USRESISTNEWSMaking Democracy Great Again: A Mission We Take To Heart
Keeping Democracy Alive
Making Democracy Great Again
Civil Rights
Rodney Maggay
The Texas and California Re – Districting Fight Explained
Rodney A. Maggay
Why The Birthright Citizenship Rule Is Still Valid Today And What Comes Next (Civil Rights Brief #245)
david
The Role of the Judiciary Against The Other Branches of Government – A Historical Background (Civil Rights Policy Brief #244)
Rodney Maggay
The Distinction Between Law and Policy And The Role of The Courts
Rodney Maggay
The Department of Justice Voting Section’s Shift In Priorities
Nicholas Gordon
Resistance is Not Futile: Upholding Civil Rights and Constitutional Norms to withstand Trump’s Autocratic Aims
david
The Administration Efforts to Avoid a Judicial Ruling
Rodney Maggay
A Court’s Options To Enforce Compliance With Court Orders
Rodney Maggay
The Pettiness of President Trump Targeting Law Firms For Revenge
adminusres
A Comparison of Biden and Trump’s January 20th Pardons
Elections & Politics
Nate Iglehart
Third Party Possibilities
Nate Iglehart
The New Wave of Progressive Politicians is Growing (Elections & Politics Brief #189)
Naja Barnes
The Democratic Push for the Release of the Epstein Files (Elections & Politics Brief #190)
Nate Iglehart
Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Has Been A Wake-Up Call. Who Is Following His Lead? (Elections & Politics Brief #188)
david
A Hick-Lib’s Rebellion: Kyle Rable, No Kings!, & the Fight for West Texas (Elections and Politics Brief #187)
Nate Iglehart
Ranked Choice Voting is On the Rise. How does it work and why is it popular? (Elections & Politics Brief #186)
Nate Iglehart
Habeas corpus: What is it, and can it be suspended? (Elections & Politics Brief #185)
Morgan Davidson
The Growing 2025 Anti-Trump Protests: Hands Off, No Kings Day, and More
Inijah Quadri
A Primer on Political Interest Groups
Nate Iglehart
Where Democrats can aim for the 2026 midterms: House Edition
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
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.
The Art of the Heel: The Deadly Effects of Trump Abandoning the Iran Nuclear Deal (Foreign Policy Brief #208)
The Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is an accord reached between Iran and several world powers, including the United States, in 2015. Under its terms, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its weapons-making facilities to international inspections in exchange for sanctions relief worth billions of dollars. Since the United States’ withdrawal from JCPOA in 2018 under President Trump, Iran has expanded its nuclear program, breaching its commitments to the agreement, including resuming uranium enrichment and violating limits on nuclear materials. While the JCPOA remains legally valid, Iran’s violations of the agreement’s terms have thus far thwarted negotiations to revive it or to forge a new deal with the Trump administration. Foreign diplomacy analysts and Israeli officials have identified Trump’s backing out of the deal as a costly blunder that has fueled both Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and rising instability in the middle east.
The Sudanese Civil War (Foreign Policy Brief #204)
Across the world conflicts are raging, and in their paths leave levels of humanitarian crisis that reach peaks never seen in human history. One of these lesser reported upon conflict regions has the largest humanitarian crisis in recorded history: Sudan.
Technology
Technology
Trump’s Big Beautiful Gifts to Artificial Intelligence Companies (Technology Policy Brief # 149)
In his first few days in office, Donald Trump announced a $500 billion joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank to invest in growing the US’s AI infrastructure and rescinded former President Joe Biden’s executive order requiring safety submissions from AI developers. His big, beautiful bill showers much more money in the industry, and aims to eliminate state oversight or regulation of AI companies as well.
Israel’s Use of AI in Gaza Sparks Protest at Tech Companies in the U.S.
The Israeli military uses Artificial Intelligence to find and target Hamas fighters, but with a civilian death toll estimated at 52,000, critics allege the system is not reliable and may even be providing cover for widespread bombing and ethnic cleansing. And that US companies are complicit.
Trump’s Bromance With Big Tech Hits Some Bumps
Tech billionaire support for Donald Trump is paying off in some of the expected ways, such as extraordinary access and deregulation. But Trump has wreaked havoc on the stock market, disappointed his crypto backers, and failed to save Mark Zuckerberg from a grilling at the Federal Trade Commission.
Environment
Environment
The End of DEI in the Federal Government: Who’s Really Affected?
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in the United States trace their roots back to the civil rights movements of the 1960s, particularly through the enactment of Affirmative Action programs.
