting fires, my days were filled with spontaneity and almost nothing phased me. What truly caught me off-guard, however, were the girls in my camp, as they were the funniest group of kids I’ve ever met.
Read MoreVirtually every child in America goes to school. Approximately 9% of these children attend a private school. These are schools that are not bound by state regulations and are privately funded, usually by charging tuition. They are generally considered better than their public counterparts: a Gallup poll found that in 2017, 71% of its respondents felt that independent private schools and 63% felt that parochial schools (basically religious private schools) do an excellent or good job educating children, compared with 44% for public schools.
Read MoreBeginning on April 13, 2022, exploited migrants have been sent on buses to sanctuary cities throughout the country. Migrant busing refers to when political officials transport migrants seeking refuge in the United States by bus to different parts of the country. The busing program that Texas Governor Greg Abbott created has inspired many Republican governors to do the same to their migrant populations, effectively creating a displacement crisis across the United States.
Read MoreIn late summer of 1977, the United States launched the Voyager 1 and 2 probes, each of which carried a copy of a 12-inch gold-plated record that contained a time capsule from the planet Earth—sounds, images, and a message from then-President Jimmy Carter. In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first manmade object to reach interstellar space. The record it carries is the first message that humanity sent off into the universe in search of extraterrestrial life. Scientists estimate that the Golden Records may survive for over five billion years—likely far longer than the human species itself. That means that when humanity is long extinct, all that remains of our legacy may be the words of an oft-overlooked one-term president.
Read More“If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable.”
DeSantis is just one among several conservative voices who assert that Big Tech is controlling the media to unfairly suppress conservative viewpoints, pushing the national narrative towards a hidden, progressive agenda. This wave of fear has prompted two prominent conservative states to draft laws aimed at regulating Big Tech’s power to moderate content. However, these laws have sparked a wave of legal challenges from angry tech companies, prompting important questions about our country’s freedoms of speech, press, and expression.
Read MoreOn Jan. 23 2023, Jaahnavi Kandula, a graduate student at Northeastern University in Seattle, was struck and killed by a police officer going 74 mph in a 25 mph zone. Jaahnavi’s family mourned for months, aggrieved by the loss of her happy presence and the fact that she was so close to achieving her dreams, only months away from graduation. Then, shocking new footage emerged. In the video, taken the day after the accident, Officer Daniel Auderer, the vice president of the police union, is seen driving around while chatting on the phone with Mike Solan, the union’s president. They’re talking about the case, and Auderer is nauseatingly flippant about the situation.
Read MoreAmerican law has long recognized the role of negligence in criminal proceedings. Determining guilt in the case of malicious action is straightforward enough—if a person acted with intent to do harm, they ought to be held responsible. But the justice system accepts that cases of inaction can be just as fatal. A person does not need to hold the knife to be held liable; the simple failure to act when there is known risk that apathy will lead to harm—take, for example, failure to feed a child—is enough to establish guilt. In the eyes of the law, death that can be easily prevented—yet is not—is just as immoral.
Read MoreIn the current political landscape in the United States, California is considered one of the bluest of blue states you can get. Every statewide office is held by a Democrat, the state legislature boasts a Democratic supermajority, and Democratic candidates in nationwide elections usually enjoy a 15-20% advantage. Republicans in the state struggle to even have a chance of winning statewide offices. For example, in the 2024 race for the US Senate seat in California, it seems that the two candidates running against each other in the general election will be two Democrats.
Read MoreThe prevailing paradigm of US national security discourse leaves the impression that the emergence of leftist leaders in the developing world is fundamentally at odds with America’s global ambitions. The right holds this view for obvious reasons. Conservatives vigorously tout unfettered markets and military dominance—all things contrary to the egalitarian world leftists want to create—as inviolable components of American hegemony. But the same message is effectively endorsed by progressives who have, for the most part, given up on levers of foreign policy making in favor of pursuing an exclusively domestic agenda.
Read MoreOn March 12, 2000, a man named Gary Ewick concealed three golf clubs worth $399 each by placing them up his pants leg and walked out of a Los Angeles-area golf course. Upon discovery, an employee phoned the police, leading to Ewick’s subsequent conviction and a required 25 years to life in prison. How did stealing $1200 worth of golf clubs warrant a potential life sentence in prison?
Read MoreIn one of the most iconic satirical films of the 21st Century, Tropic Thunder, the aggressively unlikeable studio executive Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise, finds himself in a shockingly serious and delicate situation. He finds that the actors he sent to a remote South Asian jungle to shoot a film were captured as ransom by the ‘Flaming Dragon’ gang, who demand $100 million in ransom money in order to release their actors. With stark comedic poise, the ill-tempered Grossman tells the gang to ‘skin the bastards alive’ and to not forget to ‘go fuck themselves’. When confronted by devoted agent Rick Peck, played by Matthew McConaughey, with the fact that they will murder the captives, Grossman eloquently responds with the notorious line: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists”, which is followed by an enthused patriotic applause by the crowd.
Read MoreAs a student, finding housing is one of my biggest priorities, but I was able to rely on my parents to show credit history and proof of income. For refugees arriving in the US finding housing is one of the first challenges to rebuilding their lives. They must do so often before they learn English and with none of the proof of income, credit, or rental history I was able to use when getting my first apartment. This problem is not unique to refugees or the city of Sacramento but one non-profit, the Refugee Enrichment and Development Association (REDA) is helping clients rebuild their lives.
Read MoreAfter waking up this morning, you probably went on your phone and began to scroll through your feed, coming across a TikTok of Kanye singing “Hey There Delilah”, a drawing of Spiderman in the style of Warhol, and then read a fascinating article from the Onion to make sure you start your day informed. Maybe the algorithm was feeling nostalgic, so it decided to serve you some Key of Awesome clips. The specifics might be different for you, but one thing is clear, parody is everywhere, and more often than not, it is based on another’s creative works.
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