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Tax Day! The Internal Revenue Service filing deadline for individual income tax returns is Tuesday, April 17th. Presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney has caused a bit of a stir by filing for a six-month extension on his taxes. He's not the only one, IRS estimates 10.5 million people file extensions each year. Here's how. Since 1955, Tax Day has traditionally been on April 15th, except for when April 15th falls on a weekend or holiday. Washington D.C. celebrates Emancipation Day on April 16th

The Senate seat vacated by current Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is shaping up to be quite a contest with not one, but two Independent candidates now joining the race. Steve Woods, TideSmart Global CEO and Chairman of the Yarmouth Town Council has announced his run for US Senate. In what's been a reoccurring theme among nonpartisan candidates, he says he is running as an Independent in order to inspire change in the face of a deeply divided political discourse. "With the announcement of Senator

Republicans held their Super Tuesday election contests earlier this week and despite media build-up, it was a decidedly split decision. As IVN reported earlier, this split means the Republican primary season is likely to stretch much longer. With the results of 10 races, four facts were re-established. Ohio Primary Voters Reject Extremism Senator Santorum is losing because he has major and substantial on-going problems with Catholic voters – particularly Catholic women voters who are turned of

At a time in the presidential election cycle when Republican candidates traditionally draw stark distinctions between themselves and their Democratic rivals, Ron Paul is following a different tactic by highlighting a 'nearness of position' between himself and incumbent President Obama. Of course, no one has ever accused the dark horse hopeful of running a conventional campaign. Paul, when asked to respond to comments made by the president at Tuesday's White House press conference, told CNN that

Preparing for the last stop before Super Tuesday, the Republican presidential candidates head to Washington to campaign before Saturday's caucuses. The caucuses will be open, meaning anyone registered in the state can vote in tomorrow's caucuses. The Washington Post explains: Saturday’s GOP caucuses in Washington state are open to voters from either party, as are six of the 10 states that have contests on Super Tuesday: Alaska, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. On the ca

Despite the influence of small government advocates like those in the Tea Party movement, the size, role, and influence of government on a federal, state, and local level is set to grow significantly in 2012. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), about 40,000 new laws will go into effect in 2012, and that doesn't include laws and provisions within laws that will also take effect this year on a federal level. Though in some ways, some of the new laws to take effect mi

As Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have continued across the nation for yet another week, a Google Trends analysis of online search patterns indicates that interest is higher in this more recent movement than in the Tea Party. "Search interest for [Occupy Wall Street] jumped ahead of the [Tea Party] on September 24 and hasn't looked back. In a historical context, when viewing the snapshot of their nasccent birth, we can see the peak of [Occupy Wall Street] has slighly more interest in America

The average age of farmers and ranchers in America is increasing, and rural populations are in decline. This is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is acting to plant a new crop of much needed agricultural producers here in California and across the nation. Last week, Ag Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced this year's winners of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture's (NIFA) 'Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program' (BFRDP). According to a NIFA news release, a tota

Is there anyone less popular today than a sitting politician?  Well, yes.  Someone else’s politician.  Today’s generalized numbers about Congress, the President, Democrats and Republicans go out the window when it comes to your local guy or gal. Despite numbers so low they are threatening to crack the crust of the earth, parties are not threatened with replacement by Independents because people don’t vote for parties.  They vote for individuals.  And almost to a person, those individuals are s

In a little-noticed move in late August, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would award all of California's electoral votes in presidential elections to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote, a solution that proponents say would make presidential elections more rational and fair. The bill is possible because the U.S. Constitution leaves the power of selecting electors for presidential elections to the individual states. Article II, Section 1 says: "The executive P