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Kansas resident Shona Banda, 37, lost custody of her 11-year-old son (at least temporarily) in late March after the boy stood up for the medical benefits of cannabis oil during an anti-drug class at school. The AP reported Monday that Banda did not get custody of her son back after a hearing in Finney County District Court. Banda is a well-known activist for cannabis oil and survivor of Crohn's disease. Her son was detained by police after defending cannabis in school. The police then conducte

A collaborative effort between Patrick Miller of the University of Kansas and Pamela Johnston Conover of the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers new insight into the growing phenomenon behind political polarization in the United States. The study, titled Red and Blue States of Mind: Partisan Hostility and Voting in the United States, was published in Political Research Quarterly on March 30. The authors argue that the voters who are most likely to participate in elections are those

NORTH CAROLINA -- Recently proposed bills in the North Carolina House and Senate aim to tighten restrictions on abortion. A key point in House Bill 465 would extend waiting periods between when women consult with their doctors and when they can obtain an abortion. The waiting period under current state law is 24 hours -- the bill would triple that to 72 hours. "That bill is one of the most extreme waiting periods in the U.S.," said Amanda Allen, state legislative counsel for the Center for Rep

Several weeks ago, several people criticized the article about comparing America's tax rates to the rest of the world, countering with comments on Facebook like: Who cares? These comparisons are always intended to show us just how lucky we are to be in indentured servitude to the state when we should be trying to be a shining light of individual freedom and liberty to the rest of the world. Fair TaxMichael Storc In a very long thread, the Fair Tax proposal was debated, with at least one reader

Greg Orman ran for U.S. Senate of Kansas in 2014 as an independent candidate against a 16-year incumbent, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts. Despite the obstacles in running for U.S. Senate without the benefit of a political institution to help fund, promote, and otherwise support his campaign, he gave Roberts a serious run for his money. Now, he has joined independent leaders across the country in an ambitious project to open the presidential debates to more voices. He argues that at the core o

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed a bill dramatically changing the laws governing ballot access for Independent candidates just months after an Independent took 17% of the vote in a statewide election. The bill, Senate Bill 69, an act to revise certain provisions regarding elections and election petitions, specifically addresses how many signatures an Independent candidate must collect to get on the ballot, and who is allowed to sign the candidate's petition. The bill prevents any r

Facebook seems to be constantly inundated with memes that have similar themes to this one: There are several variations of this meme, from stating that Congress should make what our soldiers make to not paying Congress if they can't do their job. But all of these memes have a common error in their logic: the assumption that members of Congress "need" their paychecks or that the paycheck is what truly motivates them. What Does Congress Actually Make?There's a lot of social media confusion abo

After the results of the 2014 midterm elections were in, IVN published an article suggesting that Vice President Joe Biden may have intentionally sabotaged independent Greg Orman's campaign in the Kansas U.S. Senate race by saying there was no doubt in his mind that Orman would caucus with Democrats. Biden essentially gave incumbent U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R) the soundbite he needed to vindicate his claim that Orman was really a Democrat disguised as an independent. It is the go-to strategy

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has submitted two new election reforms to the Kansas Legislature that are a direct response to the 2014 U.S. Senate race, where Republican incumbent Pat Roberts was almost defeated by independent Greg Orman. Public polling before the midterm elections suggest that all the statewide incumbents, including Kobach, were vulnerable -- something Kobach wants to remedy with new rules for candidate withdrawals and reinstating straight-ticket voting. In the 2014 U.

Two weeks ago, I took an immense amount of criticism in the comments section on both the IVN page and Facebook site for the article, 3 Reasons Why Lower Gas Prices Are Not A Good Thing. Representing many of the comments was a highly liked one from Facebook: It effects the rich negatively, but enriches the middle and lower classes. Was that ad paid for by the Russians? In fairness, I'm not totally sure that many got past the title before they commented, because the article plainly stated that