Search query: alaska

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

The United States is once again in the middle of a major election year and in many elections, people will go the polls with only two options to choose from -- red or blue, Republican or Democrat. The problem is a majority of Americans do not believe either major political party represents America. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, 53 percent of likely voters believe "neither party in Congress is the party of the American people." While some may dispute the results of a single poll, furthe

In the GOP’s attempt to retake the Senate in 2014 the way they reclaimed the House 4 years earlier there are already several authentic battleground states from Alaska to Louisiana. New Hampshire is not exactly grouped with those tough races, but Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen may have a difficult time nonetheless. New Hampshire, the first primary state in presidential election cycles, is a significant state not only because of its primary position, but because the primary is open to independ

Despite police fears that legal marijuana businesses attract crime, including under-the-table drug dealing, weapons violations, and robberies, a new study says the opposite might be the case. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas analyzed major crimes from 1990 to 2006 in the United States, paying particular attention to early medical marijuana states: Alaska (1998), California (1996), Colorado (2000), Hawaii (2000), Maine (1999), Montana (2004), Nevada (2000), Oregon (1998), Rhode

A lot of conversation has occurred about the minimum wage -- or livable wage movement -- popularized by a recent victory in Seatac, Washington, which spread across the state and has now gained the attention of President Obama. Across the country, employees are striking, picketing, and staging walkouts, protesting low wages and poor working conditions. Walmart, in particular, provides associates a directory to help them locate their local medicaid office. Further, Jon Lehman, a former 17-year ve