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Why I Gave Up Meat I remember the day I decided that I would become a vegetarian. It came while watching the documentary Life in a Day – in particular, the scene in which a cow receives two shots to its skull from a bolt gun (the first one didn’t kill the cow and only made it panic and flail in its narrow metal pen). The scene lasted only a minute, but it haunted me long after the lights in the theater had come back on. I wasn’t naïve: I knew animals had to be killed to be made into meat, and

As is usually the case in the months leading up to presidential primaries, national focus has centered around polling in early primary states to determine which candidates are soaring and which are tanking. Crowdpac took a poll of a different sort - one that measures which states are doling out the most campaign money to the 2016 hopefuls. Here’s what we found: One thing is clear, the home field advantage is real. Jeb Bush has cleared a whopping $35 million from his home state of Florida, where

In Utah, a federal judge will soon decide if the state's open primary system for the nomination of candidates is unconstitutional. The case could have dramatic implications on the future of primary elections, which have become the most important stage of the election process. U.S. District Judge David Nuffer mentioned Tuesday that he intends to find that forcing political parties to open their primary elections to unaffiliated voters violates the First Amendment right of political parties to pr

The House Freedom Caucus. Chances are if there is a story about gridlock in the U.S. House over budgetary issues or the intra-party conflict within the GOP over who will replace outgoing U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, this name will appear at least once. Pew Research reports that the House Freedom Caucus is composed of at least 36 of the most conservative members of the House. The caucus is likely a little larger than this, but 36 is the number Pew was able to confirm. Chances are if a lawma

Earlier this year, now-presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed a bill to spend $1 trillion over a five-year period in order to "rebuild America’s crumbling network of roads, bridges and transit systems." Yet his refrain about the need to repair the nation's "crumbling infrastructure" invites the basic question, just how bad is America's infrastructure? The most comprehensive and authoritative diagnosis comes from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Its 2013 report card assess

With two election cycles under its belt, California’s nonpartisan primary system has shown positive results for electoral competition and voter confidence. Studies show that changing the first stage of the election from a private party nomination process to a nonpartisan public process results in more competitive elections, produces a more productive legislature, and enhances overall satisfaction with representation. California’s Proposition 14, which established a “Top-Two” nonpartisan primary

On July 24, 2015, Greg Dorsey filed a lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Elections, arguing that the state's requirements for independent ballot access for a Senate seat are unconstitutional. Dorsey claims that those who run as unaffiliated candidates are faced with unfair requirements that violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S Constitution. Beyond what one might think constitutes a "free and fair election," Maryland state law requires a non-affiliated candidate to obt

Rand Paul, once considered the GOP’s savior after two grueling presidential election losses, has fallen on some hard times. Paul was labelled by the media as a front-runner or top-tier candidate months before he officially entered the presidential race on April 7. Now nearly at the 6-month mark, the early stages of the Republican presidential primary changed the game and showed some chinks in Paul’s armor. Paul had two remarkable filibusters to blast drone use and NSA spying, stances that buck

"When an election law reduces or forecloses the opportunity for electoral choice, it restricts a market where a voter might effectively and meaningfully exercise his choice between competing ideas or candidates, and thus severely burdens the right to vote." - U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals On September 9, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower district court's ruling that the Partisan Balance Statute in Indiana election law limited voter choice in judicial elections in

I have been writing for IVN since the summer of 2014. Though my academic background is in political science, I can confidently say I have learned more about American politics in this one year of researching and writing for you (the readers) than I have in my six years in higher education. Over this time, I must confess, many of my beliefs have remained the same. I still believe that America, despite its history of having committed many unjust actions in its foreign policy, is and can be a posi