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Credit: Votespa.com The constitutionality of HB934, Pennsylvania's Voter ID bill has been hotly debated since being signed into law in March of 2012. Many Republicans argue that the voter ID bill will stave off fraudulence at the voting booth. Most Democrats doubt the existence of the type of fraud that would be prevented by a photo ID, and rail against voter suppression. In fact, there is no evidence to support the claim that photo IDs would stop any significant voter fraud. It is true that r

Two weeks after key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, the American Civil Liberties Union announced it would pursue a lawsuit against Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia, challenging their bans on same-sex marriage. "The ACLU has been a leader on this front since bringing our first marriage lawsuit in 1970 and we've been deeply involved in opening marriage up to same-sex couples in each of the 13 states plus the District of Columbia that now

A country sets up elections that offer citizens two sharply oppositional and polarizing choices of leadership. Alternative candidates are strong-armed and frozen out of the process. Their voices are stifled. This results in the election of a candidate reviled by a large portion of the electorate. The new government proves to be ineffectual and is further paralyzed by oppositional forces from within its own ranks. Tension and violence arise in a sharply divided society. International political p

Nineteen strangers were all it took to pick up our welcome mats and lock our doors. Two buildings in New York City, a field in Pennsylvania, and the always invincible Pentagon quickly became the symbolic origins of political mistrust and cynical hostility toward non-Americans. Determined to guarantee ourselves that a nationwide tragedy would never again befall us from an outside enemy, immigrants lost our collective hospitality. The once destructive path of McCarthyism was revived in a society

credit: Votecitizens.org Gerrymandering has become a prevalent hurdle to meaningful political participation across the country (with few exceptions, including California*). The duopoly at their finest: if you can’t win by playing fair—CHEAT. The third most important electoral reform—thy name is gerrymandering. Attention Democrats and Republicans these are Independents exhibiting open derision to your sleazy ways. Before we go on let’s review the first two important electoral reforms. The first

Former Senator Rick Santorum // Credit: unitedliberty.org In a shining example of how even a blind squirrel can occasionally stumble across ACORN, former Pennsylvania senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum offered a rather insightful critique of the unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Santorum basically said that making Barack Obama’s (in)famous “You didn’t build that” comment the centerpiece of the campaign was, well, stupid. Remembering the parade of business ow

A group of Pennsylvanian citizens, known as the Independent Pennsylvanians, have been working for the past 15 years towards changing undemocratic and archaic state laws which grossly favor the Democratic and Republican parties over third party and independent candidates. Affiliated with the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, a New York City-based nonprofit, non-ideological think tank representing the independent political movement, Independent Pennsylvanians is currently focused on two

Credit: dvids / Flickr Despite the best efforts of the Department of Defense (DOD), the sexual assault crisis in the military continues, and now many mental health experts and former service members are saying that the very culture and laws of the military condone, and even encourage, military sexual trauma in the name of camaraderie and good order, and the problems are apparent from the very beginning. In order to meet combat needs, services lowered their standards to allow more convicted fel

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

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania held primary elections where voters could choose either a Democrat or Republican candidate who would then proceed to the November ballot in the state's municipal elections. Like 17 other states, Pennsylvania has a closed primary system, meaning that only voters registered with the Democratic or Republican parties are allowed to vote. This system prevents over 1 million voters, who have registered as independent or with a minor party, from voting in the primary. However,