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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

vepar5 / shutterstock.com In an effort to boost participation numbers in the party's primary elections, the Republican Party of Maryland is considering opening their primaries to independent and unaffiliated voters. Currently, both the Democratic Party in Maryland and the state's GOP conduct closed primaries, restricting participation to party members. "Some would say that allowing independents to vote would be the death knell in our party. I would say with the kind of record we have, we shoul

Police disperse protesters in Los Angeles // Credit: Mae Ryan via KPCC I've seen a few accounts of violence attributed to a backlash to the Zimmerman Verdict over the weekend. There have been protests; they have been large, they have been sometimes loud - but not violent. There were the reports of rioting in Los Angeles, from the NBC news coverage there, supplemented by the LAPD. At one point, protesters blocked Interstate 10 at Arlington Boulevard for more than 30 minutes. At another, a grou

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel had his first in-person meeting with the panel responsible for reviewing the Department of Defense's (DoD) policies and procedures regarding sexual assault on June 27. Until then, the Defense Secretary had participated in the meetings by teleconference. Just a day later, Hagel addressed troops in a town hall style meeting in Colorado. He told them: “We don't break the law, but we certainly don't assault our own people,” Hagel said. “There's no excuse for this.

Within the nest of an eagle, three or four eggs may be incubating at one time, but once the first chick hatches, the rest, if they manage to crack their shells, will often be at the mercy of their ruthless elder sibling. The instincts of a firstborn eagle are self-preservation, leading them to peck, bully, and push the other chicks to a point of parental neglect and eventual death. Experts describe this tragic pattern as Cainism, based on the biblical brothers, Cain and Abel. “Apparently all eg

In Minnesota, the recent decision which overturns the congressional affirmation of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act from the 1960s provoked an inappropriate tweet from a democrat in the state legislature, Rep. Ryan Winkler. I find myself torn between respect for the office of Justice of the Supreme Court, and what has appeared to me to be a long series of poor opinions, inaction, and extreme ideological decisions that are consistently harmful to the progress of legislation and efforts to

The practice of wiretapping has taken a new shape as technology has evolved. Telephone lines are no longer the only communication medium vulnerable to infiltration. E-mail, text messaging, and almost any form of online correspondence is susceptible to monitoring by a third party. There have been a number of landmark court cases that have shifted the way government respects or rather, doesn't respect a citizen's privacy. Protected under the 4th amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches an

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

Credit: Garsya / Shutterstock.com Anyone who has tuned into to the various media outlets, whether it be CNN or FOX News, over the past few weeks, has certainly heard the word ‘scandal’ more than a few times. The Obama Administration and various government agencies have been inundated with allegations of misconduct from both sides of the aisle. The latest grievance? NSA wiretapping. Authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the wiretapping has drawn criticism because of their i

Richard Cavalleri / Shutterstock.com On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Maryland v. King, a case dealing with a state law in Maryland that allows police officers to take a DNA swab -- without a warrant -- from suspects arrested for violent felonies or burglaries. The high court upheld the law, concluding that cheek swabs are taken for identifying purposes and are no different from taking fingerprints during the booking process or using tattoos to positively identify a su