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A new report released late last month by Disabled American Veterans (DAV) indicates that female veterans feel left out of programs aimed at aiding veterans of recent conflicts. More women than ever before have served or are currently serving, nearly twice as many as in 1980, yet the report finds that many of the VA's services lag behind in serving female veterans. DAV's report, titled "Women Veterans: The Long Journey Home," outlines a sad reality for America's lady warriors. Female veterans ar

Abysmal congressional approval ratings have become the norm in our hyper-partisan political environment and government dysfunction is now cited as the most pressing issue facing our nation. Problem solving and compromise have been replaced by party politics and congressional gridlock, bringing our government to a halt in 2013. But it would be a mistake to say that Republicans and Democrats don't compromise on anything. Over the last 200 years, they have worked together to create districts that

The fight over control of the Senate is heating up. Although Nate Silver’s website, fivethirtyeight.com, predicts that the Republicans remain slightly favored to take over the Senate, he cautions that “it is still early, and we should not rule out the possibility that one party could win most or all of the competitive races.” In many of the hotly contested races, like Alaska, abortion is again taking center stage as a major issue. For example, incumbent Democrat Mark Begich is touting his pro-c

The partisan tides are clearly beginning to shift in California's 4th Congressional District, a trend that is more visible under the state's nonpartisan, top-two open primary. No Party Preference candidate Jeffrey Gerlach ran in the 2014 primary election with approximately one percent of the money incumbent U.S. Representative Tom McClintock (R) raised and nearly garnered enough support to secure the second spot in the general election. He lost out to National Guard Major Art Moore, also a Repu

A plume is haunting America -- the plume of legal marijuana. The November ballots of two states, Oregon and Alaska, and the District of Columbia will include initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana. If passed, they will join Washington state and Colorado, who passed their own legalization measures in 2012. Florida voters will decide on a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana, but not its recreational use. Oregon The November ballot will include the Oregon Legalized Mari

By the time Dwight David Eisenhower became president of the United States, he had already secured historical immortality as the supreme commander of the victorious Allied Forces in the Second World War. While vanquishing the Nazis, he could not help but marvel at the infrastructural achievements of the Germans, most notably their broad highway network called the Autobahn. The German’s national accomplishment juxtaposed strongly with the United States’ meagerly funded, crumbling interstate highw

It’s no secret that the Keystone issue is a political powder keg. Neither is it a secret that it’s a controversial topic pitting two traditional foes: environmentalists versus big oil. Very murky, however, is what benefit Keystone XL offers the United States.As in so many situations, in order to understand the present, we need to understand the past and Keystone has a bit of a checkered and rapidly evolving past. With blinding speed, progress on the Keystone project began in 2005 when it was pr

It is quite well known by now that there is two-party dominance in the United States because of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) -- or plurality -- electoral system. Third parties can have an unintended “spoiler effect” on contests by stealing votes from the ideologically similar -- but more viable -- candidate. For instance, in Virginia’s 2013 gubernatorial election, Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis siphoned nearly 150,000 votes from Republican Ken Cuccinelli’s total, which was enough to give

For the 46.5 million Americans living below the poverty line, 16 million of which are children, life has become a consistent struggle. This struggle does not simply begin and end with monetary concerns, but in fact surrounds both a physical and mental exertion of the individual.Using the national U.S. census and NCCP, researchers found that in 2013, the poverty line rested at $11,490, a number which equates an individual working full time while only making $5.00 – far below the national minimum

Idaho attorney Gary Allen clearly recalls how he was received by state legislators when a federal district judge ruled that the state’s open primary system was unconstitutional. “I stood in front of the legislative committee and told them, ‘You don’t have to do this,’” he said in an interview. “It isn’t in the interest of the voters or democracy or the state." "I might as well have been talking to a wall,” he added. Allen, a partner with a Boise-based law firm, saw his coalition group lose th