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Keeping Democracy Alive

Keeping Democracy Alive

Civil Rights

Elections & Politics

Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy
South Sudan: Oil and Matches (Foreign Policy Brief #210)
South Sudan is the youngest country in the world in terms of its autonomous foundation. Once part of Sudan, it achieved semi-autonomy in 2005 after years of brutal civil war as part of its now northern neighbor. Eventually, under referendum, the people of South Sudan voted for absolute autonomy in 2011, legally breaking away from Sudan.
The Week That Was: Global News in Review (Foreign Policy Brief #209)
Palestinians in Gaza are now experiencing full blown famine as the total Israeli blockade, which for months made the extreme situation in the strip even worse as no food, water, medicine or fuel has been allowed to make its way into the strip. International humanitarian aid organizations, the UN and a majority of countries around the world acknowledge the forced starvation taking place in Gaza and expressed condemnation towards the Israeli government. Meanwhile various Israeli officials continue to deny the existence of mass starvation, claiming without evidence that Hamas steals and hoards aid and hinges blame on failures by the UN and its officials.
Nigeria’s Resource Curse (Foreign Policy Brief #209)
Those who have a casual understanding of history or geopolitics may react agreeably to the concept: the greater abundance of natural resources a country has the more well-off the people of that country will be. Unfortunately, for Nigerians, the opposite is their reality. The abundance of oil in Nigeria, along with their colonial history, has resulted in a “resource curse,” a theory posited by contemporary international relations scholars. Nigeria now finds its economy reliant on the export of oil and renting their oil fields to multinational corporations (MNCs), leading to a commodity industry based on corruption and wealth centralization.

Technology

Technology
Profits and Protests at Palantir (Technology Policy Brief #152)
Palantir Technologies’ data tracking software and Artificial Intelligence tools are playing a huge role in the ICE sweeps plaguing communities throughout the US, sparking a national day of protests and concerns over a revolving door between the company and key government agencies.
Trump’s Tech Ventures Positioned for Top Profits (Technology Policy Brief #151)
The Trump organization has dropped any pretense of avoiding conflicts of interest. Instead, it is blatantly cashing in on Trump’s presidency in every conceivable way. At the top of the list is tech, with both Trump and his wife selling digital currencies and a new Trump mobile phone on the way. An additional bonus is that Trump has a great deal of power over the agencies that oversee these industries, and Congress is doing nothing to stop him from taking advantage of it.
AI Regulation: Who’s Up to the Challenge? (Technology Policy Brief #150)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the discipline of designing computer systems that can perform tasks normally requiring human cognition—pattern recognition, language generation, planning—by learning statistical relationships from large data sets. Modern AI works by training vast machine-learning models on petabytes of text, images, audio, and code and then applying those models to new inputs to produce predictions or content; it now powers everything from chatbots and fraud detection to medical imaging and autonomous drones.

Environment

Environment
Old Growth Forest Policy Made at the 19th Hole
Through an Executive Order issued March 1, 2025, there is to be an expansion of American timber production that meets goals to achieve “sound forest management, reduce time to deliver timber, and decrease timber supply uncertainty.” Approximately 100 million acres, the equivalent of 60% of our national forests, are to be within earshot of a chainsaw. In so doing, the Trump administration declares this a “new era” in national forest management. Legally protected forest land and parts of old growth forest are slated be part of the expanded production.
The Growing Global Battle for Rare Earth Minerals
Where there’s oil, there’s the United States of America. It’s an old joke, fostered by a century of U.S.-backed coups and military interventions in the name of cheap access to oil reserves. But the age of oil politics may be giving way to a new age of mineral politics.
Introducing Gulf of America – from the person who gave us Trump Tower
For the last 475 years, the expanse of ocean from western Florida to southern Texas has been called the “Gulf of Mexico.” English geographer Richard Hakluyt referred to the “Gulfe of Mexico” in his work of 1589. With the stroke of a pen on February 9, 2025, the President of the United States signed Executive Order 14172 and renamed the body of water “Gulf of America.” In addition to “restoring American pride,” President Trump justified the name change by referencing territorial rights over much of the area and that those waters have “long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America.” Trump considers the Gulf a business asset.

Education

Health & Gender

Health & Gender
Utah, Fluoride, and the Public Water System Panic
Science is ever-evolving. When new information comes out, it is protocol to test it rigorously and check every assumption along the way. But what happens when the public takes a single new data point as gospel?
The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You: A Tribe’s Response to the Measles Outbreak
Seminole, Texas is where I graduated high school, where I met my best friends, where I played football, and where I drank my first beer. Seminole is where I learned to pick myself up by the bootstraps, that no one is better than me, and that hard work coupled with perseverance will get you far. Seminole is where I learned the value of a handshake, that a person is only as good as their word, how to overcome adversity, and that it takes a Tribe to solve our biggest problems.
The Hypocrite in Chief’s War on Women
Trump has been president for under a month, and he is already going to great lengths to restrict a woman’s right to an abortion. At first, after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court that Trump helped assemble, it appeared that abortion would be left to the states.

Immigration

Immigration
Justice Delayed: The Mounting Crisis of America’s Immigration Court Backlog (Immigration Policy Brief #144)
There are over 3 million cases currently pending in U.S. immigration courts, with the trend steadily rising since 2012, according to Syracuse University’s TRAC project. These cases reflect more than just bureaucratic dysfunction—they represent a failing immigration system. The problem goes beyond inefficient government & red tape; it’s a legal & human rights crisis affecting families, asylum seekers, & entire communities.
How ICE Works (Immigration Policy Brief #144)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003 as a component of the Department of Homeland Security to enforce immigration laws inside the United States and investigate transnational crime. Twenty‑two years later, the agency employs more than 20,000 personnel across more than 400 domestic and foreign offices.
Deporting Democracy: The Crackdown on Foreign Student Visas (Immigration Policy Brief #143)
Institutions of higher education are under attack. Since the return of the Trump administration, more than 1,500 international students and recent graduates from over 240 institutions, across at least 45 states and Washington, D.C., have had their F-1 academic and J-1 exchange visas revoked.

Economic Policy

Economic Policy
The Hidden Burden: How Tariffs Hurt Marginalized Communities and Lower-Income Americans (Economic Policy Brief #87)
Since his re-election in 2024, President Donald Trump has reignited a trade war strategy similar to his first term, escalating tariffs against China, Mexico, and the European Union.
Economic Crossroads: Are Tariffs Ending North American Relations? (Economic Policy Brief #86)
Since his re-election in 2024, President Donald Trump has reignited a trade war strategy similar to his first term, escalating tariffs against China, Mexico, and the European Union. These tariffs, framed as efforts to “protect American jobs,” have significantly raised the cost of imported goods such as electronics, food, clothing, and raw materials. While intended to support domestic industries, the policy has instead imposed hidden costs on American consumers—especially those from lower-income and marginalized communities.
The Prison-Industrial Complex: Profiting Off Punishment in America (Economic Policy Brief #85)
The prison-industrial complex (PIC) in the United States represents a deeply entrenched system where incarceration is commodified, intertwining the interests of government agencies and private enterprises. This nexus has transformed the U.S. criminal justice system into a profit-driven enterprise, often at the expense of marginalized communities.
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