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(08/28/19 12:10am)
There are about 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States today, more than any other country in total, or per capita. There are multiple factors that have led to this mass incarceration, but a significant one is the way that the criminal justice system is stacked against the poor: a striking example is the legal institution of cash bail bonds. A cash bail bond requires defendants to provide an immediate payment to the court, to be returned when the court’s requirements are met.
(04/17/19 12:18am)
Since being elected to Congress last year, Ilhan Omar, a naturalized Somalian refugee and representative from Minnesota, has been under almost constant attack. This began when Omar was cast as “anti-Semitic” for her criticisms of Israel’s human rights abuses and settlement-building in occupied Palestine, as well as her criticism of the lobbying influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on American foreign policy. These accusations rely in part on equating the state of Israel with the global Jewish diaspora.
(04/03/19 5:47am)
Joe Biden’s inevitable presidential campaign has hit a snag before it has even officially begun. The former vice president has been accused by a Nevada politician of inappropriately touching and kissing her without consent, an accusation that carries a significant amount of weight considering the number of pictures and videos of Biden being similarly inappropriate with numerous women and young girls. Biden has responded to these allegations with a statement that paradoxically claims that he will listen to accusers while asserting that he did not act inappropriately. This scandal should serve as a reminder that Biden deserves significantly more scrutiny as a candidate than he has received: besides his personal conduct, it is Biden’s legislative record that is most obviously monstrous.
(03/20/19 1:06am)
On Thursday, Beto O’Rourke officially entered the Democratic presidential primary race, joining about a dozen other candidates seeking the party’s nomination. While Joe Biden (who hasn’t actually announced his candidacy yet) and Bernie Sanders still lead in the polls, it would be hasty to declare a clear front-runner at this stage. After all, around this time in the last presidential election cycle, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker were the leading Republican primary candidates in the polls, and look how that turned out.
(03/06/19 12:06am)
CORRECTION: An earlier version of the column contained incorrect information about the FAIR Act. The FAIR Act would not establish an independet commission. The story has been updated with the correct information. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for this errror.
(02/18/19 5:23am)
Last week, more than 200 North Carolina residents were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This was in reaction to the recent election of sheriffs in Mecklenburg, Wake and Durham counties, who, as a part of their campaign platforms, rejected cooperation with ICE. As a result, the federal agency took it upon itself to descend on the area and tear people away from their families, homes and communities.
(02/06/19 2:47am)
If the purpose of a market is to distribute scarce resources, then clearly something has gone wrong with the housing market. As of 2018, vacant houses outnumbered homeless people in the United States at a ratio of 31 to one. The cause of homelessness is not a lack of supply, and obviously the problem is not rooted in a lack of demand for housing. Something as vital as shelter should not be treated only as a commodity.
(01/24/19 12:56am)
The ongoing government shutdown, currently the longest in American history, has a number of very real consequences that impede many people’s lives. Many federal workers are going unpaid, food safety inspections are coming to a halt and food assistance programs are quickly running out of funding.
(01/09/19 1:29am)
For the past couple of weeks, the U.S. government has been in the second longest shutdown in the nation’s history. The catalyst for this shutdown has been the Trump administration’s push to secure $5 billion in funding for the construction of a wall along the southern border, which Democrats in the House have refused to allocate.
(11/26/18 12:34am)
The United States should legalize the possession, cultivation, use and sale of recreational marijuana. Bet you weren’t expecting this opinion from a college student, were you? As trite as it might seem, it bears repeating, considering the impact that marijuana prohibition has on the daily lives of so many people in the United States.
(11/07/18 3:54am)
Midterm elections are finally over, and regardless of who has won, we have all been anxious and in need of a mental escape. Departing from my usual focus on politics, I’ve opted to recommend some music for the tense atmosphere. These albums aren’t exactly hidden gems — they’re all well-known and well-regarded in their musical genres. But if you haven’t given them a sustained listen, they are perfect choices for expanding your musical horizons in a new direction.
(10/24/18 4:32am)
Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a grim report on the state of the planet: over the course of about a century, global temperatures have risen by 1 degree Celsius from pre-industrial levels, and they are currently projected to be 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as early as 2030. Unless we take drastic action within the next decade, they will continue to rise even further. To prevent ever-rising global temperatures, we need to cut carbon emissions 45 percent by 2030 and reach “net zero” by 2050. Considering the current government’s policies on the environment, such measures seem unlikely. Even if we succeed in achieving these goals, higher temperatures will produce more floods, wildfires, droughts, food shortages and refugee crises. If we fail to mitigate climate change, these effects will prove even more dire. The best scenario I can imagine is that the flooding will put out the wildfires.
(10/10/18 12:46am)
In case you haven’t heard, the United States economy is doing well. As of September, the unemployment rate is down to 3.7 percent, the lowest that it has been since 1969. The Trump administration has been quick to proclaim that this economic growth is the result of the latest wave of tax cuts, despite the fact that unemployment has already been falling at a steady pace since around 2010.
(09/27/18 2:34am)
For the past few decades, organized labor has been in decline with “right-to-work” laws hamstringing unions' ability to effectively raise funds and a series of presidential administrations that have been at best unsympathetic and at worst openly hostile to the plight of laborers.
(09/12/18 2:33am)
On November 6, 2018, six amendments to the state constitution will be up for the public vote. While I would recommend a “no” vote on all of the amendments, let’s focus on the state legislature’s revived attempt to require photo identification in order to cast one’s ballot. It is troubling that, as of the publication of this column, the General Assembly has not yet written the actual bill nor is there any plan to write the amendment before it is actually voted on. In other words, the people of North Carolina are being asked to vote on an amendment that lacks a written proposal.
(08/27/18 1:38am)
Everyone’s been talking about it for the last week, but just in case you, dear reader, need context: on the night of August 20 a crowd of hundreds gathered to protest and eventually tear down Silent Sam—so much for that $390,000 spent on security last year, huh? Well wouldn’t you know it, you tear down one statue erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to promote the pseudohistorical and white supremacist myth of the “Lost Cause,” and suddenly the good ol’ boys are bawling like they’ve seen the ghost of John Brown.
(04/01/18 11:32pm)
In the wake of the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting, there has been a significant amount of discussion about what policies should be implemented to respond to this tragedy specifically, and the issue of American gun violence more broadly. Among such proposals, with support from both some of the conservative right and liberal center, has been the expansion of law enforcement in schools to ensure security.
(03/21/18 12:14am)
Editor's note: This column details the plot of the novel and upcoming film "Ready Player One."
(02/26/18 12:49am)
Throughout most of the Trump Administration, there has been controversy over whether Russian interference in the presidential election gave our current president his victory over Hillary Clinton. Did the Russian government attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Almost certainly, given the evidence. Did this attempt at influencing the election have a significant impact? That’s more debatable.
(02/12/18 1:31am)
In 1864, Abraham Lincoln would receive a letter from an organization known as the International Workingmen’s Association. The letter congratulated Lincoln on his reelection and praised his making the abolition of slavery into the Union’s mission during the Civil War.