Search query: georgia

A recent trend in the naming of legislation is to include the purported benefits in the title, hence, the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”—aka Obamacare. Unfortunately, experience has shown that legislation titles tend to be diametrically opposed to reality, as in the “paperwork reduction act”. Consequently, it came as no surprise that Ralph Hudgens, Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner, has asked for a 30 delay in approving plans submitted by seven insurance companies. In his request t

Albert G. / Flickr Georgia’s announcement last week that it plans to opt out of the Common Core Standards assessments raises doubts as to whether the more rigorous standards can be measured effectively. The state cited costs and technology capacity as the main reasons it turned down the tests developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). “Assessing our students’ academic performance remains a critical need to ensure that young Georgians can compete o

Rule number one in effective communication is to establish the relevancy of the topic to the audience. Why should they care? How does it affect their quality of life? Truthful accounting might do just that. For one measure of the states’ quality of life, we turn to the recent work done by Ballotpedia, a “collaborative encyclopedia designed to connect people to politics.” The site focuses on providing a comprehensive and non-partisan analysis of numerous candidates and political efforts. The Lu

credit: University of Georgia If states are to rebuild and retool their economies, they must establish innovative and cost-effective solutions to increase student access to public colleges and universities, according to a recent report. Researchers at the nonpartisan think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, released a study titled, “Taking Charge: A State Level Agenda For Higher Education.” In it, the organization argues that governors and state legislatures must leverage the two-year an

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

Now for the slippery slope arguments—those rationally indefensible, but emotionally satisfying predictions of what "something" is going to lead to. The “somethings,” of course, are the two recent Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage. The “what they are going to lead to-s” are getting more interesting by the hour. The following five potential world-ending catastrophes have all been culled from statements of politicians and pundits over the last few weeks. From what I can tell, they represen

Now for the slippery slope arguments—those rationally indefensible, but emotionally satisfying predictions of what "something" is going to lead to. The “somethings,” of course, are the two recent Supreme Court rulings on same-sex marriage. The “what they are going to lead to-s” are getting more interesting by the hour. The following five potential world-ending catastrophes have all been culled from statements of politicians and pundits over the last few weeks. From what I can tell, they represen

(Credit: Gage Skidmore) Along with gun control, immigration reform has been among the more divisive issues in Washington and within the Republican Party. Within the GOP is the so-called liberty movement. Distinct from the historical conservative movement that arose during the Cold War, the liberty movement has been willing to break with the party leadership and strike out its own message. Included within this loose coalition are US Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and US Reps. Justin Am

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

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