The Truth About Trudeau

The Texas Orato

More Than Medals

The Texas Orato

The War on Diplomacy

The Texas Orato

Ideas — #MondayMemo: Will Brexit Break Down?

The Texas Orato

Improving Bus Service in New York

New York City’s transportation system is in a state of disarray. City street are clogged with taxi’s and for-hire vehicles, subway platforms are packed with straphangers waiting for delayed trains and buses barely travel faster than pedestrians. The bureaucracy of City and State government in the region causes piecemeal improvements which do not keep up with the state of disrepair. Bus service is particularly poor, moving at rates incomparable with the rest of the country. New York has recently made successful efforts at improving bus speeds, but only so much can be done amidst a city of gridlock. Bus systems around the world faced similar challenges and successfully implemented improvements. A toolbox of near-immediate and long-term options are at New York’s disposal dealing directly with bus service as well indirect causes of poor bus service. The failing subway system has prompted public discussion concerning bus service. A significant cause of poor service in New York is congestion. A number of measures are capable of improving congestion and consequently, bus service. Due to the city’s limited capacity at implementing short-term solutions, the most highly problematic routes should receive priority. Routes with slow speeds, high rates of bunching and high ridership are concentrated in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn which also cater to the most subway riders. These areas would also benefit the greatest from congestion mitigation measures

Ideas — Monday Memo: Terrorism in the Post-9/11 World

The Texas Orato

Holy Land, Common Ground: Introduction

The Texas Orato

A phonetic analysis of the articulation of 20 children of Italian descent

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Ideas — #MondayMemo: Are We Failing Our Vets?

The Texas Orato

Recalibrating the Scales: Balancing the Persecutor Bar

Just as U.S. asylum law accepts individuals fleeing persecution, it also excludes from eligibility those who have assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution of others under what is known as the “persecutor bar.” In applying the persecutor bar, courts look to whether the applicant’s conduct played any causal role in the persecution, whether the applicant knew that his conduct would have some causal effect on the persecution, and whether the conduct was voluntary. Because exclusionary provisions to asylum such as the persecutor bar are to be applied restrictively, U.S. jurisprudence wrongly ignores other key factors that are necessary in assessing the application of the persecutor bar. After surveying both domestic and international critiques of U.S. asylum law, this Note argues that courts applying the persecutor bar should employ a balancing test that weighs the persecution from which the applicant is fleeing against the gravity of the applicant’s conduct, the nature of the persecution in which the applicant assisted, and any other mitigating factors such as the time elapsed since the applicant’s conduct or any redemptive acts performed by the applicant