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Credit: newyorker.com Due to ongoing drought conditions, the USDA has just declared more than 1,000 counties natural disaster areas, making it the largest natural disaster in America ever. Not good news at any time but especially disheartening for conventional thinkers who've yet to grapple with an ominous report out of the University of Minnesota that predicts world food demand will double by 2050. Ever optimistic, or perhaps unphased by conventional wisdom, the local food movement offers a co

During my lifetime I've personally experienced the effect of many changes to health care policy, most of which were not for the better. When I was born I had a number of severe birth defects in my stomach and heart. These and several other less severe problems allowed me to observe first-hand how health care policy affects patients. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act upheld by the Supreme Court has created a whole new host of problems that will actually burden and harm people like me

In 2008, at the same time the GOP was holding their convention in Minnesota, an energetic and massive Ron Paul convention titled the "Rally for the Republic" (RFR) was held across the street. The Ron Paul rally drew over 10,000 grassroots Ron Paul activists from all over the country  and speakers from Tucker Carlson, to Doug Wead, to Jesse Ventura, to this year's Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson. This year, Ron Paul is doing it again.  Except he is hosting the Rally BEFORE the co

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, has yet to announce the selection of his vice president candidate. Such an announcement is not expected before the Republican National Convention. Yet that doesn't keep plenty of political observers from discussing and speculating who the eventual nominee will be. Washington Post's The Fix and Google have recently teamed up to track news mentions, search trends and YouTube video views for 10 of the most frequently mentioned potential cand

Last week, IVN commented on a lawsuit brought by alleged delegates to the Republican National Convention. The Republican National Committee, while stating that suit was frivolous at the same time organized all the named defendants into a united defense against this litigation. There is no indication yet that the complaint in the action was served on any defendant or that the RNC has voluntarily appeared and moved to take any pretrial actions. What is clear: Ron Paul's delegate count continues to

Is it time to abolish the Democratic and Republican parties? Jesse Ventura thinks so. The outspoken Independent and former governor of Minnesota put forward the proposal in an interview with Piers Morgan on Monday night. Their discussion took a bizarre turn when the CNN host equated the election of Independents to public office with fascism. “To save our country we need to abolish the political parties. Make them political action committees,” said Ventura, likening Democrat-Republican party pol

Wisconsin has been on a serious decline in union members for a few years now. Last year set a record low at 13.3%. As Business Week reports: "The unions are dinosaurs and a meteor just hit the Earth," said Mordecai Lee, a government affairs professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "The dinosaurs will slowly die out." That Walker has created jobs without raising taxes is not something you hear a lot about when news services talk about Walker. This is not to say there have been major

So North Carolina voters approved a ballot measure that prohibits same-sex marriages within the state.  It became the last southern state to do so... and the 31st overall.  It was done during the primary election instead of the general election because the Republican-controlled legislature knew that Democratic turn-out during the primary would be low since there was no real primary taking place within that party.  Even so, the vote was close to a 60-40 split.  A couple of days later, President O

What little commentary we've seen from the media on Ron Paul's silent coup presently underway in the Republican Party has focused mostly on its implications for the 2012 Republican Primary and whether Paul can hold back Romney's delegate count just long enough to ensure a brokered convention, which is the only feasible scenario in which Paul could emerge as the party's nominee. But perhaps more important and far-reaching in its implications for the future of national politics in the US, is not

continued his march this week to the Republican nomination in Tampa. However, as has been noted repeatedly throughout the process, he is a very weak nominee. There also continues to be a substantial amount of questions surrounding the legitimacy of mainstream accounts of delegates. This week, Gov. Romney won all delegates in Connecticut , Delaware , New York  and 12 out of 16 in Rhode Island – Governor RomneyDr. Paul won 4 in Rhode Island and may have led a major “stealth” operation in Pennsylv