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(Credit: Gage Skidmore) With over two years before any candidates begin announcing for the presidency, Kentucky US Senator Rand Paul is making the fundraising rounds and retrieving a sizable sum. To top off his numbers, on Monday the Senator also attended a barbecue fundraiser for Republican US Rep. Jeff Duncan in South Carolina, a key primary state. Paul is also scheduled to attend a fundraiser for Iowa Republican governor Terry Branstad next month, the first voting state. The release of Pau

I read an article in the NY Times last week that surprised me.  It started out as a scathing, if somewhat predictable, exposé of the consequences of unfettered Republican rule in North Carolina and efforts by the GOP to solidify their agenda by employing voter suppression and gerrymandering tactics.  What surprised me was that the Times, normally so quick to use stories of Republican malfeasance to project the Democrats as the “good guys,” concluded the article with the following: "But voters n

For the past six years, a faction within the Democratic Party of Hawaii has been angling to close the primaries to independent voters. Senator Daniel Inouye strongly argued against such a move, and his opposition kept the close-the-primaries faction at bay.  But last month, six months after Inouye’s death, party activists filed a federal lawsuit seeking to force the State of Hawaii to change the state’s constitution which currently reads:  “No person shall be required to declare a party preferen

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

Friday, June 14th 2013 was flag day, a day which tends to go uncelebrated, and about which most people know very little. This post will be a brief detour from my continuing series on the different facets of the Kiera Wilmot Bottle Bomb story. It looks long, and it is, but most of it is pictures.  As you look through the various images included here, I hope you will contrast the actual origins of the U.S. flag, as it was originally adopted by the Founding Fathers, and contrast that with the nic

South Carolina's open primary electoral system (not to be confused with the nonpartisan top-two primary in California and Washington) is looking much safer following the withdrawal of the State Republican Party from an anti-open primary lawsuit. They have been challenging South Carolina's nonpartisan open primary election process since 2010 and have been unsuccessful in numerous attempts. Among other arguments, the open primary defendants argued against requiring voters to claim party affiliati

Illinois, New Mexico, and South Carolina have yet to release their annual financial reports of the fiscal year ending last June. These late financial statements create a lack of transparency which, in some ways, is reminiscent of the savings and loan crisis a few decades ago. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, taxpayers paid massive clean-up costs to deal with pervasive failures of savings and loan institutions around the country.  This episode taught us some lessons about the role and moral hazard o

Credit: http://moopz.com/ Last week, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to pass the "Marketplace Fairness Act," better known as the Internet sales tax,  69-27. Framed as a move toward "leveling the playing field," the bill has sparked some debate among Republicans. Many conservatives felt betrayed when it was revealed that 22 GOP senators voted in favor of giving states the power to force online retailers, with sales of over $1 million per year, to collect sales taxes from customers even if the c

Rand Paul Senator Rand Paul's strongest attribute thus far has been his relationship to his father, former Representative Ron Paul. They represent the epitome of contemporary libertarian ideology in Congress. In a recent speech before a dinner in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the junior senator from Kentucky has strengthened his own credentials — especially in foreign policy — in preparation for a likely 2016 presidential bid. Even though he gave the speech in Iowa, it carried national significance. Io

The Second Amendment And States' Rights This past Wednesday night, the Missouri legislature passed a series of bills during a late night session.  One of these late night bills was aimed directly at the federal government.  It is a bill that is designed to "protect" the residents of Missouri of their Second Amendment rights from the federal government.  The bill states that all federal gun laws are banned within the state and enforcement of such laws is a misdemeanor.  Residents would also be a