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credit: thv11.com The 2014 midterm election is more than a year away. Nevertheless, congressional incumbents have been busy gearing up for the ever-longer campaign season. The fundraising deadline for Q2 was June 30 and fundraising powerhouses like Paul Ryan and Lindsey Grahm have continued to post seven figures. Paul Ryan - Wisconsin According to Federal Elections Commission filings, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) was able to raise $1.1 million in the span of three months. Ryan's camp n

President Obama signs healthcare reform in 2010 // Credit: Reid.senate.gov Can a state unilaterally suspend the operation of ObamaCare within its borders? Of course not. That measure would violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. We fought a Civil War over that question. What if two states banded together to suspend the operation of ObamaCare within their common territory? Can they do that? The answer remains the same. No. But let's try this. Let's have those two states - and others

In Minnesota, the recent decision which overturns the congressional affirmation of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act from the 1960s provoked an inappropriate tweet from a democrat in the state legislature, Rep. Ryan Winkler. I find myself torn between respect for the office of Justice of the Supreme Court, and what has appeared to me to be a long series of poor opinions, inaction, and extreme ideological decisions that are consistently harmful to the progress of legislation and efforts to

Regardless of one’s party affiliation or political views, it is obvious there is something seriously wrong with the way elections are conducted in the United States. They are expensive, exclusive, and regularly disenfranchise a tremendous portion of the electorate. The image of party bosses meeting in backrooms to determine what candidates the public will be allowed to vote for has been etched in the country’s collective conscious for years, fueling the belief that a person’s vote “doesn’t real

According to recent research mapping sentiment on Twitter, Napa - located in the heart of California's Wine Country region - is home to the happiest tweeters in the nation. California as a whole, however, did not even rank in the top five in a measure of happiness on Twitter. Figure 1. Average word happiness for geotagged tweets in all US states collected during calendar year 2011, from PLoS ONE In Figure 1, the redder the state, the happier the tweets. Using geotagged tweets, researchers at t

Ricardo Garza / Shutterstock.com In 2012, the United States experienced the worst drought in the last 50 years. Sixty-one percent of the country was affected by it, leading states to increase their water supply. This, in turn, resulted in a dispute over water rights with neighboring states. Texas water wars with its neighbors are the embodiment of a phenomenon that could become nationwide in the near future. Tweet stat: Tweet After three years of drought, Texas is currently finding itself at t

On Wednesday, President Obama signed 23 executive orders that will address the issue of gun control in the United States in various ways, including measures to improve the federal background check system, promote programs that educate the public on gun safety and responsible gun ownership, and provide incentives for schools to hire on-campus resource officers. These action have been seen by a fringe group of the electorate as an unconstitutional abuse of power by the president. However, when ex

Credit: idt911blog.com It is not the common case of human trafficking in the US when federal guestworkers are financially exploited. Earlier this month, Nunag Tanedo v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board was concluded with a $4.5 million fine in favor of 350 Filipino guestworking teachers who were essentially extorted in order to work. The case was based on violations of sections in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). The decision was made by the US District Court, Central Distric

Another year has passed and a handful of notable media misreports along with it. One of the most prestigious journalists was caught plagiarizing another journalist’s work this year as well as one reporter's serious lack of fact-checking regarding the Aurora shooting. Perhaps the most heinous of media misreports this year was not a single event at all but the consistently uncritical examination of the 2012 election process. This list of 5 media fails of 2012 reviews the more memorable media miss

Citizens in nearly thirty states have signed online petitions propagating secession from the United States. These states have filed their petitions with the We the People Program, a facet of the Obama Administration which attempts to facilitate citizen participation in government. Though the ability to petition a presidential administration is not a new concept, the online petition program is. Petitions bear little to no legislative power, but the implications of online petitions for secession a