No shortage of Canaries in our Coastlines Signaling Catastrophe
40% of the U.S. population line our coasts. That equates to approximately 130 million people residing in coastal counties. In addition to those who retire seaside, entire economies are integrated into the coastal industries of fishing, tourism, energy, shipbuilding, and recreation. Even a cursory glance using google maps shows how tightly clustered the built space is, all on only 10% of the total U.S. land mass. Shoreline communities have five times the population density as compared to the U.S. average.
Why is LA on Fire?
Why is LA on Fire? Environment Policy #178 | By: Arvind Salem | Submitted: January 13, 2025 Photo Credit: LAFD Photo | Cody Weireter __________________________________ Policy Summary The latest round of fires, something that has been plaguing Los Angeles, is a scary...
Education
Steve Piazza
The Downsizing of Student Learning Assessments (Education Policy Brief #208)
Yelena Korshunov
New Trump Rule Targets The Head Start Program (Education Policy Brief #206)
Steve Piazza
Current Efforts to Change State Education Curricula (Education Policy Brief #205)
Steve Piazza
Project 2025 and Federal Influence Over K-12 Curricula (Education Policy Brief #204)
Naja Barnes
The Future of Student Loans in Trump’s Presidency (Education Policy Brief #203)
Valerie Henderson
The Trump Administration and the University Communities: Part 1, Funding Suspension
Valerie Henderson
The Trump Administration and University Communities: Part II
Valerie Henderson
Understanding What the U.S. Department of Education Did
Damian DeSola
MAGA Against College: A Fight for America’s Minds
Valerie Henderson
The Reasons We’ve Had a Department of Education
Evan Wechman
The Dangers for Schools Amid the Trump Gender War
Evan Wechman
The Uncertainty of the Student Loan Crisis in the Age of Trump
Evan Wechman
The Fallacy of School Choice
Evan Wechman
Trump and Vance Fail to Offer Solutions to School Violence
Evan Wechman
Transgender Students Need Protection from Trump’s Assault on Title IX
Health & Gender
Health & Gender
The Post-Election State of Abortion
The Post-Election State of Abortion Health & Gender Brief #177 | By: Geoffrey Small | November 26, 2024 Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash __________________________________ Summary As the Republican party seizes control of Congress and The Presidency, abortion...
The Rise of ‘Weird’ and the New Framing of Anti-Abortion Policies
Despite widespread public support for abortion rights, restrictive policies continue to rise, highlighting a stark disconnect between American voters and their government. As “weird” becomes the new political shorthand, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz challenge the unsettling narratives driving anti-abortion legislation.
Current Events in a Post-Roe V. Wade Era
Policy Brief #175 – Health and Gender
by: Geoffrey Small
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the United States is grappling with a rapidly shifting landscape of reproductive rights, marked by new policy proposals, legal battles, and state-level legislation. This article delves into the ongoing turmoil, highlighting key events and their profound impact on the future of abortion access in America.
Immigration
Immigration
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.
A Fear-based Immigration Policy (Immigration Policy Brief #142)
Trump’s mass deportation efforts remain ongoing across the U.S., capturing headlines with the arrests of student activists like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, and the deportation of alleged Tren de Aragua members/Venezuelans legally here on asylum, not to Venezuela but El Salvador, including a U.S. resident misidentified as a gang member. Despite the high-profile raids and fiery rhetoric, government data shows that deportations under Trump still lag behind levels seen under the Biden administration.
Economic Policy
Economic Policy
Danger in Economic Uncertainty: A Lesson From Trump’s Tariff Policies
The dust is still being settled a month after the U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day.” He was never coy about his desire to wield tariffs to achieve his geopolitical goals. Both in his previous administration and on the campaign trail, he promised that they are the way to rebuild American manufacturing and repair trade imbalances.
Climate Change’s Impact on the Ski Industry
Snow is important for the health of Earth. Snow plays a major part in regulating the planet’s temperature. Snow is hyper-reflective and is capable of sending the Sun’s energy back into space which keeps the Earth’s temperatures from rising too much through the year. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, without snow, the ground would absorb about 4-6x the amount of solar energy that it would if there was snow on the ground – leading to warmer temperatures. Less snow could lead to droughts in areas that typically relied on snowpack melting during the warmer months for access to water, or to harvest with the purpose of providing water. It could also lead to species of animals dying that had evolved to survive in a world with snow, such as snowshoe hares (white fur coats to blend into a snowy environment). It could also lead to Indigenous knowledge related to cultural practices that involve snow may disappear, as well.
Impact of Remote Work on Urban Development
Brief #62 – Economic Policy Brief
by: Inijah Quadri
The rise of remote work, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, is reshaping urban landscapes and challenging traditional city planning. As cities adapt to this new reality, the shift presents both opportunities for sustainable development and significant hurdles for local economies reliant on office workers.
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